TLN-5-31-19

L

EGACY

Traveling in 2019?

Call 202-602-2391 for free help or Book at BTB.globaltravel.com Air. Car Rental. Cruises. Hotels.

Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.

WEDNESDAYS • May 29, 2019

Richmond & Hampton Roads

LEGACYNEWSPAPER.COM • FREE

What reparations for slavery might look like PATRICIA COHEN

FROM WIRE REPORTS - If you’re surprised that the issue of reparations for black Americans has taken so long to resolve, blame the president.

President Andrew Johnson.

As the Civil War wound down in 1865, Gen. William T. Sherman made the promise that would come to be known as “40 acres and a mule” — redistributing a huge tract of Atlantic coastline to black Americans recently freed from bondage.

President Abraham Lincoln and Congress gave their approval, and soon 40,000 freedmen in the South had started to plant and build.

Within months of Lincoln’s assassination, though, President Johnson rescinded the order and returned the land to its former owners.

Congress made another attempt at compensation, but Johnson vetoed it.

Now, in the early phase of the 2020 presidential campaign, the question of compensating black Americans for suffering under slavery and other forms of racial injustice has resurfaced. The current effort focuses on a congressional bill that would commission a study on reparations, a version of legislation first introduced in 1989.

Several Democratic presidential hopefuls have declared their support, including Senators Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Cory Booker of New Jersey and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro.

If this latest revival has excited supporters, it has worried some party moderates who fear that such an effort would alienate many voters.

Polls have shown a big deficit in popular support.

While a majority of black Americans in a 2016 Marist poll supported reparations, whites rejected it by an overwhelming margin.

The reparations issue raises profound moral, social and political considerations. Still, the economic nuts and bolts of such a program have

gotten scant public attention: Who would be paid? How much? Where would the money come from?

Through the decades, a handful of scholars have taken a shot at creating a road map. Here’s what has to be reckoned with.

What’s the economic rationale?

When James Forman, a civil rights pioneer who later served briefly as the Black Panther Party’s foreign minister, demanded $500 million in reparations in his 1969 Black Manifesto, he grounded his argument in an indisputable fact: Unpaid slave labor helped build the American economy, creating vast wealth that African-Americans were barred from sharing.

The manifesto called for white Christian churches and Jewish synagogues to pay for projects like a black university and a Southern land bank. “We have helped to build the most industrial country in the world,” it declared, at the same time that “racist white America has exploited our resources, our minds, our bodies, our labor.”

Another civil rights leader, Bayard Rustin, responded, “If my great-grandfather picked cotton for 50 years, then he may deserve some money, but he’s dead and gone and nobody owes me anything.”

The question of reparations, however, extends far beyond the roughly four million people who were enslaved when the Civil War started, as TaNehisi Coates explained in an influential essay published in The Atlantic in 2014. Legalized discrimination and state-sanctioned brutality, murder, dispossession and disenfranchisement continued long after the war ended. That history profoundly handicapped black Americans’ ability to

create and accumulate wealth as well as to gain access to jobs, housing, education and health care.

For every dollar a typical white household holds, a black one has 10 cents. It is this cumulative effect that justifies the payment of reparations to descendants of slaves long dead, supporters say.

“Equality is not likely to be obtained without some form of reparations,” David H. Swinton, an economist and former president of Benedict College, wrote in the 1990 collection “The Wealth of Races.”

Nearly 47 million Americans identified themselves as black or African-American in the latest census. A vast majority are descended from slaves, but others are more recent migrants. So who would qualify for a payment?

William A. Darity Jr., an economist at Duke University and a leading scholar on reparations, suggests two qualifying conditions: having at

(continued on page 15)

The LEGACY

2 • May 29, 2019

News

Could hemp join tobacco as a major cash crop in Va.?

CNS - As tobacco production fades into the past and more permissive laws go into effect, hemp is poised to become the way of the future for Virginia farmers.

At first glance, it looks like a stoner’s paradise: acres of plants that resemble marijuana. But this crop is hemp, a relative of cannabis that has commercial uses ranging from textiles and animal feed to health products.

Officials at the Southern Virginia Hemp Co., as well as other farmers and processors of the plant, say hemp could be a big boost to the state’s agricultural sector as demand for tobacco wanes. And it just got much easier to grow hemp in the commonwealth.

Lawmakers have amended the state’s hemp laws to match the rules in the 2018 federal farm bill passed

by Congress. Virginia farmers can now grow hemp for producing cannabidiol, or CBD, a naturally occurring chemical that some say has mental and physical health benefits.

CBD products have become popular over the past few years, with some industry analysts predicting the CBD industry will be worth $22 billion by 2022. Until now, only researchers at Virginia universities could grow hemp for making CBD. The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has seen a surge in grower and processor applications since Congress passed the farm bill in December. The agency expects the number of applicants to increase even more now that Virginia has amended its hemp laws to match the federal laws.

“VDACS was not issuing

Wayne Grizzard, tending to his hemp plants. registrations to processor applicants who indicated that their sole goal was to sell a hemp-derived CBD to the public,” said Erin Williams, a spokesperson for the agency. “With the 2019 amendment, I think it will clear up the gray area.”

As of May 1, the department had issued 629 grower registrations and 92 processor registrations. So far, Virginia hemp growers are planning to cultivate over 2,000 acres of hemp this year.

In Southside Virginia, where tobacco growers have been hit hard by declining sales and tariffs on their products, farmers are increasingly turning to hemp as a potential cash crop that can be grown in addition to tobacco. Southside Virginia has more registered hemp growers than any other region in the state.

“There’s significant interest in Southside Virginia, particularly among tobacco growers who are looking to add a crop to what they’re

doing,” Williams said.

For years, several other states have allowed farmers to grow hemp for the manufacture of CBD products.

But Virginia farmers were barred from doing so until lawmakers approved House Bill 1839 in February.

Gov. Ralph Northam signed the bill into law on March 21. Thanks to an emergency clause, it took effect immediately.

The legislation comes on the heels of the 2018 federal farm bill, which established a regulatory framework for the commercial production of hemp. HB 1839 conforms Virginia’s hemp laws to match the provisions of the federal bill.

The Southern Virginia Hemp Co., a farm in the town of Jarratt straddling Greenville and Sussex counties, is expanding its operations to meet the demand for CBD products. The company plans to grow between 75 and 150 acres of

hemp this year, and aims to hire 40 additional employees to work on the farm this summer.

Wayne Grizzard, owner of the Southern Virginia Hemp Co. and Virginia Homegrown Botanicals, said the new laws could have a positive impact for farmers across the commonwealth, especially for tobacco farmers who have been hit hard by tobacco tariffs levied against the United States by China.

“One of my partner’s farms was for tobacco. He lost all three contracts this year because of the tariffs,” Grizzard said. “Some of the farmers have been forced to grow hemp because they don’t have anything to replace it.”

Since colonial times, Virginia farmers — even George Washington — have planted hemp, using the fiber to make rope and other goods.

Historian estimate that by the mid18th century, Virginia had 12,000 acres cultivated for hemp. Marijuana and hemp were both banned in the 1930s under the Marihuana Tax Act, however. (And yes, that is how the law spelled marijuana.)

Now, Grizzard, once a vegetable farmer, has converted his entire farm to hemp.

“When we first started growing, everybody kind of turned their nose up because it’s cannabis,” Grizzard said. “Once they started realizing that everybody’s getting into it and there’s money involved, they started singing a different tune.”

Until now, Virginia’s hemp industry has failed to keep pace with neighboring Kentucky and North Carolina. Both states have been eyeing hemp as an economic driver for several years.

(continued on page 14)

www.LEGACYnewspaper.com

May 29, 2019 • 3

ACLU sues to end solitary confinement at two maximum-security prisons in Va. A federal class-action lawsuit is seeking to end solitary confinement at two maximum-security prisons in Virginia, claiming inmates have suffered PTSD, weight loss and hallucinations while spending up to nearly 24 years in isolation.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and the law firm White & Case say a dozen named plaintiffs at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge prisons in the southwestern part of the state are being held in what amounts to permanent solitary confinement because they have no meaningful way of getting out.

The plaintiffs also contend that the solitary programs are nearly identical to one that the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) agreed to stop using as part of a settlement of a previous class-action lawsuit involving the now-shuttered Mecklenburg Correctional Center in the 1980s.

“Solitary confinement should only be used in rare and exceptional cases as a last resort,” said Vishal Agraharkar, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Virginia.

“Unfortunately, the way this program is structured it is effectively keeping people in solitary beyond what’s necessary.”

VDOC officials did not respond to a request for comment.

The plaintiffs have been held in solitary about 22 to 24 hours a day for between two and nearly 24 years, according to the lawsuit. The cells are about the size of a parking space, and the lights are constantly on, according to the lawsuit. The inmates have suffered what is described as “severe physical and mental health damage.” The ACLU estimates hundreds have been through the programs since they were created in 2011.

The plaintiffs include Dmitry

Khavkin, who spent nearly six years in solitary confinement after being convicted of murder and other charges. Khavkin lost about 30 pounds in isolation, according to the lawsuit, and suffers from depression, PTSD and other conditions. He was transferred out of solitary after agreeing to be a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Inmates are typically assigned to solitary confinement at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge if they have been disruptive or committed assaults, tried to escape or committed a particularly violent or notorious crime, according to the VDOC. But the lawsuit claims some are kept in solitary confinement for infractions as small as not shaving a beard, using disrespectful language or for behaviors related to mental illness.

The solitary programs are run under a regime called the Administrative Segregation Step Down Program, which aims to give inmates a way to earn more privileges and eventually reentry to

the general population in phases by exhibiting good behavior, according to the VDOC. The VDOC told the Vera Institute in a 2018 report that the number of prisoners in the most restrictive housing at the two prisons dropped from 511 to 72 between the 2011 and 2018.

However, the lawsuit claims some prisoners are languishing in isolation.

“The current Step-Down Program is a system of vague standards, contradictory goals, and malleable jargon used to conceal what is nothing more than an indefinite or permanent solitary confinement regime,” the lawsuit reads.

In September, the ACLU also sued the VDOC on behalf of an inmate convicted of murder who had been kept in solitary confinement for more than 12 years at Red Onion. That lawsuit claims Nicolas Reyes lost nearly 50 pounds and his mental health has deteriorated greatly.

The lawsuit filed earlier this month seeks to end the Step Down

program, close the solitary units at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge, appoint a special master to bring VDOC’s prisons into compliance, and award the plaintiffs compensatory damages.

In a separate case, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit panel last week upheld an injunction barring Virginia from keeping all death row inmates in solitary confinement.

While the state made changes to its death row in 2015, giving prisoners more opportunities to see visitors and one another, officials fought a ruling that the previous regime was unconstitutional.

“The challenged conditions of confinement on Virginia’s death row — under which Plaintiffs spent, for years, between 23 and 24 hours a day ‘alone, in a small . . . cell’ with ‘no access to congregate religious, educational, or social programming’ — pose a ‘substantial risk’ of serious psychological and emotional harm,” U.S. Appeals Judge James A. Wynn Jr. wrote. - WaPo

The LEGACY

4 • May 29, 2019

HUD funding will revitalize NN’s Southeast community The city of Newport News and the Newport News Redevelopment and Housing Authority are recent recipients of a $30 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) program. Funding will transform the Marshall-Ridley area in the Southeast Community, creating new housing options, community services, recreational opportunities and parks. Newport News received the maximum

amount of funding allowable from HUD. “The grant from HUD is an investment in the transformation taking place in the Southeast Community, a revitalization that impacts our entire city,” said Newport News Mayor McKinley L. Price, D.D.S. “The Marshall-Ridley neighborhood has a rich history and a strong sense of community, and support from HUD will expedite our ambitious plan to return the area to its vibrancy and create life-changing

HUD Secretary Ben Carson, center, is joined by Newport News Mayor McKinley Price and others, as he announces $30 million grant for the city of Newport News Choice Neighborhoods opportunities for our residents.”

Newport News is one of three recipients chosen from a pool of 32 applicants. HUD also awarded grants to Norfolk and Omaha.

As part of the application review process, a HUD team visited Newport News in March to tour the Marshall-Ridley neighborhood and assess the city and housing authority’s initial progress in implementing the transformation plan.

“It’s my privilege to award this grant to the city of Newport News,” said U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.

“They were selected from dozens of applicants because of the vision they put forward – and the promise of that vision to uplift those who need a hand. As I have often said at HUD, we believe that creating opportunities in our communities can never be the job of just one sector. All of us, whether in the public, private, or nonprofit space, must come together and work as a

well-coordinated team.”

In 2016, the city and the housing authority received a $500,000 CNI Planning Grant. This grant was used to develop a communitydriven transformation plan for the Marshall-Ridley neighborhood, which includes Ridley Place public housing and an expanded area around the complex. The transformation plan can be viewed in its entirety online.

The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative is HUD's signature placebased initiative to revitalize and transform distressed public and assisted housing and surrounding areas. The initiative is intended to help localities build neighborhoods of opportunity and choice while focusing on housing, people and neighborhood needs and opportunities. CNI Implementation Grants support those communities that have undergone a comprehensive local planning process and are ready to implement their Transformation Plan.

www.LEGACYnewspaper.com

May 29, 2019• 5

Redeveloped Carver apartments for homeless open With a $19 million expansion and renovation now complete, a local nonprofit has nearly doubled the capacity of its apartment house for homeless people in the Carver neighborhood in Richmond.

Virginia Supportive Housing, which offers housing and support services such as counseling and skills training, last week cut the ribbon on its New Clay House, an apartment building at 707 N. Harrison St., at its intersection with Clay Street.

The project expanded the number of apartment units at the property from 47 to 80. Half of the project involved a gutting and expansion of the 124-year-old building that VSH has used as apartments for nearly 30 years. The other half involved building from scratch on a neighboring parcel that the nonprofit bought in 2016.

The studio apartments in the house were expanded and renovated.

The project expanded the size of the property’s studio apartments from 150 to 350 square feet, with each getting its own bathroom and kitchenette, Mayor Stoney, members of the Stallings family, VSH dignitaries and residents cut the ribbon on the new facility. which previously were shared.

PHOTOS: Mike Platania The apartments are available to per month, on rent. the project such as historic tax I went through the wringer,” Clark those earning 50 percent or less of The project also added a large credits, city grants, bank loans, said. He eventually made it to the the area median income. Residents community kitchen, pantry, community grants from foundations and private New Clay House. sign a lease to pay one-third of their room, outdoor courtyard and lounge areas. donations, including a $1 million “The other thing that people don’t future income, or a minimum of $50 VSH had 25 funding sources for anonymous gift. understand is in a community like Among those in attendance at this here, they became my family. last week’s ribbon cutting were We cook food together, we do things Mayor Levar Stoney, VSH executive together. So now I do have family director Allison Bogdanovic and here in Virginia- – it’s the residents Wanda Stallings, the daughter of the here,” Clark said. late James Russell Stallings Sr., who Local resident John Lindner called previously owned the building and fantastic project. “Virginia Supportive opened it to the nonprofit in the 1990s. Housing continues to meet a critical Robert Clark, a resident of the need in our community,” he said.

“Kudos to their forward-thinking The studio apartments in the house board for orchestrating this expansion and for the community partners for were expanded and renovated. helping with the funding.” house, also was there. He said he VSH operates more than 600 moved to Richmond from New York housing units in 17 properties in 2013 and wound up homeless. throughout Central Virginia, “I’d never been homeless in my life. Charlottesville and Hampton Roads.

I couldn’t trust anybody here, and -RBiz

6 • May 29, 2019

Op/Ed & Letters

The LEGACY

Population explosion or bust: Is there a biblical approach?

DR. JAN DUDT Arecent issue of the Wall Street Journal featured a story about the U.S. birthrate dropping to 1.7 children per woman. This is the current endpoint from a steady decline in birth rates since the peak baby boom years around 1960. It is a new low. Our country has tended to bounce around 2.1 children per woman the last few decades, often below the generally accepted 2.1 replacement level, the breakeven rate required to sustain a population. Given that U.S. immigration has always outstripped emigration, U.S. population continues to grow even as birth rates fall below 2.1.

As a matter of cultural health, what does it say about a generation that fails to reproduce itself? This situation is by no means unique to the United States. Every country with a developed economy, west or east, north or south, is failing to replace itself—or is barely at replacement levels. The numbers vary from source to source. Italy is reported by the WSJ at 1.3, or perhaps 1.5, as suggested by World Population Review. Either way it doesn’t look good for Italy.

The LEGACY NEWSPAPER Vol. 5 No. 23 Mailing Address 409 E. Main Street 4 Office Address 105 1/2 E. Clay St. Richmond, VA 23219 Call 804-644-1550 Online www.legacynewspaper.com

Demographers say that without immigration citizens of societies with this range of birth rates will see their last member die without a mate in few centuries. This includes all the counties of Europe and the developed Far East.

The European Union birth rate is thought to be about 1.6, with several Mediterranean countries closer to 1.3. In East Asia, Japan is around 1.5, Taiwan tanks at little over 1.2, and China at 1.6 continues to project a decline despite the recent relaxing of its coercive one-child policy. In fact, worldwide, birthrates are declining even in those counties that exceed replacement birth rates.

Immigration from countries in Latin America and the Islamic world are not driven by population pressure.

Rather, it is the unbearable political and social situations that are causing the citizenry to scatter.

The question is, will the at-risk populations be able to turn it around? Fertility incentives like those in France, Sweden, and China, are seldomly responded to in our modern age. Will countries with developing economies and declining birth rates be able to stop the skid before they plummet below the replace rate? What is it about profound affluence that makes a society reproductively self-destructive? Why is it that, on The LEGACY welcomes all signed letters and all respectful opinions.

Letter writers and columnists opinions are their own and endorsements of their views by The LEGACY should be inferred. The LEGACY assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material.

Annual Subscription Rates Virginia - $50 U.S. states - $75 Outside U.S.- $100 The Virginia Legacy © 2016

average, the best educated people, certainly the better-educated women, fail to engage in sustainable reproductive effort?

The concerns among secularists like Paul and Anne Ehrlich regarding worldwide burdensome population growth, articulated in their 1968 book the Population Bomb, have largely failed to materialize as economies have grown and world health has improved. Modern birth rates and global economies show that the Ehrlich’s “cancer of population growth” has failed to metastasize.

The sleeper in the global trend is the reproductive ethic seen among the world’s practicing theists, such as conservative Catholics and evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews, and Muslims. It is from these that the reproductively selfdestructive movements must recruit if they are to sustain themselves.

Even so, these theists are influenced by the cultures they find themselves in and are at times nearly indistinguishable from their greater cultures. For example, conservative Protestants and Catholics birthrates are about 2.5 and 2.7 respectively, down in both populations from over 2.8 for both populations in the early 1970s. Birth rates are lower

with Orthodox Jews, but trends are similar.

Yet anecdotally, there seems to be subcultures within these subcultures that have embraced a more robust reproductive ethic. The divine call in Genesis to “be fruitful and multiply” is taken seriously by many, even if they are a minority. The promise of the blessing of children and family is heard over the cultural clamor and clarion call of personal peace and prosperity.

Two decades ago, E. Cal Beisner wisely reminded us in his book Where Garden Meets Wilderness that it is God’s call and desire to bless us with children, especially our children as His children. The situation is recalled by considering Abraham and Lot after their separation. Lot chose the fertile lowlands around Sodom, while Abraham took what was left over, the more ecological marginal upland of the Levant. It was there that the Lord said he would bless him by making him a great and mighty nation, whose seed would bless the world. Lot’s prognostication of economic wellbeing and the future was not realized. Actually, it backfired.

(continued on page 7)

www.LEGACYnewspaper.com

May 29, 2019• 7

P.T. Hoffsteader, Esq.

About second chances

Gov. Ralph Northam’s attempt to address the blackface mindset culture that is part of our America’s DNA is a start to the healing that is required to regain trust and respect for the Commonwealth of Virginia to become one rather than a slogan.

The governor and attorney general were acting out scale 1 of Allport’s Scale of Prejudice and discrimination. Scale 1 Antilocution means when a majority group freely make jokes about a minority group in terms of negative sterotypes and negative images. The majority looks upon this as not harmful however it set the stage for more severe outlets for prejudice.

The governor is creating a new director of diversity, equity and inclusion to create a bridge that will eliminate the blackface culture and will establish diversity, equity and inclusion only if the governor and the commonwealth is sincere about this ‘healing tour’.

Uniquely qualified King Salim Khalfani is that person that has represented the community in addressing the very issues and

responsibility that the director will be accountable to implement.

He has the experience and knowledge of over 30 years of the issues and collaborated with five diffwernt governors and that will an asset an allow him to work together with the agencies in adopting and amending practices that will ensure transparency and oversight during the process.

The commonwealth disparity study has also found that discrimination is a travesty in the commonwealth, when 98 percent of government contracts are awarded to white firms and only 2 percent among the five minority group members.

If the governor is sincere about healing then this is the start otherwise a crony will be hired that will not be committed to change rather still in the blackface culture mindset buying time until his governship is over and that will be a waste and shame. However it will also let the African American community know actually where they stand with the Democratic Party were inclusion is an illusion.

We will see how this play out and the Democratic party has an opportunity to get off the fence and in the game with the people they claim to represent.

Earl Bradley Henrico County ***** Stories about Virginia Gov. [Ralph] Northam and his “second chance” proposal have appeared in various

publications recently, claiming that May is ‘Second Chance Month’.

It appears that he is trying to say ‘forgive and forget’, and certainly that is what he is asking for from the citizens of Virginia regarding his recent “blackface” fiasco. He did a dumb thing as a young man and wants forgiveness, but won’t forgive.

Clemency, according to law, is the act a government takes to provide forgiveness to prisoners. In order to be forgiven, you have to be willing to forgive. It is a give and take kind of attitude. But when he is more concerned about how appearances will affect his party in the coming elections, and won’t sign conditional and absolute pardons to show ‘forgiveness’, how can he expect to be forgiven?

When he signs a conditional or an absolute pardon, the governor is saying, “I, and the government I represent, are forgiving your transgressions and giving you a ‘second chance’.” Obviously this is not done lightly and one must be deserving, but isn’t that the point?

When one shows contrition and a willingness to be a valued member of society, then one should be given that chance. It shouldn’t be based on ‘whether or not I get reelected’ or ‘how will it look in the news?’ or any other political motivation. It should be because it is the right thing to do and done now.

When an inmate serves his time and is released from prison that is debt paid; not a second chance.

Duane Boyce

(from page 6) Notice that the Scripture never records an incident of children being a curse, only a blessing. The curse is associated with the denial of children, or their destruction. It is true that they can be inconvenient.

Sometimes, I wonder which one of my five progeny has my vehicle. I know I drove it into work. I am in league with the commenter on the WSJ on-line article who said when the kids were gone, “The house is spotless. Boring. Chips go stale.

Boring. No one makes cookies.

Flashlights work. Pile of shoes on porch is gone. Once weekly forklift loads at Costco have ended.”

If we can’t see the blessings through the inconveniences, the alternative outcome of idolatrous convenience and narcissism is grim.

There is a radical message here that we need to convincingly and continually present to those who are our spiritual, intellectual, and, biological charges. The offensive message will only insult those who are foolish.

Dudt is a professor of biology at Grove City College and fellow for medical ethics with the Institute for Faith & Freedom. He teaches as part of college’s required core course Studies in Science, Faith and Technology wherein students, among other things, study all the major origins theories and are asked to measure them in the light of biblical authority.

8 • May 29, 2019

The LEGACY

Faith & Religion The fight for religious freedom has fallen victim to the culture wars The promotion of religious freedom in America, a cause that not long ago had near unanimous support on Capitol Hill, has fallen victim to the culture wars.

A high point came in 1993, when Congress overwhelmingly passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, meant to overturn a Supreme Court decision that limited Americans' right to exercise their religion freely.

Those days are gone. The consensus surrounding religious freedom issues has been weakened by deep disputes over whether Americans should be free to exercise a religious objection to same sex marriage or artificial contraception and whether the U.S. Constitution mandates strict church-state separation.

For a long time in the country we kept it down to a dull roar. When that’s no longer possible, it’s a problem.

“It is more difficult to get a broad coalition on religious freedom efforts now,” said Holly Hollman, general counsel at the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

“People have a bad taste in their mouth about what they think the other side thinks of religious freedom.”

“It’s a divisive issue,” said Todd McFarland, associate general counsel at the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, a denomination historically known for its advocacy of religious freedom.

“For a long time in the country we kept it down to a dull roar. When that's no longer possible, it’s a problem.”

The religious freedom question could arise again in the months ahead, as the U.S. Supreme Court

Darrell Patterson considers whether to take new cases that involve the limits on Americans’ religious rights.

In theory, the commitment to religious freedom is straightforward.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution bars Congress from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Most of the attention, especially in recent decades, has focused on the “free exercise” clause. An important case involved Adele Sherbet, a Seventh-day Adventist, who was fired for refusing to work on Saturdays and then denied unemployment benefits. In a 1963 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Sherbet’s free exercise right had been violated.

In a 1990 decision, however, the Court significantly narrowed the Sherbet precedent, ruling against a Native American man, Alfred Smith, who was dismissed from his job because he had illegally ingested peyote as part of a religious ritual.

The Court’s Smith ruling met

with bipartisan outrage in the U.S. Congress and led to passage of the RFRA legislation. Among the sponsors was a first-term liberal Democrat from New York, Jerrold Nadler.

“Unless the Smith decision is overturned,” Nadler argued on the House floor, "the fundamental right of all Americans to keep the Sabbath, observe religious dietary laws, to worship as their consciences dictate, will remain threatened.”

The bill passed the House unanimously and was approved in the Senate by a vote of 97-3.

In the years since, however, the religious freedom cause has been politicized, with conservatives claiming it for their purposes and liberals shying away from it for reasons of their own.

When liberals started pushing for expanded protections for the LGBT population, conservatives grew alarmed, arguing that practices such as same-sex weddings go against biblical teaching. They've argued that religious freedom should mean they can’t be forced to accommodate

something they don’t believe in.

Liberals portrayed that stance simply as discriminatory and argued it should be illegal.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, made the issue a major theme of his campaign when he ran for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

“We’re a nation that was founded on religious liberty,” Cruz told an interviewer, “and the liberal intolerance we see trying to persecute those who as a matter of faith follow a biblical definition of marriage is fundamentally wrong.”

When the conservative Heritage Foundation celebrated the 25th anniversary of the RFRA passage earlier this year, the organization’s president, Kay Cole James, blamed “the left” for the erosion of the original consensus.

“I wish we could get that kind of bipartisan support today,” she said. “The political left has actively worked to undercut our freedoms.”

As conservatives focused the religious freedom debate narrowly around issues of sexuality and marriage, progressives doubled down on the promotion of LGBT rights. The Democrat-controlled House this month approved the “Equality Act,” which would prohibit virtually all discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. One provision actually singles out the RFRA law, prohibiting its use as a defense against discrimination allegations.

Rep. Nadler, having originally been a RFRA backer, co-sponsored the new “Equality” legislation as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

(continued on page 17)

www.LEGACYnewspaper.com

May 29, 2019• 9

$15k grant to support work

experience for Episcopal School grads Virginia Credit Union has awarded a $15,000 Youth Advancement Grant to support the Summer Jobs program at Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School (AJC) in Richmond’s East End. This program provides summer job opportunities for high school students, in addition to workplace readiness training and personal finance education.

AJC is an independent middle school which provides full-tuition scholarships to students with limited resources in Church Hill. Through the Summer Jobs program, the School partners with organizations and professionals to offer six-week employment opportunities for AJC graduates.

“Our workplace partners agree to provide meaningful work experience, clear expectations and regular student feedback,” said Mary Cay Kollmansperger, AJC’s Family

C.L. Belle’s

E Z Car Rental 3101 W. Broad Street

(804) 358-3406

SP RING SSPE CIAL

ALL Cars

Small - Medium -

29

$

Large

95

a day

Free Pickup in Richmond Area

NO CREDIT CARD NEEDED

www.ezcarrentalsrva.com

engagement coordinator. “We train our students ahead of time, pay each student an hourly wage and provide transportation to and from work each day. During each student’s employment, we check in regularly with our workplace partners to ask for feedback and offer support to the students.”

In 2018, AJC Summer Jobs students worked at The Science Museum of Virginia, the YMCA

ADVERTISE WITH US If you’re reading this, so are your potential customers!

Stack the odds in favor of your awesome business.

of Greater Richmond, the Richmond SPCA, in the office of Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Herring, Refuge4Men, The Faison Center and with Henrico County trial attorney Owen Conway.

“Virginia Credit Union created the Youth Advancement Grant program to support organizations that are making a difference in the lives of underserved students,” said Cherry Dale, financial education director for Virginia Credit Union.

This is the second year that the credit union has offered the grants.

“Young people who gain work experience and earn their own money are ideal partners for the lifelong financial education and guidance that our credit union provides,” said Dale. “The grant is designed to invest in organizations’ workforce development efforts while supporting youth with financial education to help place them on a path of financial success.”

10 • May 29, 2019

The LEGACY

RVA East End Festival offers gift of arts & music in Chimborazo Park

Proceeds of familyfriendly event support cultural arts programs in East End schools

RVA East End Festival 2019 will celebrate music, arts, food and fun on Saturday, June 8 starting at Noon and closing with the Richmond Symphony performance at 7 pm, and Sunday, June 9 from 1-5 pm.

This year, the Festival is returning to Chimborazo Park, 3215 E. Broad Street, and will be part of the Big Tent Community Festival program of the Richmond Symphony.

Now in its fourth year, the RVA

East End Festival has raised over $200,000 for music and arts programs in Richmond Public Schools since 2016. This free family event features two packed days of exciting arts and musical performances by local professionals as well as some of RVA’s most talented youth musicians, dancers and visual artists.

The festival will kick off at Noon on June 8 with student performances by the Franklin Military Academy Color Guard, choir and orchestra, the Armstrong High School dance troupe, the Chimborazo/George Mason band and orchestra, the Martin Luther King Tritan Elite Dance, the Franklin

Military Academy Jazz Band and the Fairfield/Woodville/Bellevue combined band. Saturday evening will feature a performance by the Legacy Band at around 5:30 pm and the full Richmond Symphony at 7 pm. The lineup on Sunday will feature faith-based programming with music by Hill City Church, Cora Harvey Armstrong and others.

A schedule of performances and artists will be posted soon on the Festival’s Facebook page, RVA East End Festival.

“Our theme this year is The Gift of Arts and Music,” said the Reverend Marilyn Heckstall, pastor of Asbury Church Hill United Methodist Church and 2019 festival chair.

“These gifted musicians and visual artists are sharing their virtuosity and skilled craftsmanship with the entire community. In return, the festival provides a path for them to pursue their dreams to excel in the creative field.”

She noted that the festival’s financial goal for 2019 is to exceed $100,000 in proceeds that will be used to support cultural arts initiatives in Richmond Public Schools located in the East End. In the past, funding has been used to acquire or repair music instruments and to purchase choral risers, concert attire, pottery kilns and

(continued on page 11)

www.LEGACYnewspaper.com

(from page 10) resources for the Turnaround Arts program. “A priority for 2019 is to buy and install a new dance floor at Armstrong High School to support the popular and growing dance program there,” said Rev. Heckstall.

Festival attendees also can browse among many food and beverage vendors, along with exhibits of sponsors, boutique businesses and other community organizations.

Special attractions for kids include Paw Patrol and Marvel characters, Paint Crazy face painting, RVA Hoops, Jenn B-The Balloon Lady, juggler Jonathan Austin, Mr. Public Works, and a National Park Service junior ranger activity, to name a few.

As one of the festival’s most ardent champions, Richmond City Councilwoman Cynthia I. Newbille (7th District) has been an instrumental catalyst for this event

May 29, 2019 • 11 that celebrates creativity and unites the East End community around engaging kids in the arts.

“The East End Festival has introduced hundreds of students to all aspects of the cultural arts in their elementary, middle and high schools,” she said. “It is truly life-changing when students can learn and grow together through involvement in music and the arts.”

Bon Secours Richmond Health System, a major partner for the festival, believes that the event helps to build strong relationships among diverse community stakeholders, the East End residents and the local businesses including Bon Secours Richmond Community Hospital.

“The festival creates a positive synergy that provides a sustainable foundation for leadership in this vibrant area of Richmond,” said Becky Clay Christensen, executive

Where Senior Moments are a good thing!

director of community health for Bon Secours Richmond Health System.

David Fisk, executive director of the Richmond Symphony, explained that the Big Tent programs combine the power of music with community investment.

“The Big Tent allows us to offer free outdoor concerts, creating unique opportunities for the public to experience the music of the Richmond Symphony,” he said.

“We’re delighted to collaborate with the RVA East End Festival for a very meaningful event that benefits the youth of the East End community.”

Other partners supporting the festival include Bank of America, Church Hill Association & Friends, City of Richmond, the Flats at 25th, Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation, Richmond Ambulance Authority, The Richmond

Symphony, Union Market, VCU Health Department of Arts in Health Care and Weinstein Properties.

Individuals wishing to make a contribution to the arts and music programs at East End public schools will be able to do so through donation collections at the festival.

Proceeds from the festival support the music and visual arts programs at the following Richmond Public Schools located in RVA’s East End community: Bellevue Elementary, Chimborazo Elementary, Fairfield Court Elementary, George Mason Elementary, Woodville Elementary, Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School, Armstrong High School and Franklin Military Academy.

Volunteers are needed to help on the weekend of the event.

For more information, contact rvaeastendfest@gmail.com or visit the festival’s Facebook page.

We offer options, peace of mind, convenience and value. We create activities and programs to bring people together to share companionship, fellowship and the joy of meaningful friendships.

Save $1500 off Community Fee *for a limited time on select apartments

INDEPENDENT LIVING | ASSISTED LIVING | MEMORY CARE

Imperial Plaza - A Richmond Tradition 17 17 Bellevue Ave | Richmond, VA 23227 800.648.0919 | www.ipseniorliving.com

12 • May 29, 2019

The LEGACY

D.C. AG leads 38-state coalition in support of marijuana banking bill An effort aimed at bringing billions of dollars of existing cash transactions into the regulated banking sector has resulted in a coalition of 38 attorneys general who are urging Congress to pass the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act, or SAFE Banking Act, to allow legal marijuana-related businesses to access the banking system.

In addition to providing oversight of such businesses, the legislation — which would give banks permission to do business with the cannabis industry without fear of federal prosecution — would reduce the risk of both violent and white-collar crime affecting the marijuana industry.

“Our bipartisan coalition is urging Congress to pass the SAFE Banking Act to prevent criminal activity and increase oversight of the legal marijuana industry that already exists in 33 states,” said D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, who has spearheaded the coalition.

“This necessary modification would increase transparency in the flourishing legal marijuana industry while deterring the spreading criminal activity that has developed in the absence of such supervision. And, once Congress passes the SAFE Banking Act, I urge them to remove obstacles to the District of Columbia regulating its own marijuana industry.”

The coalition of states and territories, also led

by Colorado AG Phil Weiser, Nevada AG Aaron Ford and North Dakota AG Wayne Stenehjem, include Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, the Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Although 33 states and several U.S. territories have legalized medical marijuana, current federal law prevents banks from providing services to these state-regulated businesses.

The SAFE Banking Act would permit marijuanarelated businesses in states and territories.

Racine, along with D.C. Council member David Grosso, recently published an op-ed in The Washington Post urging Congress to allow the District to determine for itself how to regulate marijuana. - WI

www.LEGACYnewspaper.com

May 29, 2019• 13

14 • May 29, 2019

The LEGACY

To help streamline the delivery of hundreds of pounds of food into VCU’s RamPantry recently, Virginia Commonwealth University Police recruits formed an assembly line to pass non-perishable items from an overstuffed van into the university Student Commons.

Hundreds of goods, including peanut butter, canned vegetables, oatmeal and the college staple — ramen noodles — were part of the haul.

For the police department’s busy recruits, it was a timeout from instruction to participate in community service. On a humid Friday, and wearing suits and professional attire for an event later in the day, the 44th basic law enforcement academy class helped deliver approximately 300 pounds of groceries to the university’s food pantry as part of VCUPD’s fourth annual Hall to House Food Drive.

“This was the recruits’ first experience with community outreach at VCU,” said VCU Police Chief John Venuti. “They got the chance to see how many resources we can collect here at VCU and that their delivery helps students in need.”

(from page 2) In 2019, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture approved 1,035 applications to cultivate up to 42,086 acres of industrial hemp, as well as 2.9 million square feet of greenhouse space for hemp cultivation.

North Carolina has 634 licensed farmers growing hemp on about 8,000 acres and 3.4 million square feet of greenhouse space.

Grizzard said the next step for hemp in Virginia is still up in the air. He said the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services must submit a plan to the U.S. Department of Agriculture “because the USDA has taken over all states’ hemp programs.”

“As long we’re there to fight, battle, and voice our opinions as farmers and business owners, we need to stick together and figure out what we need,” he said.

Grizzard and other farmers are concerned about regulations that could stifle their production and

Police and students tackle food insecurity

overall business model.

“They could come up with some crazy laws that go against everything we’re doing,” he said.

“You never know — there’s always that chance.”

One of the Southern Virginia Hemp Co.’s most popular products is hemp extract oil — cannabidiol.

CBD by itself does not cause a “high,” but it has gained popularity as a treatment for a wide range of ailments.

According to Peter Grinspoon, contributing editor of Harvard Health Publishing, CBD has been used to treat chronic pain as well as some diseases that more familiar medicines have failed to help or significantly alleviate.

“CBD has been touted for a wide variety of health issues, but the strongest scientific evidence is for its effectiveness in treating some of the cruelest childhood epilepsy syndromes, such as Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome,” Grinspoon wrote in a

blog post last year.

“CBD is commonly used to address anxiety, and for patients who suffer through the misery of insomnia, studies suggest that CBD may help with both falling asleep and staying asleep.”

As Grinspoon notes, a lot of the support for CBD comes from testimonials and anecdotal evidence.

There has been a lack of formal medical research because CBD supplements are not approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

CDB is the second most active ingredient in cannabis after tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the principal psychoactive constituent.

Hemp also contains a small amount of THC — but not enough to produce a “high.”

Marketing CBD could just be scratching the surface in regard to medicinal components of the hemp plant.

Now that derivatives of hemp are legal, other cannabinoids besides CBD can be extracted from the plant

as long they remain below the 0.3 percent THC threshold, Grizzard said. These other chemical extracts include cannabigerol, cannabinol, and cannabichromene.

“Every single plant we grow has a different profile. They all have different cannabinoids in them,” Grizzard said.

“Some of them are higher in CBD; some have high CBG, CBN, CBC. There are a lot of different chemicals in that plant. There’s a lot of unknown of what these chemicals do for people.”

The Southern Virginia Hemp Co. hopes to find whether different cannabinoids help with specific ailments. Whether a flash in the pan or the sign of a new wave of medicine, CBD and hemp products have gained popularity over the past couple of years.

“It’s the doctors, the pharmacists, the physical therapists — they’re giving recommendations to people to take this stuff,” Grizzard said. “It’s not me.” - CNS

www.LEGACYnewspaper.com

(from page 1) least one ancestor who was enslaved in the United States, and having identified oneself as African-American on a legal document for at least a decade before the approval of any reparations.

The 10-year rule, he said, would help screen out anyone trying to cash in on a windfall.

According to these criteria, Oprah Winfrey, who has traced her DNA to slaves captured in West Africa in the early 19th century, would qualify.

Former President Barack Obama, the son of a white American mother and a Kenyan father, would not. . Darity estimates that roughly 30 million Americans would be eligible.

Tracing genealogy back to the slave-owning era is difficult. But the search begins by comparing the 1870 census, when freed slaves were first counted by name, with the one taken in 1860, when they weren’t. Other sources include military service and pension records, slave-ship manifests, and estate and inheritance documents.

As for taking account of current wealth, a reparations program could link potential payouts to income and asset levels.

How much would recipients get?

Attaching a dollar figure to a program of reparations resembles a “Wheel of Fortune” spin, with amounts ranging from the piddling ($71.08 per recipient under Forman’s plan) to the astronomical ($17 trillion in total).

Over the decades, some economists have tried to come up with a quantifiable basis for a fair sum.

Swinton, for example, estimated in 1983 that 40 to 60 percent of the difference between black and white income could be attributed to past and continuing discrimination, and put the figure at $500 billion.

Some economists evaluated labor’s share of the slave system’s profits in cotton and tobacco.

Others have looked at what slaves would have earned if they had been paid wages plus interest, after subtracting housing and food costs. One study looked at 20th-century statistics, estimating how much less blacks earned because of decades of discrimination. Another examined the value of black wealth lost or destroyed after slavery ended, through practices like redlining that denied lending or insurance to African-American communities, or organized riots like the 1921 rampage that leveled the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, known as “Black Wall Street.”

A recurring theme has been to return to that first official action promising 40 acres and a mule. Sherman drew up his order after posing this directive to a group of black ministers and

leaders: “State in what manner you think you can take care of yourselves.”

What would Sherman’s promise be worth today?

Darity has been mulling that question for years, and is writing a book on reparations with Kirsten Mullen, due out next year. He begins with the cost of an acre in 1865: about $10. Forty acres divided among a family of four comes to 10 acres per person, or about $100 for each of the four million former slaves. Taking account of compounding interest and inflation, Darity has put the present value at $2.6 trillion. Assuming roughly 30 million descendants of ex-slaves, he concluded it worked out to about $80,000 a person.

To get a sense of the scale, consider that the United States budget this year is $4.7 trillion.

Of course, varying any critical assumption can add or subtract billions or trillions of dollars.

Thomas Craemer, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Connecticut, used the same starting point — 40 acres and a mule — but a different method in a study published last year. He used the current average price of agricultural land and figured that 40 acres of farmland and buildings would amount to roughly $123,000. If all of the four million slaves counted in the 1860 census had been able to take advantage of that offer, it would have totaled more than $486 billion today — or about $16,200 for each descendant of slaves.

May 29, 2019• 15

What form would payment take?

Compensation programs can take many forms.

In the United States, after a congressional study, people of Japanese descent who were forced into internment camps during World War II received $20,000 in 1988 and a formal apology.

Since 1952, Germany has paid more than $70 billion in reparations through various programs, primarily to Jewish victims of the Nazi regime, and continues to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Payments vary from a lump sum distributed to individuals to a monthly pension based on years working in a slave labor camp. Money is also given to organizations to cover home care for older survivors or for grants.

A small portion goes for research, education and documentation.

A reparations program in the United States could likewise adopt a single method or several at once. Families could get a one-time check, receive vouchers for medical insurance or college, or have access to a trust fund to finance a business or a home. Darity argues that “for both substantive and symbolic reasons, some important component must be direct payment to eligible recipients.”

Other scholars have emphasized different features. Roy L. Brooks, a law professor at the University of San Diego and the author of “Atonement and Forgiveness: A New Model for Black Reparations,” has reservations about what he calls the “settlement model,” a legalistic approach that looks backward to compensate victims for demonstrable financial losses. He prefers what he calls the “atonement model,” emphasizing longer-term investments in education, housing and businesses that build up wealth.

What would the economic impact be?

According to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, the median wealth of black households is $16,000, compared with $163,000 for whites. Reparations are not likely to eliminate the racial wealth gap, but could narrow it somewhat. Low-income families, with the fewest assets, would benefit the most.

The biggest economic objection is that any meaningful program would be unaffordable.

Like other government spending, reparations would ultimately be paid for by some kind of tax or fee, or borrowing, say, through government bonds. Such a program would almost certainly require increasing the federal debt and be structured over time.

Those less worried about a growing deficit could argue that reparations would be a boon over the long run — lifting people out of poverty, and improving their earning potential and buying power. - NYT

16 • May 29, 2019

The LEGACY

Calendar

COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES & EVENTS

5:30, 6 p.m.

6.7, 8 a.m.

A complimentary seminar covering steps women can take to help ensure their financial security will be offered by the MEMBERS Financial Services Representatives located at Virginia Credit Union. The seminar will be held at Virginia Credit Union, 7500 Boulder View Dr. in the Boulders Office Park.

To register, visit www.vacu.org/ seminars or call 804-323-6800.

Join Sister Cities of Newport News for the 12th Annual International Breakfast at Christopher Newport University’s David Student Union.

This year’s theme is Jazz… The International Language with guest speaker Jae Sinnett, a local jazz musician, educator and radio personality.

The breakfast is free and open to the public but an appeal for support will be made at the event.

Donations to Sister Cities of Newport News can also be made online.

This fundraising breakfast generates support for cultural, educational and economic exchanges between Newport News and partner cities in Japan, China, Germany and France.

Reservations are required and must be done by June 4. Register online, by phone at 757-926-1348 or by email to info@sistercitiesnn.com. To learn more about the International Breakfast and Sister Cities of Newport News, visit www. sistercities-nn.com.

6.4, 5:30 p.m.

Before terms like financial planning and financial literacy were common, there were black women who knew that a key to being free was being financially free. Join us for a panel discussion on the history of black women in finance.

The career of Richmond’s legendary banker Maggie L.Walker will be featured heavily in the discussion which will be led by Dr. Shennette Garrett-Scott, associate professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi along with Ajena Rogers, supervisory park ranger at Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site and Elvatrice Belsches, an historian and educator. Claudrena Harrold, an associate professor of history at UVA will be the moderator.

Garrett-Scott is a historian of gender, race, and capitalism. Her book, “Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal” (Columbia University Press, 2019), is the first full-length history of finance capitalism that centers on black women and the banking institutions and networks they built from the eve of the Civil War to the Great Depression.

This event is free, however, registration is requested. Call 804780-9093 for details.

Ongoing

Submit your calendar events by email to: editor @legacynewspaper.com.

Include the who, what, where, when & contact information that can be printed.

Deadline is Friday.

Did you know that 22 Americans die each day waiting for organ transplants, most of them for kidneys? The good news is that MatchingDonors.com is helping to change that.

MatchingDonors.com is a 501 c3 nonprofit organization that links organ donors with people in desperate need of kidneys and other transplants. And now, you don't need to donate a kidney to save a life. You can donate your boat, car or real estate, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to help save the lives of people needing organ transplants.

Visit matchingdonors.com or call 800-385-0422.

May 29, 2019• 17

www.LEGACYnewspaper.com

(from page 8) “Religion is no excuse for discrimination in the public sphere, as we have long recognized when it comes to race, color, sex, and national origin,” Nadler argued in a committee markup hearing, “and it should not be an excuse when it comes to sexual orientation or gender identity.”

When the bill came up on the House floor, another co-sponsor, Democrat Bobby Scott of Virginia (pictured), explained why it may seem that progressives have turned cool on the Religious Freedom act.

“RFRA was originally enacted to serve as a safeguard for religious freedom,” he said, “but recently it’s been used a sword, to cut down the civil rights of too many individuals.”

Some traditional advocates of religious freedom issues are dismayed by how the debate has evolved among both conservatives and liberals.

“When you [tell people] you work for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, they want to know, ‘What kind of religious liberty?’” said Hollman. She is evenhanded in her assessment of responsibility for the breakdown of bipartisan sentiment around the issue.

“It is unfortunate that some on the right will use religious freedom in order to advance a particular partisan issue,” she said. “I think it is problematic on the left to cede arguments about religious freedom, to just say, ‘Oh, people will use that now to advance an anti-LGBT perspective.’ These are tough issues to work on, and religious freedom should not take the fall.”

One current religious freedom case, in fact, is similar to those that led to the court fights of the last

century. In 2005, a Seventh-day Adventist named Darrell Patterson interviewed for a trainer job at Walgreens in Orlando, Fla. “I was completely up front with them that I observed the Sabbath and that the Sabbath was important to me,” said Patterson.

He got the job, and six years passed without a problem. But one Friday afternoon he was told to report to work the next morning.

“The Sabbath is a beautiful, beautiful day,” Patterson said, explaining why working Saturdays is for him unthinkable. “If you were to come to my house on the Sabbath, you would find that our house is in order. There is a peaceful, serene atmosphere. My wife and my family spend time in prayer. We sing hymns together.”

Patterson skipped work that Saturday. When he went in the following Monday, he was called into a supervisor’s office and told that he was fired. He sued.

In a statement, Walgreens said it is “committed to respecting and accommodating the religious practices of its employees” and “reasonably accommodated” Patterson’s requested scheduling, but that doing more would have imposed “an undue hardship on our business.” The Eleventh Circuit court ruled in favor of Walgreens, but Patterson is appealing.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to hear the case and revisit, yet again, the question of what religious freedom means.

McFarland from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is tracking the case closely. He expects Patterson to be broadly supported, but he also recognizes that the politics around religious freedom issues have shifted in recent decades.

“One of the most unfortunate things is that religious liberty has become the issue of one party,” he said. “For Democrats, it’s viewed as a divisive issue, especially in a primary context. [They say] ‘how is

this going to help me?’ They used to feel that being on the right side of religious liberty was an important value, and they don’t anymore.”

Like the Baptist Joint Committee, however, the Seventh-day Adventists fault Republicans and Democrats alike for the politicization of religious freedom issues in recent years. The Adventists are bothered by the apparent reluctance of Republicans to embrace the “establishment” clause in the First Amendment, barring government from endorsing a religion.

Conservatives have pushed for prayer and Bible readings in public schools and government funding for some religious institutions. Some have even suggested the United States be identified as a Christian nation.

“We have a strong interest in having a vigorous establishment clause,” McFarland said. “That’s something evangelicals and other conservative churches historically have not been as interested in.

We are not trying to see the U.S. government impose any type of ideology. We have concerns about that. We have long believed that government and church need to stay in their separate spheres.”

The Adventists’ support for the establishment clause has allied them on various occasions with the American Civil Liberties Union, an unlikely partnership for other conservative Christian denominations.

The two parts of the freedom of religion provision in the First Amendment are sometimes seen as conflicting: Is the government in favor of religion or against it? But traditional American religious freedom advocates say the two clauses can also be read as complementary: The free exercise of religion is guaranteed only if it applies to all faiths. That can happen only if government does not take sides.

In Orlando, Fla., Darrell Patterson went back to school after being fired from Walgreens. He is now working as a mental health therapist. His campaign for the right to rest on the Sabbath, now possibly headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, no longer has to do with his own work situation.

“It’s about other people that are going to come after me,” said Patterson, “that deserve to be able to practice their religious faith and conviction without putting their livelihoods in jeopardy.” - NPR

18 • May 29, 2019

804-644-1550 (office) • 800-783-8062 (fax) ads@legacynewspaper.com

105 1/2 E. Clay St. The LEGACY 4 Richmond, VA 23219 804-644-1550 (office) • 800-783-8062 (fax Serving Richmond & Hampton Roads ads@legacynewspaper.com 409 E. Main St. #4 (mailing) • 105 1/2 E. Clay St. (office) Ad Size 3.4 inches - 1 column(s) X 1.7 inches)Richmond, LEGAL, EMPLOYMENT, ANNOUNCEMENTS, FOR SALE, SERVICES VA 23219 804-644-1550 (office) • 800-783-8062 (fax) ads@legacynewspaper.com Ad Size: 3 inch 1 Issue - $37.40

Classifieds

Rate: $11 per column inch

CHARLES KITCHEN, LLC PUBLIC AUCTION of TRADING as Charles Kitchen Unclaimed Vehicles Includes Internet placement

PRINT & DIGITAL AD SALES EXECUTIVE

Thank you for your interest in applying for opportunities with The City of Richmond.

To see what opportunities are available, please refer to our website at www.richmondgov.com.

EOE M/F/D/V

The LEGACY is looking for a reliable, highly-motivated, goal-driven sales professional to join our team selling print and digital advertising in the Richmond and Hampton Roads areas.

Duties include: Building and maintaining relationships with new/existing clients Meeting and exceeding monthly sales goals Cold calling new prospects over the phone to promote print and online advertising space

Qualifications: Proven experience with print (newspaper) and/ or digital (website) advertising sales; Phone and one-on-one sales experience; Effective verbal and written communication skills, professional image and; Familiarity with Richmond and/or Hampton Roads areas.

Compensation depends on experience and includes a base pay as well as commission.

The LEGACY is an African-American-oriented weekly newspaper, circulation 25,000, with a website featuring local and national news and advertising.

E-mail resume and letter of interest to ads@ legacynewspaper.com detailing your past sales experience. No phone calls please.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT THE 2 issues CITY OFAd RICHMOND BOARD OFXZONING APPEALS Size: 1 column(s) 7.7 inches)

9127-C W. Broad St, 175+/- IMPOUNDED Includes Richmond VA 23294 Will2hold a Public Hearing in the- $84.70 5th Floor Conference Room, City Hall, Issues (5/15 5/22) per ad ($169.40 Total) AUTOS, LIGHT TRUCKS & Please review the proof, make any needed changes and return by fax or e-mail. 900 East Broad Street,Rate: Richmond, VA column on June 5, 2019, to consider the (Henrico County) $11 per inch MOTORCYCLES PleaseCode: review the proof, make an The above is applying If your response is notDRIVE-IN received by deadline, yourestablishment ad may not be inserted. following under Chapter 30 of the Zoning SOUTHSIDE PLAZA

If yourplacement response is not received Includes Internet BEGINNING AT 1:00 P.M. Ok X______________ Please review the proof, make any needed changes and return by fax o for a wine and beer off premises Gates open at 9:00 AM BZA 16-2019 (RECONSIDERED APRIL 3, 2019ad MEETING): If your response is not received byFROM deadline, your may notAnbe in license to sell alcoholic beverages.

Auction begins at 10:00 AM application of Fresh Start Property Solutions, LLC for a building permit CLAUDIUS CHARLES, OWNER. Auction willOk include vehicles listed with the changes X _____________________________ changes X __ a single-family detached dwelling atOk 3004with HANES AVENUE. Okrenovate X_________________________________________ Note: Objections to the issuance of to below plus many others: this license must be submitted to 2015 TOYOTA CAMRY 4T1BF1FK2FU922336 ABC no later than 30 days from the BZA 23-2019: An application of East Coast Realty Investments LLC for 1999 VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT WVWMA63B7XE512057 2003 CHEVROLET SILVERADO C1500 2GCEC19T931216115 REMINDER: permits to construct two new single-family detached dwellings De Ok with changes X _____________________________ publishing date of the first of two building REMINDER: Deadline is Fridays @ 5 p.m.

2007 LINCOLN MKZ 3LNHM28T27R618721 at 1202 NORTH 37th STREET. 1997 JEEP CHEROKEE 1J4GZ78Y4VC646522 required newspaper legal notices.

1974 ROLLS-ROYCE SILVER SHADOW SRC18181 Objections should be registered at 2003 PONTIAC AZTEK 3G7DA03E43S562078 BZA 24-2019: An application of CC Richmond II LP for@building permits REMINDER: Deadline is Fridays 5 p.m.

2002 ACURA MDX 2HNYD18242H500190 abc.virginia.gov or 800-552-3200.

2002 HONDA CRF100F JH2HE03042K102884 to construct two (2) single-family attached dwellings at 1201 & 1201 ½ 1996 CHEVROLET CORSICA 1G1LD5545TY208142 NORTH 31st STREET. 2000 CHEVROLET CAVALIER 1G1JC1249Y7276206 to the VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF

Monday, June 10, 2019 ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL Ok X_________________________________________

2000 HONDA ACCORD 1HGCG3272YA028314 1995 TOYOTA CAMRY 4T1SK12W0SU639593 2004 FORD CROWN VICTORIA 2FAFP73WX4X164139 2001 ACURA TL 19UUA56631A025723 1996 JEEP CHEROKEE 1J4FJ28S7TL198324 2004 VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT WVWWH63B74E133558 1990 MERCEDES-BENZ 300E WDBEA30D4LB159439 1996 MERCURY SABLE 1MELM50U4TG651773 2000 PONTIAC BONNEVILLE 1G2HX54K0Y4263394 1993 BUICK RIVIERA 1G4EZ13L6PU401218 2007 BAJA WARRIOR 90cc LUAHYF20771002779 2002 FORD WINDSTAR 2FMZA51402BA59095 2003 BUICK REGAL 2G4WB52K431256551 2005 FORD TAURUS 1FAFP53295A299804 1999 CHEVROLET TAHOE 1GNEK13RXXJ364776 2003 HONDA CIVIC JHMES96613S011080 1992 FORD F150 1FTDF15N5NNA42751 1999 FORD MUSTANG 1FAFP4043XF166736 1994 HONDA CIVIC 1HGEJ1127RL039884 2004 FORD TAURUS 1FAFP53294A200218

SEIBERT’S is now accepting vehicles on consignment!

Reasonable Seller’s Fees.

642 W. Southside Plaza Dr. Richmond (804) 233-5757

WWW.SEIBERTSTOWING.COM VA AL # 2908-000766

Drivers Mr. Bult’s is hiring Local Class A CDL Drivers.

Home Every Night, $1100+/ week, amazing benefits!

Text WORK to 55000

TRACTOR TECHNICIAN Marten Transport, Ltd., is in search of experienced technicians at our Colonial Heights location.

Competitive pay based on exp. & full benefits, including: Medical/Dental/ Vision Ins. + 401(K) Paid Vacation & holidays

Apply online today www.marten.com EEOE functioning under an AAP

BZA 25-2019: An application of Macfarlane Associates, LLC for a building permit for renovations and to split the lot to convert the existing two-family dwelling into two single-family attached dwellings at 1813 & 1815 EAST GRACE STREET. BZA 26-2019: An application of Elderhomes Corporation for a building permit to construct a new single-family attached dwelling and to adjust the property line at 807 NORTH 24th STREET. Roy W. Benbow, Secretary Phone: (804) 240-2124 Fax: (804) 646-5789 E-mail: Roy.Benbow@richmondgov.com

Resource Information Help for the Disadvantaged and Disenfranchised (RIHD) P.O. Box 55 Highland Springs, Virginia 23075 (804) 426-4426 rihd23075@gmail.com http://www.rihd.org/ Twitter: @rihd

Ad Size: (119 colum May1.35 29,inches 2019•

www.LEGACYnewspaper.com

Are you in a suicide crisis?

AUCTIONS ATTN. AUCTIONEERS: Advertise your upcoming auctions statewide or in other states. Affordable Print and Digital Solutions reaching your target audiences. Call this paper or Landon Clark at Virginia Press Services 804-521-7576, landonc@vpa.net AUCTION: Historic Manteo, NC Home-Gardens. 400 Uppowoc Av. Tax Val $703K. WILL SELL at or above $325K! June 15. Mike Harper 843-729-4996 (NCAL 8286). www.HarperAuctionAndRealty. com for details.

HELP WANTED / EDUCATION EDUCATION/VACANIES 2019-2020: Elementary Education, Special Education, School Psychologist, Middle Education, Biology, Agricultural Education, Mathematics, Building Trades, Business & Information Technology, English, Instructional Technology Resources. www.pecps.k12.va.us. Prince Edward County Public Schools. Farmville, Virginia 23901. (434) 3152100. EOE HELP WANTED / DRIVERS Need CDL Drivers? Advertise your JOB OPENINGS statewide or in other states. Affordable Print and Digital Solutions to reach truck drivers. Call Landon Clark at Virginia Press Services 804-521-7576, landonc@vpa.net REAL ESTATE FOR SALE ATTN. REALTORS: Advertise your listings regionally or statewide. Print and Digital Solutions that get results! Call Landon Clark at Virginia Press Services 804-521-7576, landonc@vpa.net SERVICES DIVORCE-Uncontested, $395+$86 court cost. WILLS $150.00.

No court appearance. Estimated completion time twenty-one days. Hilton Oliver, Attorney (Facebook). 757-490-0126. Se Habla Espanol. BBB Member. https://hiltonoliverattorneyva.com.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255

TE Connectivity in Hampton, VA, is looking for a Manager Finance to manage all aspects of operational and supply chain finance for company manufacturing plants in North America.

Travel required: 20% domestic and international.

Send resume to: Rebecca Discenza, HR, 1000 Lucas Way, Hampton VA23666.

No Clipping Required.

$357

SAVINGS

ON AUTO INSURANCE when they switch from companies like

GEICO, State Farm and Allstate Your savings could be even more!

Call The Hartford 1-855-398-8975

The AARP Auto Insurance Program from The Hartford.

1

®

Saving is easy! With this policy, experienced drivers who switch save an average of $357* in the first year alone — and they get all the benefits and privileges you’d expect with the AARP Auto Insurance Program from The Hartford. Your

n 24/7 claims service n Lifetime renewability† n Lock in your rate for a full 12 months

own savings could actually be greater.

n New car replacement§§

96%

The only national auto insurance program endorsed by AARP.

of customers recommend The Hartford**

Please review the proof, make any needed c CITY OF HAMPTON If yourJune response Tuesday, 25, 2019is not received by deadli 3:00 p.m. EST-ITB 19-64/CLP Ok X______________________ Demolition Services- As Needed Basis There will be a mandatory attendance pre-bid meeting on Wednesday, June X ___________ 12th. Ok Timewith and changes location of meeting TBD.

For additional information, see our web page REMINDER: Deadline is F at http://www.hampton.gov/bids-contracts

ON AVERAGE, AARP MEMBERS ENJOY

*

1 week - May 22 $8 per word for first 20 & $.

CUO 0010145- Procurement 524 Includes Internet p HAMPTON SOLICITATION

Call The Hartford now to request a FREE money-saving quote.

A withdrawal of bid due to error shall be in accordance with Section 2.2-4330 of the Code of Virginia. All forms relating to these solicitations may be obtained from the above listed address or for further information call; (757) 727-2200. The right is reserved to reject any and all responses, to make awards in whole or in part, and to waive any informality in submittals.

Minority-Owned, Woman-Owned and Veteran Businesses are encouraged to participate.

Karl Daughtrey, Director of Finance

1-855-398-8975

EQUAL HOUSING

Not an AARP member? If you’re 50 or over, request a FREE quote and more information today!

OPPORTUNITY NOTICE

No coupon necessary.

FREE calculator when you request your free quote!*** * Savings amounts are averages based on information from The Hartford’s AARP Auto Insurance Program customers who became new auto insurance policyholders between 1/1/17 and 12/31/17 and provided data regarding their savings and prior carrier. Your savings may vary. ** Based on customer experience reviews shared online at www.thehartford.com/aarp as of November 2018. *** The gift offer is good for first time responders who provide a valid email address. Responders will be sent an email to confirm the gift. All responders in IA, IL, MA and RI who do not provide an email address are still eligible to receive the gift. The gift offer is not available in GA, ND, NM or PA, but residents may still request a quote. The gift is available only as a limited time offer. Please allow 4-7 weeks for delivery. † If you are age 50 or older, once you’re insured through this Program for at least 60 days, you cannot be refused renewal as long as applicable premiums are paid when due. Also, you and other customary drivers of your vehicles must retain valid licenses, remain physically and mentally capable of operating an automobile, have no convictions for driving while intoxicated and must not have obtained your policy through material misrepresentation. Benefit currently not available in HI, MI, NH, NC and TX. §§ Limitations apply.

AARP and its affliates are not insurers. Paid endorsement. The Hartford pays royalty fees to AARP for the use of its intellectual property. These fees are used for the general purposes of AARP. AARP membership is required for Program eligibility in most states.

The AARP Automobile Insurance Program from The Hartford is underwritten by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its affliates, One Hartford Plaza, Hartford, CT 06155. It is underwritten in CA by Hartford Underwriters Insurance Company; in WA, by Hartford Casualty Insurance Company; in MN, by Sentinel Insurance Company; and in MA, MI and PA, by Trumbull Insurance Company. Specific features, credits, and discounts may vary and may not be available in all states in accordance with state filings and applicable law. Applicants are individually underwritten and some may not qualify. The program is currently unavailable in Canada and U.S. Territories or possessions.

1In Texas, the Auto Program is underwritten by Southern County Mutual Insurance Company, through Hartford Fire General Agency. Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its affiliates are not financially responsible for insurance products underwritten and issued by Southern County Mutual Insurance Company.

006131

We are pledged to the letter and spirit of Virginia's policy for achieving equal housing opportunity throughout the commonwealth.

We encourage and support advertising and marketing programs in which there are no barriers to obtaining housing because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, elderliness, familial status or handicap.

For more information or to file a housing complaint, call the Virginia Housing Office (804) 367-8530 or (888) 551-3247.

For the hearing-impaired, call (804) 367-9753, or e-mail fairhousing@dpor.virginia.gov

Call for dental coverage today to help save money on big dental bills.

This is not just a discount plan. This is real dental insurance from Physicians Mutual Insurance Company that helps pay for over 350 procedures – cleanings, fillings, crowns, even dentures.

• No annual maximum, no deductible • See any dentist you want – including your own • Preventive care starts immediately • Over 50? Coverage as low as $1 per day

Call now to get this

FREE Information Kit 1-855-401-3274

dental50plus.com/legacy Ask about Network Savings!

Over 470,000 Provider Locations Nationwide *Individual Plan. Includes the Participating Providers and Preventive Benefits Rider. Network providers subject to change. Coverage not available in all states. Acceptance guaranteed for one insurance policy/ certificate of this type. Contact us for complete details about this insurance solicitation. This specific offer is not available in CO, NY; call 1-800-969-4781 or respond for similar offer. Certificate C250A (ID: C250E; PA: C250Q); Insurance Policy P150 (GA: P150GA; NY: P150NY; OK: P150OK; TN: P150TN) Rider kinds B438/B439 6197 AW19-1031