THE INNER-CITY NEWS

An Artist Writes His Way

By Sebastian Ward, ICN Interning Correspondent

Kulimushi Barongozi was 13 years old when he discovered that his best communication happened through visual art. Now, he's using that belief to inform his latest project, a book and art project based on collective storytelling.

An artist and educator in New Haven, Barongozi is the co-founder of the Second Floor Hardware School and a working artist in the city, where he teaches classes with Leadership, Education, Academics in Partnership (LEAP). Most recently, he has started work on Heare is a Book We Wrote by Kuli, a series of miniature stories on canvas about existing in and engaging with different spaces and environments.

“Art just fits my personality… the other jobs that exist out there, I never found any passion in them,” he said in a recent interview in his living room.

An immigrant from the Congo, Barongozi— known more often in New Haven simply as Kuli— has been making art for 20 years. As a teenager in Baltimore, he was drawn in by the routine of his high school art class, and his admiration of the students who made comics and doodles in their notebooks. There was also no language barrier: he consistently received positive feedback for the artwork he created at school, when subjects like English or math seemed more inflexible.

It made him feel more confident in

pursuing more inventive projects, he said—including and especially writing. As his English improved, Barongozi began to view assignments like essays the same way he viewed his art. He tried taking liberties, like purposely misspelling words or using incorrect grammar as a means of expression. When he received poor grades in school for taking chances with language, he continued the approach more expansively in his art practice.

Barongozi went on to major in international relations at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. It led him to study the confluence of migration and art, an interest that still appears in his work, and especially his detailed and lush portraits of family in the Congo. During those years, he also built a kind of personal belief system around art—that it was much more expansive than putting a paintbrush to canvas or linen, and was in fact a univer-

sal language, applicable across media. “If your friend invited you over to make art, what would you think of?” he mused. “Maybe painting and drawing? For me it could be anything, like movement or even cooking.”

For Barongozi, that’s even true of labels: he doesn’t go out of his way to call himself an “artist”, and only accepts the label because peers, friends and colleagues call him one. In fact, he said,

he doesn’t especially like the title, and will often deflect the question if someone asks if he’s an artist.

Although Barongozi might not call himself an artist, his apartment looks how one would expect an artist’s apartment to look. Paintings hang up on the walls and along the floor. Several stacked together against a wall liven up an already bright and eclectic space.

On the floor of Barongozi’s living room sits a giant painting, with bright hues of red, pink and blue swirling around a strong, stoic face in the center of the canvas. The face, meanwhile, is made up of an array of choppy, colorful brushstrokes, colors that form a deep brown when mixed together. There are a few more sketches of smaller faces scattered across the portrait.

It tells the stories of his family. Barongozi just recently returned to New Haven from the Congo, where he spent time working on stories and visiting family. The centerpiece of the painting is his late grandfather’s face, transmitted onto the canvas directly from his memory. His grandfather passed away shortly after he left the Congo, and the painting was a way for Barongozi to both mourn and explore memories that are very personal to him and his own lineage. The portrait also features sketches of his grandmother and some other blind faces, harkening back to his admiration of doodlers. “I always doodle on my paintings.”

Individuals of Connecticut's Colored Regiments Highlighted at New Haven Museum

New Haven, Conn. (September 21, 2023)

–In honor of Veterans Day, John Mills, an independent scholar and president of the Alex Breanne Corporation (a Connecticut-based non-profit researching the lives of the enslaved), will present “Individuals of Connecticut’s Colored Regiments” at the New Haven Museum on Thursday, November 9, 2023, at 6 p.m. The free event will also stream on FB Live.

The Militia Act of 1862 made it legal for African American men to enlist in any United States military or naval service, leading to the creation of Connecticut’s 29th Colored Infantry Regiment. During his presentation, Mills will delve into the lives and experiences of some of the men who enlisted in the 29th Rgt., explore the current understanding of them, and challenge how the nation recognizes their unique sacrifices today. Today, the 29th Rgt. is memorialized by a monument in Criscuolo Park in New Haven, in an area formerly known as Grape Vine Point, where the 29th Rgt. trained.

Among the regimental members Mills

will highlight is Isaac J. Hill, whose 1867 narrative of his experiences, “A sketch of the 29th regiment of Connecticut colored troops” is now in the Library of Congress. In his book, Hill detailed traveling to Connecticut from Pennsylvania when he heard of the “colored regiment.” He also discussed how soldiers of color were paid less than half the $16 paid to white soldiers, and the resultant push back.

A descendant of the enslaved, Mills believes a deeper understanding of history and the presentation of the personal ties of our descendants can help build bridges of understanding and create better communication. He will highlight previously unknown people and stories in the U.S. history of chattel slavery, the transatlantic slave trade, and the overall struggle for freedom. “My goal is to honor the forgotten and apply critical thinking to our history to find solutions to the ripple effects of history that we’re feeling today," he adds.

Mills’ own ancestral ties to those who fought in the Civil War spurred his inter-

est in the topic. He hopes the presentation will spark discussion and deeper thought and challenge audience perceptions. “I’d like to inspire, as well as inform,” he says. “I hope to get people talking about this topic within their own circles after they leave.”

About the New Haven Museum

The New Haven Museum has been collecting, preserving and interpreting the history and heritage of Greater New Haven since its inception as the New Haven Colony Historical Society in 1862. Located in downtown New Haven at 114 Whitney Avenue, the Museum brings more than 375 years of New Haven history to life through its collections, exhibitions, programs and outreach. As a Blue Star Museum, the New Haven Museum offers the nation’s active-duty military personnel and their families, including National Guard and Reserve, free admission all year. For more information visit http:// newhavenmuseum.org or @NewHavenMuseum or call 203-562-4183.

ArtsWestCT Finds A Home On Main Street

By Lucy Gellman

Siblings Zaneta and Aaron Nicholson walked down a long hallway just off West Haven’s Main Street, pausing to take in the artwork. Inside one frame, Kelvia Mitri-Meda danced at the water’s edge, her red skirts flapping behind her as her arms flew out to her side. In another, a young man looked out directly at the viewer, his eyes soft and understanding beside the words Every Heart Has a Story To Tell. Beside it, nine couples kissed passionately, each enclosed in their own vignette. The artworks, which comprise the exhibition Creative Economies, are a warm welcome to the new brick-and-mortar home of ArtsWestCT and Umbrella Impact, both women-run nonprofits that are sharing the lease on a 425 square foot, tworoom office space at 377 Main St. in West Haven. Helmed by Elinor Slomba and Nasiyra Clayton respectively, the organizations seek to build community in the city, one through arts and culture and the other through youth empowerment and financial literacy.

After announcing the space on Make Music Day earlier this year, the two officially cut a ribbon behind the building Tuesday afternoon. Outgoing Mayor Nancy Rossi, as well as several elected West Haven city officials and close to two dozen artists attended.

“It’s fantastic,” said ArtsWestCT President Elinor Slomba, whose quest for a permanent space is now several years in the making. Already, she and Clayton have heard from creative entrepreneurs, vendors, and artists who want to use the space for rehearsals, pop-ups, and meetings. “This feels like a win-win.”

The organizations, which are co-leasing the office for two years, arrived at 377 Main St. through a shared need for a home, and a struggle to find it. For well over a year, Slomba worked with both state and local legislators on a plan for an arts center at the old Masonic Lodge at 304 Center St., only to watch it stripped of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding and put on hold at a City Council meeting earlier this year. That put her back at square one.

Clayton, meanwhile, has long wanted a space to expand Umbrella Impact’s mission, but wasn’t sure where that might be. After starting her work out of the Christian Love Center and Barnard Environmental Science & Technology School in New Haven, she started thinking about how to open the program up to more youth. Then she met Slomba, who asked if she had ever considered West Haven. The longer the two talked, the more sharing a location made sense.

“Elinor has always been there,” Clayton said. She added that it’s a sort of homecoming: she grew up in Harlem and for years worked in New Haven, but has lived in West Haven for 18 years, close to

Slomba’s 20. “She’s like my mentor—it’s more than just a partnership. It’s a friendship and a trust.”

Creative Economies runs in the space through mid-November. Included are artists Kelvia Mitri-Meda, Day Alston, Corey Hudsonn, Ionnis, Raheem Nelson, Ellen Cochise Corso, Craig Gilbert, Elizabeth Earle Depiero, and Elaine Kolb. Tuesday, several artists, friends, and supporters echoed that excitement as they came through the space, stepping gingerly around each other as they navigated the narrow hallway and two-room office. Nicholson, a tap dancer, theatermaker and educator who met Slomba in 2020, said she’s thrilled to see the space come to life—even if it isn’t what Slomba originally had in mind.

Before reaching the offices, she and her brother Aaron took their time beside a series of framed works from West Haven artists in the hallway, soaking it all in. She burst into a smile when she reached stills from Ellen Cochise Corso’s The Kissing Project, watching as couples smooched and canoodled across the page. Aaron,

“I have a huge respect for Elinor,” he said Tuesday, standing beside a metal print of a Manhattan cocktail inspired by the Anchor Spa, and set against the twinkling lights of Central Park West. In one hand, he held a rock that Corso had painted in bands of prismatic color. “She has always been a champion of the arts, and I’m really happy to see this space open. He added that he’s touched to have one of his artworks in the space. A year and a half ago, he and his wife, the artist, advocate and clinical social worker Rahisha Bivens, moved to West Haven to be close to the water. While Nelson grew up one town over in New Haven, he and Bivens love their adopted home, he said. He often goes to the beach to draw, or to unwind after a particularly stressful day. “It’s therapeutic,” he said.

Nearby, Umbrella Impact’s Naeem Mills showed off a video he’d created for an upcoming collaboration between the West Haven Senior Center and Ora Mason Branch of the West Haven Public Library, opening to the public on October 2. As he pulled it up on his phone, fellow artists and content creators formed an impromptu huddle around him, murmurs of delight floating through the hallway as the video rolled. Every so often, a student trying to get to the driving school down the hall would careen past, taking note of the new artwork and animated chatter in their midst.

“For me, it’s beautiful to go to a place and meet different artists,” Mills said, praising both Slomba and Clayton for their work together. “Elinor, she really knows how to bring things together.”

her as a poet, singer-songwriter, activist and longtime Westie. In 1992—following the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990—Kolb and her then-partner Patti Deak moved into West Haven’s John Prete Apartments, then the only ADA-accessible housing in the city. For years, she’s dreamed about a cultural hub where artists, activists, thinkers and makers of all abilities and backgrounds are able to congregate and exchange ideas. In the absence of such a space, she’s often created them herself, rolling up to events from library talks to Memorial Day Parades to marches that unfold from West Haven to Hartford.

Three decades after moving to West Haven and over four after writing the song, “Let’s Get Together” still holds a very special place in her heart: it was the first song she wrote after sustaining a spinal cord injury in September 1977, the result of a violent stabbing that took place close to her home. To have it on display 45 years later gives her the chance to share it with a wider public.

“This song was such a gift,” she said, adding that the 30th of this month will mark her 46th “re-birthday.” At the time of her injury, Kolb spent months in the hospital, and returned to a home that seemed foreign, with 22 stairs she could barely fathom. “I had no idea how I was going to manage anything. This song was given to me as other songs are … coming to me and through me for everyone.”

who likes to draw, said he’s equally glad to see the space open.

“It’s a space, and that’s what we were fighting for and looking for,” Zaneta said.

“Just for now, we have a little home base.”

“It’s about the collaboration and the ability to meet artists,” chimed in Dabar Ratupenu, a longtime volunteer with ArtsWestCT who had appeared seemingly out of thin air behind Nicholson. He pointed to the upcoming mayoral election, in which Rossi is not seeking another term. “I just hope that whoever is in office next will help us to further this work and all these ideas [that ArtsWestCT has].”

Throughout the afternoon, Tuesday’s tone remained upbeat. There with Paige Miglio, executive director of the Milford Arts Council (MAC), artist and MAC Marketing Director Raheem Nelson buzzed through the building, pausing to take in the artworks, including one of his metal prints. After knowing Slomba for close to a decade—the two met at The Grove when it was still a coworking space in downtown New Haven—he said he was thrilled to hear about 377 Main St.

Indeed, Slomba’s greatest gift may be convening artists themselves, and making them feel welcome in the space. Inside the office’s back room, strains of Elaine Kolb’s 1978 song “Let’s Get Together” rang out across the desks and carpet, drawing attendees around a table, into chairs, and back to corners where they could stand and sing along. By the time singers had reached a third chorus, there were enough people for a small choir. On the table, a basket of candies sat like an invitation, their wrappers glimmering in the light. Beside them, a phalanx of squat water bottles, roll of blue-green ArtsWestCT stickers and large collection of multicolored yarn made the room feel homey and bright despite a basement location. While it’s intimate—Slomba has also made space for artist prints and a donated printer—Slomba and Clayton have made it work.

“This is a dream come true! And dreams really are essential,” Kolb said, wheeling out into the hallway where a framed copy of “Let’s Get Together” hung on the wall. “Things that I have been visioning for decades are finally happening.”

For Kolb, who met Slomba at “Poets Are Not A Luxury” last year, it feels momentous for both ArtsWestCT and for

“It’s been such a long time coming!” she added of both the song and the space to Slomba, wiping away tears that flowed freely. “So I guess my message to everyone is to dream big and be patient, because sometimes dreams come true.”

Following Tuesday’s ribbon cutting, Slomba said that ArtsWestCT has already heard from several older artists offering to volunteer and fundraise for the organization, as well as residents of the city’s West Shore neighborhood, a disabled artist looking for accessible space, and a cello choir “looking for a home for rehearsals.”

Sometimes, she said, the demand seems so high that she worries that ArtsWestCT has already outgrown its new space. And yet, she’s trying to focus on what she can do with what she has. Most immediately, she said, next steps include weekly meetings with Clayton, recruiting young and teenage volunteers that become regulars in the space, and centering the work of “younger, emerging leaders and artists who can benefit from the networks that have been built up over the years.”

“I am very proud of Elinor and all that she has accomplished,” Rossi said on her way out of the building, adding that she hopes to see the city assist ArtsWestCT in the weeks, months and years to come.

“No project gets off the ground without extremely hard work. Elinor is to be commended. She wasn’t going to give up, and I admire that.”

Zaneta and Aaron Nicholson.

Nasiyra Clayton and Elinor Slomba.

The new haven independent

City Steps Towards Parks Department Re-Redo

by THOMAS BREEN

The Elicker administration is moving towards a potential un-merging of the parks and public works departments — or an entirely different parks-service setup altogether — by seeking a consultant to host community conversations around how City Hall should tend its public greenspaces.

Acting Director of Parks & Public Works

Rebecca Bombero delivered that news Wednesday night during the latest monthly meeting of the Board of Park Commissioners, which was held in-person at 720 Edgewood Ave.

Bombero concluded her director’s report to the commission by noting that, this upcoming weekend, the mayor’s office will be putting out a request for proposals (RFP) for a consultant “to help think about the structure of the parks and public works departments and make a decision with community input,” and guidance from the parks commission, “so that we can chart a path forward.”

Can you elaborate on that? Parks Commissioner Harvey Feinberg asked. “The consultant will be tasked with a community engagement process to figure out the best structure of the parks and public works departments,” Bombero replied.

So, Feinberg continued, “to translate what you said, is [Mayor Justin Elicker] considering splitting” the two departments?

Yes, Bombero responded to Feinberg and to a similar question asked by fellow Parks Commissioner Kenya Adams-Martin. She said the coming consultant-led community engagement process “could lead to a reconfiguration that could be splitting, staying the same, going back to the way it used to be.”

What Bombero, Feinberg, and Adams Martin were all referring to was Mayor Elicker’s proposal and the Board of Alders’ approval more than three years ago to merge one part of the former Parks, Recreation & Trees department with the Department of Public Works, creating a new Parks & Public Works department overseen by the city’s then-longtime public works director, Jeff Pescosolido (who has subsequently retired and been replaced in an acting capacity by Bombero, who is also the city’s deputy chief administrative officer).

That same parks-public workers merger plan, which went into effect in July 2020, also saw the merger of the other part of the parks department with the Youth Services Department, to form a new Youth and Recreation Department, overseen by former youth services deputy and current department director Gwendolyn BuschWilliams.

That merger has sparked sustained pushback from parks friends groups and advocates across the city for depriving New Haven’s public greenspaces of the dedi-

cated and focused City Hall departmental attention they deserve. Throughout this year’s mayoral race, challengers to Elicker, a two-term incumbent and former community garden nonprofit leader, have repeatedly criticized the mayor for the merger — and have joined parks groups in calling for the two merged departments to be re-split.

At a pre-Democratic mayoral primary debate earlier this month, both Elicker and intra-primary challenger Liam Brennan both said “Yes” when asked if the city should undo the parks-public works

begin that work by late fall or early winter. Asked by Feinberg if the whole consultant-led process should take months to complete, or a year or more, Bombero replied, “I don’t think it would be a yearlong process.”

Adams Martin then pressed Bombero on why exactly a consultant is needed to undo the merge.

“Was a consultant hired to make this merge?” Adams Martin asked.“I think it was a decision by the mayor,” Parks Commission Chair David Belowsky said. “If no consultant was hired to make it, why we got to hire a consultant to unmake it?” Adams Martin asked.

“Because the mayor has an ego,” Belowsky answered with a smile, to laughs and a spirited response from the room. He then agreed with Adams Martin’s line of critique: “It makes no sense.”

Adams Martin turned back to Bombero to elaborate on that line of thinking. She said she likes to keep things simple. “You either have it, or you don’t. You either get it, or you can’t.”

“You either make the putt, or you miss it,” Belowsky added.

Belowsky concluded that part of the meeting by telling Bombero a message to relay to the mayor on this front.

“We feel that it should be separate,” he said about the parks and public works departments. “It hurt the morale of the parks department to put it togeher, and it probably will improve the morale if it’s separate. That’s our opinion, and you can bring it to the mayor.”

Asked on Thursday morning to elaborate on this plan to bring on a consultant to rethink the parks and public works department, Elicker said, “the goal here is to get community feedback and feedback from city staff and other stakeholders as to what opportunities may exist if we do some restructuring.”

“It’s important for us not just to focus on, ‘We need to do back to the way it was before,’ with parks and public works separate,” Elicker continued. This is instead an opportunity to “think about: Are there other opportunities here for us to improve services to our parks in the city.”

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merger. Elicker has also said publicly that he now believes the merger of parks and public works was a mistake.

On Wednesday, Adams Martin, fellow parks commissioners, and attendees at the monthly parks board meeting applauded Bombero’s remarks that the consultanthired community engagement process could lead to the re-splitting of parks and public works.

Bombero said that RFPs are generally posted for two weeks; depending on the number of respondents and reviews and interviews, a consultant could be hired to

Are there city positions that should be changed or created? “We want to do this in a thoughtful way. I think there’s an opportunity for a facilitator to help us with that process.”

Asked to respond to Adams Martin’s critique that the merger was made without a consultant, so there’s no need for a consultant to un-merge, Elicker repeated, “This is an opportunity for us to do this thoughtfully and see if there’s more opportunities come out with something even better.”

As for Belowsky’s comment about his ego, the mayor said, “Let’s not call names. We all have the same goal.”

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THOMAS BREEN PHOTO Acting Director Rebecca Bombero: Consultant-led process "could lead to a reconfiguration" of parks-public works.

Commissioner Kenya Adams-Martin and Chair David Belowsky.

Parks Commissioners Carl Babb and Harvey Feinberg.

The new haven independent

Black Western Star Hasn’t Given Up On Studio Plan

by LISA REISMAN

The scene: an out-of-the way mining town ruled by a notorious land baron. The situation: a cowboy-turned-outlaw seeking to avenge the death of his father with a bullet bearing the name of his nemesis. The upshot: posing as preacher, he learns the power of community.

It’s “Outlaw Johnny Black,” the latest release of action star Michael Jai White, otherwise known as the visionary behind Jaigantic Studios, the major movie studio seemingly poised to rise on a desolate stretch of River Street in Fair Haven before vanishing over the last year.

White’s message on “Outlaw Johnny Black,” which is now screening at Criterion Cinemas: tune in. On Jaigantic Studios: stay tuned.

The Bridgeport-raised martial artist, who wrote, directed, and starred in the project, said the inspiration for his latest film came from movies he used to watch in the 1970s.

“They had a morality and a message to them, and I felt like that’s something we’ve been missing nowadays and that’s what I wanted to do,” he said of his Spaghetti Western comedy, described on rogerebert.com as “well-crafted and funny … with a refreshing goofiness and a delightful lead.”

Of particular significance, White said, was “Buck and the Preacher,” the 1972 film starring Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and Ruby Dee, that’s generally credited with bringing Black heroes to a genre in which they had always been underrepresented.

His hope, he said, is that “youngsters see this movie and feel uplifted and also understand that the person who did this movie came from the same place. If I can do it, they can do it.”

That impulse was no different back in July 2021, when he and his team introduced Jaigantic’s plans for a complex of 25 soundstages and an array of production facilities, starting with a 50,000 square-foot building to be built on cityowned land on River Street and thousands of jobs in the offing.

“Think about what you see at the end of a movie or a TV show,” White said at a lavish “meet and greet” hosted by the legislature’s Black & Hispanic Caucus, among the efforts to drum up support for the state-of-the-art Hollywood-style “mini-major” studio, as he and his team described it, in that summer and fall.

White: Studio Is "Definitely Happening. We Just Have To Regroup"

“Start counting all the names that go up and keep going and going and going. Those are human beings. Those are all jobs that are going to be here for them.” That would include, he said at the time, not just jobs, but apprenticeships and onthe-job training opportunities that range from grip and electric to directing and producing to set design and makeup de-

sign to catering in the hospitality and food service department.

In March 2022, Jaigantic CEO Donovan De Boer and business consultant Donna Lecky presented a detailed update and overview of their plan to the city’s Development Commission.

That plan called for them to spend $200 million transforming the empty lots and abandoned factory buildings on River Street into a self-described “Creators District,” complete with the first virtual production hub in the U.S. and up to $3.1 billion in studio production revenues as well as 10,000 jobs.

“We’re really focusing on local recruitment, building a workforce here in Connecticut, keeping the youth here, training them, and putting them into very high paying union jobs,” De Boer said around that time.

City officials said they were close to finalizing a development and land disposition agreement with Jaigantic. Development Commissioner John Martin expressed enthusiasm.

“We want this to be a project that makes you excited and that helps lift up the neighborhood and the city at large with a lot of jobs that could be pathways for

people to grow in the industry,” he said. Later that month, though, the company’s memorandum of understanding signed with the city in 2021 expired with no deal in place, New Haven BIZ reported. Then came a series of delays. “We got to a point in June where there were a couple of outstanding deal points,” City Deputy Economic Development Administrator Steve Fontana told the Independent in April of this year. The city’s efforts to check back with Jaigantic in September and December 2022 went unanswered. Meanwhile, De Boer’s LinkedIn Page stated that he left his role as Jaigantic’s

CEO in October 2022. Lecky told the Independent in April 2023 that she was no longer affiliated with Jaigantic. Attempts by the Independent to reach other representatives of the Jaigantic team proved fruitless.

For his part, White sounded unfazed during a recent interview.

“It’s definitely happening,” he told this reporter. “We just have to regroup a bit.” The intention, he said, “was to shoot some movies in Connecticut. I wanted to reach into the infrastructure here. I could have brought in Hollywood backers and producers, but then it wouldn’t be a Connecticut thing. It would just be something people knew about.”

He compared it to a movie shooting on location in a particular town. “They come in as a full entity,” he said. “Local people don’t know much about it. They just know a movie came in and left. I really wanted to get the city the cities I grew up and knew and the people involved and to have the pride that it was something home-grown.”

While White allowed that he “may have to find other ways to get this done,” the hope remains for a movie studio with production facilities to give young people a sense of what they can be.

“I can’t wait to show our kids that there’s an alternate route to honor and respect and success,” said White, a former special education teacher. “It’s almost like how can we blame them if we’re not showing them anything else.”

Whether that means a “Jaigantic” studio, or one on a smaller scale, remains to be seen.

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LISA REISMAN FILE PHOTO Michael Jai White: Movie studio is “definitely happening. We just have to regroup a bit.”

The new haven independent

Growing up in the early 1990s, Thuso Mbedu never dreamt of being an entertainment figure. At a very young age, she wanted to be a dermatologist, but after taking a dramatic arts class in the 10th grade, she became interested in acting. Her acting career has earned her fame and fortune locally and internationally, rising

Possible Futures Looking Bright On Edgewood

by ALLAN APPEL

Over the course of just three days, the following all unfolded on the modest corner of Hotchkiss Street and Edgewood Avenue: A regular monthly meeting of a major local nonprofit; a happy hour for exhausted educators; three authors’ readings, and a two-hour-long neighbors’ knitting circle smack dab among the displays, plants, comfy couches, and shelf after shelf of shiny, new, colorful volumes.

Is that any way to operate a book store?

It not only is, it also is a key measure of success if your store is Lauren Anderson’s – and her community’s – Possible Futures, a cozy, living-room style book emporium and unique community-building meeting space that is marking its first anniversary at 318 Edgewood Aev. All of the above-described events, and more, took place between Thursday and Saturday last week.

“It’s a miracle to make an independent book store work in 2023,” Anderson said Saturday as she greeted guests, executed credit card transactions, offered a plate of white chocolate cookies, and readied the morning event, a reading of Winsome Bingham’s new kids’ book, The Walk, by the author herself.

Winsome’s previous book, Soul Food Sunday, was a New York TImes Best Books of the Year-award winner.

As the theme of the new book, now in its third printing, is the importance of voting, and how a little girl learns from her grandparents how the African-American community, based on Bingham’s own childhood in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,

often turns that citizens’ obligation into a joyous community event, Anderson was also tying ribbons on stacks of that volume to be presented, after the reading, to every single public library and elementary school in New Haven and Hamden.

Make that about 60 books! That’s a very good morning both for a small community bookstore, the community, and the future of local democracy.

The donors of the books – representatives of the local chapters of the NAACP and the League of Women Voters – were also among Bingham’s avid listeners. The arrangement came about through what Anderson termed “a swirl of generosity,” which was also a reflection of her vision of the store in action and her whirlwind and very considerable organizing skills.

tresses from South Africa. At 27, she was named in the 2018 Forbes Africa 30 Under 30 List, and one of the 100 Most Influential Born on July 8, 1991, at the Midlands er and Xhosa and Sotho father, she never enjoyed the care of her parents who died when she was barely four years old. She was raised by her grandmother, a very strict school principal in school and at home. Her name reflected the multicultural tribes of her parents – Thuso is a Sotho name, Nokwanda is a Zulu name, and Mbedu is Mbedu went to Pelham Primary School and Pietermaritzburg Girls’ High School watersrand in South Africa in 2013, where ing Arts Management. Earlier in 2012, she took a summer course at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City.

Career

Her acting career began in 2014 when she played a minor role of ‘Nosisa’ in the popular South African Soap Opera ‘Isibaya’ from Mzansi Magic. In 2015, she played a guest role as ‘Kheti’ in the Second Season of the SABC 2 youth drama series ‘Snake Park.’

“We call it a ‘book space’ intentionally,” said Anderson, who has a deep background as a teacher and teacher trainer, at U.C.L.A. and Connecticut College, among others, and she currently also serves as president of the New Haven Free Public Library Board.

the shelves.

“What’s here are primarily books by authors from groups who have been historically under-represented in publishing and on public shelves [schools, libraries, bookstores]: Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Queer, and Bilingual people,” she said.

There’s also what Anderson termed an “intentional curation” reflecting people in the neighborhood, where she has been living for the past six years. (And that’s also important, she said, for a white person like herself to have street cred enough to operate such a store.)

As the neighborhood includes, Anderson went on, a growing number of refugees, so there are lots of books on that theme too, on migration, labor, and housing, and the store partners, as reflected in the NAACP/League of Women Voters’ event, with other nonprofits that work to advance these issues.

‘Black Reel Awards’ (Outstanding Actress – TV Movie / Limited Series), the ‘Hollywood Critics Association TV Awards’ (Best Actress in a Limited Series, Anthropology Series or Television Movie), the ‘Gotham Awards’ (Outstanding Performance in New Series), the ‘Hollywood Critics Association TV Awards’ (TV Breakout Star), and the ‘Critics Choice Television Awards’ (Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Movie), all for her role ‘Cora Randall’ in the 2021 TV series ‘The Underground Railroad.’

So while it is a miracle to make an indy bookstore work these days, it is, as Anderson continued multi-tasking and graciously chatting with a reporter, “also not a miracle. We’re very busy, not in [from out of the area] foot traffic,” as Edgewood is a decidedly non-commercial but residential corridor, “but in [local] groups meeting.”

She won the ‘TV Breakout Star’ award from the Hollywood Critics Association TV and won the ‘Outstanding Performance in New Series’ award from the Gotham Awards.

“People want a place to go, to do things that are important to them, to gather,” and to feel reflected in the books on

She got her first starring role in the teen drama television series ‘IS’THUNZI’ from Mzansi Magic where she played ‘Winnie.’ Her international debut was in ‘The Underground Railroad’ an American fantasy historical drama series based on the novel ‘The Underground Railroad’ written by Colson Whitehead.

In 2022, she starred in her first film ‘The Woman King’ an epic historical drama about Agosie, where an entire female warrior unit protected the West African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 17 – 19th century. She played ‘Nawi’, a zealous recruit in the military unit.

In 2017, Mbedu was nominated for the ‘DSTV Viewers Choice Awards’ and the ‘International Emmy Awards for the ‘Best Performance by an Actress’ for her role ‘Winnie Bhengu’ in the 2016 -2017 television drama series ‘IS’THUNZI.’

In 2018, she won the ‘South African Film and Television Awards’ for ‘ Best Actress – TV Drama’ for her role ‘Winnie Bhengu’ in the 2016 -2017 television drama series ‘IS’THUNZI.’ She was also nominated for the ‘International Emmy Awards for ‘Best Performance by an Actress’ for her role ‘Winnie Bhengu’ in the television drama series ‘IS’THUNZI.’

In 2021, she was nominated for the ‘Television Critics Association Award’ (Individual Achievement in Drama), the

“And they often request and propose their own events,” as local community gardening activist (and former Whalley/Beaver Hills Community Management Team chair), Nadine Horton, was the mover-and-shaker behind the newly formed knitting group.

“The events are really helpful. They

In 2022, Mbedu was nominated for the ‘Independent Spirit Awards (Best Female Performance in a New Scripted Series), for her role ‘Cora Randall’ in the 2021 television series ‘The Underground Railroad.’ She won the ‘Critics Choice Television Awards’ for ‘Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Movie’ for her role ‘Cora Ran-

er Women Summit, Thuso Mbedu tearfully spoke of how she overcame the loss of her dear parents, grandmother, and aunt. But her role in Amanda Lane’s ‘IS’THUNZI’

da Lane happened in 2016. The role that Amanda Lane gave me was the difference ing that audition brief, I told myself that tion. I gave it the last of everything that I had, that at the time I got the callback, I had nothing left. I secretly made the decision ing left to give. But fortunately, I received cause the role was mine. I had given up. I was in a very dark place at the time, and the character, the role, the opportunity, was a much needed light. And I told myself that I will act as if it was the last character that I will play. And through a great script and tional Emmy Awards for that role…”

Thuso Mbedu. Photo -IOL

Anderson and Bingham surrounded by Hamden School Superintendent Gary Highsmith and NAACP chapter chair Dorie Dumas

The new haven independent

In "Unbecoming Tragedy," An Artist's Life Journey

By Lucy Gellman

In one universe, a young Terrence Riggins is up against two school bullies, about to receive a beating when a miracle happens. From down the hall, his middle school crush comes running, begging them to stop. Her arms glide through the air, and even in a fog of fear, she is perfection. Riggins holds his breath. She's matter-of-fact: Don't beat up a kid who was good in the school play. He exhales. Back in the present, the light shifts, and Riggins steps forward. Around him are the bare bones of a solitary cell. "Acting didn't get me the girl, but it definitely saved my ass," he says. There's a beat. "Maybe it can save my life."

The sheer and persistent power of theater—and its ability to show up as a source of salvation—sits at the wildly beating heart of Unbecoming Tragedy, an autobiographical play from writer and performer Terrence Riggins that is now growing its roots in New Haven. In roughly 60 minutes, it tells the story of Riggins' life and long relationship with the stage, leaning into all the complexities of being human, Black, male, and an artist in a country that still has not made space for those intersecting identities to soar. Last weekend, a workshopped performance from Collective Consciousness Theatre (CCT) and Long Wharf Theatre (LWT) landed at Bregamos Community Theater for two nights only. Directed by Cheyenne Barboza with assistance from Finn Wiggins-Henry and Valerie Badjan, the work doubled as a testament to not only Riggins' tight and affecting writing, but also the importance of theater as a form of healing and of education. Further performances in the community have yet to be announced.

"I felt that I could not move forward in my theater career or my acting career if I did not write this play," Riggins said in a phone interview before hours of rehearsal. "I cast myself in the story of my life. I've done other people's plays, I've done other people's projects, but I've never done my own. I'm not afraid of serious catharsis and gravitas and pathos. And I had to use my life and my vulnerability in order to achieve that."

"This is not a solo show," he added. "This is a play. It's also a ritual."

And it is. Conceived when Riggins was in solitary at the Cheshire Correctional Facility several years ago, the work begins and ends in a single cell, the playwright constantly blurring the lines between perception and reality, the way one's mind can bend sometimes, and break at others. In between, he tells the story of his life in lyrical, sometimes raw and unflinching detail, allowing moments to shift in and out of focus so often that they melt into each other.

For instance: early in the show, his present becomes an affecting fade into his past, jumping between decades with quick, crisp rhythm. As the actor enters

the cell and lays his body down, sleeping fitfully, he mutters in his sleep, drawing the audience in close to listen to his half-conscious ramblings. Around him, the set is minimal—a bed, sink, tube of toothpaste and floor where he works out fanatically. So when he wakes and begins speaking to a grayscale portrait of his mother, something falls right into place. Moving from the bed to the floor to a sink, he turns the clock back to a childhood in 1960s Los Angeles, where he spent his youth learning among Black nationalists. Riggins has a gift for clear language—"I was a boy, once," he says with the same weight that one might deliver a cancer diagnosis—and listers can see siblings dressed in dashikis, a young Terrence learning Swahili and West African dance as he moves through a world. It's here that one can also feel a tension rising, between Riggins the will-be actor, the empathic artist, and Riggins as the threat the white world already perceives him to be (or in his words, "becoming tragedy"). Jump forward, and the Black revolutionaries he looked to are dead, leaving him grappling with a system that is broken. Forward again, and he's discovered Joe Turner's Come and Gone in an L.A. prison, suddenly aware of the mesmerizing power of August Wilson's words. Forward once more, and his daughter is born while he is playing Caesar Wilks in Gem Of The Ocean.

That his heartache and his joy live side by side is part of the performance. Often, he is rocketed back to the present, in dialogue with the cell. Each time, it brings the audience back to a sort of harsh reminder of the world that is (overly punitive, especially of those who are Black and male before they are human) rather than the world that could be (restorative

and rehabilitative, rather than a literal cage).

It's this that makes the show so immediate, using theater as a vehicle to amplify both memory and the splintered system in which Riggins and his audience live. "Well damn brick face!" he says at one point, and the audience can see the smallness of the cell, the way its design is meant to feel like it is closing in on a body. "You just became my fourth fucking wall!"

What makes Unbecoming Tragedy stand out is Riggins' ability to marry matter-offact storytelling with deep feeling, tight and cheeky lyricism, and a physically powerful performance. From L.A. to New York City, from parochial school to his father's passing, he works through vignettes of his life, always returning to theater as a level set and an unmatched balm.

Sometimes, he is Riggins but he is also Othello, wronged by both Iago and the world. Sometimes, he is Riggins but also Paul Robeson, collapsing decades of struggle in a few single verses of "Ol' Man River." Sometimes he is Riggins and also Herald Loomis, trying to find his way in a country built by stolen people on stolen land.

Sometimes, he is just Riggins, and he is just surviving. It has the intended effect: his art and his life are often porous, flowing in and out of each other until they have become intractably tethered.

The writing, paired with an intensely physical performance, carries the show. Riggins is a master of narrative, with an ability to knit humor, storytelling and verse that feels rare and sacred (he has studied Wilson's work meticulously, and it shows). His descriptions are not only evocative but often poetic (describing a

Riggins at Bregamos Community Theater. Lucy Gellman Photos.

Opinion: Too Few Teachers, Too Many Admins

by MAX BAKKE

We are nearly a month into the new school year and here in New Haven there are still 80 teacher vacancies, according to the district’s website.

So much ink has been spilled already about quitting teachers, and here is more evidence that the current crisis will not abate anytime soon. Here, the district even hired dedicated staff to fix this issue. Still, the vacancies remain.

But you know where there aren’t any vacancies? In administration. If you look at the school’s job page, there are only two administrator vacancies: one generic posting and the one for principal at Hillhouse High School after the current guy quit.

This school district seems to have no problem hiring and retaining administrators. The same district that is repelling teachers and other staff.

New Haven employs over 100 administrators for 20,000 students spread across about 40 schools. That’s compared to about 1,500 teachers, 40 counselors and 20 librarians. A quarter of those admin work in the central office, according to the most recent available school profiles. The school budgets $16 million for administrators, which makes up a little more than ten percent of the total salary obligations. While relatively small compared to the school’s total spending, it’s still more than the $6 million stolen from the buses this summer.

In 2018’s Bullshit Jobs, late anthropologist David Graeber warns of a growing managerial and administrative class that is becoming increasingly alienated from the people who make, move, maintain and fix things. The work he described as having “social value.” Like teachers,

counselors, and librarians.

Graeber saw the expansion of this expensive managerial class as the workers underneath them became increasingly stressed and burned out. This phenomena should be alarming to school districts like ours which are battling scarcity annually.

Starting salaries for an assistant principal and a principal at New Haven schools are $124,000 and $154,000, respectively. The average administrator makes three times what the average teacher makes. And what do we have to show for that money?

In New Haven, students aren’t coming to school. The ones that do say they’re not receiving an equal education. Their buildings are filthy and falling apart. And they

don’t receive the supports they need to thrive and grow. Many sit in classrooms without teachers.

The students who go to school in New Haven deserve teachers. More than that, they deserve teachers who are respected, valued and appreciated.

In addition to cost, Graeber wrote that this administrative class made up of flunkies, box-tickers, paper-pushers and taskmasters also hold a “simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value.” So these middle-managers, who take a large role in the hiring and evaluation of teachers, also harbor a deep-seated hostility toward those same employees.

When the teachers union surveyed teachers about retention, after pay a whopping half of teachers identified unhelpful administration and hostile workplace culture as reasons for quitting. One in five said merely “competent administrators” would improve their working conditions. This is especially problematic here because a significant number of New Haven’s current teachers have fewer than four years experience which means their job security is non-existent. These teachers need support and are most vulnerable to this dynamic.

We also have anecdotal abuses of power, like the highly publicized case of the principal who was only reassigned – not dismissed – from her school to central of-

fice after using the N-word.

Ultimately this leaves us with an expensive and possibly bloated managerial class of admin that aren’t very good at their jobs and are causing static with its teachers.

If districts wish to continue hacking away at this hydra that is the teaching crisis, they don’t have to look past beyond the buildings where these teachers work. To the district’s credit, they tried to address the pay issue. But there’s more to be done.

The answer won’t be to simply churn through new teachers until there aren’t any more. That’s already happening. The New York Times reported last week that people aren’t going into teaching anymore.

So it can’t hurt to look at this class of managers and explore some changes. I don’t profess to know where to cut, but I’m sure we can bring the number of these positions down to a more manageable level, and instead have more staff who have direct contact with students. And we can start expecting administrators to take on duties at other schools, like their colleagues already do. We can also separate administrators from the teacher evaluation process or create independent ombudspeople to mediate disputes. Let’s get creative, people.

Because if we have conditions in this city that are pushing members of our school communities out in droves, but not others, my only conclusion is either these people are either benefiting from these conditions, or simply compensated well enough to put up with them.

Max Bakke is a creative writing teacher who lives in New Haven.

Trailblazer Gala Grows A Dazzling And Diasporic Footprint

By Lucy Gellman

Azaria Samuels came to celebrate crosscultural connection with an extended family that has made New Haven home. Kenechia Daley knew it would be a party, and wanted to give back to a community that has given her so much. Shamar Wilson saw it as a moment to share with his New Haven aunties, who provided a safe place to land when he least expected it. And for Jamaican politician Lisa Hanna, it was a chance to talk about health equity and the strength in a diaspora.

Saturday, they were among hundreds who braved the rain to fête the Jamaican American Connection (JAC) at the Omni New Haven Hotel, as the organization held its twelfth Annual Trailblazer & Scholarship Gala in the building’s second-floor ballroom. Honoring attorneys

Wendy A. Clarke and Andrew Crumbie, the gala raised funds for JAC’s annual scholarship program, which since 2010 has supported over 50 young people of Jamaican and Caribbean descent pursuing higher education.

This year, scholarship recipients include University of Connecticut senior Aaliyah Kerr, Albertus Magnus junior Shamar Wilson, Dartmouth College sophomore Olivia O’Connor, University of New Haven student Kayce Hanlan, and University of San Diego student Isaiah Moore.

“ Our national motto, ‘Out of many, one people,’ is based on Jamaica’s multiracial roots, and as America strives to move toward a culture of greater inclusion and diversity, we only have to look to Jamaica to see how this is accomplished ” said Dr. Camelia Lawrence, a breast surgeon

with Hartford Healthcare who served as this year’s gala chair. “Make no mistake about it. Jamaica was ahead of its time in teaching the world that every voice is important!”

She looked to the country’s coat of arms, which celebrates both the Indigenous Taíno people who were Jamaica’s first inhabitants and the island’s claim to the pineapple, of which it grows multiple varieties (its national fruit, Ackee, has its roots in West Africa). Before Spanish colonizers arrived in 1509, the Taíno called the island Xaymaca, which translates from Taíno-Arawak to “land of wood and water.”

In the four centuries since, its culture has included Spanish, West African, British and Indigenous Caribbean influenc-

PAUL BASS FILE PHOTO At a March 2022 rally for fully funded schools.

Janice Hart, Dr. Sherene Mason, and 2022 Honorary Jamaican Markeshia Ricks.

Arts Council of greater New Haven Read More at theinnercitynews.com

B u i l d i n g B e t t e r F u t u r e s ( B B F ) p r e p a r e s y o u n g a d u l t s , a g e s 1 6 - 2 4 , f o r t o d a y ’ s w o r k f o r c e t h r o u g h a n i n n o v a t i v e a n d h a n d s - o n p r o g r a m .

D e s i g n e d t o e n h a n c e j o b - r e a d i n e s s , t h e B B F p r o g r a m w i l l t e a c h m o d e r n e m p l o y a b i l i t y s k i l l s a n d e m p o w e r y o u n g a d u l t s o n t h e i r c a r e e r j o u r n e y s .

P r o g r a m p a r t i c i p a n t s w i l l h a v e t h e o p p o r t u n i t y t o g a i n s k i l l s t r a i n i n g a n d d i r e c t e m p l o y e r a c c e s s i n s e v e r a l r a p i d l y g r o w i n g s e c t o r s l i k e t r a n s p o r t a t i o n , h e a l t h c a r e , c o n s t r u c t i o n , a n d m a n u f a c t u r i n g

Year of return: Black Americans speak on moving back to Africa

Courtesy of The Afro, by Aria Brent, AFRO Staff Writer

Ghana declared 2019 the Year of Return and invited people of African descent throughout the world to celebrate the collective resistance of those who suffered through the transatlantic slave trade.

The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) created the Year of Return to build more traction around Ghana as a key travel destination for African Americans and people of the African Diaspora. According to TheAfricanReport.com, approximately 1.13 million people visited Ghana in 2019 following the announcement of the movement. Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, also granted citizenship to people of the African diaspora willing to move to the country.

“Black and Brown people, we continue to be marginalized,” stated Rhea Roper Nedd, Ph.D., who works to expand diversity in the Baltimore County area. “We continue to be underrepresented in society as a whole. Racially and ethnically in educational spaces and in professional spaces. It was very important for me to find a country in which the students will no longer be [marginalized] as they enter, especially the students of color.“

Nedd has a background in diversity, equity and inclusion and has been hosting and curating an annual trip for her students to visit Ghana since 2016. Nedd explained that she began to take students to Ghana to diversify their options for studying abroad and to provide Black and Brown students the opportunity to travel somewhere that doesn’t make them feel unseen.

Nedd shared some of the activities that she and her students participated in during their trip. She explained that getting the chance to not only experience but learn about Ghanaian culture is a vital part of the trip.

“We take a class at the University of Ghana, which is in East Legon. We have a workshop on African dance and African drumming,” explained Nedd. “[We learn about] the symbolism of the drums, the symbolism of the role of the drums and how it is that various communities communicated for long distances with each other through drumming.”

In addition to the warm hospital-

Barbara Oteng Gysai, Minister of Tourism, Art and Culture in Ghana, encourages African Americans to return to the Motherland. (Courtesy photo)

ity, Ghana’s ever growing economy seems to be attracting more tourists and even new residents.

Zik and his wife Jerri visited Ghana in 1973 as a part of their six-week honeymoon to West Africa. The couple has been wanting to move to Ghana for a while and the Year of Return further motivated them to move.

“We’ve been considering [moving] for many years and the time is right to go back to the motherland,” said Zik Stewart.”There’s a great need back there but there’s a great opportunity as well. We in the diaspora, we bring a lot to the motherland.”

Jerri Stewart added that “the people from Ghana are so warm and welcoming, they’re known for their hospitality.”

The Stewarts and Nedd recognize that Ghana is a nation that is well established all the while having so much room for further development and growth. Helping the people of Ghana and giving back to the local communities is a major part of their agendas.

“We’re looking to make a change, a contribution if you will to the nation of Ghana and the continent of Africa. Ghana is only 66-years-old, and as far as nation building goes, they’ve got the land and the people, and those of us from [the] diaspora bring capital and skill,” explained Zik Stewart.

Partnering with local organizations to provide service for the people of Ghana is one of the main purposes for the trip Nedd and her students make. She shared the service initiatives not being directed by them as students but the people of Ghana is something they’re always mindful of.

“There’s so much service that can occur,” shared Nedd. “I was able to identify various partnerships with communities in Ghana. Those relationships are so meaningful because it’s a relationship that has been developed so that it’s not directed by a U.S. mindset and where we, the students, are working together with people in the communities.”

To learn more about the year of the return and the nation of Ghana, visit yearofreturn.com and Ghanaembassydc.org

Con’t from page 06

bring people to a place that is off a commercial strip,” Anderson said. “People come and tend to come back and that balances out the non-high traffic area. We’re mostly driven by local people and their contacts”

And also very much by reader-centered events and what readers want, especially young readers. Case in point: the children of Jenny Heikkila Diaz, ten-year-old Magdalena and seven-year-old Gabriela. “Except for paying bills, I spend all my money here,” said Diaz as her daughters cuddled with her on the comfortable white sofa facing the Edgewood side of the store, and Magdalena read from Winsome Bingham’s The Walk – and continued reading the book, following the author, intently, word-for-word as she read. Earlier this year, Diaz reported, when the girls became interested in the work of up-and-coming author Debbi Michiko Florence (Just Be Cool, Jenna Sakai), Anderson arranged for Florence to give a reading at Possible Futures. Anderson attended to the preparation and details, but guess who interviewed the author? Magdalena and Gabriela.

“I plan meetings here, I meet people, I meet new people. Lauren brings people together,” Diaz added. “She doesn’t center herself. Yet she’s indispensable to the centering of others.”

Anderson estimates often two formal events a week are occurring, sometimes two a day.

And during the store’s first year Anderson guesstimates more than 50 events unfolded in the charming, well-lit, living room style space, frequently overflowing both with kids and, to use a favorite Anderson term, “book joy.”

Motioning to the many plants (largely donated and cared for my patrons — “I have no green thumb!” —) and an equal number of word-filled inspirational posters decorating the store walls (James Baldwin, Amanda Gorman, Malcolm X), Anderson declared, “Things grow here.” Have we mentioned the “Book Joy Fund”?

That’s another initiative at the store.

It came about, Anderson recalled, in the early weeks of Possible Futures being open when Babs Rawls-Ivy (a WNHH radio show host and editor of Inner City News) was there and overheard a young family discussing among themselves how they wanted to buy several books on the shelves but couldn’t afford to do so.

“I’d like to buy books for you today,” Anderson recalled Rawls-Ivy offering, and thus the fund was formed.

Zik and his wife Jerri are moving to Ghana decades after their 1973 honeymoon to the West African country. (Courtesy photo)

Black youths suffer the most from gun violence in America

By Hazel Trice Edney, TRICE EDNEY NEWSWIRE

Sierra Jenkins, a former news assistant for CNN and reporter with the Virginian Pilot newspaper, was headed for the peak of her career. Her colleagues praised her for her journalistic acumen and her respect for reporting excellence. But when her editor called her to assign her to cover a shooting in downtown Norfolk, Va., on March 19 last year, he could get no answer way out of character for this young journalist, known for her professionalism and accountability. But, there would be a reason for her nonresponse that would shock the world. The 25-year-old was one of the victims of the very shooting that her editor sought her to cover.

As her phone rang, she lay dead outside a popular pizza restaurant, felled by a bullet shot during an argument over a spilled drink. She was not involved in the dispute and the bullet was never intended for her. Nor was it intended for 25-year-old former high school honor student and football linebacker Devon Harris, also killed in the gunfire that night. The news devastated the community, their co-workers, family and friends.

Fifteen months later, on June 6 this year, and only about 90 miles away from that popular pizza place, 18-year-old Shawn Jackson was also a promising young African American taken too soon. Having just graduated from Huguenot High School 30 minutes earlier, he lay dead outside Richmond’s Altria Theatre alongside his stepfather, Renzo Smith, a U.S. Army veteran. Both were killed by bullets from a gun wielded by a 19-year-old man who targeted the two men, according to police. Whether the shootings were unintended or criminally intended for their victims, across the nation coast to coast Black people are disproportionately dying, being wounded by or mentally suffering from gun violence. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leading cause of death among America’s Black children and young adults ages 1-44 is homicide by firearms.

Amidst this crisis, sociologists, Black mental health experts and medical workers say one thing is certain: The travesty has taken its toll on Black mental health largely through fear, stress and grief while the gun industry is reaping billions of dollars.

“The volumes of guns are now so high that many people just use a gun to solve conflict when even that person might have tried something different in the past,” says psychiatrist Rahn Kennedy Bailey, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Louisiana State University in New Orleans. “Our streets have been flooded with guns, a lot of guns. Where people have always had conflicts and had to resolve it in different ways, now they might grab you and shoot you…. The sheer volume of guns is so high, a lot more violence happens.”

According to a report by the Center for American Progress, between 1986 and 2008, an average of 3.8 million firearms were manufactured in the United States.

The report titled, “The Gun Industry in America: The Overlooked Player in a National Crisis,” then illustrates the rapid annual growth of gun proliferation. The 3.8 million between 1986 and 2008 “doubled to an annual average of 8.4 million firearms per year from 2009 to 2018,” the most accurate recent count by the ATF.

In the year 2022 alone 4.2 million people in America became new gun owners, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearm industry’s trade association. In a report , the NSSF estimates “in 2022 the firearm and ammunition industry was responsible for as much as $80.73 billion in total economic activity” in America. This does not count the thousands of so-called “ghost guns,” weapons not traceable because they are purchased secretly online or even made at home.

The compilations of resulting deaths have come from multiple directions. An NBC News analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, “More Americans have died from gunshots in the last 50 years” than in all of the wars in American history.

“Since 1968, more than 1.5 million Americans have died in gun-related incidents. By comparison, approximately 1.2 million service members have been killed in every war in U.S. history,” according to estimates from the Department of Veterans Affairs and iCasualties.org.

Everytown.org, a gun violence prevention organization, reports that Black people “experience 12 times the gun homicides, 18 times the gun assault injuries, and nearly 3 times the fatal shootings by police of White Americans.” But, the disparate impact on the Black community is not new. It has been long known by experts that African Americans just as in the cases of most other tragic social statistics bear the brunt of the pain of gun violence physically, mentally and emotionally; gun violence even dramatically affects educational outcomes such as test scores, experts said.

A study, led 20 years ago by Hampton University endowed professor Zina T. Mcgee, concluded: “Studies based on children raised in communities in which violence occurs have shown that direct encounters with violence (either as a victim or witness) increase the likelihood of experiencing anxieties, depression, social withdrawal, and difficulties in concentrating.”

Based on information collected from African-American youth “residing in areas plagued with violence and crime,” Mcgee’s 2003 study states, “With regard to social class, research indicates that low socio-economic status serves as one of the many environmental factors that can contribute to the use of violence to resolve conflicts.”

Despite credible conclusions that most gun-related homicides occur in low-income Black communities, it is clear that without the proliferation of guns the shootings would not be possible.

Dr. Valda Crowder, director of emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Harrisburg, Pa., witnesses the carnage up close on a regular basis.

And it’s gotten so bad that while treating victims, she and other medical professionals must also protect themselves.

“Many emergency departments now have armed guards because there have been threats against emergency medicine physicians, nurses and hospitals. There have been actual shootings where emergency medical physicians were killed,” Crowder said in an interview. “So many now have armed guards as a result of the increased threats. Many also have machines that you have to go through just like the airport and metal detectors. Patients are sometimes wanded. Those things used to never occur 20 or 25 years ago. I think people should realize that any person or entity that anyone could get mad at is a potential victim.”

Crowder is among those struggling to end the carnage. Among a list of unique initiatives to end gun violence include the following:

• Crowder recalls how the historic photo of the mutilated body of Emmett Till, published in JET magazine, stunned the world and has been credited with sparking the modern day civil rights movement.

Crowder believes that same kind of stun-

ing handed a firearm. However, these same people can go to a gun show and purchase a firearm without any background check.

“Virginia laws are among the worst in the country,” he added, describing the commonwealth as the “gun-running capital of the world.”

• Scott says an assault weapons ban must be instituted because “the only thing that assault weapons are good for is killing many people quickly.” He said there is also a need for sizable gun magazine limitations. There are actually limitations on the size of a gun magazine to protect ducks but no limits on the size of gun magazines to protect people, he said.

• After a rash of mass shootings, including the racist killings of 10 people at a Buffalo, N.Y. grocery store by a 19-yearold White man, the U. S. House and Senate finally passed a historic bipartisan gun bill that was signed into law by President Joe Biden on July 11 last year. The first significant gun legislation in more than 30 years, it includes enhanced restrictions on gun ownership by people convicted of certain violent crimes, including domestic abuse. But, it still fails to include restrictions on large bullet magazines. In fact, a similar racist killing of three Black people in Jacksonville, Fla., on Aug. 26 was by a 21-year-old White man, who reportedly bought the AR-15-style rifle legally. Biden said he didn’t get all that he wanted in the new law, but he vowed to keep trying.

Still, good old-fashioned home training that instills non-violent morals and values is the best way to deter violence, says Bailey.

ning moment could work again by placing on display bodies that have been mutilated by gun violence. “In 1955, the open-casket funeral of Emmett Till drew international attention to the savagery of Jim Crow segregation, spurring a national civil rights movement,” Crowder wrote in an op-ed early this year. “Now almost 68 years later, we must ‘do something’ to stop the gun violence. Opening the casket of someone who was shot by an assault rifle in a mass shooting may be the shock the nation needs. It may be the photograph that launches a bigger, broader movement overwhelming the clout of gun manufacturers and other entrenched influences.”

• U. S. Rep. Bobby Scott, who held a Gun Violence Prevention Roundtable in 2019 following an incident in which 13 people were killed in a mass shooting, listed a string of Virginia killings and gun injuries near the area where Sierra Jenkins and Devon Harris were killed. “We have evidence available to show that effective policies can reduce these shootings,” Scott says. “When they are implemented, background checks work. Every day, background checks stop nearly 250 dangerous individuals from be-

“The respect for life, how your parents raised you matter. If you believe human beings are valuable you wouldn’t shoot someone at all, let alone shoot them for a nonviolent offense,” Bailey said. “But in many shootings now that are not self-defense or life or death, people are said to have a beef over something that’s non-violent and the person escalates it to violence by grabbing a gun and shooting someone.”

Parents, teachers and school officials could be in on this training in conflict resolution, Bailey says.

“Children are on the playground bumping into each other all the time. How teachers and counselors handle it goes a long way in teaching a little kid that it’s normative to jump around and bump into each other. But it’s not normative to bump into each other and knock them down and not try to help them or try to offer them assistance. Those are the kinds of things that start the process. The other thing is you can also do role play of arguments so that young people can recognize what you should and should not say in the middle of a really big argument. Young men are often 18, 19, 20 years old so they can drive and move around. They just may not know how to handle conflict. We should be very involved in this process.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leading cause of death among America’s Black children and young adults ages 1-44 is homicide by firearms. (

Photo by Jose Alonso on Unsplash)

One of America’s Cultural Treasures, Ballet Hispánico brings communities together to celebrate and explore Latino cultures through dance for over 50 years.

Photo Credit: Steven Pisano

Sickle Cell Disease in the Classroom

By BlackHealthMatters.Com

About 100,000 people in the United States live with sickle cell disease—most of them African American. But every baby born here is tested for sickle cell disease at birth. This helps doctors start treatment as early as possible.

Children typically don’t show symptoms until they’re between six and 12 months old. Babies’ red blood cells have a different type of hemoglobin, called fetal hemoglobin. As they grow, the body switches to producing adult hemoglobin. Then, the sickling cycle begins.

A normal red blood cell lives for around three to four months. But in people with sickle cell disease, the cells usually live for just two to three weeks. This leads to anemia, a condition in which blood has low amounts of red blood cells or hemoglobin. Anemia lowers oxygen in the body, which can cause fatigue, dizziness and headaches.

Pain is another common symptom. It can be so severe that people end up in the hospital. These pain episodes are called a sickle cell crisis, and they can disrupt sufferer’s lives. For children, that means missing school.

Allison King, M.D., an NIH-funded sickle cell specialist at Washington University in St. Louis, discusses the repercussions of these challenges:

People with sickle cell disease—even children—have a higher than normal risk of stroke. What other challenges can sickle cell disease pose to the developing brain?

King: Both overt and silent strokes can harm the brain. But we’ve also realized there are some children who haven’t had a stroke who also have a lot of trouble in school. Now we know things like lower oxygen levels in the blood can also be associated with cognitive challenges. It’s also very stressful on the central nervous system to be chronically anemic. Plus, inflammation from the disease can be a challenge to the brain as well. How can these things potentially affect children’s education?

King: People with sickle cell disease can have more challenges in the way that they think, learn and remember. They tend to have weaknesses with fluid cognition. This is how you process and respond to a stimulus. So, how well can you remember things? How fast do you respond to tasks? Can you multitask? Can you remember

multi-step commands? Kids with sickle cell disease may remember one step, then get really flustered about what to do next. What can schools do to support children with sickle-cell disease?

King: One of the things we’ve been pushing for is to try to make sure kids have

cognitive assessments completed while they’re still in the pediatric medicine setting. With that, there are several things that can happen in the school system. For example, if we find out kids have delayed processing speed, they can get accommodations in school. So, if they’re taking

standardized tests, timed tests, they can get extra time. Or with other cognitive challenges, the way the material is presented can be broken down into simpler steps. Federal law supports that under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. And all kids who have sickle cell disease have a right to access those accommodations. Not all families know that. But accommodations can be a game changer. We’ve had a lot of really bright kids who’ve gone on to university, and even law school or medical school. Is there still a misconception in schools that kids with sickle cell disease will die young?

King: That is so sad and true. I remember meeting with a high school counselor for one of my teenage patients who was trying to set up a learning plan. And that counselor was well intentioned, but she said, ‘your patient is so sweet, but we know she’s only going to live to 25, so we’ve just been passing her in her classes.’ And I had to say no, no, no, no. The average lifespan may have only been in the mid-20s back in the 1970s, but that’s not true anymore. We need to make this mind shift not only in the field of medicine, but out in the community.

U.S. Resumes Free COVID Test Program, Here’s How to Get Them

by Jessica Daniels, BlackDoctor.org

Americans will once again be able to get free at-home COVID tests.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Wednesday that it will spend $600 million to buy and offer the tests, produced by 12 domestic manufacturers, and it will begin accepting orders for those tests on Monday through covidtests.gov.

“The Biden-Harris Administration, in partnership with domestic manufacturers, has made great strides in addressing vulnerabilities in the U.S. supply chain by reducing our reliance on overseas manufacturing,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in an agency news release. “These critical investments will strengthen our nation’s production levels of domestic at-home COVID-19 rapid tests and help mitigate the spread of the virus.”

Households that order will receive four free tests. This plan will not only get tests in the hands of people in case of another COVID surge, but it will also increase domestic manufacturing capacity, officials noted.

Manufacturers can sell tests directly to retailers, rather than the government, if there is significant demand for them, said Dawn O’Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the HHS.

RELATED: It’s Time to Start Preparing Against Flu, RSV & COVID-19 The government’s investment will pay for about

200 million tests to replenish the country’s stockpile, the HHS said.

Free tests have been previously offered at other times during the pandemic, including from early 2022 through summer of that year and from late 2022 until the spring of 2023.

The government is also encouraging Americans to get the new COVID boosters.

Becerra received his COVID and flu shots publicly on Wednesday, the New York Times reported.

“I feel comfortable, having gotten the shots, that I could hug and kiss my mother and not be responsible for getting her sick,”

Becerra said, adding that, “No one is safe

until everyone is safe.”Becerra’s mom is about to turn 90.

All Americans starting as young as six months old should get at least one dose of the new boosters from Pfizer or Moderna, according to the the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

COVID hospitalizations have been increasing, but are low compared to some earlier parts of the pandemic, the Times reported. Tips for taking at-home COVID tests Taking at-home COVID-19 tests can be a convenient way to monitor your health and detect potential infections. Here are some tips for taking at-home COVID-19 tests effectively and accurately:

1 Read the Instructions Thoroughly: Before you begin, carefully read the instructions provided with the test kit. Each brand may have specific procedures and requirements.

2 Gather Supplies: Ensure you have all the necessary supplies ready, including the test kit components, a timer, tissues, and hand sanitizer.

3 Choose the Right Time: Take the test at the appropriate time. For some tests, it’s recommended to wait a specific number of days after exposure or when you develop symptoms. Follow the guidelines provided.

4 Wash Your Hands: Start by thoroughly washing your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Dry your hands with a clean towel.

5 Create a Clean Testing Area: Find a clean, well-lit area to perform the test. Avoid areas with strong airflow, as this can interfere with the test result.

6 Follow Swabbing Instructions: Use the provided swab to collect the sample as per the instructions. This may involve swabbing the back of your throat and/or your nostrils. Be gentle but thorough.

7 Handle the Swab Carefully: Be cautious not to touch the swab’s tip with your fingers or any other surfaces to prevent contamination.

8 Insert the Swab: Place the swab into the tube or container provided. Seal it securely according to the instructions.

9 Set a Timer: Use a timer or your phone to track the recommended incubation time. Do not read the result before the specified time has passed.

10 Wait Patiently: While waiting for the test results, avoid eating, drinking, or smoking to prevent contamination.

11 Read and Interpret the Result: Follow the instructions to interpret the result correctly. Typically, most tests will display results as positive, negative, or invalid. Take a clear photo of the result for documentation if needed.

12 Dispose of Materials Safely: Dispose of all test materials as per the manufacturer’s instructions and local regulations. This may involve sealing them in a plastic bag and discarding them in a designated waste bin.

13 Report Results:

If your test result is positive, it’s crucial to report it to local health authorities for contact tracing and guidance. Follow their instructions for isolation and further testing.

14 Follow Up with Healthcare Providers: If you test positive, or if you have symptoms and test negative, consider contacting a healthcare provider for further guidance and potential confirmatory testing.

15 Maintain Hygiene: After testing, wash your hands thoroughly and clean any surfaces that may have come into contact with the test kit.

Con’t from page 02

An Artist Writes

“It makes me think, ‘Wow, I came from this, and this person just left … and I’ll be leaving soon too.’”

Barongozi’s most recent work is a book entitled Heare is a Book We Wrote by Kuli. The project began with the artist’s desire to write a book in less than five minutes, and started with a paragraph written hastily on the back of a canvas. The book eventually became a compilation of these paragraphs, stories and poems, which double as documents of Barongozi’s daily life.

The “Heare” in the title is a combination of the words “Here”—because it is right here and right now—and “hear,” because the book contains a few written songs. He emphasized that “we” wrote the book because writing does not feel like an “I” activity. He feels like different versions of himself contributed to the project, and so did the people he drew inspiration from while writing it.

“Everything isn’t just one way; like multiple pronouns, there are many different versions of Kuli,” he said. “ I get energy and phrases from people. If you say something I like I’ll write it down, so you contributed as well.”

Fellow artist Jisu Sheen, the other cofounder of Second Floor Hardware School, remembered meeting Barongozi through a friend, and then reconnecting with him during a protest on the New Haven Green in spring 2021. After making time to draw together, the two mounted a show at Volume II: A Never Ending Books Collective on State Street last year, and then their first “Folk Festival” at Havenly a year ago this month.

“Now everytime we get together, we make something,” Sheen said in a recent interview. “Whether it’s drawing, a song, or even art show plans”.

She added that the Second Floor Hardware School does not exist as a physical space yet—the name is aspirational—but already encompasses many activities and aspects. “It can be a school of sorts, a studio, or just a place where people can hang out, dance, and make art.”

With Barongozi, she is excited to be planning the second iteration of the folk fest, currently titled “Infinite Gohyang.”

The title is based around Gohyang the Korean word for “hometown” “

“It’s anything that invokes comfort, familiarity, or nostalgia,” she said. It’s a word that carries weight for them here: both have spent the past few years making New Haven their home. “New Haven can feel like a hometown even if it is not the town you’re from. Being away can make you feel nostalgic, like you miss home.” This article first appeared on The New Haven Arts Paper site newhavenarts. org September 8th, 2023

Barongozi last year at the Folk Fest he and Jisu Sheen mounted at Havenly. Lucy Gellman File Photo.

Listen to the Yard: How marching bands shape HBCU culture

Courtesy of The Afro: By Aria Brent, AFRO Staff Writer, Afro.com

A prime component of Black culture is music. It defines eras, tells stories and creates soundtracks for our lives. It is only right, then, that historically Black colleges and universities have a playlist of their own, driven by the sounds of the campus marching band.

Maryland Public Television highlighted the important role that marching bands bring to HBCU culture and the on-campus experience. “Sounds of the Game” recognized the amazing career of Melvin Miles, former director of Morgan State’s band, The Magnificent Marching Machine, and the impact he has made to HBCU bands. Much like Miles, HBCU marching bands have legacies that are known well beyond their respective campuses.

“You can’t bring up Black culture at all without music because it’s such a cornerstone in our ancestry,” said Emery Alexander, a member of the Blue and Gold Marching Machine at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. “People have been able to see that from the moment we arrived in this country and even before we got here. I think it’s (marching band) just a more modern expression of that cornerstone.”

Alexander has been in marching band since eighth grade and credits the extracurricular activity with helping him develop relationships and grow as a person. Through his tenure in the university band he has been able to learn leadership skills and serve the band and his college campus as a member of the Iota Zeta chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity.

The young musician noted that his high school band director exposed him to HBCU band culture and piqued his interest in attending one of the historical institutes. Alexander explained what it is that makes HBCU bands so special and sets

them apart from bands at other colleges and universities.

“He really put me on to the HBCU band side of things. Show style and corps style are two completely different realms–it’s the same universe but it’s two different planets across the solar system,” Alexander said. “With show style, the most obvious difference is the marching. Your knee has to be at a 90-degree angle and your toes are pointed, meanwhile with corps style everything is very low to the ground. You have to make it look like you’re floating.”

Most HBCUs take after the show style genre of bands, which has helped mold the world-renowned experience they’re known for creating. This includes their choice of music, choreography that is incorporated into the performance and other performers such as dancers and color guards. Schools like Florida Agricultural

and Mechanical University, Alcorn State University and Alabama State University are infamous for their performances including these theatrical components.

“HBCU bands bring out the best of what marching band has to offer,” said Kaylyn Stampley, a member of The Sonic Boom of The South at Jackson State University.

“Most of the time when you find HBCU bands they are show style versus corps style. Show style is what we do here at Jackson State University. It’s the wow factor, the things that catch your eye, the things that you would never imagine any band doing. We take a different sense of pride in the way that we do our bands at HBCUs.”

Jackson State is known for their band performances that fulfill “The Thrill of a Billion Eyes.” Stampley shared with the AFRO that she grew up in an environment that was heavily influenced by

HBCU culture, so when she decided to go to college she chose to attend somewhere with a sense of familiarity.

“Being from Mississippi, our culture in the South lets us get the feel for an HBCU throughout high school. I’m not going to say it’s all I knew, but it’s all I wanted to know,” said Stampley. “I chose an HBCU to speak to what I knew culture wise and because of what they had to offer as opposed to a predominantly White institute.”

Like all great things, HBCU marching bands take their time. Both Alexander and Stampley discussed how much time and dedication it takes to get the final product seen at games, events and parades.

“In my experience at HBCUs our practice times have always been what other people in other bands would consider outrageous,” said Alexander. “At NCAT, we start practice at 5 p.m. and don’t get out

until about 9 or 10 p.m.”

Stampley furthered Alexander’s point by explaining just how much preparation the bands go through to give a good show. “We have all these things to remember and we’re constantly practicing to make sure that everything is perfect before we go out and showcase it,” said Stampley. “I’m not saying that PWI bands don’t practice but I know from being in an HBCU band the amount of effort and work and bloodshed and tears that’s given to our band programs.”

The effort put into many HBCU band programs certainly isn’t in vain. Schools such as Morgan State and Howard University have had the opportunity to play for President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris. Meanwhile other bands like Tennessee State University’s Aristocrat of Bands won a Grammy earlier this year for their gospel album “The Urban Hymnal.” All HBCU bands have been able to provide a great deal of exposure to their schools and even the conferences they fall into.

“The role that marching bands bring to HBCUs is exposure. Most people haven’t experienced or seen a HBCU band in person, they’ve mostly just seen it on social media,” said Samario Williams. “A lot of people who don’t know about the school itself usually recognize or know of the school’s band when it comes to HBCUs.” Southern University and Agricultural and Mechanical College (Southern) is home of the Human Jukebox, where Williams played the sousaphone.

Whether they are opening the eyes of strangers and exposing them to all that their band programs have to offer or providing the soundtrack for an entire community of students, staff and alumni, HBCU bands are not only heard but also felt wherever they go. They really are defining what it means to “ Do it for The Culture.”

Mo’Nique Wants CBS to Fairly Compensate Her and Actress Countess Vaughn For “The Parkers”

Mo’Nique, known for her role in The Parkers, is urging CBS to provide fair compensation for herself and her co-star Countess Vaughn, as they seek recognition for their work on the long-running show.

In a recent Instagram video with her husband Sidney Hicks, Mo’Nique expressed solidarity with striking unions, particularly mentioning the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the SAG-AFTRA strikes, which affect writers and actors, respectively, according to The Shade Room.

Mo’Nique shared her concern about the alleged lack of compensation for their work on ‘The Parkers,’ a show that has been on the air for 24 years. She and Vaughn starred in the sitcom from 1999 to

2004 which ran for five seasons with over 110 episodes.

Despite being informed that they made no money from their ownership of the show, Mo’Nique and Hicks claim to have seen profit statements indicating that the series generated over $700 million. This stark contrast between reported profits and alleged deficits raises questions.

Mo’Nique also pointed out a different deal with CBS, one made with comedian Dave Chappelle in 2021, wherein CBS reportedly ensured fair compensation for him. Mo’Nique and Hicks are now seeking similar fairness.

“So what we’re asking you, CBS, is can you please treat these two Black women fairly,” Mo’Nique said. “What we’re ask-

ing you, CBS [is] don’t pay us anymore but don’t pay us any less.”

In taking this public stance, Mo’Nique and Hicks hope to shed light on the challenges faced by creatives in the industry and ensure fairness for future generations. Countess Vaughn has shown her support by sharing Mo’Nique’s video on her Instagram Story.

Earlier this year, Mo’Nique also filed a lawsuit against CBS and Paramount, emphasizing the importance of actors receiving the compensation they are owed, especially for successful shows like ‘The Parkers.’ The lawsuit also involves claims related to Hicks Media, their company, and the sitcom’s production company, Big Ticket Productions.

The Blue and Gold Marching Machine at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (Photo courtesy of Facebook)

Respect For The Aged Day: Why Elder Care Is Vital To The Black Community

By BlackHealthMatters.com

September 18th is Respect For The Aged Day otherwise known as Keirō no Hi or in Japanese. Observed on the third Monday of every September, this day holds cultural significance in Japan. However, it is profoundly important in the Black community here in the United States and vital for us to understand. We owe a debt of gratitude to the generations that came before us and respect for their health should be a major priority.

After a lifetime of facing racial and health inequities, Black seniors are confronted with the daunting prospect of spending their twilight years with declining health, limited income, and virtually no savings. The disparities in health outcomes, economic opportunities, and access to quality care have placed them at greater risk, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article explores the critical issues surrounding elder care in the Black community, including the alarming health disparities, cultural norms, and challenges that impact the quality of life for older Black Americans.

1 Chronic Health Conditions: Numerous studies have shown that Black Americans suffer from a higher prevalence of chronic health conditions, including high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, and Al-

zheimer’s disease. These conditions not only reduce their life expectancy but also lead to a diminished quality of life.

2 Healthcare Access: Generations of racial discrimination have resulted in limited access to quality healthcare for Black individuals. They often receive lowerquality care and face barriers in accessing essential medical services.

3 COVID-19 Impact: The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately af-

fected older Black Americans, resulting in higher infection and mortality rates. Lack of access to healthcare, distrust of institutions, and comorbidities have compounded the crisis.

Economic Inequities:

1 Wealth Gap: Historical economic racism has left many Black seniors with low wages, low homeownership rates, and minimal savings or investments. The wealth gap between Black and white

Americans is substantial and continues to grow.

2 Retirement Savings: Many older Black Americans lack retirement savings, with fewer participating in employersponsored retirement accounts like 401(k) plans. This leads to reduced financial security in their later years.

3 Social Security Reliance: A significant portion of Black seniors heavily relies on Social Security as their primary source of income. However, the average Social Security benefit is insufficient to cover essential expenses.

Cultural Norms and Family Dynamics:

1 Cultural Values: Providing care for elderly family members is deeply ingrained in Black culture. Many Black caregivers view it as a duty and privilege, to find meaning and purpose in caring for their aging loved ones.

2 Strong Community Networks: Historically, Black families have relied on strong community networks, including churches and extended family, to provide eldercare support. This has shaped cultural norms around caregiving.

3 Distrust of Institutions: Deep-seated mistrust of healthcare and government institutions, rooted in historical injustices such as the Tuskegee syphilis study, leads many older Black Americans to be hesitant about seeking outside help or insti-

tutional care.

Challenges and Solutions:

1 ncreased Outreach: Healthcare providers and community organizations must engage in targeted outreach to build trust and provide culturally competent care to older Black individuals.

2 Economic Empowerment: Initiatives to address economic disparities, improve access to education, and promote financial literacy can help Black seniors accumulate wealth and retirement savings.

3 Caregiver Support: Acknowledging the vital role of caregivers, particularly in the Black community, and offering support services, respite care, and educational resources can ease the caregiving burden.

4 Culturally Relevant Healthcare: Healthcare professionals should receive cultural sensitivity training to better understand the unique needs and concerns of older Black patients.

Addressing these issues surrounding elder care in our community requires a comprehensive approach that prioritizes healthcare access, economic empowerment, and culturally sensitive support systems. As we strive for equity and justice, it is crucial to ensure that older Black Americans receive the care, dignity, and respect they deserve in their later years.

Continuum of Care, New Haven, Connecticut – LEGAL NOTICE INVITATION TO BID

NOTICE

Environmental Senior Planner

VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE

HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this development located at 108 Frank Street, New Haven. Maximum income limitations apply. Pre-applications will be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y 25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preapplications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.

NOTICIA

LEGAL NOTICE INVITATION TO BID: CONTINUUM OF CARE, NEW HAVEN is requesting licensed and insured contractors to provide bids for their property located at 310 Winthrop Avenue, New Haven. The owner is seeking proposals for the Hardwood Floor Refinishing Scope of 310 Winthrop, a threefamily property. Finish plan will be provided at open bid visit which details the refinishing of key locations of property such as main stairwell, 1st fl office, and second floor unit. Owner to select stain color. The project is CDBG funded by the City of New Haven. Project is tax-exempt and Davis/Bacon/Prevailing Wage rate. The selected company and any subcontractors must comply with EEOC workforce requirements. City of New Haven Chapter 12 ¼ of the New Haven code of Ordinances (MBE subcontracting ) applies- Minority/women’s business enterprises are encouraged to apply. A bidding site meeting will be held at 310 Winthrop avenue, New Haven on Thursday, 9/7/2023 at 12:30pm. All bids are due by 9/15/2023 by 3pm. All bids and questions should be submitted in writing to Monica O’Connor via email moconnor@continuumct.org or delivered to 109 Legion Avenue, New Haven.

VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES

Steel Fabricators, Erectors & Welders

Top pay for top performers. Health Benefits, 401K, Vacation Pay. Email Resume: Rose@qsrsteel.com Hartford, CT

State of Connecticut Office of Policy and Management

The State of Connecticut, Office of Policy and Management is recruiting for a Principal Labor Relations Specialist.

FHI Studio is seeking an Environmental Senior Planner. Candidates should demonstrate their ability to develop proposals and attend interviews, develop project scopes and fees, and conduct environmental reviews utilizing best practices. Responsibilities include preparing NEPA and state documentation, guiding permitting efforts, conducting technical analysis, writing reports, and participating in public meetings. The candidate must also possess excellent oral and written communication skills. Experience with major transportation infrastructure projects is preferred.

Minimum degree: Bachelor's degree in urban planning, environmental planning, environmental science, or related field with a minimum of 4 years of experience in environmental consulting or related field. Candidates with a valid driver's license preferred. Salary commensurate with level of experience. Submit your cover letter and resume at https://fhistudio. isolvedhire.com/jobs/. Fitzgerald & Halliday, Inc. is an EEO/AA /VEV/Disabled employer.

Continuum of Care, New Haven, Connecticut –LEGAL NOTICE INVITATION TO BID

Request for Letters of Interest

CSO #2389

SUPPORT SERVICES FOR A DISADVANTAGED BUSINESS ENTERPRISE (DBE) BUSINESS ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510

The Connecticut Department of Transportation is seeking to retain one consulting firm to provide administrative and technical assistance to the Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBEs) Business Assistance Program. More detailed information regarding this assignment can be found at: https://portal.ct.gov/DOT/ Consultant-Selection/Consultant-Selection-Information

Further information regarding the duties, eligibility requirements and application instructions are available at: https://www.jobapscloud.com/ CT/sup/bulpreview.asp?b=&R1= 230417&R2=6342MP&R3=001

The State of Connecticut is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and strongly encourages the applications of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities.

LEGAL NOTICE INVITATION TO BID: CONTINUUM OF CARE, NEW HAVEN is requesting licensed and insured contractors to provide bids for their property located at 310 Winthrop Avenue, New Haven. The owner is seeking proposals for the Hardwood Floor Refinishing Scope of 310 Winthrop, a three-family property. Finish plan will be provided at open bid visit which details the refinishing of key locations of property such as main stairwell, 1st fl office, and second floor unit. Owner to select stain color. The project is CDBG funded by the City of New Haven. Project is tax-exempt and Davis/ Bacon/Prevailing Wage rate. The selected company and any subcontractors must comply with EEOC workforce requirements. City of New Haven Chapter 12 ¼ of the New Haven code of Ordinances (MBE subcontracting ) applies- Minority/women’s business enterprises are encouraged to apply. A bidding site meeting will be held at 310 Winthrop avenue, New Haven on Thursday, 9/7/2023 at 12:30pm. All bids are due by 9/15/2023 by 3pm. All bids and questions should be submitted in writing to Monica O’Connor via email moconnor@continuumct.org or delivered to 109 Legion Avenue, New Haven.

NEW HAVEN

Connecticut Department of Transportation

An Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action Employer

242-258 Fairmont Ave

2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA

Invitation to Bid: 2nd Notice

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFP) FOR ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL CONSULTING SERVICES

All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 highways, near bus stop & shopping center

NOTICE OF REQUEST FOR BID

Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258

HOUSING AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF DANBURY Pest Control Services

IFB No. B23004

Old Saybrook, CT (4 Buildings, 17 Units)

Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project

SCOPE:

CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:303:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. (203) 996-4517 Host,General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor ofPitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster St. New Haven, CT

The Housing Authority of the City of Danbury hereby issues this Request for Proposal to secure a contract to perform Pest Control Services

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

PROPOSAL SUBMITTAL RETURN:

Housing Authority of the City of Danbury, 2 Mill Ridge Rd, Danbury, CT 06811

Envelope Must be

Marked: IFB No. B23004, Pest Control Services

Attn: Lisa Gilchrist, Purchasing Agent

Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.

SUBMITTAL DEADLINE

October 11th, 2023 at 10:00am (EST)

A pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

CONTACT PERSON FOR IFB DOCUMENT:

Lisa Gilchrist – Purchasing Agent

Telephone: 203-744-2500 x1421

Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority Office, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579.

E-Mail: lgilchrist@hacdct.org

[Minority- and/or women-owned businesses are encouraged to respond]

The Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any informalities in the bidding, if such actions are in the best interest of the

Please

The Housing Authority of the City of Bristol (BHA) invites proposals from qualified firms to provide Accounting and Financial Consulting Services. For copy of RFP please contact Carl Johnson, Dir. of Capital Funds at 860-585-2028 or cjohnson@bristolhousing.org beginning Mon., Sept. 4, 2023. Sealed proposals must be received no later than 4:00 p.m. on Thurs., Oct. 12, 2023 clearly marked “RFP –Accounting and Financial Consulting Services” with one (1) original and three (3) copies mailed or delivered to: Housing Authority of the City of Bristol, Attn: Mitzy Rowe, CEO, 164 Jerome Ave., Bristol, CT 06010

New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, Castin-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection. This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements.

The Housing Authority of the City of Bristol is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. SBE, MBE, W/DBE, and Section 3 businesses are encouraged to respond.

Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016

Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016

Project documents available via ftp link below: http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFP) FOR LEGAL SERVICES RELATED TO LABOR, EMPLOYMENT AND BENEFITS

The Housing Authority of the City of Bristol (BHA) invites proposals from qualified attorneys, legal teams or law firms to provide Legal services in labor laws, employment & benefits. For copy of RFP please contact Carl Johnson, Dir. of Capital Funds at 860-5852028 or cjohnson@bristolhousing.org beginning Mon., Sept. 4, 2023. Sealed proposals must be received no later than 4:00 p.m. on Thurs., Oct. 12, 2023 clearly marked “RFP –Legal Services. Labor, Employment & Benefits” with one (1) original and three (3) copies mailed or delivered to: Housing Authority of the City of Bristol, Attn: Mitzy Rowe, CEO, 164 Jerome Ave., Bristol, CT 06010

The Housing Authority of the City of Bristol is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. SBE, MBE, W/DBE, and Section 3 businesses are encouraged to respond.

SIZE 3.5 by 4.0 FOR

OUTREACH EVENT

Town of Bloomfield

NOTICE

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFP) FOR LEGAL SERVICES RELATED TO LABOR, EMPLOYMENT AND BENEFITS

VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE

The Housing Authority of the City of Bristol (BHA) invites proposals from qualified attorneys, legal teams or law firms to provide Legal services in labor laws, employment & benefits. For copy of RFP please contact Carl Johnson, Dir. of Capital Funds at 860585-2028 or cjohnson@bristolhousing.org beginning Mon., Sept. 4, 2023. Sealed proposals must be received no later than 4:00 p.m. on Thurs., Oct. 12, 2023 clearly marked “RFP – Legal Services. Labor, Employment & Benefits” with one (1) original and three (3) copies mailed or delivered to: Housing Authority of the City of Bristol, Attn: Mitzy Rowe, CEO, 164 Jerome Ave., Bristol, CT 06010

The Housing Authority of the City of Bristol is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. SBE, MBE, W/DBE, and Section 3 businesses are encouraged to respond.

HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this development located at 108 Frank Street, New Haven. Maximum income limitations apply. Pre-applications will be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y 25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preapplications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.

Salary Range: $87,727 to $136,071 Deputy Finance Director/Controller

Pre-employment drug testing. AA/EOE. For Details go to  www.bloomfieldct.org

SMALL CONTRACTORS WANTED

LaRosa Building Group is hosting an outreach event for small contractors interested in working on the Curtis Cofield II Estates construction project.

New Haven M/W/SBEs are encouraged to attend.

Community Engagement Senior Project Manager

NOTICIA

Town of Bloomfield Finance Director

VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES

HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 .

FHI Studio is seeking a Community Engagement Senior Project Manager. Candidates should demonstrate their ability to lead project teams, supervise and develop staff, provide excellent client service with innovative and strategic solutions, manage multiple projects concurrently, and conduct business development. Responsibilities will include developing and implementing strategic outreach plans to meaningfully include and facilitate communication with stakeholders and the general public on transportation and community planning projects, utilizing a wide variety of tools and techniques including public meetings, printed materials, social media, website, press releases, and PowerPoint presentations. The candidate must also possess excellent oral and written communication skills. Experience with major transportation infrastructure projects is preferred.

EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN

NEW HAVEN

Salary Range - $101,455 to $156,599 (expected starting pay maximum is mid-range)

Fully Benefited – 35 hours weekly Pre-employment drug testing. For more details, visit our website –www.bloomfieldct.org

Portland

Police Officer full-time

Go to www.portlandct.org for details

Thursday, September 7, 2023, from 5-7 PM: Immanuel Missionary Baptist Church

1324 Chapel Street New Haven, CT 06511

Email: outreach@larosabg.com

An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer

Executive Secretary

242-258 Fairmont Ave

2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA

All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 highways, near bus stop & shopping center

Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258

The Town of Wallingford is accepting applications for EMT. Must possess a H.S. diploma or G.E.D., plus one (1) year of recent experience as an EMT. Must be 18 years old and be a Connecticut or National Registry Certified EMT with CPR Certification and a valid State of Connecticut motor vehicle operator’s license. Starting wage $796.53 (weekly), plus an excellent fringe benefits package. Apply: Department of Human Resources, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. Forms will be mailed upon request from the Department of Human Resources or may be downloaded from the Department of Human Resources Web Page. Phone (203) 294-2080, Fax (203) 294-2084. The closing date will be the date of the 50th application or resume is received or August 28, 2023, whichever occurs first.

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Bike Share System – Development and Implementation

QSR STEEL CORPORATION

APPLY NOW!

Invitation to Bid: 2nd Notice

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

Old Saybrook, CT (4 Buildings, 17 Units)

Steel Fabricators, Erectors & Welders

Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project

Top pay for top performers. Health Benefits, 401K, Vacation Pay. Email Resume: Rose@qsrsteel.com Hartford, CT

The Town of Wallingford is seeking highly qualified and experienced applicants for the position of Executive Secretary. This position provides high-level administrative support and assistance to a Town department head and performs difficult clerical and administrative work requiring considerable independent judgment and confidentiality. The position requires excellent public relations and office management skills. Must have 6 years’ experience in responsible office work, some of which must have been in a supervisory capacity, or an equivalent combination of experience and college-level training. Pay rate $28.75 to $34.86 per hour plus an excellent benefit package. Application forms may be obtained at the Department of Human Resources, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. Forms will be mailed upon request from the Department of Human Resources or may be downloaded from Town of Wallingford Department of Human Resources Web Page and emailed to wlfdhr@ wallingfordct.gov. Phone: (203)-294-2080. Fax (203)-294-2084. The closing date will be September 11, 2023. EOE

Maintainer II – Collections System

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

New Haven Parking Authority

New Haven, CT

NHPA Project #23-065

Proposals due August 29, 2023 at 3:00 P.M.

Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.

A pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

Requesting proposals to develop and implement a Bike Share System in New Haven, CT. Proposal Documents will be available beginning August 8, 2023 at no cost by downloading from the New Haven Parking Authority/Park New Haven website at https://parknewhaven.com/request-for-bids/ or visit the Main Office at 232 George Street, New Haven, CT to obtain a copy.

NHPA is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority Office, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579.

The Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any

LEGAL NOTICE

Request for Proposals (RFP) for Services

New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, Castin-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection. This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements.

The State of Connecticut, Office of Policy and Management, is seeking proposals to provide certain services related to Connecticut Fair Share Housing Study.

Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016

Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016

The intent of the request is to identify individuals or firms with the necessary expertise to provide planning services within a stated timeframe.

Project documents available via ftp link below: http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage

The RFP is available online at: https:// portal.ct.gov/DAS/CTSource/BidBoard and https://portal.ct.gov/OPM/Root/ RFP/Request-For-Proposals or from Debra McCarthy, Office of Policy and Management, IGPP Division, 450 Capitol Ave., MS#54ORG, Hartford, Connecticut 06106-1379. E-mail: Debra.McCarthy@ ct.gov. Telephone (860) 418-6297. Deadline for response submission is 4:00 p.m. EDT, Oct. 2, 2023.

Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com

HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483

AA/EEO EMPLOYER

The Town of Wallingford Sewer Division is seeking qualified applicants to perform a variety of skilled tasks in the operation, maintenance, repair and construction of sanitary sewers, including CCTV inspection and high velocity flushing. Requires a H.S., trade school or vocational school diploma or H.S. equivalency diploma, plus 3 years employment in a field related to sanitary sewer construction, operation or maintenance, or 1 year of training in a skilled trade substituted for 1 year of experience up to 2 years plus a minimum of 1 year of employment for a sewer utility or in the construction field with work experience in the installation and maintenance of pipelines, or an equivalent combination of experience and training. Must possess or have the ability to obtain within 6 months of appointment a valid State of Connecticut Class B CDL. Wages: $26.16 to $31.18 hourly, plus an excellent fringe benefits package that includes pension plan, medical insurance, life insurance, paid sick and vacation time. Applications may be downloaded from the Department of Human Resources Web Page and can be mailed to the Department of Human Resources, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492, or emailed to: wlfdhr@wallingfordct.gov by the closing date of October 3, 2023. Phone: (203) 294-2080; Fax: (203) 294-2084. EOE

Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the

Accountant

NOTICE

Town of Bloomfield

Patrol Police Officer

Continuum of Care, New Haven, Connecticut –LEGAL NOTICE INVITATION TO BID

VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE

The Town of Wallingford seeks qualified applicants for Apprentice Accountant. Performs accounting tasks and other related duties of a financial nature in the Town’s Finance Department. Applicants should have 2 years clerical and general office experience plus a H.S diploma or GED. $27.22 to $32.68 hourly (wages under negotiations), plus an excellent fringe benefits package that includes pension plan, medical insurance, life insurance, 13 paid holidays, paid sick and vacation time, and deferred compensation plan. Applications may be downloaded from the Department of Human Resources Web Page and can be mailed to the Department of Human Resources, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492, or emailed to: wlfdhr@wallingfordct.gov by the closing date of October 4, 2023. Phone: (203) 294-2080; Fax: (203) 294-2084.

HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this development located at 108 Frank Street, New Haven. Maximum income limitations apply. Pre-applications will be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y 25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preapplications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.

NOTICIA

EOE

$37.93 hourly ($78,885 annually) – full time, benefited Pre-employment drug testing. For more details, visit our website – www.bloomfieldct.org

Deadline: Applications will be accepted until position is filled

Town of Bloomfield

LEGAL NOTICE INVITATION TO BID: CONTINUUM OF CARE, NEW HAVEN

Finance Director

VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES

Wastewater Treatment ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT

HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510

Salary Range - $101,455 to $156,599 (expected starting pay maximum is mid-range)

Fully Benefited – 35 hours weekly Pre-employment drug testing. For more details, visit our website –www.bloomfieldct.org

Portland

Police Officer full-time

is requesting licensed and insured contractors to provide bids for their property located at 310 Winthrop Avenue, New Haven. The owner is seeking proposals for the Interior Painting of 310 Winthrop, a three-family property. Scope includes clean, scrape, and paint all identified paintable surfaces of property. Cleaning, prep and paint of all interior doors, walls, and targeted trim. House colors to be selected by owner and Sherwin Williams is preferred. The project is CDBG funded by the City of New Haven. Project is tax-exempt and Davis/Bacon/Prevailing Wage rate. The selected company and any subcontractors must comply with EEOC workforce requirements. City of New Haven Chapter 12 ¼ of the New Haven code of Ordinances (MBE subcontracting ) applies- Minority/women’s business enterprises are encouraged to apply. A bidding site meeting will be held at 310 Winthrop avenue, New Haven on Monday, 8/28/2023 at 2:30pm. All bids are due by 9/8/2023 by 3pm. All bids and questions should be submitted in writing to Monica O’Connor via email moconnor@continuumct.org or delivered to 109 Legion Avenue, New Haven.

Request for Proposals (RFP)

Plumbing Maintenance Services

The Housing Authority of the City of Bristol

The Housing Authority of the City of Bristol is seeking a qualified contractor to provide Plumbing Maintenance Services throughout the Agency. Proposals due by September 21, 2023 at 4:00 p.m.

NEW HAVEN

242-258 Fairmont Ave

2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA

The Town of Wallingford is offering an excellent career opportunity for a technical leader in the wastewater treatment industry to assist the Superintendent in providing managerial direction in the operation and maintenance of the Town’s wastewater treatment plant, pumping stations, and sanitary sewer collection systems. Applicants should possess 4 years of progressively responsible experience in water pollution control and a bachelor's degree in environmental science, chemical engineering or other engineering with courses in chemical qualitative analysis, biochemistry or microbiology, or an equivalent combination of education and qualifying experience substituting on a yearfor-year basis. Must possess and maintain a State of Connecticut Class IV Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator's license or the ability to obtain the same within the probationary period. Must possess and maintain a valid State of Connecticut Motor Vehicle Operator’s License. Salary: $80,555 to $103,068 annually plus an on-call stipend when assigned. The Town offers an excellent fringe benefits package that includes pension plan, paid sick and vacation time, medical insurance, life insurance, 13 paid holidays, and a deferred compensation plan. Applications may be downloaded from the Department of Human Resources Web Page and can be mailed to the Department of Human Resources, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492, or emailed to: wlfdhr@wallingfordct.gov by the closing date of October 24, 2023. Phone: (203) 294-2080; Fax: (203) 294-2084. EOE

All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 highways, near bus stop & shopping center

Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258

Director of Capital Fund

F/T – Graduate degree in Business Administration, Management, or Engineering preferred. Bachelor’s degree in Operations, Accounting, Finance, and/or Public/Business Administration is required. At least 5 years of progressively responsible experience in building construction procurement, contracting, and/or maintenance trades, or an equivalent combination of education and experience that provides the required knowledge and skills.

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

At least 5 years supervising employees is required.

Go to www.portlandct.org for details

QSR STEEL CORPORATION

Invitation to Bid: 2nd Notice

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

APPLY NOW!

A copy of the RFP documents can be obtained at the Bristol Housing Authority, 164 Jerome Ave., Bristol, CT 06010 during normal business hours or by contacting Yvonne Tirado, Director of Accounting & Special Projects, at ytirado@bristolhousing.org, phone 860-585-2039 or Carl Johnson, Director of Capital Funds, at cjohnson@bristolhousing.org, phone 860-585-2028. Scope and proposal requirements will be available starting August 21, 2023.

Old Saybrook, CT (4 Buildings, 17 Units)

The Housing Authority of the City of Bristol is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. SBE, MBE, W/DBE, and Section 3 businesses are encouraged to respond.

Steel Fabricators, Erectors & Welders

Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project

Top pay for top performers. Health Benefits, 401K, Vacation Pay. Email Resume: Rose@qsrsteel.com Hartford, CT

Transportation Planner – Project Manager

New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, Castin-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection. This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements.

LEGAL NOTICE Request for Proposals (RFP) for Services

The South Central Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG) is seeking to fill the Transportation Planner – Project Manager position. Visit www.scrcog.org for the full position description, qualifications, and application requirements. Applications are to be submitted by noon on Monday, September 11, 2023, or until the position is filled. Questions may be emailed to jobs@scrcog.org. SCRCOG is an Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer.

Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016

Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016

Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.

Must demonstrate excellent communication skills, both verbal and written. Able to work flexible hours and work well with a team. Must have a valid Connecticut driver’s license and must be able to travel. Salary is commensurate with experience. Excellent benefits package.

The State of Connecticut, Office of Policy and Management, is seeking proposals to provide certain services related to performing a review of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) System.

Project documents available via ftp link below: http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage

Payroll

A pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

Send resume and reference by October 11, 2023 to Melissa Green, Deputy Director, Housing Authority of the City of Bristol, 164 Jerome Avenue, Bristol, CT 06010.

The intent of the request is to identify individuals or firms with the necessary expertise to provide higher education consulting services within a stated timeframe.

Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com

HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 AA/EEO EMPLOYER

Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority Office, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579.

The Bristol Housing Authority of the City of Bristol is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

The Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any informalities

The RFP is available online at: https:// portal.ct.gov/DAS/CTSource/BidBoard and https://portal.ct.gov/OPM/Root/ RFP/Request-For-Proposals. Deadline for response submission is 9/29/23 at 5:00 P.M. (EST).

Payroll Clerk- Performs responsible office work in the processing of all general government payrolls and maintain all payroll records. The position requires a H.S. diploma or G.E.D, plus 5 years of experience in responsible office work involving typing, accounting, bookkeeping, data entry and payroll processing. $27.22 to $32.68 hourly plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Apply: Department of Human Resources, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. Forms will be mailed upon request from the Department of Human Resources or maybe downloaded from the Department of Human Resources Web Page and emailed to wlfdhr@wallingfordct. gov. The closing date will be the date that the 50th application form/resume is received, or September 11, 2023, whichever occurs first. EOE

House Democrats re-introduce John Lewis voting bill on National Voter Registration Day

Courtesy of:Tashi McQueen AFRO Political Writer

On National Voter Registration Day, House Democrats re-introduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The bill was originally introduced in 2021.

“We are now 10 years removed from the disastrous Shelby County v. Holder decision where the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. In those 10 years, we witnessed relentless attacks on voter access,” said Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) at a press conference in the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 19. “Closing polling stations without notification, bans on early voting and voting by mail, strict ID requirements, purging of voter rolls and the list goes on.”

The bill, H.R. 14, aims to protect the right to vote by restoring and modernizing full protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the name of the late civil rights activist and congressman John R. Lewis.

“It was our late colleague, John Lewis,

who was stricken with cancer the last time he was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. He still stood up and he said his last words, ‘We should never give up, never give in, keep the faith and keep our eyes on the prize,’” said Sewell. “We House Democrats are ready to get into some good trouble as we reintroduce the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.” Sewell said though they don’t have much support from House Republicans, they will make sure there is support through grassroots activities.

“I think it’s super important that Rep. Sewell introduced the legislation she did,” said Nina Kasniunas, a political science professor at Goucher College.

“While this legislation probably has zero chance of advancing past the stage of being introduced because we have a Republican-controlled House, when people go to see what Congress is doing about voting rights, they will see that this legislation has been introduced, and they can see who is supporting.”

Kasniunas said Republican support is not out of the question but said it’s about pri-

orities.

“Republicans have supported voting rights, and some of them continue to,” said Kasniunas. “Given that we are 11 days from a government shutdown because they can’t pass appropriations bills, I imagine that will be their primary focus, and they’ve given us no indication that they will take up voting rights legislation.”

As the nation brings awareness of the importance of registering to vote, Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and other House Democrats announced the re-introduction of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The act would help restore the authority of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was nullified by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2013. (Left to right) Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) House Democratic Whip Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), Rep. Terri Sewell (DAla.), House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffires (D-N,Y.) and CAPAC Chair Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.).

It’s Time to Start Preparing Against Flu, RSV & COVID-19

by Cara Jones, BlackDoctor.org

Kids are back in school and it’s time to think about viruses, for both yourself and them.

It could be an early flu season in the United States, if what happened in the Southern Hemisphere offers any insight, according to Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. What vaccines are available?

The flu vaccine is now available in some locations. A new COVID-19 booster has been approved by federal health officials. And new respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines are recommended for some.

It’s important to get the flu shot in September or October, according to infectious disease specialist Dr. Soniya Gandhi, associate chief medical officer at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.

“Even a typical flu season can be deadly and can cause significant hospitalization,” Gandhi said in a Cedars-Sinai news release, pointing to 58,000 deaths in the United States and more than a half-million hospitalizations due to last year’s flu. “We should do what we can to protect ourselves — and others — with the best tool we have: the flu vaccine.”

Not only that, but COVID-19 and RSV could again spike at the same time as the flu, triggering a “tripledemic,” Gandhi said.

When that happened last year, emergency departments across the country filled up and young patients strained children’s hospitals. RSV can be dangerous, even deadly, for infants and older adults.

New ways to protect yourself from RSV New RSV shots are available for babies and adults over 60.

“These new shots and vaccines could really help protect us and our community during the upcoming season,” Gandhi said.

“We need to preserve capacity in hospitals for those patients who really need that care.”

RSV is the leading cause for infant hospitalization in the United States, even though many other people experience it as a mild cold.

“There’s really no way to predict how your child would do, even if they’re completely healthy,” said Dr. Priya Soni, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s. “If they do end up having a horrible course with RSV, they will likely need to be hospitalized for

oxygen support, fluids and other supportive measures.”

Nearly all infants are exposed to RSV by the time they’re two, with most infected during their first year.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved an antibody shot called Beyfortus (nirsevimab-alip), which can be given to newborns and infants during their first RSV season. Children up to 19 months old who remain vulnerable to severe disease in their second RSV season can also get the shot.

Soni said she “100%” recommends the immunization because of the positive results seen in clinical trials.

Women who are between 32 and 36 weeks

pregnant can also protect their infants at birth by getting a new Pfizer RSV vaccine. This same vaccine was approved for adults 60 and older. Another vaccine from pharmaceutical company GSK was also approved for older adults.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends these new vaccines for older adults only if they are at the highest risk of severe RSV. This includes patients with asthma, diabetes or heart failure.

Both vaccines are considered safe, but a very small number of cases of GuillainBarre syndrome were reported after vaccination. In that condition, a person’s immune system attacks their peripheral nerves.

More data is needed to determine whether these episodes may have been unrelated to the vaccine, according to the CDC.

Dr. Sonja Rosen, section chief of geriatric medicine at Cedars-Sinai, recommends the RSV vaccine for older patients with lung disease, or for those who are otherwise immunosuppressed and therefore at higher risk for severe illness.

“Patients should speak with their physician and make an informed decision about whether this shot is right for them,” Rosen said.

RELATED: FDA Approves New COVID Booster Shots, Here’s What You Need to Know

Boosting your immunity

For boosting COVID immunity, two new booster shots add protection against a variant of Omicron called XBB. She added she is grateful that “we’re in a very different position in 2023,” because of the new booster, at-home tests and antiviral medications like Paxlovid.

Take advantage of the booster when it becomes available, she urged.

“We know immunity wanes after the administration of the booster and that many individuals may not have had a booster for quite some time,” Gandhi said. “I think it will be incredibly important, particularly in those populations that are vulnerable to COVID illness, hospitalization and potentially even death, to ensure that they get the updated booster in a timely fashion.”

It’s safe to get the COVID and flu vaccines together, Gandhi said. For older adults who opt for the RSV shot after talking with a physician, they should get that alone and two weeks apart from the other vaccines, if possible, Gandhi noted.

Do you still qualify for HUSKY Health? Complete your renewal to find out.

At Access Health CT, we’re here to help you renew your HUSKY Health insurance. To get started, visit AccessHealthCT.com or call 1-855-805-4325 to update your address, phone number, email, and other information. You will be notified when your HUSKY renewal is due.

When it’s your time for renewal, we will use your information to see if you still qualify for HUSKY. If you qualify, you may be automatically re-enrolled. If you do not qualify, you can choose new coverage through Access Health CT. You will have up to 120

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