THE INNER-CITY NEWS

New Lab Brings New Haven's Narratives To Life

By Abiba Biao

Marcella Monk Flake vividly remembers being 10 years old, and playing a spirited game of catch in front of her home on Cedar Street. Despite her father's multiple warnings, Monk Flake and her sister Pamela tossed the ball back and forth, glad to be outside. Then Pamela—she is now Dr. Pamela Monk Kelley—threw the winning pitch, and broke their window.

Later that day, the U.S. National Guard descended on New Haven, erecting floodlights in the streets. Tear gas flooded the Monk household and Monk Flake and the rest of her siblings rushed to flush out their eyes, trying to relieve themselves of the burning sensation.

Last Saturday, Monk Flake brought that memory to Possible Futures at 318 Edgewood Ave., for the launch and celebration of a new Communities Histories Lab at the Yale School of Medicine.

A project that blends first-person narratives, public health, and documentary research, the lab seeks to “make local histories accessible outside the walls of the academy,” according to its mission statement. Roughly 75 people attended.

“Instead of academic researchers, we're interested in lifting up the stories, perspectives, and values of actual New Haven residents,” said Marco Ramos, assistant professor in the History of Medicine and Department of Psychiatry at Yale University. “And we're particularly interested in unearthing histories of community justice work.”

The lab is currently conducting six research projects, which include the Anti-Eugenics Collective at Yale, the Community Health History as Harm Reduction initiative, the Cushing Patient Archives Project, the Mistrusting Yale Project, and the Reproductive Health Histories New Haven.

Saturday, the launch lived that mission through a panel on the history and legacy of Hill activist Fred Harris, and the way social justice activism lives on and shows up in New Haven today. In addition to Harris’ children, Vanessa Harris and Fred Harris III, it featured sisters Marcella Monk Flake and Pamela Monk Kelley, who grew up in the Hill during the 1960s, and Harris’ grandson, Day'Shawn Lyons.

As Ramos and colleague Ayah Nuriddin kicked off the discussion, Monk Flake set the tone, describing Harris as a “rockstar,” for his “courage and the determination to forge change.”

“Fred Harris was an icon in the Hill neighborhood. He was a man of short stature physically, but his work was big,” Monk Flake said. “He just had an aura about him.”

As she and Monk Kelley shared memories from their childhood, both also spoke about how New Haven history, and the deep and sometimes difficult lessons of the past, can inform an increasingly frightening present. In 1967, New Haven was one of many cities to experience what is now widely known as the long, hot riots. In New Haven, the Hill became the epicenter of that action when a white business owner shot a Puerto Rican city resident.

Almost six decades later, Monk Flake thought instantly of that history when she saw that President Donald Trump had deployed the National Guard in Washington D.C., in what many people (including historians, politicians, and activists) see as a test for other cities that have large Black and immigrant populations (Memphis, Tenn. became the second such city this week, after Los Angeles much earlier this year).

“It was frightening to see these men with long guns, waving guns like ‘Get out of the window. Get in your houses,’” she recalled. “It was horrifying and to know that other children have to experience that — not just children but adults — it’s been so triggering for me.”

In the audience, Lamley Lawson shot up her hand to grab the mic. She pointed to the rise of social media and the increasing presence of a surveillance state, asking what role technology might play as the practices of and around social justice change with the times.

“What are your thoughts sort of digging deeper about that lack of space, or maybe grace, for leaders and emerging leaders and how can we move past that in this time that calls for critical movement?” she asked.

Lyons argued that social media is a nuanced tool. While he doesn’t believe that social media dampens the emergence of grassroots leaders like his grandfather, he thinks social media can foster complacency and performative activism.

“There has always been information campaigns to discredit powerful leaders,” he said. “Has the method and way it happens today changed? Yes, but I feel like there is a bigger issue at hand… social media has made a lot of people think that posting is activism.”

Vanessa Harris offered a rebuttal to his argument, highlighting the power social media has to mobilize people and improve the circulation and accessibility of information. She noted the recent Target boycotts earlier this year after the company repealed its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

In the discussion that followed, attendee LeChristien Box was eager to share her own thoughts on the matter.

Like Lyons, Box believes that social media can provide a false sense of social change.

“One of the things that I see with people today with social media [is that] it’s an easy place to hide behind,” she said. “They can say, ‘Well, I can engage,’ but really not be involved.”

She also pushed back against Lawson’s suggestion that there aren’t as many clear and decisive leaders as there were in the last century. She remains optimistic and leans towards the side of hope.

“I don’t believe our forefathers would have wanted us to go back,” she said. “ I don’t believe Apostle Fred Harris would want us to go back. He would say ‘Do more than what I’ve done. Go farther than where I’ve been.’”

In an interview after the panel, Box also added that she herself was also learning something new about history. Despite being a 60s baby herself and close to age to the elders on the panel, she said that it was her first time encountering many of the historical moments that the panelists alluded to. Box, who came from Gary, Indiana for the panel, said she sees the similarities between many of the anecdotes panelists shared and issues in her own community. Box has been a pastor for 17 years and currently works at the Greater Life Chapel Outreach Ministries. She said that the lecture invigorated her spirit for organizing and community service, saying that older people have a place in activism.

“If we help people based on who we know then we have a problem," she said. “So it’s about who we don’t know [for] who we want to help… this just encouraged me to even, in spite of the health that I don’t have, to continue fighting and going even farther, to continue going off, because it’s for a reason and it’s for a purpose.”

Tifanie Brooks was left with the honor of leaving the panelists one last thought-provoking query: “Are we still our brother’s keepers?”

Brooks has been a member of Harris’ church, New Risen Christ Ministries International, for 28 years and came to New Haven from Detroit to witness the launch of the Community Histories Lab. She remarked on the younger generation's adoption of individualism and lack of care among people.

“I feel that we don't take responsibility any more for others,” she said after the panel, explaining the inspiration behind her question. “It's just about me, me, me, me, me. We have to go off to come together as a people and as a country.”

Arts Council of greater New Haven

SCSU Cafeteria Workers Rally Ahead Of Strike Vote

by Abiba Biao

Roughly 150 union members, students, and local labor allies rallied at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) Wednesday to protest for better wages amid stalled contract negotiations with the food-services corporate giant Sodexo.

According to Local 217 Secretary-General Josh Stanley, SCSU’s dining workers will take a strike vote on Sept. 24.

“If we don’t get it,” yelled Nicholas McDonald, who has worked at Southern for 30 years.

”Shut it down,” the crowd roared back in response.

The demonstration was hosted by Local 217 UNITE HERE, a union of hospitality workers, and joined protests and negotiations conducted by other food-services workers at other state college campuses, including at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) and Western Connecticut State University (WCSU).

Attendees at the rally included roughly 80 food-service workers from SCSU’s Connecticut Hall and Michael J. Adanti Student Center. They also included Local 217 union members from the University of New Haven as well as union members at Yale University, who were in attendance to show solidarity.

Diana Bailey-St. Mark, an organizer at Local 217, said that negotiations between the union and Sodexo occurred over the summer, but that there hasn’t been “any substantial” progress.

Bailey-St.Mark said that many food-services workers have trouble stretching their salaries to last the entire year, as they work only during the academic year, or for roughly eight-and-a-half months.

“The wages we’re asking for would literally change somebody’s life, because now we have workers who’ve never had a second job working a second job,” she said. A Sodexo representative did not respond to a request for comment by the publication time of this article. According to WFSB, Sodexo is offering the food-service workers $26 an hour. WFSB also reported that there are 280 workers in the union currently negotiating with Sodexo. Wednesday’s protest began in front of Connecticut Hall and ended at Hilton C. Buley Library. As protesters made their way across the pedestrian bridge to the academic quad, drivers honked in support.

Danbury State Sen. Julie Kushner gave the penultimate speech to the animated crowd. Kushner, who served as a union leader for 42 years at United Auto Workers (UAW) and is the co-chair for the Connecticut General Assembly Labor and Public Employees Committee, shared her support for the cause.

“What you’re fighting for here is much much bigger than these campus contracts,” she said. “It’s something that will affect all workers. If we lose in any sector, it affects every sector.”

Kushner also offered a rebuttal to a speech by Gov. Ned Lamont, who made an appearance earlier in the demonstration.

“He spoke very passionately about maintaining your wages, maintaining your benefits, and I was so glad to hear him say all of that. It’s so important,” she said. “But I do want to mention and I did say it to him it would be a lot easier for you to take this step if you knew you’d get unemployment after a couple of weeks on strike.”

The crowd erupted into applause and chants of “S.B. 8, S.B. 8, S.B. 8,” ensued, referring to Senate Bill No. 8, a striking workers compensation bill that Lamont vetoed in June.

Giving closing remarks for the rally was New Haven State Sen. and President Pro Tem Martin Looney. Looney said that there will be continued efforts around S.B. 8 and that the senate will work towards addressing other workers rights “as swiftly as we can.”

“The thing we also need to note is that the Sodexo workers at the cafeterias at the state university campuses… they may be technically employed by Sodexo, but they are working in effect for state agencies in Connecticut,” he said, eliciting cheers from the crowd.

Looney underlined the importance of university support, saying, “We cannot have the state of Connecticut practicing anti-union behavior and anti-union practices” and added that he was “very disturbed” to hear that the Connecticut public universities were creating contingency plans to hire replacement workers in case a strike were to take place.

In a campus-wide email sent out on Tuesday by Tracy Tyree, vice president of student affairs at SCSU, informing the campus community about the demonstration, Tyree outlined SCSU’s involvement with the negotiations, saying that contract negotiations “have been ongoing since March.”

“It’s important to clarify that Southern is not a party to the collective bargaining process between Sodexo and Local 217, and we are not at the negotiating table. The negotiation and settlement of the

agreement for all concerned.”

Samantha Norton, a spokesperson for Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU), said the same in a separate comment sent to the Independent on Thursday: “Our dining services teams at Central, Southern, and Western Connecticut State Universities provide a vital service to students, faculty, and staff. While CSCU and its universities are not at the bargaining table as we are not parties to the collective bargaining process between Sodexo and Unite Here Local 217, we urge the parties to reach a fair and timely agreement.”

“What we need to make sure of is that the university system hears loud and clear that we are watching closely at not only what Sodexo does, but what they do,” Looney said during Wednesday’s protest. “They’re maintaining that they’re keeping Sodexo as a separate entity that’s at arms from them; we don’t buy that. We don’t buy that at all. We are holding them accountable for everything that Sodexo says and does.”

Outside on the quad were college juniors Tate Kerr and Sammy Albright, showing their support.

“I think that it’s important to have student solidarity and worker solidarity, so to stand with the workers and support them and to show the administration that if we don’t get it, we’re going to shut it down,” Kerr said.

Kerr, a psychology major with a concentration in mental health at SCSU, is also a member of the Revolutionary Communists of America. They said they were inspired to get into organizing by what they described as the genocide in Gaza. “I was sick and tired of seeing billionaires profit and children die. I think that it’s unnecessary and I think that if the workers organize… we could definitely solve things like mass hunger and homelessness.”

Albright, a history major at Yale and member of Socialists Alternative, said that his ethos behind organizing came from helping New Haven Public Schools high schoolers organize a walkout in May against the underfunding of schools and budget cuts. He praised the collaboration between workers at SCSU and CCSU and advocated for student mobilization behind the cause.

“I support all workers fighting for better living conditions and I think the strike is the strongest way that workers can fight and win,” he said.

“Every single worker at Southern, Central, and WestConn, is making less than they were in 2020 because of rampant inflation,” Joshua Stanley, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 217, said to the crowd during Wednesday’s protest. He added that workers may be missing an estimated $20,000 in wages over the past decade.

terms in question are solely between Sodexo and the union,” the email reads. “As a public university, Southern respects the right to peaceful assembly and free expression. We remain hopeful that Sodexo and the union will reach a fair and timely

Stanley announced strike vote dates on Sept. 24 at SCSU and on Sept 29 at CCSU.

“We’re hoping that we don’t have to [walk out], but in the event that we have to, the workers are preparing themselves,” St.Mark said.

The New Haven independent

Local 217 Secretary-Treasurer Josh Stanley.

It's Scabby the Rat!

It's Scabby the Rat! ... and State Sen. President Pro Tem Martin

City Crushes ATVs

by Thomas Breen |

Remote control in hand, Mayor Justin Elicker stood alongside Police Chief Karl Jacobson and North Haven First Selectman Michael Freda just a few steps away from a Sims Metal “High Speed Crusher” that held six stacked ATVs in its maw.

Elicker pushed a button, and the crusher’s crusher descended, as two dozen TV news cameras, city officials, and police officers from throughout the region waited for the crunch.

That was the scene Friday morning in the back lot of the New Haven Police Department’s academy and garage at 710 Sherman Pkwy.

The cops, politicians, and camera crews had assembled to watch the city undertake its inaugural destruction of police-seized,

illegally operated ATVs and dirt bikes. Eighteen such vehicles were lined up and ready for the smash Friday morning. Jacobson said New Haven has roughly 120 ATVs and dirt bikes in its custody. Those vehicles have been seized over the past two years largely thanks to the work of a city-led regional taskforce that includes cops from nine different departments, including New Haven, North Haven, Woodbridge, and Orange. Jacobson singled out Lt. Derek Werner for praise for leading the anti-illegal-ATV-riding effort.

“Do not come here riding these,” Jacobson said, gesturing towards the brightly colored off-road vehicles that all too often are illegally ridden on city roads. “They will end up in that and crushed.”

Friday’s smash came thanks to new state legislation that allows municipalities to destroy, and not just auction off, seized ATVs and dirt bikes. These vehicles are difficult for the police department to catch, Jacobson said, given that city cops can’t chase them or use stop sticks or StarChase because of the danger such tools could present to riders, police officers, and the public. These vehicles often end up in police custody thanks to investigative work done with the help of drones, and when the ATVs and dirt bikes run out of gas.

Elicker and Jacobson also pointed to recently increased fines up to $2,000 a pop for illegal dirt bike and ATV riding. Now, thanks to this new state law, “we can crush these things,” Elicker said. Freda said that he has been caught up

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in two illegal street takeovers, and can testify from firsthand experience as to how dangerous and disruptive they are.

“People were being pointed at,” he said.

“People were being bullied.”

City Chief Administrative Officer (CAO)

Justin McCarthy said that, after these vehicles are crushed, the metal will be sent to the scrapyard. The city has no use for this material and won’t be holding onto it.

West Rock/West Hills Alder Honda

Smith, the vice chair of the aldermanic Public Safety Committee, also sits on the committee that hears appeals by riders who have had their ATVs or dirt bikes seized by city cops.

“To the community, you have been warned,” she said on Friday. “To the residents, you have been heard.”

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First Selectman Freda, Chief Jacobson, and Mayor Elicker: Push the button.

First Selectman Freda, Chief Jacobson, and Mayor Elicker: Push the button.

City comms staffer Ali Oshinskie takes a last video of the pre-crushed ATVs.

The New Haven independent

A "Healing Ministry" Celebrates Five Years

Lucy Gellman |

When Valerie Tanner got the call that her 22-year-old son, Kaymar, had been shot and killed on Newhall Street, her world stopped. It was the middle of July, just before sundown in New Haven. She was at a niece’s birthday party, surrounded by the joyful noise of someone making another trip around the sun. And at 6:26 p.m., when she picked up the phone, her life was cleaved into two halves.

She tried multiple forms of therapy, from online counseling to E.M.D.R. She prayed. She wondered if she would ever feel able to move forward. Then she walked into a house of worship, and found a mentorship program designed around addressing, discussing, and destigmatizing trauma.

She didn’t know it then, but it would become her “road to new beginnings.” Tanner, who lost her son in July 2020, brought that testimony to Fair Haven Wednesday night, as Interruptions: Disrupting The Silence celebrated five years of growth, exploration, and trauma-informed healing on the second floor of CitySeed’s 162 James St. headquarters. Launched by Dr. Rev. Odell Montgomery Cooper in 2020, the program now consists of a performance, podcast, book, audiobook, and eight-week peer-to-peer mentorship program meant to remove some of the social and cultural stigma that surrounds talking about trauma.

It is anchored by Cooper’s own devastating interruptions: the sudden loss of her 25-year-old son, Jonathan, to gun violence in 2016, and the physical, mental and emotional toll of a brain aneurysm a year later, on what would have been his 26th birthday. Nine years into her own healing journey, Interruptions is opening up the dialogue about trauma—and the silences that can make it deadly—one discussion at a time.

In part, that includes a new move to nonprofit status, as well as a second book, Letters To My Son, and sets of discussion cards for both young people and adults. More on that below.

“This has been a journey of understanding my faith, my culture, and mental health,” Cooper said in an interview on WNHH Community Radio before the event. “And stories that have shaped who I am. Addressing them and dismantling those stories, so that I can be better and I can heal.”

While Interruptions launched publicly in 2020, the project was born in 2018, after Cooper and arts educator and administrator John Berryman crossed paths at a fundraiser for now-Mayor Justin Elicker. Cooper has known Berryman, who is the founder and director of the Heritage Chorale of New Haven, for years. Her kids sang under his direction when they were younger, and belonged to a choir at Varick AME Zion Church. So maybe it wasn’t meant to be strange when he asked her how she was doing.

But Cooper, who was still recovering from her aneurysm, didn’t know what

to say. In the span of two years, she had faced unimaginable loss. She and her daughter, Jackie, had struggled to cope with the weight of their grief and their ability to extend each other grace. She had left her job as the culinary arts director at ConnCAT. She was mentally exhausted, and spiritually drained.

“I’m reinventing myself,” she told him. It was what a therapist had suggested saying. And Berryman, listening closely to the absences between those words, asked her to say more.

The “more,” it turned out, was a lot more. Cooper, with the help of Berryman and the writer Ina Anderson, took a deep dive into storytelling meant to bust through stigma. She released a stage play (Covid-19 pushed it online in 2020), then a podcast the same year. She penned an entire book that told her story from childhood through her present. She kept thinking about how to spread the mission—how to interrupt the thick, dangerous silences that so often hung around grief.

“In my culture, we don’t talk about trauma,” Cooper said. “We’re not taught trauma as a language. We’re not taught the behaviors, especially in the faith community. We’re taught to pray it away. [People say:] ‘Have faith. If it’s happening to you, it’s God’s will. Pray more.’ … And I pushed back because none of those languages or behaviors were helping me to heal.”

In 2021, Cooper received five years of funding from Clifford Beers Community Care Center to expand the program. She enlisted faith leaders and trained facilitators for “Let’s Talk,” an eight-week, facilitated peer-to-peer program in which participants learn to speak openly about their trauma, their grief, and their road to healing. She built roundtables on generational trauma, working with groups like the Connecticut Violence Intervention Program (CT VIP). She kept visioning. At first, “I didn’t know what this was,” she said Wednesday, glowing in a sleeveless emerald green sweater. “Then the spirit said to me, ‘You have a healing ministry.’”

It was so successful that it brought her to the Vatican in October 2023, to speak about Interruptions’ work and the role that faith communities can play in acknowledging trauma, rather than telling their parishioners to pray their grief away. She returned a year later in 2024, channeling a love for travel and for faith that she also writes about in her first book. She realized that Interruptions, birthed out of a single question, was now a movement.

For longtime facilitators like the Rev. Dr. Frederick “Jerry” Streets, who helped Cooper build out “Let’s Talk” and is one of her most trusted collaborators, it was and continues to be a revolutionary approach. Streets, a licensed clinical social worker and professor at the Yale Divinity School, for years served as the senior pastor at Dixwell United Congregational

Church of Christ (Dixwell UCC). In both that ministry and his work in refugee trauma, he has seen firsthand the need for mental healthcare and wellness practices alongside faith.

Wednesday, he placed Cooper’s approach right alongside those of Sigmund Freud, Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright, the latter of whom opened a clinic bringing mental healthcare to Harlem in the early 1940s. “I think that when the next book on trauma and psychology is written, there will be a whole chapter on Reverend O,” he said to thunderous applause. Around the room and at the mic Wednesday, several storytellers testified to the sheer power of the program, which both provides a safe, facilitated space to talk about one’s foundational trauma or traumas, and offers a multi-pronged approach to healing. Beneath strings of twinkling lights, attendees listened as participants spoke candidly about the Interruptions in their own lives, and the ways that the program has helped them acknowledge, articulate and address their own trauma.

Cher Balckom, a devoted member of United Church on the Green, was one of those voices. When she joined Interruptions through its “Let’s Talk” program, she was initially sheepish and tentative, because she was one of two white women in her cohort, and acutely aware of the privilege she brought to the group.

“I was convinced others in the group would have more important stories to tell,” she said. Privately, she did have her own story, of an abusive partner and a marriage she ultimately chose to leave. The other participants, however, rejected that notion (Cooper is particularly allergic to the idea that there is a hierarchy of suffering; “trauma is trauma and pain is pain,” she said Wednesday) So when Balckom began telling her own story several weeks in, it became an opening—not for her to compare trauma with the other women in her group, but to begin to heal. “I was blown away by the resilience and the honesty and the faithfulness of other women in the group,” she said. What started as an anecdote over a small argument she’d had with her husband—over peanut butter, no less, she said—bloomed into a realization that her trauma ran deep. Ultimately, their care for her and openness to listening was as meaningful as the program itself.

That resonated for Tanner, who lost her son, Kaymar, five years ago this past July. Growing up, Kaymar was a sweet and funny kid, a gifted basketball player who loved his friends. Like far too many young people in New Haven, his own first interruptions came early, when his friend, 16-year-old Jericho Scott, was ripped away by gun violence in 2015.

“It left a hole in his heart,” Tanner told the New Haven Independent in 2020. Five years and three months after Scott died, Kaymar —or Kay, as his mother said sweetly Wednesday—became a victim of the same senseless violence that had killed his friend.

Like Scott’s passing, his death showed

Interruptions Founder Dr. Rev. Odell Montgomery Cooper.

“I think that when the next book on trauma and psychology is written, there will be a whole chapter on Reverend O,” said Rev. Dr. Frederick “Jerry” Streets.

Emcee Deborah Smith-McAuley shows attendees how to give themselves a tight hug.

Arts Council of greater New Haven

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Gateway Greets Its New President

by Allan Appel

Roughly 200 staff, faculty, students, and community friends gathered Wednesday at CT State Gateway formerly known as Gateway Community College to welcome the school’s new president, Dr. Shiang-Kwei Wang, and to hear about an increase in enrollment, higher student-retention rates, and the hiring of new instructors and janitors alike.

The crowd gathered to hear the inaugural “State of the Campus” address by Dr. Wang, who took the helm in June.

Significantly, she is Gateway’s first “campus president” in the school’s new configuration as part of a consolidated, if far flung, single state community college.

Dr. Dorsey Kendrick was the longtime president of Gateway Community College, when it was a distinct and independent college. She retired in 2017 and, beginning then and culminating in 2023, the state organizationally consolidated all of its 12 community colleges into one Connecticut State Community College (CT State) where students can take courses at any campus.

As part of that reorganization, each campus initially was led by a CEO, not a president. However, over the years, presidents have gradually replaced CEOs, with Gateway’s the most recent arrival.

That was a major reason for the good vibes in the school’s balloon- and streamer-festooned Curran Community Room, near the entry at Church and George streets, as students and staff lined up to fill out name tags and to get in to hear the words and to enjoy the treats prepared by the school’s culinary arts majors.

“A CEO is functionally a middle manager and traditionally not a role at a college,” said Dr. Miguel Garcia, a librarian and professor of Spanish, and the son of one of the founding professors at the school back in 1992.

“A president more accurately reflects the true needs of a school,” said Garcia. For the needs of an urban flagship school like Gateway, he suggested by way of example, are different from those at more rural campuses like Quinebaug Valley, Three Rivers, and Tunxis.

“There was a recognition that all the campuses have different and unique needs and one size does not fit all.”

That’s why the original unified model has evolved and the position, which Dr. Wang is filling, more accurately reflects the recognition of the true priorities of each school.

And that’s why the good vibes were evident Wednesday.

One small example: Among the recent positions announced was a new staffer dedicated to coordinating wraparound services for the not inconsiderable number of Gateway students juggling their education, applications for financial aid, and their work lives with challenges of homelessness.

Click here for Dr. Wang’s remarks of welcome and priorities that include striving

for stronger connections to New Haven’s business community and to community organizations.

Why? Because they provide internships, career opportunities, and sources for scholarship and financial aid, the needs for which are only growing.

By the same token Gateway’s giveback is that its skilled graduates in nursing, radiology, other medical specialties, in automotive crafts, among many others fulfill the needs of local industries and business.

Or, as Garcia put it succinctly: “When I go into a doctor’s office and I ask, ‘Did you go to Gateway?’ the answer is frequently, ‘Yes.’ We have the only diagnostic medical sonography program in the state.”

Gateway remains very much part of the sprawling, statewide, consolidated single multi-campus community college, in which students increasingly take courses online and bop from one campus to another to fulfill requirements. And the campuses compete with each other for resources.

Therefore, neither Dr. Wang, nor attendees during the Q and A that followed remarks, shied away from challenges. The first among priorities, which she wrote about in a previous campus communication, was better communication in the form of a comprehensive and detailed regular newsletter; town halls; and regular hours when the president’s door will be open for visits.

She announced better communication to the central office and, citing a symbolic torch that Dorsey Kendrick has passed to her, Dr. Wang announced the creation of a center on the campus for equity and social justice, that bucks national trends.

Also in the works to address are improvements to the “framework for scheduling,” that is, making sure that courses that are offered are not cancelled at the last moment for want of a threshold of students enrolling situations that are very negative for both students and faculty.

There were several more questions that raised versions of problems resulting from not focusing on this priority for the

new president. That is, to laser-focus, as someone phrased it, on “aligning marketing, enrollment and class availability.”

“I am aware of these and already brought some of these concerns already to the provost,” Dr. Wang replied. And the result is, in part, that Gateway has permission to have more courses offered on its campus. Of course no discussion about education or any other issue in New Haven fails to touch on parking, which is basic to students as well as instructors, coming from all over the region to learn or teach at Gateway.

One longtime English instructor asked how come her parking tags at the Temple Street Garage (where Gateway has an indispensable longtime contract for 600plus spots) were questioned by security! She was assured that while new tags are being issued, old tags are indeed being honored. “Any old Gateway ID is still compatible at Temple Street,“ the head of security assured the professor.

“But I was stopped three times!” “Have the guard call me.”

Dr. Wang concurred, in response to a passionate appeal from Dr. Garcia, that another priority should be revitalizing the college’s important automotive technology program at the campus in North Haven.

“But do you know it involves the bond commission and mayors [of at least two towns]. We have mountains to move. And I have to be diplomatic,” she said candidly. “All I ask is to give me some time, and if I need you to go to the legislature, you will come.”

A biology professor said she noticed Dr. Wang had invited her family and friends to the gathering and that was an excellent sign of her commitment to Gateway and “that we have a bright future with you.” “I like all the passion on this campus,” Wang concluded. “I look forward to becoming a part of the family.”

Gateway’s budget this year is $6.5 million and there are 6,297 students taking courses on the campus; with online courses included, this year the school will be serving nearly 9,000 students.

Allan Appel photo Dr. Wang, in the white blazer in the middle, with family and colleagues.

The New Haven independent

Freedom Futures" Brings Poetry & Power To Edgewood Avenue

Abiba Biao, The Arts Paper newhavenarts.org

Prometheus Brer stepped up to a mic that had appeared on Edgewood Avenue, looking into the eyes of attendees. In his hand was a copy of his poem “Firework Blues,” which explores how racially-motivated lynchings, excessive state violence, the military industrial complex, and American imperialism are justified by ruling powers under patriotism.

“Before I came here to study, I worked as a journalist and I had to cover a Fourth of July show and I had to write about how beautiful it was,” he said before pulling out his phone to read. “And I told myself, ‘If the journalist is going to lie, the poet is going to tell the truth.’”

Poetry and music rang out last Thursday night at the Edgewood Avenue bookspace Possible Futures, as neighbors, culture-bearers and New Haven activists and organizers gathered for the third annual “Freedom Futures,” a posthumous celebration of Fred Hampton’s 77th birthday. It joins recent recognitions of Hampton, chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, that have become woven with poetry, song, and remembrance in recent years.

Hampton, who championed the Panthers’ free breakfast program and fought for Black liberation and education until his final moments, was assassinated by the U.S. government in December 1969, eight months before his 22nd birthday. In the very early hours of December 4, 12 Chicago police officers—acting on orders from the FBI—raided the safehouse where he was spending the night, firing over 90 shots and killing multiple people before they left.

“There’s like so much going on in the world, but I do think that we have to remember that it’s ok to be happy, that it’s ok to experience joy in the midst of sorrow, in the midst of everything that’s going on,” said curator Juanita Sunday, who organized the first “Freedom Futures” two years ago as part of the 6th Dimension Festival, and has worked with Possible Futures funder Lauren Anderson to keep it going since. “Otherwise, what are we fighting for if there’s not these moments like this in between everything?”

“We really felt like Fred’s legacy, his life and legacy are not taught enough, are not celebrated enough, and we wanted to be a part of keeping that alive and doing it in an annual way,” Anderson added later in the evening.

During that time, Sunday said, the event’s collaborators have continued to grow and bloom in ways that have delighted her. Last year's celebration featured a series of activities from Reverence: An Archival Altar, organized by artist and curator Arvia Walker. This

year's festivities looped in members of Solemates Run Club and an open mic, with featured performances from New Haven poet laureate Sharmont “Influence” Little and San Francisco poet laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin.

Eisen-Martin, whose poetry is often a part of his own activism, was in town as an awardee for the Windham-Campbell Prize Festival. Before leaving New Haven, he also worked with creative writing students at Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School, spreading his footprint further into the city.

Evelyn Massey, owner of the downtown vintage shop Noir Vintage, soaked in the festivities as they unfolded around her. As a Black entrepreneur taking care of a brick-and-mortar space, Massey is seldom left with time to herself, she said. She cherishes nights where she’s able to slip away from her small business and be in community with other New Haveners.

“I feel excited because I’m around my people, you know?,” she said. She came prepared, she added—her dashiki was from the 1960s, an era to which she still feels connected. In New Haven, Massey’s uncle, Ken Hardy, was a member of the New Haven chapter of the Black Panther Party, which organized free breakfasts on Dixwell Avenue. To this day, Hardy has still retained a “very stern, very upright aura,” Massey said— once a trademark of his organizing work.

“I’ve always studied the Black Panther Party because of what they did for the food, for the young kids, and WIC program,” she added.

Nearby, Kyle Gonzalez stood at a table handing out free books (“As in free breakfast free,” offered a note, a reference to the Panthers’ revolutionary free breakfast program), from Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s What If We Get It Right to Douglas Kearney’s Sho.

The founder of Beyond Da Bars, Gonzalez started doing community outreach when he was incarcerated, and realized that he could still serve those around him from the inside. After connecting with Anderson, he was able to distribute supplies and books to unhoused people in the city. He has continued that work outside of prison, giving back at events like Thursday’s.

“It’s just work that I feel like needs to be done, so I'm trying to assist in any way possible,” he said. “It’s a beautiful event. I like being around people with beautiful vibes.”

A bibliophile himself, Gonzalez recommended the book Citizen Illegal by José Olivarez as a good read. It proved to be a popular suggestion, gone from the table by the middle of the night.

“We know that there’s something missing when we were growing up and so we want to provide that,” he said. “And so I think that’s my favorite part

is trying to provide that. It’s not about us. It’s about you guys out here.”

Inside Possible Futures, the festivities felt like they were underway even early in the evening. At a table by the front windows, Paulette Velazquez perused Mely Martínez’ La Cocina Casera Mexicana. Beside her at the table was Pan Y Dulce: The Latin American Baking Book by Byran Ford. A loyal patron to Possible Futures, Velazquez has been visiting the store since it opened in 2022. She can’t take a trip to the bookspace without her trusty sidekick, Anelisse Reyes. As a kindergartener, Anelisse’s favorite book genres include science, music, and pop-up books.

“She’s like, ‘I don’t know how to read,’ but she sees the images and everything and she knows what’s going on in the book,” Velazquez said. As a chef, she added, she mostly gravitates towards cookbooks and loves cooking from all different cuisines. She’s currently focused on learning Italian.

“I’m not a book person, but I’m trying to be,” she said.

As the night crept in, a line of people assembled to greet the runners as they arrived. Anelisse joined in on the fun, walking up the sidewalk before sprinting down the line of supporters. A wave of cheers and applause erupted, marking the five-year-old's induction as an honorary Solemates Run Club member for the evening.

“It’s amazing,” Velazquez said of the bookspace. “I like coming in here, especially with Sugar,” referring to Possible Futures, four-legged canine ambassador, who welcomes pats and scratches.

The celebration, it turned out, was just beginning. Before opening up the space to an open mic, Anderson extended her thanks to Kullturally LIT Founder IfeMichelle Gardin; Inner-City News Editor Babz Rawls Ivy, who hosts “LoveBabz LoveTalk” on WNHH Community Radio; BAMN Books’ Nyzae James, and poet Nzima Sherylle Hutchings, director of Hartford’s L.I.T.. All of them are champions of Black literature and history who helped lay the foundations for the festival in the first year, and have kept supporting it since.

“The teachers in all of us want to create a space that is about teaching and learning, not just in our schools,” she said, urging attendees to visit a timeline of Hampton’s history and accomplishments that organizers had installed across Hotchkiss Street. “In fact, some of the most important learning that happens, doesn't happen in those institutions.”

“It happens in the streets, it happens in community, with people like all of us gathering together, by choice to celebrate the things that we know need celebration, even if state powers refuse to celebrate them and do their very best to bury them.”

Sharmont "Influence" Little, Juanita Sunday and IfeMichelle Gardin. Bottom: Prometheus Brer. Abiba Biao Photos.

Prometheus Brer. Abiba Biao Photos.

Massey: "I’m around my people, you know?"

Kyle Gonzalez and Steve Roberts.

Cross Adapts To Phone-Free School

by Maya McFadden

“Need to unlock your phone?” Wilbur Cross Principal Matt Brown asked student after student after student at dismissal time prompting them to tap their Yondr pouches against his handheld magnetic-release device, as part of what has become an end-of-day ritual during New Haven’s new era of phonefree school.

That was the scene at around 2 p.m. Wednesday at the city’s largest high school, which currently has around 1,600 enrolled students.

Like all city public middle and high schools, Cross now requires students to store their phones in magnetically sealed pouches during the day in order to reduce distractions and increase interpersonal interactions in class.

New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) rolled out Yondr pouches for all public high schools this academic year, after distributing the devices to all public middle schools last spring.

Brown said Wednesday that the Yondr launch has been working well so far. He said it helps that the comprehensive high school introduced Yondr pouches over the summer for the 300 Cross students who attended summer school. Brown also visited New Haven Academy last school year to observe its use of the phone pouches, as New Haven Academy was the first city high school to pilot use of those phone-free devices, starting in February.

Brown also said that the transition to Yondr has worked so far because the school’s ninth grade class used these devices while in eighth grade last year. That means that nearly half of the students in the building came into the school year with some experience with these phone-free devices.

So far, Brown and staff have been shocked by the general lack of pushback among students to storing their phones away during the school day. Nevertheless, he said, there have been examples of students breaking the pouches, including by finding a strong enough magnet to open them during the day.

Cross staff however have been reminding students that phone-free spaces are “not a power play of control” but rather necessary work that is aimed to help youth break addictive habits and avoid being distracted from learning in class.

Brown said Cross requires students in all grades to store away their devices during the school day. He said the school may adapt this policy over time to allow for limited phone-release time when considering students’ seniority or good academic status. During New Haven Academy’s pilot of Yondr last school year, for example, the high school allowed seniors leaving the building or in

study hall for a period to unlock their phones as long as they have no discipline issues, a 2.7 GPA or higher, and parental approval.

“We just all need to break the habit,” Brown said. “It’s not a fair set of expectations for us to ask kids to live up to without helping because phones can do so much.”

“It’s a part of our job,” he added, “to help kids be present where they are.”

Brown said that students have been talking to each other more and reading more now that they don’t have their phones out all the time. He said teachers have also become more aware of their own phone use thanks to the students’ required use of Yondr pouches.

The school’s librarian reported that the school’s library has had ten times more books checked out this year compared to this time over the past four years.

Cross has installed 11 wall-mounted Yondr pouch release devices on its first floor, by the school’s designated exits, for students to unlock their devices at dismissal.

While Cross sophomores Asheli Molina, Alice Near, Evie Poynter, and Sophie Rothrock waited for their volleyball practice to start Wednesday, they sat in Cross’ atrium talking to one another and occasionally catching up on social media notifications they missed during the school-day.

They all agreed that despite being hesitant about Yondr at the start of the school year, they now believe it’s working to encourage them and their peers to be more social.

Molina said she imagined phone-less schools would be “hectic” but instead it’s been “helping a lot for us to be social, creative.”

“I didn’t realize we’re way more without our phones until now,” she added.

Near agreed that there’s been more positives than negatives when it comes to Yondr. “I feel like I’m focusing more on class,” she said. She added that during the school’s first lockdown this year, after a student allegedly posted a threat against other students on social media, she was stressed and scared that she could not reach her parents in the moment.

Rothrock said she thought the lack of phones would cause more fights during the school year because people are interacting more. Instead, to her surprise, she said there have been no fights in the school’s first two weeks.

The group added that it helps that classes this year have included more hands-on lessons. Rothrock said that a small downfall is their bookbags are heavier now because of the increase in paper handouts.

Poynter’s only critique was that students still do make use of devices like personal laptops and iPads for school assignments. And while more work has returned to paper, she said some of her class work is still assigned online which causes inequitable access for students because students who have computers can complete online assignments while in school, while those who don’t have computers have to do the assignments at home.

Another student told the Independent that the high school should allow seniors to use their phones during the day, and that all students should have access to their phones at lunch.

And another said that the arrival process at the start of the school day has been delayed as school staff have to watch students put their phones in their Yondr pouches, sometimes making students late for class which can impact their grades.

Brown said that the shift to Yondr has had some hiccups and tradeoffs for staff and students, including students no longer having immediate access on their phones to Powerschool to look up schedules and grades. The school also has to adjust to no longer using QR codes for students to sign up for clubs, as it did in the past.

But, Brown concluded, “when looking at the balance sheet it’s just wonderful to have kids fully here.”

Cross volleyball players: More pros than cons for Yondr so far.

Free the phones.

Maya McFadden Photos Principal Brown (right) helps students release their phones at dismissal.

The New Haven independent

Industrial Decay? Try Mushrooms

Opinion)

by Chris Krieger

Climate change is no longer a distant threat it is an accelerating danger, and New Haven, as a coastal city, is especially vulnerable. Our leadership has recognized this urgency. Under Mayor Elicker, the city created the Office of Climate and Sustainability and developed its Climate and Sustainability Framework, which “outlines goals and actions to make New Haven into a low-carbon and resilient economy.”

Food justice is also central to that vision. The new Food System Policy Division, tasked with building an Urban Agriculture Master Plan, is a clear step toward linking health equity, socio-economic opportunity, and environmental justice.

As an urban farmer and graduate student studying sustainable food systems, I see a direct way to advance these goals by transforming New Haven’s industrial past into a foundation for its sustainable future.

Motivated by CitySeed’s recent acquisition and $6 million plan for redeveloping the former Gant Shirt factory into a community-powered food justice hub, I imagined an adjacent project.

What if the city also provided the infrastructure for indoor “community gardens” where residents could grow food for use in the shared commercial kitchen or food incubators at CitySeed’s new location?

I sketched plans for a cooperatively owned farm space where residents could learn to grow mushrooms and other nutritious indoor-friendly crops. A project of similar size would likely cost less than one-quarter of CitySeed’s redevelopment with enormous returns for food justice and sustainability.

Not only are these gourmet mushrooms delicious and healthy, they are also one of the most sustainable foods we can grow.

Packed with protein, vitamins, and minerals, they are exceptional meat replacements. A 2024 peer-reviewed life-cycle analysis underscores why mushrooms belong at the center of New Haven’s green-food strategy. The study shows that producing a single kilogram of gourmet mushrooms takes just 322 liters of water and emits 1.1 kg of CO₂, whereas beef gulps 15,415 liters and belches out 27 kg of CO₂ a 50-fold water savings and a 96 percent cut in emissions.

Swapping a serving of mushrooms for an equivalent portion of red meat slashes carbon output by 65 percent, water use by 75 percent, and land demand by 87 percent. Beyond that, almost all of the waste can be upcycled into compost or converted into biochar.

These facts make it clear mushrooms aren’t just sustainable, they’re one of the most climate-friendly foods we can grow. Their ability to flourish on waste materials, with minimal space and resources, makes them a powerful tool in the fight for a more resilient and just food system. On Sunday mornings, you’ll usually find me selling gourmet mushrooms at the CitySeed Farmers Market in Edgewood Park.

The mushrooms are grown in a converted garage at Union City Farm just up the road in Prospect. In a space no larger than an SUV, we cultivate flavorful, nutrient-rich mushrooms year-round indoors, using sawdust and soy hulls, which are industrial and agricultural byproducts. I am also a graduate student in the Harvard University Sustainability program. Through these two lenses, I’ve come to see firsthand how food connects people, place, and possibility.

Each weekend, I step into the fruiting room at the farm to pick the best-looking mushrooms for the market. They grow from biodegradable bags filled with a mix of sawdust waste from lumber mills soy hulls, the outer shell of the soybean discarded by farms, and water. With the right humidity and airflow, mushrooms push their way out, growing in clusters that resemble bouquets more than decomposers. The air is cool and alive, and in this space I see more than mushrooms; I see possibility. I see a future growing on forgotten materials, in repurposed spaces, destined for plates across the city. I scan the racks rows of Gold, Italian, and Blue Oysters alongside Lion’s Mane, Black Pearl King, Chestnut, Coral Tooth, and Maitake. Each one emerges on its own rhythm, shape, and bloom.

Living and working in this historic city, I’ve also discovered something else: New Haven’s long-abandoned industrial buildings, once major causes of pollution and inequity, could now be used as powerful tools for sustainability and justice. These eyesores can and should be repurposed as cooperative, community-powered urban farms. Our industrial past does not need to be a burden; it can be the foundation of a more just and sustainable future and mushrooms, in particular, are the key.

Through my coursework and my work at Union City Farm, a vision crystallized for creating a sustainable future through

adaptive reuse of the many crumbling, unused factories in our city, with mushrooms as the primary catalyst. I am calling for New Haven to invest in a cooperative, mushroom-based urban farm in a repurposed factory to meet its stated climate, equity, and food system goals.

Repurposing New Haven’s vacant industrial buildings into cooperative urban farms aligns almost perfectly with the city’s goals for sustainability, food justice, and climate resilience. From creating green jobs and reducing emissions to improving food access and supporting community leadership, this vision checks nearly every box in New Haven’s Urban Agriculture and Climate Action plans. I ask that each of you reach out to Mayor Elicker and your local alders to allocate funds from the Green Fund to support a pilot farm.

The vertical racks in our farm hold more than just mushrooms. They hold potential. Potential to turn waste into food, to grow something valuable indoors year-round, and to reimagine how we use space in cities like New Haven. What we do here on a small scale is a glimpse of what’s possible on a larger one. Mushrooms have a knack for turning yesterday’s wreckage into tomorrow’s nourishment. Give them a dark, forgotten factory and they’ll quietly decompose the mistakes of our industrial past, then serve up justice, one meaty cluster at a time.

Chris Krieger is an amateur mycologist, forager and graduate student in Harvard University’s Sustainability program. He lives in Woodbridge and co-operates Union City Farm in Prospect, where he cultivates gourmet and medicinal mushrooms and sells them at local farmers markets. With a background in credit union leadership and real estate development, he is passionate about reimagining sustainable food systems using mushrooms as a key component.

Thomas Breen file photo

The Goffe Street Armory -- a potential spot for urban farming?

The New Haven independent

Lamont Reinforces State Plans To Protect Immigrant Students

by Jamil Ragland

HARTFORD, CT – Gov. Ned Lamont reassured immigrant families across the state that local schools have a plan to protect students from federal immigration raids.

“Schools only work if everybody’s coming and they feel safe being here,” Lamont said, while flanked by school superintendents and advocates at the Sports and Medical Sciences Academy (SMSA) in Hartford on Wednesday afternoon. “And that’s what this day is all about. There’s just a lot of press out there, a lot of noise in the media, a lot of fear out there in terms of, am I safe coming to school? Am I safe bringing my child to a beautiful school like this? And the answer is yes.”

Lamont and the others were present to reinforce the guidance issued earlier this year by the State Department of Education (SDE) regarding potential attempts by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to conduct raids in K-12 schools. The guidance instructs Connecticut schools to designate a point of contact for interactions with ICE to comply with lawful activities, but while also demanding proof of their authority in the form of a judicial warrant and other supporting documentation.

If agents do not have a judicial warrant or other supporting documents, they will be denied access to private student information. They are also barred from wearing masks while conducting their business.

“The most recent guidance from the state Department of Education has been very helpful to remind our staff that if law enforcement come to our schools and

are asking for information, the process is clear,” said Steven Rioux, president of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents and superintendent of Putnam public schools. “Communicate with the superintendent, follow the law, and respect student privacy.”

Rioux acknowledged that while high school-age students have been seized by ICE in Connecticut, none of those detentions have occurred at schools. However, parents continue to voice fears that their children will be picked up ICE.

“The reality is our families and our students are concerned of the ‘what if,'”

he said. “So many of our schools have received phone calls from families, and they really want to know what the proper procedures are, what the schools are going to do to help their children feel safe. So a part of a message and communication like today is just keeping people informed that there is a plan in place.”

East Hartford Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Anderson referenced the state’s Family Preparedness Plan, which offers practical tips for families who fear a loved one may be targeted in an immigration raid. Some of the tips include designating a trusted adult who can step

in to take care of children, completing a standby guardian form, and when necessary, designating a power of attorney.

“We want every family to know that you are not in this process alone, and we have resources to connect and make this a little bit easier,” he said. “Preparedness should not be about fear, but strength and protection. When our families have a plan, they can face challenges with confidence and children can continue to grow and thrive in a safe, stable environment.”

Tabitha Sookdeo, executive director of Connecticut Students for a Dream, shared her own experience as an undocumented teenager in Connecticut, and the constant fear and stress she and her family endured. She called on the governor and the legislature to do more to protect immigrant families during the anticipated special session of the General Assembly later this year.

“I know what it’s like to be scared, to be hungry, and to be exhausted, while pretending that everything is fine,” Sookdeo said. “No child in Connecticut should ever have to go through that kind of heartache. And today, too many children are living through exactly that. This is the reality our students are navigating.”

Students were on hand to voice their concerns to school leaders as well. Nisa Rodriguez, a 12th-grade student journalist at SMSA, asked about what students should do if they are confronted by ICE. Rodriguez said that she asked the question in order to get critical information

for younger students.

“For me, it’s a concern more so for the younger students,” Rodriguez said. “If they’re approached by someone in a mask and all this kind of heavy gear, they’re going to act out of fear. They’re not going to know how to react. Something that we don’t want to do is obviously make it easy for ICE to take them. I feel like students should be taught how to react in that situation.”

“I too want children to attend school and to feel safe at school. I too am concerned about chronic absenteeism and social promotion. Hartford High School, for example, recently awarded a diploma to an illiterate student who is now suing city taxpayers for millions of dollars in damages.

The news conference was followed by an emailed response from Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, who accused Democrats of offering zero examples of ICE conducting enforcement at schools in the state. Similarly, he made several allegations about Democrats’ motives on immigration, but like Lamont he offered no specific examples of supporting statements from Democrats. He suggested that Lamont’s meeting Wednesday highlighted “multiple glaring issues here in Connecticut.” First, he said “many Connecticut Democrats believe there should be no immigration law enforcement in our state. They want to keep criminal illegal aliens on our streets, on our dime.”

Second, Harding said, “many Connecticut Democrats repeatedly insist Connecticut is not a ‘sanctuary state’.

Con’t on page 19

Marissa Gillett To Step Down As PURA Chair

by Viktoria Sundqvist

in her letter of resignation.

“Serving the people of Connecticut in this role has been the honor of my professional life,” Gillett said in her resignation letter. “While I have never shied away from principled disagreement, the escalation of disputes into a cycle of lawsuits and press statements pulls attention and resources away from what matters most: keeping rates just and reasonable, improving service, and planning a resilient, reliable energy future.”

Gillett in her letter said the job and the controversy surrounding it has “exacted a real emotional toll” on both her personal life, her family and her team. Her reappointment to the role earlier this year resulted in a walkout by Senate Republi-

cans, who vehemently opposed her nomination.

“I did not make this decision lightly, but there is only so much that one individual can reasonably endure, or ask of their family, while doing their best to serve our state,” she said.

Gillett most recently came under fire after she revealed in court that she had deleted text messages related to an ongoing lawsuit challenging cuts to gas rates.

The deletion, which her attorney said was due to an auto-delete feature on Gillett’s phone and not intentional, sparked concerns about her commitment to transparency.

Gov. Ned Lamont, who first appointed her to the board in 2019 and re-appointed her to another two-year term in June, said he received her resignation letter Friday.

“Marissa is one of the most experienced and qualified public utility regulators in the country,” Lamont said in a news release Friday. “On behalf of our state, I am appreciative of her public service and dedication to our state and its ratepayers.”

Gillett brought an outsider’s perspective and a fresh set of eyes to help advance Connecticut’s policy goals of bringing cheaper, cleaner and more reliable power

to the people, Lamont said.

“At a time when we are working to manage the cost of energy, PURA has aided in those efforts,” Lamont said.

“Among her accomplishments are instituting critically needed reforms and leading rigorous reviews into the distribution rates of five regulated utilities that led to rate reductions.”

Gillett said she is “deeply grateful” for the opportunities and the people she has met.

“I have every confidence that the staff, whom I admire so greatly, as well as my capable colleagues, will continue to champion the important reforms underway as the result of our work to enhance transparency and accountability for the regulated utilities in this state,” she said in her letter. “The ratepayers of this state, whom I have been so proud to serve, deserve nothing less.”

State Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex

and Senate chair of the Energy and Technology Committee, said he is saddened to hear the news, but that “I am thankful for her work to save Connecticut ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars.”

State Sen. Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, who orchestrated the Senate walkout earlier this year over Gillett’s confirmation, said Friday that it appears Republicans did the right thing then but that questions remain now.

“Did the governor ask for her resignation?” Harding said. “He should set the record straight.”

Harding said the concerns from the Republicans were that the governor had brokered a “backroom deal” with Democrats. PURA is a quasi-judicial agency that oversees and regulates all the state’s utilities, including electric and gas companies. Gillett’s resignation will be effective Oct. 10.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Gov. Ned Lamont speaks regarding ICE enforcement at public schools at Sports and Medical Sciences Academy in Hartford. L to R in back: Hartford Public Schools Superintendent Andraé Townsel, East Hartford Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Anderson, and Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents President and Putnam Public Schools Superintendent Steven Rioux. Credit: Jamil Ragland / CTNewsJunkie

FILE: PURA Chair Marissa Gillett listens to a question during a public hearing Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, before the Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee. Credit: Doug Hardy / CTNewsJunkie

HARTFORD, CT – Marissa Gillett, chairwoman of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, has handed

CTNewsJunkie

CTNewsJunkie

Catwalk Lights Up Dixwell Fest

by Aanika Eragram

“Are we feeling her?”

Draped head to toe in a red pantsuit and a veil that billowed in the wind behind her, model Jasmine elicited a cheer from a 50-person crowd at the Dixwell Neighborhood Festival’s fashion show on Saturday.

“Then show these kids some love,” said Donald Carter, the designer and emcee of the show, whose time as an instructor at Co-op High School rendered him a beloved New Haven figure. When looking for volunteer models for the show, his former students came to bat.

Originally slated to have 60 models before the festival was rained out in May, he had 15 on Saturday. Some were out of town for New York Fashion Week; for others, school was back in session. But Carter was undeterred.

He gestured towards one of his former students, now a model, who made it back to Dixwell during a break between shows. It is clear that when Donald Carter, an icon of the New Haven fashion scene, you answer.

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in a side lot of the Dixwell Community “Q” House, it seemed that everywhere, calls were being answered. Every corner I turned, neighbors were running into each other, “Hello”s and “How are you”s ringing abundant. It was difficult to get a moment alone with Diane X. Brown, the organizer of the festival, who seemed to recognize every face she saw.

It was Brown’s 13th year planning the Dixwell Neighborhood Festival, which on Saturday was celebrating the legacy of Freddie Fixer, a fictional character named after Dr. Fred Smith, a heralded New Haven doctor. In 1962, Dr. Smith led a neighborhood cleanup effort in the Dixwell-Newhallville neighborhood. A children’s contest resulted in the birth of the festival’s mascot: Freddie Fixer.

Sixty-three years later, the spirit of Fixer is still alive in Dixwell. Four to five hundred attendees made it out this year, according to Brown. From paintings to lemonade to cigars, there was little you couldn’t find at one of the 50 vendor stands. Flanking this market space, affordable housing coalitions and NAACP volunteers sat ready to answer questions.

The Dixwell celebration was the seventh neighborhood festival hosted this year by the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, a New Haven organization dedicated to supporting arts and culture programming in the city. Other festivals took place in Fair Haven and Newhallville. The festival was also hosted by 94.3 WYBC, which ensured that a steady medley of house and jazz music rolled all afternoon.

“When I walk around I seldom see people that I know until I come to something like this,” said Shari Caldwell, a longtime New Haven dance instructor whose move to Maryland in 2018 made trips back to New Haven less frequent. Born here in the ‘60s, she’s seen many generations come and go. But for events like Saturday’s festival, she makes it back to Dix-

well. “Here I can see everybody, I see the new folks, so many of the older people.”

The Dixwell Neighborhood Festival created an intergenerational pulse in the city. Twenty dancers flooded the block with Scheri Walker, an instructor with Connecticut Line Dancers, an organization dedicated to promoting wellness through movement. Swaying in unison and turning on beat, it was clear that the partnerless dance was nonetheless still rooted in a spirit of community. It’s all about getting people young people, old people, everybody moving, said Walker. Her motto is “be well, or stay well.”

On the makeshift catwalk, the flood of former students was interrupted by a model that Carter introduced as very dear to him. “Who here remembers the ‘70s?” he asked as Lisa Gilliard walked out, donning an off the shoulder prairie dress in maroon. Carter and Gilliard have been friends for nearly 50 years. “Here’s a model from back in the ‘70s, into the ‘80s, and she is serving, serving, serving.”

Though Carter, in his Marie Antoinette-style yellow ball gown and cufflinks, was running the show, he certainly was not strutting alone. Every model he introduced was met with a response from the audience, cheers and names shouted out and choruses of “That girl, that girl!” Everyone was a participant.

“I grew up with this,” said Brown, who was born and raised in New Haven. “I grew up with this… these types of things happened all the time when I was a little girl.” Year after year, Brown pulls off the feat again, entirely on her own. “I don’t get paid, this is free. I do this because I want the little kids to have what I had.”

As the fashion show came to a close, a gaggle of children gathered on the grass. Iyaba Ibo Mandingo, a multi-hyphenate playwright and theatermaker, sat on a chair. He held up a buck-toothed rabbit puppet. “Mom, it’s starting!” one child shrieked. The rabbit opened its mouth. The kids squealed in delight. So the story began.

Iyaba Ibo Mandingo puts on a puppet show.

Aanika Eragram photos Scheri Walker dances with Connecticut Line Dancers.

The New Haven independent

History Honored At ConnCAT Jazz & Gospel Brunch

Lucy Gellman

Lisa Bellamy Fluker was taking it to church. Gazing out over Winchester Avenue, she rolled back the clock to her childhood, remembering the days when her mother would set extra places at the table, and welcome anyone who was hungry or needed a place to stay. A carpet of keys, soft and bell-like, rolled out beneath her. It felt, she said, like a simpler time, when neighbors looked out for each other and could have more honest, down-to-earth conversations.

Years later, she’s wondering how to get back to that sense of community. “What will it take for us to see / That we need each other? / Like a fam-i-ly? ” she crooned, and the audience nodded along, ready to join in on the hook. “What will it take to open our eyes? / Hey! / We need each other to survive.”

Sunday afternoon, Bellamy Fluker and her husband, the jazz musician and educator William Fluker, tapped into that steadfast love for community at ConnCAT and ConnCORP’s second annual jazz and gospel brunch, presented at ConnCAT’s 4 Science Park home. Designed as a fundraiser for ConnCAT’s culinary arts program—which turns 10 this year— the event also honored Stetson Branch Manager Diane Brown, NewAlliance Foundation Director of Programs LaKisha Jordan, and Karen McIntosh, director of community affairs at Yale’s Office of New Haven Affairs.

All three are champions of both ConnCAT and its for-profit subsidiary, ConnCORP (the Connecticut Community Outreach Revitalization Program) and of New Haven, where they have spent years pouring into the community. Sunday, all three also took time to recognize the weight of the moment, in which ConnCAT is less than a full year away from moving its offices from Science Park to the soon-to-be ConnCAT Place on Dixwell. That is set to take place in May of next year.

The event raised $5,000 for the program, said ConnCAT Director of Operations and HR Opal Harmon. “These funds will provide our current culinary students with hats, chef jackets, pants, blue shirts, and cover a two-week supply of food,” she said.

“It feels so incredible to bring different ages, different cultures, different ethnicities together for the expressed purpose of honoring these three incredible Black women while also honoring jazz and gospel,” said ConnCAT President and CEO and ConnCORP CEO Erik Clemons, who was referred to at turns as a big brother, a little brother, a life-saving force in the community and simply “E.” “To see these people, who would not be together otherwise … it’s amazing.”

It’s also bittersweet, he added as strains of music from Fluker and his all-star jazz band made their way through the Orchid Café. The building at 4 Science Park has

been ConnCAT’s home since 2011, shortly before it opened its doors with programs in phlebotomy and medical billing and coding in 2012. That same year, ConnCAT launched its first youth programs, which have since become a vibrant and year-round cornerstone of the work that the organization does.

Upstairs, artwork lines the hallways, with student designs that share the walls with black-and-white photography from the Civil Rights movement and the final years of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life. A computer lab has given birth to countless works of digital art, and recently a number of fresh beats that are part of The Breed Academy. Downstairs, Orchid Café sits next to a sprawling industrial kitchen, where hundreds of students have learned to chiffonade, deglaze, butterfly, and proof until they are ready for kitchens across the city and the state.

It’s also where the ConnCAT family has continued to blossom—although The LAB at ConnCORP now shares that honor—with a growing staff that works to champion Black arts, culture and innovation in all the work they do. Since those early years, ConnCAT has added initiatives in the culinary arts, construction, and biosciences, creating a multi-pronged jobs pipeline that is meant to keep up with changing workforce demands.

And now, it’s literally moving on. As people bobbed along to the music and tucked into brunch—crisped, glistening bacon, fragrant sausage, browned potatoes, shrimp and grits, pancakes and fruit, chicken and waffles, and French toast casserole, all steaming beside an omelet station prepped with chopped veggies— Clemons outlined ConnCAT’s plan to move to ConnCAT Place on Dixwell in May of 2026. Next year, that space will house staff from ConnCAT and Conn-

CORP, as well as its programs.

The $220 million undertaking will ultimately also include mixed-income housing, a child mental health and family center operated by Cornell Scott-Hill Health, a community-focused childcare center from the Friends Center for Children, a grocery store, multi-purpose arts hub and retail space. Sunday, Clemons noted, the site felt significant for a separate reason: it is revitalizing Dixwell, once a self-sustaining Black business corridor that is often synonymous with the history of jazz in Connecticut and on the East Coast.

If Sunday was a nod toward that future, it made time to acknowledge many of the people who made it possible (or as Clemons said, “the team did not do this alone.”) Out on the café’s warm, sunkissed patio, the sound of sax and flugelhorn chased each other in a playful banter, making space for drums and cymbals and keys before giving way to gospel.

and funk. Along the way, she’s become family—a word that floated between awardees, attendees and ConnCAT staff at least half a dozen times before the afternoon was over.

When it was her time to speak, McIntosh kept it brief, thanking members of both her nuclear and her chosen extended family, from church sisters to Clemons himself. In many ways, her gratitude mirrored the ethos of ConnCAT itself, where every student and staff member go on to lift others in the community up.

So too for Jordan, who grew up in Louisiana, then attended Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) for both her undergraduate and graduate degrees. In the years after she graduated, “Erik has watched me grow up,” she said with a slight catch in her voice. After jobs at Bank of America and KeyBank—always focused on the community, but never quite as in the community as she wanted—she made her way from the American Eagle Financial Credit Union to NewAlliance. Along the way, she has been a steadfast supporter of ConnCAT (in 2018, she helped facilitate a $1 million grant to the organization through the KeyBank Foundation’s marquee grant program), just as she has showed up for board leadership at the Shubert Theatre, FaithActs for Education, and the SCSU School of Business Executive Council.

“Thank you all so much for pouring into me,” she said Sunday as attendees listened with rapt attention. “We are built and rooted and grounded in service. Service to our community and our babies.”

When Bellamy Fluker took the mic for “I’ll Go,” she lifted her voice to the heavens, eyes fluttering open and closed as she sang. As Bellamy Fluker’s voice climbed and the words wrapped around the audience, McIntosh beamed in her seat, standing before the song had ended. In one hand, she held a handkerchief that became an extension of her applause. She later said she was humbled to share the day's honor with two other New Haveners she thinks of as community builders. That honor—and the history it held— was clear as Clemons introduced awardees, telling stories about each of them before ceding the mic. For years, he explained, McIntosh has both secured support from Yale and helped find a presidential public service fellow to help with ConnCAT’s multi-media summer youth programs, which focus on Black arts movements like the Harlem Renaissance, birth of hip hop, and evolution of soul

Nowhere, though, was Sunday’s focus on beloved community clearer than when Brown took the mic, trying not to cry as she called culinary student Michael Spencer to stand at the podium with her. Close to two decades ago, Spencer was a self-described “knucklehead” growing up in New Haven, and going to Stetson with his sister helped keep him out of trouble. “She tried to steer us in the right direction,” Spencer said. “The right way. She raised the whole community.”

For years, the two lost touch, then reconnected at a gathering where he was performing under his musical sobriquet, Lil Peedi. At first, he held back, embarrassed that the song had some four-letter words that he didn’t want Brown to hear. Then Brown urged him to do his thing. She was proud to see that he was still thinking creatively, she said. Then when she walked in Sunday, she was even prouder to see him dressed in his Cohort 14 uniform, taking the first steps toward his dream of opening a food truck with enrollment in the culinary arts program. “This young man right here beat all odds and I’m so proud to be a part of this village,” she said. When he enrolled at ConnCAT, “little did Erik know that I had him as a little boy. Now Erik has him as a man.”

Con’t on page 14

Hank Bolden, who is also part of New Haven jazz history, on sax.

Lisa Bellamy Fluker with backup singers Beatrice Cano, Esther Kennerly, and Letrice Sturdivant. When she sings, "I feel like I'm serving the souls of the people as an instrument [for God ]," she said. "Service is at the core of ministry for me."

Arts Council of greater New Haven

Charlie Kirk: Sinners and a Sinnerman

By Roderick A. Ferguson

Charlie Kirk died on Wednesday September 10 th in a horrible assassination, and soon thereafter tales of his eminence filled the air. Conservatives and liberals alike talked about him in lofty terms. The columnist Ezra Klein said, “He practiced politics the right way.” California governor Gavin Newsome tweeted, “The best way to honor Charlie’s memory is to continue his work: engage with each other, across ideology, through spirited discourse.” And President Donald Trump said, “Charlie was a giant of his generation, and an inspiration to millions and millions of people.”

Like the wave of a wand, Kirk’s death has washed from public memory even the most recent events and headlines. Exactly a week before he was murdered, eight survivors stood outside the capitol and talked about the sexual abuse they suffered as girls by the financier Jeffrey Epstein and other powerful men. On June 14 th of this year, Minnesota Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortmann and her husband were killed in what is believed to be a politically motivated assassination. But it’s hard to remember these events when the public’s attention is so forcibly directed toward Mr. Kirk.

What’s even more extraordinary is how the nation is asked to ignore Kirk’s own words in the name of an obligatory mourning. Where is the Charlie Kirk who talked of the “prowling Blacks” who “go around for fun to go target white people?” Where is the man who said of Black women professionals, “You don’t have the brain processing power to otherwise

be taken seriously?” Where lies the individual who argued, “MLK was awful… He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe.” In the name of 2 condolences, we are asked not only to purge our memories of all these failings but to look upon him as an idol that requires our worship.

I can’t help but think of Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster film Sinners at this moment.

Set in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1932, the movie tells the story of two gangster brothers—Smoke and Stack—and their cousin, the extraordinary musician Preacher Boy. After running jobs for Al Capone in Chicago, the brothers return home to Clarksdale. On the opening night of the juke joint, Preacher Boy plays a song so stirring that it draws an Irish vampire named Remmick to the club. We’re first introduced to Remmick as Choctaw vampire hunters are pursuing him. Fleeing from the men, he lands on the doorstep of a white couple named Bert and Joan—his body burning with sores from a setting sun. Realizing he can appeal to the couple’s racism, he says: “They took my wife… Them dirty Indians meant to rob me. Don’t let ‘em hurt me no more.” Significantly, Remmick uses racist stereotypes about Native Americans to lure his way inside Bert and Joan’s house.

The notion that Native Americans were torturers and rapists was foundational to European colonialism in this country. In fact, The chronicler and colonial officer of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Edward Johnson recalled a well-wisher who in 1630 said to the Puritans as they boarded a ship in England called the Arabella, “[After] two, three, or four months spent with daily expectation of swallowing Waves and cruell Pirates, you are to be Landed amongst barbarous Indians famous for nothing but cruelty.” The idea of indigenous people as social and sexual savages was also a key part of the genocidal campaign against the Pequot nation,

an operation that resulted in the mass murder of innocent people, the seizure of Pequot territory, and the founding of Connecticut. But 3 Remmick uses a different tact with the Black people at the juke joint. There, he tries to get inside by appealing to their sense of justice: “We believe in equality…,” he says. “Can we just-for one night-just all be family?”

Remmick and his vampire progeny eventually make it inside. During the bloody attack, he reveals to Preacher Boy his own colonizing agenda: “I want your stories, and I want your songs. And you gone have mine.” We soon learn that Remmick is the child of colonial oppression himself. After Preacher Boy begins to recite the Lord’s Prayer, Remmick tells him, “Long ago, the men who stole my father’s land forced these words upon us. I hated those men, but the words still bring me comfort.”

According to the historian Jane Ohlmyer, the English began invading Ireland in 1169. Discussing that moment, she says, “The colonists brought with them their English language, fashions, culture, and commercial ways, which parliamentary legislation privileged while outlawing Irish language and dress, together with Irish agricultural, social, political and cultural practices.” Invoking how most English people thought of the Irish, the eminent British historian James Anthony Froude said in 1874, “The Irish…were, with the exception of the clergy, scarcely better than a mob of armed savages.” Dreaming of the ways that he can make the Black people his, Remmick is the former Irish “savage” who has now become a white man.

After Kirk’s murder, the writer and scholar, Jeff Sharlet said of his political prowess: “Despite his racism, he managed to find a perverse way of fooling a number of young Black people into believing him. He was an effective organizer.” We can situate Kirk’s work with

Turning Point USA in the multicultural agenda of the right wing. In their book Producers, Parasites, and Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of 4 Precarity, Daniel Martinez HoSang and Joseph Lowndes discuss how Kirk and other far-right activists “paradoxically [conjoin] non-whiteness with invocations of white supremacy.”

In the version of the movie that I’ve imagined, an old Black person asks Remmick, “How did you get this way? Who turned you and convinced you that bloodlust is the same as living?” Peering into the vampire’s face and marshaling an ancient training centered on change and redemption, the old person—without fear—leans forward a little bit and asks, “How did you come to think that this was your power rather than your degradation? I don’t know how you came by this affliction, but even you can lay this burden down.”

What if Kirk had built a legacy based on empathy rather than believing it’s “a made-up new age term that does a lot damage?” What if he had dreamed of young people who were educated in creating opportunities for people less fortunate than hemselves, people who could look upon people’s differences with the wonder they deserve, rather than individuals who would be taught—like picnickers at a lynching—to delight in public executions? What if he had thrown off the burden of racial ideology and the encumbrance of whiteness? What possibilities might he have won for himself and others?

Just before Joan is made into a monster, she is holding a shotgun at Chayton, the Choctaw detective. Warned by his colleague that nightfall is coming and knowing full well that she is gripped not only by racial supremacy but also by fear, Chayton’s parting remarks are delivered like a condolence: “May God watch over you and be with you.”

Blumenthal Updates Eastern CT Leaders At Chamber Event

by Brian Scott-Smith

NORWICH, CT — Energy and job creation were the two major topics for which there is bipartisan support in Congress, according to US Sen. Richard Blumenthal. And he said he was optimistic that related legislation would pass.

Blumenthal, D-CT, attended the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern CT’s business lunch via Zoom on Friday.

Aside from his optimism, he also shared concerns about other projects and federal actions that he said were harmful.

“I am so really deeply alarmed and disturbed by the shutdown of Revolution Wind,” he said referring to the offshore wind farm that is 80% complete and was recently issued a stop-work order by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) as part of the Trump administration’s review of clean and green energy

projects in the nation started under the Biden administration.

Blumenthal said the stoppage was affecting thousands of job and the local economy.

“It’s nuts. It’s crazy, and that’s why I have written to the Secretary of the Interior demanding the internal documents. Because I view it as simply a kind of sell out to the fossil fuel industry,” he said. “The president has opposed wind projects. This one has been approved by all of the relevant agencies.”

He echoed comments that have come from CT DEEP and Gov. Ned Lamont that if projects like Revolution Wind are cancelled then already expensive energy prices in the state would go even higher and the stability of energy in the state could be affected as demand increases with no way to meet that extra demand. On the plus side he said there was a lot of

Clemons, in turn, heralded Brown as a community hero Sunday, crediting her with the very existence of ConnCAT Place On Dixwell itself. Years ago, when ConnCAT’s team first approached the owners of the various Dixwell Plaza commercial properties, the proposal was a non-starter: the owners assumed that ConnCAT was acting on Yale’s behalf.

Then Brown, who ran the Stetson Branch from the plaza for years, stepped in. She kept stepping in, attending every meeting that ConnCAT had with the owners of the plaza. She made ConnCAT her business. And she helped them succeed. “It wasn’t our ingenuity. It wasn’t our money. It wasn’t a great business plan. It was Diane,” Clemons said.

Both outdoors and inside the cafe, that bright, sometimes divine sense of something blooming into being extended to attendees and staff alike. There with friends Elsie Chapman and Beverley Barnes, Ms. Ella Smith remembered growing up beneath the wing of Brown’s mother Lillian, a Newhallville matriarch who became a second mother to dozens, if not hundreds, in the community. Years later, Smith was thrilled to become a regular at Stetson as the branch flourished under Brown’s leadership.

While the building is now across the street, Smith still goes faithfully, stopping there as she makes her way to the senior center at the Dixwell Community Q House. Sunday, there was no question in her mind that she would make the event. “And ConnCAT does such wonderful work in the community,” she added.

Carolina Marquez, who came out with her mother, Maria Roche to celebrate her birthday, said she was feeling that spirit from first strains of jazz to an impromptu and deep, soulful performance of Gregory Porter’s “Take Me To The Alley.” In December 2019, Marquez graduated from ConnCAT’s culinary arts program, going on to work for the Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital (YNHPH).

“It’s a really wonderful program,” she said. While Marquez learned to cook as a kid growing up in the Hill—she credits her mom for that—she credits the culinary program with giving her the skills to be a professional chef.

bipartisan agreement on the National Defense Authorizations Act, which benefits Connecticut, especially the eastern part of the state.

“We are going to be providing very robust support to both the Virginia and Columbia class shipbuilding projects at Electric Boat and job training,” he said.

Electric Boat, based in Groton and part of the defense company General Dynamics, is for the first time in its history working on two classes of submarine, the Virginia and Columbia classes.

Blumenthal stressed the job training and apprenticeship program.

“There’s so many businesses in Connecticut, as I go around the state, what I hear is, we’re having trouble filling jobs because we can’t find people with the Con’t on page 17

Chef Jenna Martin, who runs the culinary arts academy, said that she’s savoring these last few months in the building. Sunday, she was especially proud of students in the current cohort, a group of eight aspiring chefs who “are really, really good,” in part because they’re willing to rise to every challenge that she throws at them.

That was especially true as they prepared for the brunch, she said. At the beginning of the week, they hadn't known their way around a loaf of bread or tin of muffins. By Sunday, they’d prepared not just a hot brunch but a whole table’s worth of baked goods, from chocolate-studded muffins to challah with nuts and dried fruit.

“It’s bittersweet,” she said of the move, nodding to the way Chef Eric Blass helped prepare her to take on the mentorship role. “I literally came here when it was a dirt floor and I watched it get built

The Inner-City News welcomes our newest contributor! Dr. Roderick A. Ferguson, Public Intellectual. Will be adding his voice and thoughts on current events, topical political, historical references, All matters and all things affecting Black Folks across the diaspora!

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Chamber Leaves Chapel, Goes To Church

by Mona Mahadevan

The Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce (GNHCC) has moved from one side of the Green to the other leaving its decades-long home at 900 Chapel St. for a fourth-floor, 8,000-square-foot office space at 195 Church St.

Gov. Ned Lamont, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, and Mayor Justin Elicker stood alongside more than 100 GNHCC members and other city and state officials at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday to celebrate the organization’s move two blocks north.

GNHCC represents 850 businesses across 15 municipalities

GNHCC President and CEO Garrett Sheehan opened the celebration by noting that, at 231 years old, GNHCC is the third oldest chamber of commerce in the U.S. He said they’d been on Chapel Street for around 30 of those years.

GNHCC Director of Communications and Public Policy Victoria Verderame said the new space has a “smaller footprint” but “more usable space” than their office at 900 Chapel.

“We’re excited to host more events here, like today’s event to our signature programs such as Councils and Conversations,” Verderame wrote to the Independent. “The new office also provides

our members with space for meetings, conferences, and programs,” which can be especially helpful for small businesses that may not have offices of their own. She added that GNHCC will

be subletting “portions of the space.”

According to Verderame, she and the 12 people employed by GNHCC moved to Church Street in mid-June.

“I know we’re in new digs, but the values and goals of the chamber are well-established,” declared Blumenthal during his remarks on Monday. That includes “reach[ing] across the aisle” to “put[]

workers in jobs and improv[e] the economy of our state,” he said.

Noting that he’s often surrounded by “lots of conflict” and “dysfunction,” Blumenthal brought up a Monday morning “win” at a U.S. District Court, in which federal Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the Trump administration to cancel its stop-work order against an 80-percent-completed wind farm in New London. He called the decision a “win for Connecticut and for our business community that supported the project,” and argued that the wind farm would create jobs, make energy more affordable, and protect the environment.

After the press conference, Lamont told the Independent that he went to the ribbon-cutting because “New Haven is happening.” He said he’s fighting to make it easier for businesses, small and large, to grow and expand.

Connecticut’s strengths are the “quality of our education” and “the quality of our workforce,” he argued, but our “Achilles’s heel is the high price of electricity.” He said he supports wind, solar, natural gas, and nuclear developments, describing himself on energy as an “all of the above kind of guy.”

Elicker’s remarks focused more narrowly on New Haven’s “booming” economy, especially with the influx of bioscience, life science, and quantum businesses. It’s a “new location,” he said, but “the same mission around inclusive growth.”

CT’s Republican House Leader Joins National Bipartisan Condemnation of Political Violence

by Karla Ciaglo

House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R North Branford, has joined colleagues nationwide in issuing a bipartisan statement rejecting political violence, signing onto a document released Friday, Sept. 14, by the Rodel Fellowship Class of 2024.

The statement responds to national tragedies, including the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University, and the June attacks in Minnesota, where State Rep.Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were murdered, and Minnesota State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were targeted in an attack.

“We, the members of the Rodel Fellowship Class of 2024, are horrified by the recent acts of political violence that have shaken our nation … Like most Americans, we unequivocally condemn these heinous acts,” the statement says.

“There is no place in our democracy for violence as a means of silencing voices or advancing political causes.”

Signed by 18 officials from across the political spectrum, it includes Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, Mont-

gomery, Al. Mayor Steven Reed, and Candelora. The group comprises state legislators, statewide officeholders, mayors, and commissioners, both Republicans and Democrats, who came together through the Rodel Fellowship to study democratic principles, share personal stories, and build relationships beyond partisan lines.

Founded in 2005, the Aspen Institute’s Rodel Fellowship is a leadership program for elected officials. In the program, 24 state and local leaders — 12 from each party — participate in three multi-day seminars over two years, studying texts including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and writings by Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Guided by scholars, Rodel fellows explore ethical governance, democratic principles, and effective leadership. Alumni gather periodically to discuss public policy in a nonpartisan setting.

More than 380 leaders have completed the program, many going on to serve as U.S. senators, governors, mayors, Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, and even vice president, according to the institute..

Candelora said the fellowship experience allows leaders to engage in conversations “about policy, politics, and life” that transcend legislative clashes, and that

House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora tells reporters Tuesday, May 7, 2024, at the state Capitol in Hartford that the Republicans have asked the Attorney General to take a closer look at the process through which the Democrats are approving changes to the state budget. Credit: Hudson Kamphausen / CTNewsJunkie

violence cannot be the path for resolving differences. He said he was proud to join the statement because it reflects a commitment to constructive, respectful dialogue.

The statement echoes broader concern

in Connecticut over political threats and hostile rhetoric. In response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Connecticut officials expressed bipartisan alarm. Governor Ned Lamont, Rep. John Larson, State Sen. Ryan Fazio, and party leaders

stressed that violence is never acceptable and political disagreements must be resolved through debate and the ballot box. “Political violence of any kind has no place in our country and is never acceptable,” said US Rep. John Larson, D-1st District.

Earlier in August, Connecticut lawmakers addressed the culture war on social media. House leaders Candelora, Speaker Matt Ritter, and Majority Leader Jason Rojas called for respect and dignity following harassment directed at state Rep. Corey Paris, D Stamford, whose post about ICE activity in Stamford was shared by far-right accounts, prompting threats against Paris and his family. The leaders said the prevalence of social media “has created an environment that has resulted in threats and demeaning criticisms of varying levels to both Republicans and Democrats” and urged colleagues to post responsibly.

Earlier this week, Lamont reassured school leaders and families that threats and acts of political violence have no place in Connecticut schools and that clear safety plans are in place.

In its statement, the Rodel Class of 2024 emphasized that “our experience proves that civil discourse isn’t just possible — it’s essential” and called on Americans to reject violence and recommit to constructive engagement.

MONA MAHADEVAN PHOTOs

Mayor Elicker, Garret Sheehan, and Heather LaTorra cut the ribbon for the Chamber's new digs.

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The New Haven independent

Democrats Pour Millions into White Media, But Continue to Starve the Black Press

By Stacy M. Brown Black Press USA Correspondent

One could make the case that Democrats lost the 2024 election in part because they abandoned the Black Press—the voice of Black America. Black voters, the backbone of the party, walked away in numbers unseen in modern times. At the very moment when all Americans—Black, white, Latino, and others—are called to stand against authoritarianism, Democrats have shown not courage but cowardice, not gratitude but contempt for their own base.

The numbers tell the story. House Democrats proudly announced a $3 million ad blitz hitting Republicans over tariffs and the looming shutdown. The DNC spent big on a paid campaign blanketing Wisconsin newspapers to attack Elon Musk during a state Supreme Court election. They rolled out a five-figure ad buy targeting Tennessee Republicans with Epstein-related attacks. The DCCC unleashed a national ad campaign aimed at Latino, Black, and AANHPI voters, blaming Republicans for back-to-school prices, followed by another round of ads—its first national digital buy of the 2026 cycle—hammering Republicans for jeopardizing rural hospitals. Millions for consultants, millions for TV, millions for newspaper spreads in majority-white outlets. But when it comes to the Black Press of America—a network of 200 Black-owned newspapers and media companies, many run by Black women— Democrats turn their pockets inside out.

This is no small network. The Black Press has the potential to reach more than 30 million readers, viewers, and subscribers every week through its newspapers, websites, social platforms, and daily broadcasts. It has never asked for handouts, only a fair shake. Yet, despite all their boasts of diversity, Democrats have invested nothing close to the millions they shovel elsewhere. And this betrayal comes at a historic moment: the Black Press is approaching its 200th anniversary in 2027. Founded in 1827 by John B. Russwurm and Samuel Cornish with the bold declaration, “We wish to plead our own cause. For too long others have spoken for us,” the Black Press has carried that mission through every trial of Black America. Yet today, as it struggles financially to reach that milestone, the very party that owes its survival to Black voters has turned its back.

During the pandemic, Democrats flocked to the Black Press’ daily broadcast, Let It Be Known. They wanted to be platformed, wanted their voices carried into Black homes. But once they were elected, the same voices that begged for space disappeared. What remains is foul lip service, the kind that sounds no different from Trump’s contempt for diversity. The insult is deeper when measured against history. Frederick Douglass thundered through The North Star. Ida B. Wells laid bare the horror of lynching through the Memphis Free Speech. The Chicago Defender carried the voices of the Great Migration and showed the mutilated body of Emmett Till. The Afro American chronicled Jackie

Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr.

When Tulsa burned, white mobs destroyed Black newspapers to smother the truth. When Dr. King wrote from Birmingham Jail, it was the Black Press that carried his words. When the Wilmington Ten were caged, it was the Black Press that refused to look away. And today, the torch is still burning. April D. Ryan is today’s Alice Dunnigan. Lauren Burke is today’s Ethel Payne. Sam P.K. Collins is a modern-day Marcus Garvey. HBCU students have both interned and currently work full-time with the Black Press. The Black Press is not dead history—it is a living force.

So, let the question be asked plainly: if the RNC wrote checks tomorrow to the Black Press, would Democrats call us sellouts? Would they smear us while continuing to funnel millions into papers and platforms that do not speak to our communities?

The truth is this: Democrats have betrayed the very institution that has carried them time and again. They can spend $3 million to flood swing districts, or blanket Wisconsin papers with anti-Musk ads, or pump cash into flashy social media buys—but they cannot find equity for the Black Press. That betrayal is why the party lost ground in 2024. And unless Democrats reckon with their disdain for the Black Press, they will learn again in 2026 and 2028 what they began to taste already: abandonment at the ballot box, silence from the very people whose voices

from page 14

right skills, and I think it is very important to the future of our state that we provide that kind of training,” he said.

The Kids Online Safety Act was another hot topic for Blumenthal. He and Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn backed the measure last session. It passed the Senate 91-3 before being blocked in the House.

Blumenthal said young people needed to be protected from what he called, “toxic content” online all driven by social media algorithms.

Veterans were another success story of bipartisan support, said Blumenthal, who is the ranking member of the Veterans Affairs Committee.

Despite jobs cuts earlier this year brought about through DOGE that saw thousands of layoffs at various federal and veteran facilities across the nation, he said millions of dollars has been secured to renovate and restructure the VA hospital facility in West Haven. Plus, he said there is bipartisan support for addressing the continued nationwide problem of veteran suicide, he said. He finished his 20-minute presentation addressing healthcare and Medicare. He said he hoped tax credits and subsidies for these would be extended as part of a budget agreement as they expire at the end of the year and could increase insurance premiums for thousands in Connecticut and millions across the nation.

Invincible: A Glorious Tribute to Michael Jackson Sat, Sep 27, 8 pm ($35-45)

Take Me As I Am: A Joni Mitchell Tribute with Rainee Blake Sat, Oct 4, 8 pm ($30)

Cedric Burnside GRAMMY-Winning Blues Artist Thu, Oct 9, 7:30 pm ($45)

Disney’s: Moana Live-to-Film Concert 6 pm Pre-Show Activities Fri, Oct 10, 7 pm ($20-25)

Ray Chen* Julio Elizalde, Piano Fri, Oct 17, 8 pm ($35-40)

An Evening with Jacob Collier The Djesse Solo Show Sat, Oct 18, 8 pm ($45-65)

Compagnie Hervé Koubi Sol Invictus Thu, Oct 23, 7:30 pm ($35-40) & MORE!

Chamber Music Series

TICKETS ON SALE

860-486-4226 | @JorgensenUConn On the UConn Storrs campus

Note: all artists, events, dates, programs and policies are subject to change.

Pictured: Cedric Burnside

Con’t

Blumenthal Updates

Smooth Jazz “Feels So Good” In Newhallville

by Lisa Reisman

David Davis performing Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good"

On a sun-splashed afternoon in the heart of Newhallville, Pat Solomon took in the heady aroma of grilled meat, and the croon of David Davis’ saxophone. There were people calling out to each other and butterflies fluttering and birds twittering and little kids racing about on the newly mown grass. A water fountain gurgled. “I came out here to enjoy the weather, the music, and the fact that there’s a jazz event in the middle of my neighborhood on a weekend afternoon,” said Solomon as she relaxed at a table during the First Annual Smooth Jazz in the Park at the Newhallville Learning Corridor.

The mission, according to event co-organizer and ubiquitous community activist Fred Christmas, was simple. “Relax, connect, forget your troubles, and let the jazz move you,” he said on Saturday, as William McCoy, a member of the Mudhole Social Club, flipped a burger from his post at the grill on Hazel Street. “Listen to the music, have something to eat, do whatever you want to do, this is about enjoying our park.”

Doreen Abubakar who helped lead the transformation of the Mudhole, a formerly blighted area along what is now the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, into the thriving neighborhood park agreed. With the Q House almost two miles away, “we created this community hub as a place where people can engage with each other,” she said.

Known as C PEN, or Community Placemaking Engagement Network, the so-called Newhallville Learning Corridor includes a book box and bike box with

free bike repairs, as well as pollinator gardens, a community gardening space, and a fishing area, with a bird observation zone in the works.

As part of an ongoing effort to bring in more people, this particular event had her and her team partnering with the Mudhole Social Club, most of whom are retirees, as a way to reach seniors. Through the asset mapping by C PEN, she said, Newhallville is the most densely populated neighborhood in New Haven, and seniors, which she defined as over 60, make up a third of that population. “We want to give them the information they need to get through the winter, and this is a way to connect with them and start a relationship with them,” she said.

Over at her table, Solomon was wondering at the transformation. “To see the revitalization is to me something phenomenal,” she said, swaying to Davis’ rendition of Chuck Mangione’s “Feels So Good” in the gentle breeze.

When the city started working on the Farmington Canal trail in Newhallville, “there were concerns about lighting and safety, and that’s when the change started taking place,” she said. “We were able to build on that, and now we’re able to enjoy a jazz event without having to go to the Green or to Goffe Street Park.”

Nina Silver, whose family has been in Newhallville for generations, sounded a similar refrain. “This is wonderful, to see everybody out making the most of this beautiful day,” she said. Silver runs the ALM sports camp out of Immanuel Baptist Church that includes before- and after-school care as well as days off. “Doreen will come over and read to my kids,” she said.

Back at Solomon’s table, saxophonist David Davis ambled over during a break.

Davis, a West Haven native and celebrated jazz artist who’s performed with Mary J. Blige, LL Cool J, and Brian McKnight, among others, said Christmas approached him last month. “I do a lot of big events, but I always try to be available for community ones like this,” he said. “Music to me is entertainment but there’s also a therapeutic part of it that can really affect people.”

Lillie Chambers, seated beside Solomon, nodded. “His music is music for the soul,” she said. “It just transports you to a different place.”

From the other side of the park, there was a squeal. It was the granddaughter of Fred Christmas, who was doing wind sprints under his close coaching eye.

“This girl is going to be a star,” Christmas proclaimed as he made his back to Solomon’s table, adding that the Smooth Jazz in the Park would recur each September.

“That’s great,” Solomon replied. “And important.” She noted the Farmington Canal Trail is part of the Connecticut Freedom Trail, the statewide historic trail that marks sites that bear witness to milestones in the fight of African Americans for freedom and social equality.

“African Americans that were enslaved went through New Haven up to Hartford and Springfield and then up to Canada, that was the route,” she said, as she regarded the festivities around her amid Davis’ smooth stylings. “All of this is about history taking a positive turn.”

“And just plain enjoying ourselves with our families,” Christmas rejoined with a broad smile.

CT Education Officials Plan To Keep More Students In District For Special Education

by Jamil Ragland

HARTFORD, CT — State education

leaders touted increased funding to help towns and cities handle the ever-increasing cost of serving the state’s growing population of special needs students at a forum at Naylor Elementary School in Hartford Monday.

The legislature passed and Gov. Ned Lamont signed Public Act 25-67 into law earlier this year. The omnibus bill tackles several areas of special education and provides $30 million for each year of the biennial budget in Special Education Expansion and Development, or SEED, grants to equalize special education spending around the state.

The General Assembly also approved $40 million in excess cost grants for school districts to cover expenses related to special education.

“This coordinated approach promotes transparency, improves service deliv-

ery, and enhances stability for school budgets, critical steps toward improving outcomes and expanding access for students receiving special education services,” said Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker. ”It reflects our collective belief that every child deserves the support, the tools and opportunities to thrive no matter their learning needs.”

Bryan Klimkiewicz, state director of special education, said the number of students requiring special education services continues to rise. There are over 94,000 students identified as special needs in the state, he said. In the past 10 years there has been a nearly 10% increase in children diagnosed with autism, and also significant increases in the number of students with intellectual disabilities and “other health impairments” such as mental health issues, anxiety and others, he said.

Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam

celebrated the new funds from two different perspectives. First, as mayor, he’s seen special education costs consume more of the city’s education bud-

get. Special education now accounts for a third of the city’s school budget and 80% of the city’s school transportation budget goes to send students to out-ofdistrict programs. He also spoke as the parent of a child who has dyslexia and ADHD, and who has had difficulty at times navigating the various programs.

“Students in our schools, especially in school districts that are struggling to make ends meet, that have special education needs, have all of the potential in the world, but have specific diagnosable needs that need to be addressed before they are able to meet that potential, and I’ve seen that firsthand,” he said.

State Rep. Maryam Khan, D-Windsor, co-chair of the General Assembly’s select committee on special education, said it was important to keep students with special needs in their home districts.

“This grant encourages inclusion,” she said. “It encourages districts to inCon’t on page 26

Lisa Reisman photo Co-organizers Fred Christmas and Doreen Abubakar

Ann Provit, Sam Davis, and William McCoy of the Mudhole Social Club, reputedly the oldest in New Haven.

The New Haven independent

Gov. Ned Lamont discusses special education costs with Hartford School Supt. Andraé Townsel, state Rep. Maryam Khan and state Sen. Doug McCrory, Credit: Jamil Ragland / CTNewsJunkie

Plans To Protect

Ridiculous. We are the very definition of a sanctuary state, with Democrats protecting criminal aliens at the expense of Connecticut citizens.”

Third, he said “Connecticut residents overwhelmingly support removing criminal illegal aliens from our streets, but to Connecticut Democrats, that’s an apparently a bad thing. They had little if anything to say, for example, about ICE’s highly successful ‘Operation Broken Trust’ or the twice-deported Guatemalan man who was recently arrested for aggravated sex assault of a jogger in a New Haven dog park. Democrats also now want to prohibit state Department of Children and Families workers from talking to ICE with regard to the sex trafficking of children.”

Last, he said, “Democrats, like Gov. Ned Lamont, openly state that all illegal immigrants are ‘welcome’ in Connecticut. Really? Even violent and murderous

Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members?”

Lamont has said that the state welcomes immigrants, is cooperating fully with ICE within the law, and has consistently emphasized that the removal of dangerous criminals is a top priority for state law enforcement, regardless of the immigration status of the accused.

There is no record online of Lamont ever suggesting that he welcomes “violent and murderous” immigrant gang members. The state Department of Correction has said that undocumented individuals who are released on parole or bail are turned over to ICE.

Multiple studies have proven that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than native-born US citizens.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, Connecticut was estimated to have 113,000 undocumented immigrants in 2024, out of a total immigrant population of 591,000. Of the 113,000 undocumented immigrants in Connecticut 2024, some 73,000 were employed and 23,000 were homeowners, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

According to data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants in Connecticut paid over $400 million in taxes in 2022. According to the federal government, the process of immigrating legally to the US from Mexico takes three to five years. However, news reports indicate that there is a backlog of immigrants seeking US citizenship that stretches the wait to nine to 12 years.

PBS has reported that undocumented migrants come to the US from across the globe, but among those who arrived within the past 10 years, 19% came from Mexico, while larger shares came from Central and South America. Some new migrants arrive seeking work, others are fleeing crime, economic and/or ecological disasters, and political persecution in their home countries, making them asylum-seeking refugees.

Teachers Get Ready For Contract Negotiations

by Maya McFadden

A group of city public school teachers turned out to the latest Board of Education meeting to call for more respect, higher wages, and lower class sizes as they get ready to dive in to negotiations for a new union contract. Over a dozen speakers put forward those demands Monday during the school board’s meeting at King/Robinson School in Newhallville.

Some of the educators who spoke up said that their years of experience working in the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) district has not translated to a livable wage that can fully cover their rent, leaving some working second jobs. Others raised concerns about working in decaying buildings that are poorly maintained, even after public outcry.

The testimony came a week before the teachers union the New Haven Federation of Teachers, Local 933, AFT, AFL-CIO is set to begin negotiations with the district over a new contract. The union’s current contract is set to expire on June 30, 2026. That deal included a nearly 15 percent pay hike over the term of its three years, and saw starting salaries for new New Haven teachers who have a bachelor’s degree rise from $45,357 to $51,421.

In a comment sent to the Independent on Tuesday, NHPS spokesperson Justin Harmon said the district’s goal is to work towards creating the best possible working environment for educators.

“Like the teachers, we want the fairest possible contract with the best possible compensation,” he said. “Together with the teachers union, we have been advocating with our state representatives for the best possible funding that could help us realize these important objectives. That will be an ongoing effort.

In the meantime, we will negotiate in good faith with the teachers union and do our best to achieve our common goals.”

City teachers union President Leslie Blatteau kicked off the public comment portion of Monday’s meeting by reminding school leaders that teacher contract negotiations start next week.

She reported that while teacher recruitment has been happening and educator salaries have slightly increased over the years, teachers are still broadly concerned about their current working conditions.

She said the union worked with the group Educators Thriving to survey 1,450 city teachers and found that only 8 percent feel their buildings have enough staffing to “adequately meet students’ needs.”

She reported that only 15 percent said they have the resources to meet students’ required IEP/504 support-plan needs. When it comes to wages, the

union found that only 10 percent of educators feel their total salary compensation is adequate to the work they do. The survey also reportedly showed 1 in 4 educators spend over $500 a year on classroom supplies and 64 percent spend over $200.

“Our members ranked job stress higher than job satisfaction,” Blatteau said. She concluded by requesting that the district have a more transparent budget process and that it maintain close, clear, and honest communication with staff about major factors influencing working conditions at NHPS.

New Haven Academy Spanish teacher Hanna Marshall told the board Monday that she lives paycheck to paycheck. She said she’s not alone among NHPS educators in living that way.

Marshall said she’s been “forced” to seek a second job to help pay her bills after a decade of service to the district.

“After ten years teaching in New Hav-

to go to the bathroom.”

She requested that the next teacher contract include required maintenance updates to staff.

East Rock and FAME school library media specialist Anneliese Juergensen called on the district to support its library educators, who work on the front lines of improving literacy among students. They also work as last-minute substitute teachers, manage libraries, and teach youth media literacy on a daily basis.

Gillian Lynch, who teaches music at Nathan Hale School, and Marissa Lezzi, who teaches band at Mauro Sheridan School, said they are asked often why they stay in New Haven to teach. Lezzi recalled leaving New Haven once for a school district ten miles away and immediately seeing differences in support for educators. She told the board on Monday that only a fair contract will keep passionate educators like those who showed up to the school board meeting working for the district. She concluded that educators soon will not be able to afford to live in New Haven. High School in the Community history teacher Ben Scudder called for transparency with the district’s budget. He also called for the board to respond to speakers during public comment, similar to what happens during Board of Alders meetings.

Theresa Purdie said she’s brought home smaller paychecks this year because of “skyrocketing” health insurance costs. She also called on the board to make its budget transparent.

Co-op English teacher Katie Yates said she dreams of a day when educators will be valued, all school buildings will be safe, the community will have a better understanding of the district’s budget, the administration supports educators, and NHPS has a fair and equitable teachers union contract.

en and a masters degree, I still only take home about a $1,500 check,” she said.

She said that she has a basic insurance plan and no retirement fund, making it so “at this point after ten years I still feel like I won’t be able to retire with what I currently have if it keeps going the way it’s going.”

She and a dozen other speakers Monday urged the board to prioritize increasing teacher salaries.

“I love my school and I love New Haven but I feel like right now New Haven doesn’t love me,” she said.

Marshall recalled speaking up at a board meeting a year ago to relay concerns about New Haven Academy’s staff bathroom locks not working. She said those still haven’t been repaired, “which means every time I have to use the bathroom I’m afraid that someone’s going to burst in on me, and there could be students in the hallway which there often is because that’s the time we have

Japhet Gonzalez, a student at HSC, shared his frustration Monday about having to testify in support of the school board rather than spending his time applying for colleges, running his school’s magazine club, and just being a teenager. He said that educators shouldn’t have to spend time advocating for a fair contract either. “They shouldn’t be here, but they are because teachers do so much more work than [what] they’re paid for,” he said. “They don’t quit when things get hard or do things for money. But they shouldn’t have to chose between caring about us and making enough money to support themselves and their families.”

ESUMS seventh-grade English teacher Katie Romanchick said Monday that she too lives paycheck to paycheck, and is only able to pay her rent in full because she works as a cross country and track coach in Trumbull, as well.

HSC students speak in support of a fair contract for teachers.

Clemente bilingual educator Carmen Cordova-Rolon: Teachers are key to helping us become who we are.

The New Haven independent

PUBLIC WORKS MAINTAINER II

The Town of Wallingford Department of Public Works has openings for Maintainer II. Applicants should possess 2 years’ experience as a laborer in construction work involving the operation and care of trucks and other mechanical equipment, or 2 years training in one of the skilled trades and 1 year of experience in construction operations, or an equivalent combination of experience and training. A valid (CDL) Class B or higher is required. $24.87 - $29.16 hourly plus retirement plan, paid sick and vacation time, life insurance, 13 paid holidays, family medical & dental insurance, and promotional opportunities. To apply online by the closing date of September 12, 2025, please visit: www.wallingfordct.gov/government/departments/human-resources/. Applications are also available at the Department of Human Resources located in Room #301 of the Town Hall, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. Phone: (203) 294-2080; Fax: (203) 294-2084. EOE

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES

Invitation for Bids

Crawford Manor Boiler Replacement

The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking bids from qualified firms for Crawford Manor Boiler Replacement. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/ gateway beginning on

Monday, August 25, 2025 at 3:00 PM.

Request for Qualifications – Transportation Planning Studies

The South Central Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG) seeks the services of one or more consultants for the following transportation planning studies: Wallingford Route 5 Intersection Study, Guilford Route 1 Corridor Study, and Multitown Pavement Management Study. Disadvantaged Business Enterprise firms are strongly encouraged to respond as prime contractors or to play a significant role within a consultant team. Responses are due by October 1, 2025 (12 noon local time). The full RFQ document can be viewed at the Council’s website: www.scrcog.org or can be made available upon request. Contact James Rode at 203-466-8623 with any questions.

The Glendower Group

Request for Bids

ELECTRICAL RENOVATIONS AT McConaughy TERRACE

The Glendower Group, Inc. invites sealed bids from qualified electrical contractors for electrical work associated with three groups of units McConaughy Terrace, Funded under the 9% low-income Housing Tax Credit LIHTC program. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https:// newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on

Wednesday, September 3, 2025, at 3:00PM.

CONSTRUCTION JOB FAIR

Oak Woods Apartments

DATE: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2025 12 PM – 3 PM

LOCATION: Plymouth Town Hall 80 Main St, Terryville, CT 06786 (Lower Level Community Room)

(Parking in the rear of the building, please enter through the right-side door) For more information, please contact Jennifer Severs PH: 203-888-8118

EMAIL: jsevers@haynesct.com The Housing Authority of the City of Hartford

Monday, August 25, 2025, at 3:00PM.

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES

Request for Proposals

The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Proposals for Pay Per Use Laundry Services

A complete copy of the requirements may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on

Wednesday, September 17, 2025 at 3:00PM

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES

Request for Proposals

The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Proposals for Youth Program.

A complete copy of the requirements may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on

Wednesday, September 17, 2025 at 3:00PM

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES

Request for Proposals

Brokerage/Agent of Record Consulting Services for Insurance Benefits

The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Proposals for Brokerage/Agent of Record Consulting Services for Insurance Benefits. A complete copy of the requirements may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on

Wednesday, September 17, 2025 at 3:00PM

THE GLENDOWER GROUP, INC.

The Glendower Group, Inc. is currently seeking bids for General Contractor for ST. Lukes Redevelopment. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Glendower’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on

Wednesday, September 24, 2025, at 3:00PM.

Invitation to Bid:

This is our Project THE HOMES AT AVON PARK 1A & 1B 20 Security Drive Avon, CT 06001

New Construction of One Building, 100 Units, 110,000sf. The project will be all electric. Project documents include but not limited to: Site-work, concrete, masonry, structural steel framing, cold-formed metal framing, misc metals, rough and finish carpentry labor and material, wood trusses, waterproofing, insulation, wall panels, siding, roofing, doors and frames and hardware, storefronts, windows, drywall, acoustical ceilings, flooring, painting, signage, toilet & bath accessories, postal specialties, metal canopies, specialties, residential appliances, playground equipment, horizontal louver blinds, kitchen and bathroom casework, roller shades, elevators, trash chutes, fire protection, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, telecommunications, fire alarm, earthwork, exterior improvement, utilities, final cleaning and sanitary facilities.

This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance

360 MANAGEMENT GROUP, CO.

Invitation For BIDS

Agency- wide fencing- repairs and replacement

360 Management Group, Co. Is currently seeking bids for agency wide fencing-repairs and replacement. A complete copy of the requirements maybe obtain from 360 Management Group’s vendor collaboration portal. https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on Monday, August 11, 2025, at 3:00PM.

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Parking Access & Revenue Control System Replacement At New Haven Parking Authority Facilities

Haven, Connecticut NHPA Project #24 – 029

Proposals due on September 30, 2025 at 3:00 p.m. EDT.

The work for this project includes, but is not limited to: removal of existing equipment and installation of a new state-of-the-art Parking Access and Revenue Control System, refurbishment of designated booths inclusive of painting, metal repair, roofing and related finishes, installation of new HVAC and lighting with associated ductwork repairs and replacement, design and install integratable security cameras and door control system for all Garage pedestrian entrances, miscellaneous coordination, together with all incidental work thereto and in accordance with the Proposal Documents, as well as preventative maintenance and repair services at the New Haven Parking Authority facilities involving 7 parking garages and 8 surface lots.

The Proposal Documents will be available beginning September 02, 2025 at no cost by downloading from the New Haven Parking Authority / Park New Haven website at https://parknewhaven.com/request-for-bids/ . NHPA is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

Morehouse College Rises to Top Three Status Among HBCUs in U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 Best College Rankings

Morehouse College has ascended to the No. 3 position among Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the 2026 U.S. News & World Report Best College rankings, advancing from No. 5 last year. The national recognition comes as Morehouse experienced a record 6,217 applications for the Class of 2029. With demand at an all-time high, the College’s admittance rate dropped to 33%, compared to 44% in 2024 and 52% in 2023, while the incoming classes’ average GPA continues to rise from 3.55 in 2023 to 3.56 in 2024 to a current 3.6 for Fall 2025. Additional national rankings for Morehouse College among National Liberal Arts Colleges and HBCUs include:

· No 1. Liberal Arts College for men in Georgia; No. 96 among liberal arts colleges nationwide.

· No. 1 HBCU in Georgia for Best Undergraduate Teaching that men can attend; No. 2 HBCU nationwide.

· No. 1 in Best Value School for HBCUs nationwide.

· No. 1 HBCU nationwide for Top Performers on Social Mobility for men; No. 1 in Georgia that men can attend; No. 3 in Georgia overall; No. 24 among liberal arts colleges nationwide.

· No. 1 business program among HBCUs in Georgia; No. 2 among HBCUs nationwide.

· Tied for No 1. Most Innovative HBCU; No. 34 among liberal arts colleges nationwide.

Morehouse College begins the 2025–

2026 academic year on the heels of a milestone year highlighted by the appointment of its 13th president, Dr. F. DuBois Bowman, a renowned public health scholar and 1992 graduate of the College. Dr. Bowman succeeds Dr. David A. Thom-

as, who retired this year after seven years of transformative leadership marked by institutional growth, record-setting fundraising, and renewed national visibility. This year also marked the groundbreaking of Morehouse’s first new construction

project since 2010, part of the Campus of the Future initiative. The 88,000-squarefoot, 324-bed residence hall is scheduled for completion in 2026, after which the College intends to shift construction plans to an all-new, 58,000-square-foot campus

center. The Woodruff Foundation has awarded the College $20 million to support the campus center, and Morehouse is calling on alumni and supporters to join the fundraising effort. Both projects are being financed through the $500 million Making Men of Consequence Campaign, which surpassed the $330 million milestone earlier this year. Launched in 2022, the Making Men of Consequence campaign is designed to drive investment in scholarships, academic programs, faculty research, and campus improvements. National rankings continue to showcase Morehouse College’s momentum as a premier institution of higher learning. LinkedIn ranked Morehouse #2 on its inaugural 2025 list of Top HBCUs in the U.S. The LinkedIn ranking evaluated alumni career outcomes, including job placement rates, internships, recruiter demand, and network strength, which is reflected in the 95% of the 2025 class graduating with post-grad career or continuing education placements. Morehouse College was also recently named a 2025 Fulbright HBCU Institutional Leader by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. This recognition highlights a strong commitment to global education, cultural exchange, and the development of service-minded leaders of integrity and ambition. For more information about Morehouse College, visit morehouse.edu, for the latest news from the College, go to news.morehouse.edu.

Family of Delta State Student, Trey Reed, Seeks Answers

Amid Conflicting Accounts About Death

The family of Demartravion “Trey” Reed, a 21-year-old Black college student found hanging from a tree at Delta State University, is seeking answers after receiving conflicting information about his death from authorities, per PEOPLE.

On Monday (September 15), Reed was found hanging from a tree near the university’s pickleball courts in Cleveland, Mississippi.

Police and university officials maintain there is no evidence of foul play. However, attorneys for Reed’s family said police initially told them that the 21-year-old had died in his dorm room.

“The family does not know exactly what happened on Sept. 15, 2025,” Vanessa J. Jones, one of the family’s attorneys, said. “We are seeking answers.”

Reed’s grandfather, J.B. Reed, said a Bolivar County Sheriff’s Department officer told him that his grandson had died by suicide in his bed.

“He didn’t even say possible suicide,” the grandfather said. “He said suicide.”

surveillance footage showing the moments leading up to Reed’s death.

but declined to provide further details. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has joined the family’s legal team, called Reed “full of promise and warmth.” “His family and the campus community deserve a full, independent investigation to uncover the truth about what happened. We cannot accept vague conclusions when so many questions remain,” Crump said.

Reed’s death has sparked widespread concern online, with viral posts alleging injuries inconsistent with suicide, such as broken legs. However, the Bolivar County Coroner’s Office said preliminary findings show no signs of assault.

“No lacerations, contusions, compound fractures, broken bones, or injuries consistent with an assault,” the coroner’s report stated.

In a statement, university president Daniel Ennis acknowledged the growing public concern.

University officials haven’t explained the discrepancy. When asked about it during a press conference on Wednesday (September 17), Mike Peeler, Delta State’s Director of Public Safety, said he was unaware of the call to Reed’s grandfather.

Jones is urging the university to release

“If this young man was on the campus of Delta State University with all these cameras and all this modern technology… there should be surveillance of all his actions,” Jones said. “That’s what we want.”

Peeler confirmed that video footage exists and is in the hands of investigators,

“Trey’s death has stirred many emotions in this community and around the state and the nation. While the preliminary report indicates no evidence of foul play, we recognize this is not only about facts. It’s about emotions, and it’s about feelings,” Ennis said.

Reed’s body has been sent to the state medical examiner for autopsy. Preliminary results are reportedly expected within days.

Jasmine Crockett Calls Out White Lawmakers For Voting To Honor Charlie Kirk

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) called out white lawmakers for voting in favor of a resolution honoring the late conservative figure Charlie Kirk, who had a history of promoting racist rhetoric.

On Sunday’s (September 21) episode of CNN’s “State of the Union,” Crockett said it “hurts” to know that only two white members of the House voted against the Kirk resolution.

“For the most part, the only people that voted no were people of color,” Crockett pointed out.

The House passed the resolution on Friday (September 19) to honor the “life and legacy” of Kirk, the founder of conservative group Turning Point USA, who was shot and killed earlier this month while speaking at Utah Valley University. While 58 Democrats voted against the resolution, only two were white, Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.).

“The rhetoric that Charlie Kirk continuously put out there was rhetoric that specifically targeted people of color,” Crockett said Sunday. “It is unfortunate that even our colleagues could not see how harmful his rhetoric was, specifically to [people of color].”

The Texas congresswoman noted that about a month before Kirk’s death, the conservative figure had targeted her on

his podcast, calling her a “circus act” and alleging she was part of “the great replacement of white people.”

“If there was any way I was gonna honor somebody who decided that they were going to negatively talk about me and proclaim that I was somehow involved in the great white replacement,” she said, “yeah, I’m not honoring that kind of stuff, especially as a civil rights attorney.”

Trey” Reed,

Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas)

‘This Is Not Normal’: Obama Slams Trump Response To Charlie Kirk Shooting

Former President Barack Obama issued a stark warning about the state of American politics after conservative figure Charlie Kirk was fatally shot, calling the moment a “political crisis of the sort that we haven’t seen before.”

On Tuesday (September 16), Obama appeared at an event in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he described Kirk’s killing as “horrific and a tragedy” despite not knowing the conservative activist personally and “disagreeing with many of his views.”

Obama appeared to call out President Donald Trump for promoting division following Kirk’s shooting.

“I think at moments like this, when tensions are high, part of the job of

the president is to pull people together,” Obama said. “We have to respect other people’s right to say things that we profoundly disagree with.”

The former president also praised Republican Utah Governor Spencer Cox and Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro for modeling how leaders can disagree without inciting division. Cox has shown “that it is possible for us to disagree while abiding by a basic code of how we should engage in public debate,” Obama said.

“When I hear not just our current president, but his aides, who have a history of calling political opponents ‘vermin,’ enemies who need to be ‘targeted,’ that speaks to a broader problem that we have right now and something that

we’re going to have to grapple with, all of us,” he continued.

The former president noted that after the 2015 mass shooting by a white supremacist at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, he didn’t attack his political opponents. He also cited President George W. Bush’s post-9/11 remarks, saying Bush “explicitly went out of his way to say, ‘We are not at war against Islam.’”

The White House fired back at Obama’s remarks, calling him the “architect of modern political division.”

“Obama used every opportunity to sow division and pit Americans against each other. His division has inspired generations of Democrats to slander their opponents as ‘deplorables,’ or

‘fascists,’ or ‘Nazis,’” a White House spokesperson said in a statement. Kirk, 31, was fatally shot on September 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University. Trump allies have largely blamed “left-wing rhetoric” for Kirk’s death, and some, including Vice President JD Vance, have called for public exposure of anyone who condoned or mocked the killing.

“This is not normal,” Obama said. “And the longer we treat it as normal, the deeper the damage becomes.”

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After Plunge, Black Students Enroll in Harvard

By Stacy M. Brown Black Press USA lCorrespondent

Black student enrollment at Harvard Law School has rebounded. The incoming J.D. Class of 2028 includes 46 Black students, nearly returning to the averages seen between 2020 and 2023. That recovery comes only one year after the number collapsed to 19, the lowest since the 1960s.

The collapse of 2024 was severe. Harvard law professor David B. Wilkins told The New York Times, “This is the lowest number of Black entering first-year students since 1965.” He added, “This obviously has a lot to do with the chilling effect created by that decision.” In a statement, Sean Wynn, president of the Harvard Black Law Students Association, said the enrollment decline was a “crush-

ing loss” and that “with this marked decline, the (Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action) ruling has broken something fundamental about the experience of attending this law school.” The chilling effect extended across higher education. Harvard College’s freshman class saw the share of Black students drop from 18 percent in 2023 to 14 percent in 2024. At the University of North Carolina, Black enrollment fell from 10.5 percent to 7.8 percent. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported a drop from 16 percent to 6 percent. Princeton’s Class of 2029 enrolled only 5 percent Black students, the lowest since 1968.

The source of these declines was the Supreme Court’s decision in 2023 to end race-conscious admissions. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Eliminating racial discrimination

means eliminating all of it.” The ruling overturned decades of precedent, closing a door that had offered Black students a measure of access to the nation’s most selective institutions. Harvard’s rebound this fall was driven not by structural change but by extraordinary efforts within its community. Black alumni and the Harvard Black Law Students Association launched new outreach and recruitment programs, according to The Harvard Crimson. Still, the rebound came even as Harvard shuttered diversity offices and ended a minority recruitment initiative for undergraduates. The numbers at Harvard show a fragile recovery. They are part of a larger struggle that continues in classrooms and courthouses across the country, where the future of access and opportunity for Black students is contested each year.

Resolution Honoring Charlie Kirk Becomes Critical Test for the Black Caucus

By Lauren Burke

“This is the worst I’ve felt about this country in years,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, standing on the House steps and talking about the state of play in the U.S. “I can’t imagine anyone voting against this resolution,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as members of the House, led by Republicans Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, considered a resolution to honor Charlie Kirk. Kirk was murdered on September 10 during an outdoor appearance at Utah Valley University.

After much backroom maneuvering, the final vote on the resolution honoring Kirk was moved from Thursday to Friday, Sept. 18. For members of the Congressional Black Caucus, the vote is in no way a casual action on a boilerplate resolution. Charlie Kirk was known for critical comments on Black people and

communities and targeted several Black women with negative comments, implying that they were successful only because of affirmative action. After a lengthy Democratic Caucus on the morning of September 18, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries listened to the concerns of members of his caucus. After the meeting, Black Press USA asked Leader Jeffries if he was whipping the vote and what he would vote. The Leader from Brooklyn gave no direct answers. “Members will vote their conscious. We will issue a statement shortly,” Leader Jeffries said flatly.

Texas Congressman Marc Veasey (DTX) is countering Republicans with a more straightforward resolution worded to denounce political violence in the wake of Kirk’s murder. But regarding the GOP’s Kirk resolution, several CBC members said they planned to vote “present.” Others are a solid NO. Some

members in tight political districts are referencing their constituents but not giving clear answers on how they will vote. Typically, congressional resolutions are not controversial, but the Kirk resolution is all but certain to be in lieu of Kirk’s racist and misogynistic statements. The vote will be a test of where members draw the line on a continuous push by MAGA Republicans to engage in culture war politics. “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually,” Kirk once said. “I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that does a lot of damage,” he added.

“If I see a Black pilot, I’m gonna be like boy, I hope he’s qualified,” Kirk said on his show. But the issue of whether Black Democrats will separate the man from his statements and the violent way he died at only 31 while speaking at a college event with Kirk’s bigoted views will require messaging strategies Dem-

ocrats often fail at — assuming they have a messaging strategy at all. "Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person's slot,” Kirk said on his show in July 2023 as he attacked journalist Joy Reid, former First Lady Michelle Obama, that late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, and Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — all Ivy League graduates. It’s unlikely that any Congresswomen in the CBC will vote in favor of the Kirk resolution, but several may vote “present.” Republicans are presenting Kirk as a free speech martyr and burying any references to his racist statements. A “NO” vote will likely be followed by more GOP arguments that Democrats favor political violence and refuse to officially speak out against it.

Boston, Massachusetts, USA - October 9, 2023: Gate 1, the Newell Gate pedestrian

Former President Barack Obama

Trump Administration tries to tie funding to sanctuary cities executive order

Advocates sue HUD to preserve $75 million homeless grants

By Charlene Crowell

An effort to limit federal homeless funding to locales embracing Trump Administration policies on sanctuary cities has triggered a lawsuit from homeless advocates.

Although a September 12 court order gave a temporary reprieve to homeless providers seeking to preserve vital services, the approaching end of the current fiscal year, September 30, leaves only a few days to resolve whether $75 million in homeless funding will be shared.

Co-plaintiffs, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, based in Washington, DC and the Women’s Development Corporation in Rhode Island sued HUD, charging that the new criteria would make projects in 36 states, and the District of Columbia ineligible for $75 million for Continuum of Care Build grants.

New funding standards, announced in a September 5 notice, superseded an earlier one issued in May. This change allowed only seven days for applicants to submit revised plans. The May 12 court order now bars HUD from disbursing funds while the case is pending.

The abbreviated time frame was addressed from the bench by District Judge Mary S. McElroy.

“It’s unfortunate that we are here on these things that are done so last minute by these agencies, but here we are,” McElroy told attorneys as reported by a Rhode Island news outlet.

“We welcome the court’s decision to stop a rushed, lawless attempt to make essential funding contingent on a community’s compliance with harmful and unlawful restrictions the Trump-Vance administration is trying to impose,” wrote the plaintiffs and their legal counsel in a joint statement. “This order ensures that service providers can focus on what matters most: providing safe, stable housing and support to people in crisis. We will continue to fight to make sure housing re-

sources remain available to all communities, free from political interference.”

As many workers in the U.S. face challenges to secure and keep affordable housing, homelessness continues to rise.

“Our worsening national affordable housing crisis, rising inflation, stagnating wages among middle- and lower-income households, and the persisting effects of systemic racism have stretched homelessness services systems to their limits,” stated HUD’s Annual Homeless Assessment

Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott Donates $70M To UNCF To Support HBCUs

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has donated $70 million to the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) as part of a broader effort to strengthen HBCUs.

The $70 million donation, publicly disclosed by UNCF and confirmed by Scott’s team, is one of the philanthropist’s largest single gifts ever and among the first of her donations to be revealed in 2025.

“This extraordinary gift is a powerful vote of confidence in HBCUs and in the work of UNCF,” Dr. Michael L. Lomax, UNCF President and CEO, said in a statement. “It provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity for our member institutions to build permanent assets that will support students and campuses for decades to come.”

The funds will go toward UNCF’s pooled endowment, which is part of a long-term campaign to raise $1 billion to reduce the historic funding gap between HBCUs and predominantly white institutions. Scott’s donation will help establish a $370 million pooled fund, offering $10 million to each of UNCF’s 37 member HBCUs. The endowment is

structured to yield about 4 percent annually to help stabilize the institutions’ budgets.

Scott’s donation comes amid growing calls to address funding inequalities HBCUs face. According to UNCF, data shows that HBCU endowments lag behind non-HBCUs by an average of 70 percent, leaving many schools without the financial cushion needed to weather economic or enrollment challenges. A 2023 study by Candid and ABFE found

Report, issued last December.

Citing data from the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Standards, the report documents that 2024 recorded the highest ever number of people experiencing homelessness. The annual point-in-time count of America’s homeless found a total of 771,480 people experienced homelessness in an emergency shelter, safe haven, transitional housing program, or in unsheltered locations. More than 99,500 people were counted in unsheltered locations – the highest number recorded since data collection began.

Moreover, Black Americans, who comprise just 12 percent of the total U.S. population, are disproportionately affected by both homelessness (32 percent) and poverty (21 percent).

Between 2023 and 2024, the largest single year increase in homelessness was families with children. Nearly 150,000 children – most under the age of 18 - experienced homelessness on at least one night in 2024, reflecting a 33 percent increase (or 32,618 more children) over 2023.

Conversely, veterans were the only population to report continued declines in homelessness. Between 2023 and 2024, the number of veterans experiencing homelessness declined by eight percent, or 2,692 fewer veterans. The number of veterans experiencing homelessness has declined by 55 percent since data collection about veteran homelessness began in 2009.

“These declines are the result of targeted and sustained funding to reduce veteran homelessness,” states the HUD report. It will also take the same level and longterm homeless resources to reverse current rising trends for the overall unhoused population.

According to an analysis by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, homeless service providers from California, the state with the largest homeless population and the most Continuum of Care plans, would be ineligible for funding if the revised criteria were to take effect. Potential grantees from other states with serious housing challenges include DC, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Texas and Washington state.

“The experience of being homeless varies by place, states a recent policy brief from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank. In Los Angeles, most homeless people live outside—a quite different experience than in New York City, where a legal ‘right to shelter’ has almost every homeless person under a roof. The rest of the country is in between.”

“These federal housing funds exist to help people experiencing homelessness — not to punish states, localities, and service providers for meeting people where they are,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward, one of the law firms representing the homeless activists.

that the eight Ivy League universities received $5.5 billion from the 1,000 largest U.S. foundations in 2019, compared to just $45 million for all 99 HBCUs combined.

Scott, an author and the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, signed the Giving Pledge in 2019, promising to donate at least half of her wealth. In 2020, Scott gave $10 million to UNCF, and HBCUs have remained among her most-supported causes. Scott previously said her decisions are “driven by a deep belief in the value different backgrounds bring to problem-solving on any issue.”

Dr. Lomax said he hopes Scott’s gift will inspire other donors to follow suit.

“By entrusting UNCF to decide how best to use these funds, she affirms that HBCUs merit investment at this scale,” Lomax said. “Her generosity will strengthen our member institutions and provide pathways to success for tomorrow’s changemakers.”

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Special Education Charlie Kirk

vest in special education programming in their school buildings, like this one, to help keep students in-house as much as possible.”

That in turn means more resources, more special education teachers and more para educators in the local districts, she said.

“All research points to the fact that inclusion helps not only students with disabilities, but even students without disabilities,” she said.

Lamont said that he was “struck” by the fact that Connecticut is the state that sends the most special education students out of their home district for services. He said he didn’t believe it was the best for the students, for the parents or for the pocketbooks of Connecticut residents.

“That’s why working, with our legislative colleagues, we made a big initiative to allow more special ed programs in-district,” he said. “I think that is an opportunity to be much better for children and families, and much better for the taxpayers as well. And we’ll keep pushing on this to make sure that we do the right thing by these kids because that’s what Connecticut’s all about.”

“It’s unfortunate that more of my colleagues — even on my side of the aisle — couldn’t see the amount of harm that this man was attempting to inflict upon our communities,” Crockett added.

Kirk, who had a history of making racist remarks, previously said the Civil Rights Act was a “mistake” and claimed Black women lacked the “brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.” He also promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories and suggested someone should bail out the man who violently attacked Paul Pelosi.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) also opposed the resolution, arguing that honoring Kirk only deepens the political divide.

“We should be clear about who Charlie Kirk was,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement. “His rhetoric and beliefs were ignorant and sought to disenfranchise millions of Americans – far from ‘working tirelessly to promote unity’ as asserted by the majority in this resolution.”

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Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott

Photo by Nir Arieli