: Detroit’s First Black-Owned Cider Mill Launches on West Side
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Michigan Chronicle
Vol. 84 – No. 10 | November 11-17, 2020
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2020 ELECTION ★
The Results Are In! See How Our Michigan Chronicle Endorsements Fared With This Election Recap
It’s been a long time coming, but change is going to come, and that change is happening now in the voting realm. During the course of election week week, there have been a number of high moments as presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris have ascended to higher heights as President-elect and Vice-President elect. Other numbers are already in from the Wayne County Clerk’s Office with the unofficial results of this year’s election. Here’s the recap on what issues and candidates you supported locally:
President of the United States: The Democrat Party beat out the Republican Party with nearly 270,000 votes. Biden garnered 412,596 or nearly 73% of the votes; while Trump received 143,979 or just over 25% of the votes. Vice-President of the United States In similar fashion to the presidential race, Harris received nearly 323,000 votes more votes than her Republican counterpart Vice President Mike Pence. Harris received 587,074 votes or nearly 70%. Pence received 264,149 votes or 30.59%. United States Senator Incumbent U.S. Sen. Gary Peters won 49.8% or 2,721,207 votes; his opponent, Republican challenger John James captured 48.3%, or 2,636,892 votes. United States Representative Congress (14th District) Incumbent Brenda Lawrence won reelection to the U.S. House in Michigan’s 14th Congressional District with 264,205 votes or 78.9%; toppling many of the other candidates by the sheer number of votes. Regent of The University of Michigan Mark Bernstein and Shauna Ryder Diggs were the top two candidates voted in for the University of Michigan Board of Regents, with terms lasting eight years. Bernstein received 535,297 or 34.17% of the votes; Ryder Diggs was a close second and received 521,994 or 33.32% of the votes at the time of print. Trustee of Michigan State University Rema Ella Vassar and Brian Mosallam were the top two vote-getters for the two open seats for the Michigan State University Board of Trustees. Vassar received 519,573 or 33.45% of the votes; Mosallam was right behind Vassar with See RESULTS page A2
WHAT’S INSIDE
The Next Four Years: What Biden-Harris Win Means For Black America
By Whitney Gresham In a speech soaring with lofty rhetoric promising to unite a badly fractured country, President-elect Joe Biden declared he would work tirelessly on behalf of all Americans, giving a special nod to African Americans and other people of color whose solid support helped him defeat an incumbent President for only the fourth time in U.S. History. During a speech Saturday night in his hometown of Wilmington, Del., following him formally being declared the winner of the 2020 Presidential Election, Biden promised to bring back civility and a sense of common purpose to the nation. “I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide but unify, who doesn’t see red states and blue states, only sees the United States, and works with all my heart, with the confidence of the whole people, to win the confidence of all of you. For that is what America, I believe, is about. It is about people. And that’s what our administration will be all about,” he said. However, it was the soon-to-be 46th President of the United States’ explicit expression of gratitude to Black America, that stood out most starkly for many Americans seeking to break with the toxic racism and relentless assaults upon the citizenship and dignity of nonwhite Americans by the Trump Administration. “All those who supported us, I’m proud of the campaign we built and ran. I’m proud of the coalition we put to-
gether; the broadest and most diverse coalition in history,” he said. “Democrats, Republicans, independents, progressives, moderates, conservatives, young, old, urban, suburban, rural, gay, straight, transgender, white, Latino, Asian, Native American. I mean it, especially in those moments, and especially for those moments when this campaign was at its lowest ebb, the African American community stood up again for me. You’ve always had my back, and I’ll have yours.” After nearly four consecutive years of the non-stop menacing of the health, safety and welfare of Black Americans by arguably the most viciously racist presidential administration since Woodrow Wilson more than 100 years ago, an administration led by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris means we can finally exhale again. If only for a moment. Instead of spending nearly every waking moment expending energy on trying to hold on to the modest civil rights gains and social and economic progress we made over the past 75 years, Black Americans in general and Black leadership, in particular, will be able to focus on a specific policy agenda that will advance our communities. During the Trump Administration, African Americans were frozen out of the Oval Office with only a handful – if that - of low-level policy aides in the White House reporting to sub-cabinet officials. The only Black cabinet member during the entire term was Ben Carson who Trump appointed as the Secretary of
Housing and Urban Development. And he spent his entire tenure undermining the Fair Housing Act, the enforcement of fair housing laws, gutting programs to help the poor, and mocking the sacrifices of Black Americans who fought for racial equality and to end housing segregation and redlining. It was a bitter twist of fate for the Black community after enjoying eight consecutive years of having a Black President in Barak Obama. Although he faced staunch opposition from an obstinate and vehemently right-wing and racist Republican Party that controlled both houses of Congress during most of his two terms, Obama was a dignified, respectful, and moderately progressive, mainstream, Black politician who tried his best to protect African American interests. Even if he was not able to push through the kind of policies desired to make the kinds of structural changes needed to more rapidly advance the socio-economic interest of Black America. However, besides having a progressive Black woman as his vice president and whom he has promised will play a critical role in the development and implementation of his policy agenda, President-elect Biden has promised to have an administration that “looks like America” and among other things, place a Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court if an opening should arise. “I said at the outset I wanted this campaign to represent and look like America. We have done that. Now that
See BIDEN-
HARRIS page A2
Detroit School Board Race Results
Voters in the Detroit community went to the polls Nov. 3 to vote to select their school board candidates to fill the three school board seats available [out of 15 candidates] in the Detroit Public Schools Community District [DPSCD].
From Army Veteran to Veteran Entrepreneur
Louis James
Parlays A Tour of Duty into Business Success
Money. A5
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Voters voted in Sonya S. Mays with 66,451, or 14.71% of the votes; Misha Stallworth with 63,801 14.12% of the votes; and Sherry Gay-Dagnogo with 50,973, or 11.28% of the votes. Re-elected were Stallworth and Mays after they were first elected in November 2016.
Sonya Mays
Misha Stallworth
Sherry Gay-Dagnogo
In a Nov. 6 Facebook post, Mays posted that, “We did it.”
fellow winning school board members.
ing the [DPSCD] school board team,” she said.
“Thanks to each of you that supported me by voting, donating, volunteering, sending encouraging texts, sharing excitement with others and liking my social media posts. All of that love added up - not just to re-elect me - but to do it as the top vote-getter,” she said in her post, also congratulating her
“This campaign was not at all easy, but my team, family, friends and supporters came through. I love ya’ll bigly,” she added in the post.
Stallworth shared in the jubilation and thanked everyone recently on Facebook, too, coupled with a #BornToServeDetroit hashtag.
Gay-Dagnogo also thanked her voters in a Facebook post Nov. 5.
“I couldn’t have done this without you,” Stallworth said in the post. “We doubled the number of votes from 2016! And
now we get to double down on our work for Detroit’s kids. This is a reflection of the fact that we’ve been going in the right direction these last four years, but there’s further to go and the next four years we do even more.”
“I’m looking forward to join-
The purpose of the locally elected board, according to
See SCHOOL
BOARD page A2