PRST STD U.S.POSTAGE PAID TWIN CITIES MN PERMIT NO. 6391
THE VOICE OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY SINCE 1934
— See the MLK supplement on pg. B1
January 11-17, 2018 Vol. 84 No. 23 www.spokesman-recorder.com
For sex workers, ‘a little understanding can go a long way’
They are hit hardest by dangerous rise in STDs
stigmatized lifestyles. Who, as a wide-eyed youth, ever dreams of growing up to debase her dignity and self-respect for a living, much less risk health-threatening, even fatal disease? Rose C. surely didn’t. She can’t recall when she wasn’t in emotional pain, indeed in agony, which she eventually eased by smoking crack. As Rose speaks with the MSR
By Dwight Hobbes Contributing Writer
T
he Minnesota Department of Health has documented a dramatic, dangerous rise in STDs in the state over 2016: Syphilis increased by 30 percent, gonorrhea by 25 percent, and Hepatitis C infections by 38 per-
cent. Numbers aren›t in for the past year, but there are two certainties: They›ll increase, and this health hazard, already ravaging Black communities, particularly women and Patricia Carter, Turning Point outreach coordinator girls, will worsen. Among the most vulnerable are urban females who sell sex, al- a sexually transmitted disease she is standing out of the winter though no one is immune. “Re- discreetly see a doctor and that’s wind behind hedges at Spectrum spectable” ladies who do contract that. They don’t lead highly at-risk on Chicago Avenue crowded in
Whites surprised by poll shoWing blacks more hopeful MPR News Executive Editor Mike Edgerly told the MSR that the 2016 general election results prompted the poll. “We long wanted to know about A new Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) poll reMinnesota and its people, what are people thinkveals that Black Minnesotans are more hopeful for ing and why are they voting the way they are,” he the future. The MPR poll was this month’s topic at pointed out. “The poll seemed a good way for us the January 4 monthly Hawthorne Huddle mornto gain a better understanding” of the state, Edgerly ing meeting at Farview Park in North Minneapolis.
By Charles Hallman Staff Writer
(l-r) Lissa Jones, April Graves, Terrall Lewis, Tom Weber Photo by Charles Hallman Last August and early September of last year, MPR News and its sister organization, APM Research Lab, surveyed 1,654 Minnesota residents and found that most Minnesotans believe the state is on the right track. “Overwhelmingly, Minnesotans are hopeful,” MPR host Tom Weber said last week. But he and other MPR staffers were taken aback to learn from the poll results that 92 percent of Blacks surveyed were more “generally hopeful” compared to 82 percent of Whites. “We were very surprised,” he noted.
said. “We gained some greater understanding, not just about the African American community, but about Minnesota in general.” Weber and KMOJ’s Lissa Jones co-hosted the 90-minute Farview event, attended by about 30 people. April Graves of the Minneapolis Health Department and Minneapolis Youth Coordinating Board’s Terrall Lewis were invited as panelists to the “community conversation on hope in North ■ See HopeFul on page 5
with drug runners and associates also dodging the cold. She’s soft spoken with a ready smile and kind eyes — considerably kinder than life has been to her. The hurt disappears for a while, but it always comes back. Rose’s story, which is all too common, literally stems from birth. “My mom walked out, left me in the hospital [at] three days old. The lady who adopted me wanted to look good as a pillar of society. Behind closed doors, it was hell. “Every day, the abuse [was] torturous. Locked in the basement. Beat ‘til the blood ran.” Why? I don’t know,” she replied. “Never found out.” Rape routinely is part of these women’s past. Was Rose C. molested as a child? Probably — something took place at age 12 so traumatizing to her that she forced herself to forget. “I wasn’t raped…that I know of. I had surgery down there. Might’ve blocked it out. If so, I’d like it to stay blocked out.”
NEEDED:
Foreign Service diversity By Charles Hallman Staff Writer Retired U.S. ambassador Harriet Lee Elam-Thomas says that diversity in diplomacy is needed now more than ever. She is a Black woman who over four decades rose through the ranks of the U.S. Foreign Service to career minister, serving tours in France, Mali, Cote d’ Ivoire, Greece, Turkey and Belgium. She was also this country’s ambassador to Senegal (2000-02) before retiring in 2005 after 42 years of service. Elam-Thomas’ recently published memoir, Diversifying Diplomacy (Potamac Books, 2017), gives the reader a first-person account of “the little Elam girl,” the youngest child of parents who left the segregated South and relocated in Boston, where she was
■ See STDS on page 5
Following in Mom’s footsteps
Daughter among many inspired by life of Claudia Wallace-Gardner By Dwight Hobbes Contributing Writer
This crowning achievement certainly wasn’t her sole contribution in a career that numbered professional, civic and academic directorships, not the least being her leadership of the former Twin Cities Opportunity Industrialization Center (TCOIC), now Summit Academy. The pioneering professional was the first African American to serve as director of special events at the University of Minnesota, where she worked for 17 years. At the university, she directed inaugurations for presidents C. Peter Magrath, Kenneth H. Keller, and Nils Hasselmo.
Claudia G. Wallace-Gardner, though gone, is far from forgotten. Even beyond family and friends, in whose hearts her beloved spirit lives on, she leaves a lasting presence that enriched, indeed empowered the community and public at large. Ezell Jones, who helped Wallace-Gardner found the nationally renowned Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature at the University of Minnesota, reflects, “If you move a pebble on the beach, it changes the shoreline. She was a pebble, inspiring my life and ■ See FooTSTepS on page 5 others.” Noted scholar Dr. John S. Wright, University of Minnesota professor of AfroAmerican & African Studies and English, adds, “Claudia Wallace-Gardner played a pivotal role in the original group of faculty, staff and alumni who helped the department of African American and African Studies mobilize local community and business leaders in the groundbreaking development of the Archie Givens Sr. Claudia Wallace-Gardner collection.”
Harriet Lee Elam-Thomas, retired U.S. ambassador born and grew up. She recently talked to the MSR by phone. “It is indeed needed and critical,” she stressed, referring to the importance of diversity among U.S. diplomats. The current lack of diversity, she added, isn’t necessarily the fault of the current Trump administration, “Every new Secretary of State…for the last 40-some years [has] merely given lip service to the whole idea of diversity,” Elam-Thomas explained. “[Colin] Powell did a much better job” as the first Black to serve in this position under former President George Bush (2001-05). “Because he was a general, he knows that on the battlefield, you need to have people of all races. You [couldn’t] care less if they are Black, White or green… in the midst of the war.” She also pointed out that the U.S. military is more diverse than the U.S. Foreign Service. Elam-Thomas admitted that she didn’t envision a life as a diplomat. She recalled, “I wanted to be a legal secretary,” and work for her older brothers, ■ See Foreign Service on page 9
Late ‘60s drum and bugle corp preserves ‘historic sound’ The Sabathanites kept kids off the streets in a turbulent era
Guilmant joined a progression of drum and bugle corps where he developed skills and proudly marched in paThe Twin Cities boasts some of the rades. At 12 years old, he joined the Kacountry’s top entertainers: Prince, The tos; a year later, he joined the Elks. In 1964, Time, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and at age 14, he joined the newly formed Sa“Sounds of Blackness.” Every name is bathanites in South Minneapolis. well known locally and worldwide. But “It’s one of those things when you’re there was another local group that, if you a kid and you see folks marching and were raised in Minneapolis, was just as jamming and you join in thinking I’m familiar not so long ago — the Sabathagoing to do this one day.” But, as Guilnites Drum and Bugle Corp, a group of mant pointed out, Leon Lewis, the young people created in the late 1960s by group’s leader, insisted that schoolwork the Sabathani Baptist Church. and grades had to be “up to par” in orMSR sat down to speak to one of the der to be in the group and march. group’s original members, Jonathon Guilmant started as a banner carrier Guilmant, who described the group as and later progressed to playing the the combination of two other drum and bugle corps, the Katos and Elks from Jonathan Guilmant North Minneapolis. ■ See SabaTHaniTeS on page 8 Photo by Paige Elliott By Ivan B. Phifer Contributing Writer
The remaining active, original Sabathanites
Photo by Steve Floyd