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It’s a tribute soon rekindle the love she had for icpainting. passion that Califo ey refully on a e Cooper ca diagnose ans, HispHer D r. rn an K p ia se ic w ri o s v te at st oters and ointherto chingmen, selling near ischools. black skin. Women, celebrities K use, a v resurfaced when she moved to Brooklyn, New York ly podealers across th and ntialarrest shedrugs . He children, expChronicle min lariSan etFriday ects the 11rareported zing Francisco orities keepin erinariathat liv- Continshade ofisblack random people—every is gbeautiful!” 2010. n, tell his focus oe political specThe -pound (5 b ac tr k u in m to u ar ed on pag n fairnesthe -kilsweeps th e e ogram) castthe w seven individuals were arrested as part of il “I was scared, from another country, and didn’t speak d s and justic af e A2 te r M to it cGuircarried gains stlaw e visitedoutthbyrefederal in late 2013e andthearly the language well, but the Black community welcomed me rength. at if 2014 e h b e o se b es ca t on Friday enforcement and San Franciscoitpolice. again, he’ll . isTenderloin sue a ticket All 37 people arrested in the city’s for ja neighborhood as part of “Operation Safe Schools” were African American, despite the racial and ethnic diversity of drug dealers there, said the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which helped the seven defendants in their case against the city. Federal prosecutors dropped charges against those arrested when attorneys for the alleged dealers uncovered evidence of racial targeting by police during the discovery process before trial. Shilpi Agarwal, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, said federal prosecutors are protected by immunity laws shielding them from lawsuits, so they targeted San Francisco police in the 2018 lawsuit. San Francisco police were tasked with identifying suspects and making arrests, but John Cote, a spokesman for the San Francisco city attorney’s, told the newspaper that “the federal government led this operation, and San Francisco police officers acted in accordance with federal directives.” Victoria Kravtsova-Porter standing beside her
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By Darlene L. Williams Contributing Writer Born in 1983 in a small town south of Russia, Victoria Kravtsova-Porter always felt a strong connection to her Russian culture and heritage. So, having a deep appreciation and love for the arts, especially music, could be expected from the Kravtsova family since they were all musically inclined. “My father taught classical guitar at the university,” Kravtsova said. “He was also my teacher and taught me to play guitar”. “It was great playing guitar until my father starting giving me difficult pieces to learn,” she said. One summer when Victoria was around the age of 14, her father went away for a while on vacation and left her with instructions to learn a musical piece while he was away. However, due to the difficulty of the piece, Victoria picked up a pencil and paper and began to draw instead. Over that summer, Victoria began painting people for fun and soon found out that she had discovered a newly found gift that she would be passionate about for years to come. “I lived next door to a park, she said, and I began drawing people sitting on benches in the park”. I always liked people’s faces, they were so interesting.” “Every face had a story that was so interesting to me. It was easy to draw old people because they were easy to talk to, Kravtsova said. “After I finished drawing the people, I would give them the picture.” When Victoria’s father returned home, she hadn’t learned the musical piece, but he could not deny the fact that his daughter’s drawings were quite special, so special, that he took Victoria’s paintings to a friend of his; a professional painter who recognized and confirmed Kravtsova’ talent. Victoria’s sketches and desire to draw afforded her an opportunity to be enrolled and accepted into Art School where she accelerated and finished 2 years ahead of the 4 year program. Because the painting supplies, canvasses, and an apartment (to be closer to the art school) were so expensive, the Kravtsova family could not afford the tuition for Victoria to continue in the art school. She rerouted her life to the Literature Institute, graduated, and started working
A painting from the “Black is Beautiful” collection. (Courtesy Photo) A painting from the “Black is Beautiful” collection. (Courtesy Photo)
and showed me love” Victoria said. “My way of saying “thank you” to that community was through my paintings,” said Victoria. “I was probably one of seven white people in that community and they embraced us. My husband, Gregory, was so patient with me and helped me to blend in and feel part of the black community as well.” Moving to Brooklyn, New York; helped to shape the style and subjects for Kravtsova’ paintings, which are mostly of African- American people. The African-American community in BedfordStuyvesant, in Brooklyn inspired her to create a series of portraits of black people called, “Black Angels”. “I want to show with my art how beautiful black skin and black people are,” she said. “ I have been blessed with a beautiful family, who happen to be black. I have a lot of portraits of my beautiful nieces, who are black, and of course my husband, Gregory.” “One other very important reason why I paint black people, Victoria said, is because unfortunately, we still live in a society where some people still feel that black people and black skin is not beautiful, and I totally disagree with that.” “That’s really how I feel; it’s true, she said. Victoria Kravtsova-Porter is an artist, a mother, and married to Bakersfield native; songwriter; and Grammy Award winner; Gregory Porter. In 2015, Victoria was recognized by the International Jury MASTER OF ART INTERNATIONAL Art Exhibition Awards in London in the following categories: Best Fine Art and Best Portrait. In 2017, her trilogy, “Black Angels” was selected to be
A painting from the “Black is Beautiful” collection. (Courtesy Photo)
Falsely Accused Man Re-enters Society as an Attorney By Lauren Victoria Burke NNPA Newswire Contributor Jarrett Adams spent ten years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Adams was wrongfully convicted of sexual assault at age 17. He was then sentenced to 28 years in prison at a maximum-security prison. After filing numerous appeals Adams was exonerated with the assistance of the Wisconsin Innocence Project. Adams would end up serving close to 10 years before finally being exonerated in 2007. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin denied Adams’ petition for exoneration, but on June 20, 2006 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit overturned the District Court and vacated Adams’ conviction. The Wisconsin Innocence Project filed a petition on Adams’s behalf asserting there was insufficient evidence to convict Adams and that Adams’ lawyer had been ineffective for failing to locate and call a relevant witness. After his ordeal, Adams became active in the movement to assist those who have no resources to have their cases challenged and closely reviewed. After his false conviction and imprisonment, Adams earned a Juris Doctorate degree
Bobcat Re After Beincove Police Car g Hi San Francisco to Pay $225,000 to Settle Racial Bias Suit
from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in May 2015. On Wednesday, January 29, 2020, thirteen years after being exonerated, Adams was admitted to the Wisconsin State Bar. Adams was joined by Keith Findley, a cofounder of the Wisconsin Innocence Project at a ceremony celebrating his bar admission at the Wisconsin State Capitol. Founded in 1992 by attorney Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld in New York, The Innocence Project was created to assemble legal experts and law students in an effort to examine and investigate questionable cases and overturn wrongful convictions. As of November 17, 2019, the Innocence Project has worked on 189 successful DNA-based exonerations. The Innocence Project cites various studies estimating that between 2% and 5% of all prisoners in the U.S. are innocent. Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent journalist for NNPA and the host of the podcast BURKEFILE. She is also a political strategist as Principal of Win Digital Media LLC. She may be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke
Jarrett M. Adams was wrongfully convicted of sexual assault at age 17 and sentenced to 28 years in a maximum security prison. After serving nearly 10 years and filing multiple appeals, Jarrett was exonerated with the assistance of the Wisconsin Innocence Project. (Photo: jarrettadamslaw.com)
RICHMOND, Calif. (AP) _ A San Francisco Bay Area school district voted Wednesday to name an elementary school after former First Lady Michelle Obama. The board of the West Contra Costa Unified School District unanimously voted to rename Wilson Elementary School in Richmond as Michelle Obama Elementary School. The wife of President Barack Obama is known for her support of educational and child health programs. “She is a role model for our children and we strive to serve our students with the same kind of love, advocacy, and courage that she served our country,” Board President Stephanie Hernandez-Jarvis said in a statement. The school’s PTA had proposed the name change. It will be the first school in Northern California and the second in the state to be named in Michelle Obama’s honor, the district said. The other school is in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Panorama City. Wilson Elementary was named for Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States. The school currently is closed for reconstruction and its 430 students have been using a temporary campus in El Cerrito. A new state-of-the-art school facility bearing Michelle Obama’s name is expected to open in time for the 2020-21 school year, according to the district.
‘Old-Boy-Style Racism’ by Police Leads to $600K Settlement PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – Former West Linn Police Chief Terry Timeus had his officers initiate an unwarranted, racially motivated surveillance and arrest of a black Portland man as a favor to the chief ’s fishing buddy. The case had no ties to West Linn. The city recently negotiated to pay $600,000 to the target of the rogue investigation, Michael Fesser, 48, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. It ends a federal lawsuit that Fesser filed in 2018. “This case vividly illustrates a ready willingness on the part of the West Linn police to abuse the enormous power they have been given, and a casual, jocular, oldboy-style racism of the kind that we Oregonians tend to want to associate with the Deep South rather than our own institutions,” Fesser’s lawyer Paul Buchanan said. Attorney Andrew Campbell, who represented West Linn in court, did not respond to a newspaper request for comment. West Linn Police said in a statement Tuesday that when the allegations were reported, an internal investigation was done and that swift and appropriate disciplinary personnel action was taken. “As we move forward, the West Linn Police Department strives to learn from both our past mistakes and our successes,” the statement said. The settlement is not admission of liability, according to the statement. The bold misdeeds by West Linn police included making a surreptitious audio recording of Fesser at work without a warrant or court order, arresting him without probable cause with the help of Portland police and seizing his cash, cellphone and documents without a search warrant, court records show. The case file includes racist and crude text messages between West Linn police and Fesser’s boss at the time. Fesser said he took legal action so this doesn’t happen to another black man.