Biden, Harris Blame Trump for Jan. 6 Attacks
Grammy Awards Show Canceled Because Omicron Variant
California Ballot Will Be Heavy on Health Care
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Los Angeles
Volume 37 Number 9
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Serving Los Angeles County for Over 37 Years
Observer Group Newspapers of Southern California
Roads and Reparations: How Highway Construction Hardened Discrimination Antonio Ray Harvey California Black Media Last month, the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans heard expert accounts explaining how the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 affected residential communities of color in the state. In the last two-day meeting of 2021, the nine-member commission invited guests to help them determine how money from President Biden’s $1 trillion Infrastructure plan, passed into law in November, could be spent to compensate Black Americans for federal and state government decisions that negatively impacted them. Deborah N. Archer, a professor of clinical law and co-faculty director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at New York University School of Law, testified. She said the massive federal government highway construction program became a “new system of White supremacy” that sustained “slavery’s legacy.” “The transportation infrastructure has always been a driver of racial inequality,” Archer told the task force. “The benefits and burdens of our transportation system, from highways to roads, bridges, sidewalks, and public transportation have been planned, developed, and sustained to pull resources from Black communities. Resources that were redeployed (and) invested to the benefit of predominately White communities.” Archer, who is also the president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a leading expert in civil rights, civil liberties, and racial justice, pointed out that Black communities across the nation and in California have always been “sacrificed” when cities, state or the federal government undertakes transportation infrastructure development projects. There is a growing body of documented evidence, empirical and anecdotal, that confirms how American cities have historically isolated Black communities by the placement of railroad tracks, mandated African Americans to sit in the rear of public buses, and denied them accommodations in restaurants, restrooms, and seating areas at transportation hubs. Planning of the highway system Americans use today, which began in the 1950s, “was often motivated by racism and placed little value on Black lives or Black families,” she said. “Although our transportation is no longer marked by the kind of explicit racist division that we saw in the past, it continues to entrench racial segregation and limit access to jobs, health, and opportunities,” Archer said. “Safe, accessible,
Sidney Poitier, whose iconic 71-year career, included starring roles in “A Raisin in the Sun,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and “Uptown Saturday Night,” was 94. His cause of death has yet to be confirmed. By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent Legendary actor Sidney Poitier, who broke barriers and
A Broadway play focused on the life of the Miami born star, who earned his first Academy Award nomination in 1959 for his work in “The Defiant Ones,” is in the works.
Thursday, January 13, 2022
Widow of National Black Theater Festival Founder Dies
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) – Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin, the widow of the founder of the National Black Theatre Festival, has died. She was 76. A news release from the North Carolina Black Repertory Company said Hamlin died on Monday. The family declined to give the cause of death. Sprinkle-Hamlin led the company as both its board chairman and executive producer of the National Black Theatre Festival. She stepped into the leadership position following the death of her husband, Larry Leon Hamlin, who founded the company and produced its first festival in 1989. Hamlin died in 2007. Sprinkle-Hamlin worked for 40 years with the Forsyth County Public Library, becoming its first Black and female director. She retired in 2019. Funeral arrangements were incomplete late Tuesday.
South Carolina’s Biggest MLK Day Event Going Virtual Again
(California Black Media photo by Antonio Ray Harvey)
and reliable infrastructure is disproportionately built-in White neighborhoods, connecting those residents to opportunities while Black communities continue to suffer from underdevelopment.” The Federal-Aid Highway Act created 41,000 miles of highways that replaced unsafe roads and poorly designed routes, as well as eradicated traffic congestions, and other obstacles that impeded safe, travel across the country.
Archer said that the U.S. Transportation Department estimates that, between 1957 and 1977, nearly 480,000 households across the country were forced out to accommodate the highway construction, which started under the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration. Most of the people displaced resided in urban communities Continued on page A4
Legendary Actor, Sidney Poitier, Has Died at the Age 94 ‘The Measure of a Man’
Take One!
stood for justice and Black lives during the most tumultuous times of the civil rights movement, has died. Poitier, whose iconic 71-year career, included starring roles in “A Raisin in the Sun,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and “Uptown Saturday Night,” was 94. His cause of death has yet to be confirmed. In an exclusive phone call with the Black Press of America, Bill Cosby said he will miss his long-time friend and co-star. “He was honored by AFI. And, along with many stars of the stage, screen, politics and higher education who came out to speak, I brought with me the paperback of his autobiography and I said of all groundbreaking movies that Sidney starred in this book is the real story of this man and his journey,” Cosby remarked. “I am honored to have been close enough to him and work and work on serious matters. According to PBS, Poitier moved to New York City at age 16 after living in the Bahamas for several years with his family. In the Big Apple, he found work as a janitor at the American Negro Theater in exchange for acting lessons. From there, he took up acting roles in plays for the next several years until his film debut in the racially charged, “No Way Out.” Race and social justice would become central themes in Poitier, Belafonte, and Heston at the Civil Rights March of 1963. (Courtesy Photo) much of his work throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s. A Broadway play focused on the life of the Bahamian born star, who earned his first Academy Award nomination in 1959 for his work in “The Defiant Ones,” is in the works. As noted in the New York Post, the nomination was significant to America as he was the first African American to be nominated for Best Actor. That role also earned him a Golden Globe win and a BAFTA Award. Poitier broke even more barriers in 1963 with his hit film “Lilies of the Field.” The following year, Poitier became the first African American to ever win the Best Actor at the Academy Awards. His career continued to climb for several more years. In 1967 he starred in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” an interracial romance comedy that ruffled feathers in America. Then came other memorable films, “They Call Me Mister Tibbs,” the sequel to the controversial blockbuster “In the Heat of the Night,” and “Uptown Saturday Night” opposite Cosby. He released several more works; “The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (2007)” “Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter (2008).” “As I entered this world, I would leave behind the nurturing of my family and my home, but in another sense, I would take their protection with me,” he said in “Measure of a Man.” “The lessons I had learned, the feelings of groundedness and belonging that have been woven into my character there, would be my companions on the journey.” Sidney Poitier in 1968 (Courtesy Photo)
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – South Carolina’s biggest ceremony to honor the life of civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr. will be held virtually again because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The King Day at the Dome event also had to be held virtually because of the pandemic in 2021, according to the South Carolina chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The keynote speaker for the virtual celebration on Jan. 17 will be NAACP National Board of Directors Chairman Leon Russell, state NAACP Conference President Brenda Murphy told The State newspaper. The event is usually held at the Statehouse after a church service at Zion Baptist Church in downtown Columbia and a march to the capitol grounds. The first King Day at the Dome brought in thousands of people protesting the Confederate flag that then flew atop the Statehouse dome. In later years, speakers called for better healthcare and education, criminal justice reform and other civil rights goals. During presidential election years, the event often draws Democratic candidates to speak weeks before South Carolina’s first-in-the-South primary.
Black Man Shot by Off-duty Deputy, Sparking Protest FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) – Protesters gathered outside a police station Sunday to decry the fatal shooting of a Black man a day earlier by an offduty sheriff’s deputy in North Carolina. The demonstrators disputed an initial account of the shooting given by police Saturday. Police in Fayetteville said a preliminary investigation shows that Jason Walker, 37, “ran into traffic and jumped on a moving vehicle,” a truck driven by an off-duty Cumberland County sheriff’s deputy. The deputy, who was not identified by police, shot Walker and then called 911, police said. Walker was pronounced dead on scene. A group of protesters who demonstrated outside the Fayetteville police station Sunday disputed the account given by police. Elizabeth Ricks, who said she witnessed the incident and applied pressure to Walker’s wound, told the crowd Walker was attempting to cross the street to get to his home when he was struck by the deputy’s truck and then shot by him. Ricks told the News & Observer she was on the scene and watched the entire situation unfold. As a trauma nurse, she jumped into action and tried to save Walker’s life. “I did not see anyone in distress. The man was just walking home,” said Ricks. Fayetteville Police Chief Gina Hawkins said during a news conference Sunday that investigators examined the black box computer of the truck, which did not record any impact with any person or thing. In bystander video of the shooting’s aftermath, it appears the off-duty deputy had been driving a red truck that wasn’t a law enforcement vehicle. She said the only person at the scene who indicated they witnessed what happened said Walker was not struck by the truck. Hawkins said investigators noted that a windshield wiper was torn off the truck and the metal portion was used to break the windshield in several places. “We would like to hear from anyone who saw what happened,” Hawkins said. Investigators with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation have taken over the shooting investigation, Fayetteville police said. WRAL-TV spoke with Walker’s family, who described him as a happy go-lucky man with a big heart. “I was sad. That’s my best friend. We were really close,” said cousin Brittany Monroe. “It really broke my heart because he would never hurt anyone. I don’t understand how it could happen to him. He would do anything for anybody.”