USC’s Carson Palmer Headed to the College Hall of Fame
Meek Mill’s ‘Expensive Pain’ Comes With a Heavy Cost
News Observer Page A3
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The Valley’s
Volume 36 Number 48
Serving the San Fernando Valley for Over 36 Years
Observer Group Newspapers of Southern California
Black Businesses Continue to Face Down the Pandemic
H&R Block conducted a study that revealed more than half of Black-owned businesses experienced at least 50% decrease in revenue during the pandemic compared to 37% of White business owners. By Gregory Smith Howard University News Service WASHINGTON – Virginia Ali is owner of Ben’s Chili Bowl, an iconic restaurant she and her husband, Ben Ali, opened in 1958 in Washington D.C. Ben Ali died in 2009. He was 82. The restaurant has since become such a landmark that a long list of celebrities have made a trek through its doors, including former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Serena Williams, Jimmy Fallon, Kevin Durant, Steve Harvey, Kevin Hart, Mary J. Blige, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock and Anthony Bourdain. The restaurant is woven into the fabric of the city’s Black community. It helped serve the tens of thousands of protesters who came to Washington during the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968 and the March on Washington in 1963. Ben’s was one of the few restaurants open after curfew to provide food and shelter for those working to restore order after the Washington riots in 1968 following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Still, Ali said that COVID-19 was the hardest obstacle that her business has ever faced, because this was the first time that her business had to close its doors for an extended amount of time. It normally stayed open from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. and until 4 a.m. on the weekends, she said. “We didn’t receive the (federal Paycheck Protection Program) loan the first go around,” Ali said. “We had to cut back on staff, adjust our hours, and figure out a way to reach the community in a different and more effective way. This virus has been very frightening, but our community embraced and helped us.” The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was a loan issued by the federal government at the beginning of the Continued on page A2
Virginia Ali is owner of Ben’s Chili Bowl, an iconic restaurant she and her husband, Ben Ali, opened in 1958 in Washington D.C., said that COVID-19 was the hardest obstacle that her business has ever faced, because this was the first time that her business had to close its doors for an extended amount of time. It normally stayed open from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. and until 4 a.m. on the weekends, she said.
Reparations Task Force Looks at Black Migration to California
Antonio Ray Harvey California Black Media I was leaving the South to fling myself into the unknown... I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns and, perhaps, to bloom. - Richard Wright, the author of Black Boy, 1945
(Shutterstock Photo)
During its third meeting, California’s Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans looked at reasons formerly enslaved Black people migrated to the Golden State -- and detailed setbacks they faced after arriving. During the period historians dub the “Great Migration”– which lasted from the early 1900s through the 1970s – approximately six million Black Americans relocated from Deep South states to Northern, Midwestern, Eastern and Western states. Significant numbers ended up in California, escaping Jim Crow laws and racial violence and seeking economic opportunity.
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Isabel Wilkerson, author of “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, “described the movement as “a redistribution of Black people.” “It was the only time in America’s history that American citizens had to flee the land of their birth just to be recognized as the citizen that they had always been,” Wilkerson said, pointing out that no other group of Americans has been displaced under similar conditions. After President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, the Reconstruction era began. It was a period of prosperity as some Blacks in different places began to establish businesses and communities; contest for (and win) political office; establish schools, and more. But it was short-lived because of White backlash, Wilkerson said. By the early 1900s, Racist White Southerners began to terrorize freed Black people with cross burnings, and racial violence -- and discriminate against them by instituting Jim Crow laws. There was a spike in lynching, and a sharecropping system that mirrored the conditions of slavery began to take form in the 11 former slaveholding states. Under those policies, opportunities for Blacks were almost nonexistent. After World War World I began in Europe in 1914, there was a shortage of labor. Factories started luring Black people North to fill vacancies. By 1919, an estimated one million Southern Blacks had departed for the North. By the 1930s, the Great Depression had slowed Black migration. But the revival of the exodus from the South, a period historians call the “Second Great Migration,” started around 1939. This time around, California was a major destination. As Black people left the South, Wilkerson said, they “followed three, beautifully predictable streams -- pathways to freedom.” The first two led to Eastern and Midwestern states. The “West coast stream,” Wilkerson told the task force, “carried people from Louisiana and Texas out to California and the entire West Coast.” World War II created an expansion of the country’s defense industry, according to the United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). During this time, more jobs were available to African Americans. California cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland began to see an influx of Black people. According to KCET, a Southern California public television network, the Black population in Los Angeles grew from 63,700 in 1940s to 763,000 in 1970. The migration was largely fueled by job openings in industries manufacturing automobiles, rubber, and steel. The presence of Blacks became evident along Central Avenue between 8th and 20th streets in California’s largest city. “(Black southerners) were recruited to the North and West to fill labor shortages in the steel mills, factories and Continued on page A2
Thursday, October 14, 2021
Racial Inequity Committee at Heart of NC Sorority Suspension
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) – A national sorority has suspended activities at a North Carolina university after most of its members left the school chapter when it failed to hold discussions on racial inequities following the death of George Floyd. In August, 25 of the 28 members of the Zeta Tau chapter of Alpha Xi Delta at the University of North Carolina at Asheville dropped their memberships, the Asheville Citizen Times quoted some of the members as saying. After watching protests unfold in response to Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minneapolis last year, several of Alpha Xi’s members of color sought to begin a diversity, equity and inclusion committee within the sorority. They had also asked the national office to investigate allegations of racism within the organization. Former Alpha Xi member Kayla Bledsoe told the newspaper that she left the sorority after complaints of racism were not addressed. She said leaders, including Alpha Xi’s then-president, were opposed to the committee as soon as the idea was presented. The local organization eventually relented, but what ensued led to a call for an investigation. During committee workshops, several white sorority members, including the president, showed disinterest and were often seen not paying attention, with their backs to the camera and doing other activities during the virtual meetings, Bledsoe said. “I think it was just white people just not really wanting to talk about (race),” Bledsoe said. “I think it’s really uncomfortable when white people personally are being called out, like they get very uncomfortable and shut down.” Alpha Xi’s former president declined a request from the newspaper for comment. “Alpha Xi Delta takes all allegations of racism and antisemitism seriously,” the newspaper quoted Lauren Felts, Alpha Xi Delta spokeswoman, as saying. “We do not tolerate racism or antisemitism of any kind, and we condemn all acts of bigotry, violence and hatred.” The sorority didn’t specify whether the departures or the failure to form the committee triggered the suspension, and Felts didn’t immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment on Tuesday. Because of the departures, Alpha Xi is no longer an active sorority on UNCA’s campus. Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Bill Haggard said in a statement that the university supports the decision to pause the chapter.
Tickets to See Obama Portraits in Atlanta to Go on Sale ATLANTA (AP) – Tickets will soon be available for people who want to see portraits of former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama in Atlanta. The High Museum of Art is set to host the portraits as part of a five-city tour organized by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. “The Obama Portraits Tour” will be at the High from Jan. 14 through March 20. The portrait of the former president was painted by Kehinde Wiley, and the portrait of Michelle Obama was painted by Amy Sherald. Members of the High will be able to purchase tickets first this Monday through Friday. Museum Pass holders can buy tickets from 10 a.m. on Oct. 18 through 5 p.m. on Oct. 19. Everyone will be able to buy tickets starting Oct. 25 until all the time slots have been reserved.
Officer Who Bragged About Hitting Protesters Gets Suspension BOSTON (AP) – A Boston police sergeant seen on body camera footage bragging about striking protesters with his car during demonstrations over George Floyd’s killing will serve an unpaid suspension of at least eight days. An internal investigation concluded that Clifton McHale’s statements were “unbecoming of a police officer,” but investigators found he did not hit anyone with his vehicle, Sgt. Detective John Boyle, a police spokesperson, said. McHale has to serve eight days of 10-day suspension starting on Monday. If he stays out of trouble for six months, he won’t have to serve the remaining two days. McHale didn’t respond to emails from The Boston Globe. The Associated Press left a phone message Saturday with his union, the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation. The video footage was previously published by The Appeal, which obtained it from an attorney who was representing people arrested during last year’s demonstrations. The attorney, Carlton Williams, called the 10-day punishment for McHale “outrageous.” “When do you say a guy shouldn’t be a cop anymore?” Williams told WBUR. “These guys are supposed to be making sure that people can protest freely. We need officers who care about our safety.” Acting Mayor Kim Janey said Friday that “the facts of this case are indefensible.”