City School Board, NAACP raise concerns about RPS budget proposal

Continued from A1 their school’s hallways covered in blood after an intruder break-in — clearly protocols aren’t being followed and it’s our responsibility to address this.”

She said though city funding is limited, there is a revenue surplus that should be put toward resolving these issues.

Decisions over allocation of proposed funds will lead the discussion in budget talks. But, concern over reducing unnecessary expenditures motivated Jonathan Young, 4th District representative, to propose some budget amendments, he said.

In a document he shared with the public, Mr. Young suggests measures to resolve 8,625 vacan- cies that exist across the district’s elementary, middle and high schools, including closing five schools. Closing these schools will save expenditures on capital improvements desperately needed, while addressing RPS student vacancies. These closures, he said, would require those student populations to attend different schools, but he suggests giving those displaced students first choice in choosing which schools they want to attend instead of being told where to enroll.

“The real motivation is to re-think how we do school assignment — what I am suggesting is that we don’t tell the students where they have to go,” he said in a telephone interview with the Free Press. “I would like us to not only give priority to these student in choosing the school they prefer, but also propose providing transportation to get students there.”

RPS currently has an open enrollment process where parents and guardians can enter students into a lottery to attend a school of their choice, instead of the school they are zoned for, each spring. Based on the number of seats available at a particular school, students are notified of their placement in the school, or, placed on a waiting list. When the school year starts, if a student is still on the waiting list for their school of choice, they must attend their zoned school if they are to remain with RPS.

While transportation is offered for students who attend their zoned schools, transportation is not currently provided for students attending a school of their choice in the district.

The Richmond Branch NAACP issued a statement critical of Mr. Young’s proposal, stating: “We understand considering low enrollment, but where is the equity?”

The statement goes on to say “If Mr. Young proposed school closings, we expect that the plan will include building new schools to accommodate the change in enrollment. We also expect that the school district will address the bigger picture, which is the drastic decline in student enrollment ...”

In Mr. Young’s memo, he includes the number of vacancies at each school. But, he said choosing which schools to close and combine is not necessarily determined by the number of vacancies.

Mayor’s upbeat agenda: Increased home ownership, public safety, enhanced learning

Continued from A1 healthier. In our quest to be the best city we can be, Richmond is winning.”

Praising council and the city employees for their efforts that he said are creating a more “efficient and effective government,” he spotlighted one his most significant accomplishments– the removal of all but one monument to the defenders of slavery.

“As you know, when I took office in 2017, the city was still honoring its symbols of hate oppression and division,” he said. “Not today. Today, Richmond is free of Confederate monuments,” except for the large stone monument to Richmond’s Confederate units that still sits on the lawn of the Marsh Courts Building in South Side.

To the delight of City Council President Michael J. Jones, who delivered the invocation, much of the speech focused on families as Mayor Stoney emphasized ways in which the city is heading into the future as the “Capital of compassion, where all can thrive.”

The college scholarship program is one example of that effort, said Mayor Stoney, the first member of his family to go to college. He said that he has tasked the Office of Children and Families to develop a pilot program called Pathways that would begin this fall to support Richmond Public Schools graduates.

The city, he said, will team with Reynolds Community College and the Greater Richmond Aspirations Scholarship Program (GRASP) on a program that “will pair a traditional scholarship with a monthly cash allowance, mentorship and additional supports so that more RPS graduates have the opportunity to achieve post-secondary success.”

He said the program will initially be allocated $1.5 million, based on commitments from the Community Foundation, Altria, CoStar and Dominion, and he challenged other businesses to invest “in the future of our kids.”

The new program is part of “our larger vision that I am calling the Richmond Commitment: We are committed to universal access to preschool; we are committed to quality after-school programming; and we are committed to higher education to set our kids up to succeed in life,” he said.

Mayor Stoney also noted that funding for the operation of the city’s public school has increased by 33 percent since he took office. During his tenure, RPS also has gained three new school buildings, and as the result of city initiatives, every elementary and middle school student has access to after-school programs.

Along with purchasing diapers and formula to aid families with babies, he noted the city has added 250 child care and preschool slots using federal dollars.

To build on that, he said the city would contribute $250,000 in American Rescue Plan funds to assist the YWCA in opening a previously announced Sprout School for 60 children age 2 months to5 years old in Oregon Hill.

He noted that Richmond also is spending $4 million in funds from its federal allocation to provide shelter to the homeless, more money and resources than the other localities in the Central Virginia.

On the homeownership front, the mayor cited the return of $18 million to city property owners as part of the work to make housing more affordable. He also cited the $18 million the city in federal funding the city is investing to help private developers meet the city’s goal of adding 1,000 lower rent

Free COVID-19 vaccines

Continued from A1

The Virginia Department of Health also has a list of COVID19 testing locations around the state at www.vdh.virginia.gov/ coronavirus/covid-19-testing/covid-19-testing-sites.

Want a COVID-19 vaccine or booster shot?

The Richmond and Henrico health districts are offering free vaccines for COVID-19 and more at the following locations:

• Thursday, Feb. 2 and Feb. 9, 2 to 4 p.m. - Cary Street, 400

E. Cary St., Primary Moderna shots for age 6 months and older, and bivalent boosters for age 6 years and older, Primary Pfizer shots for age 6 months and older, and bivalent boosters for age 5 years and older, Novavax primary shots for age 12 and older, and boosters for age 18 and older, flu shots; JYNNEOS and flu shots only for Feb. 9 event, walk-ups welcome but appointments encouraged.

• Tuesday, Feb. 7, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. - Richmond City Hall, 900 E. Broad St., Primary Moderna shots for age 6 months and older, and bivalent boosters for age 6 years and older, Primary Pfizer shots for age 6 months and older, and bivalent boosters for age 5 years and older, Novavax primary shots for age 12 and older, and boosters for age 18 and older, flu and JYNNEOS shots, walk-ups welcome but appointments encouraged.

People can schedule an appointment online at vase.vdh.virginia. gov, vaccinate.virginia.gov or vax.rchd.com, or by calling (804) 205-3501 or (877) VAX-IN-VA (1-877-829-4682).

VaccineFinder.org and vaccines.gov also allow people to find nearby pharmacies and clinics that offer the COVID-19 vaccine and booster.

Those who are getting a booster shot should bring their vaccine card to confirm the date and type of vaccine received. RHHD also offers at-home vaccinations by calling (804) 2053501 to schedule appointments.

New COVID-19 boosters, updated to better protect against the latest variants of the virus, are now available. The new Pfizer booster is approved for those age 12 and up, while the new Moderna booster is for those age 18 and older.

As with previous COVID-19 boosters, the new doses can only be received after an initial two vaccine shots, and those who qualify are instructed to wait at least two months after their second COVID-19 vaccine.

The Richmond and Henrico Health Districts are now offering bivalent Pfizer and Moderna boosters to children between the ages of 5 and 11 in clinics in the near future. Children in this age range will be eligible after at least two months since their last vaccine dose.

New COVID-19 cases in Virginia fell 34 percent during the last week, according to data from the Virginia Department of Health, while data from the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association showed hospitalizations statewide dropped 15 percent since last Wednesday. Richmond and the counties of Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico County are now all at medium levels of community COVID-19 as of last week. Sixteen localities in Virginia are ranked at high community COVID levels, while 62 were ranked at medium as of last week.

A total of 848 new cases of COVID-19 were reported statewide Tuesday for the 24-hour period, contributing to an overall state total of 2,251,890 cases in Virginia since the pandemic’s outbreak.

As of Tuesday, there have been 457,988 hospitalizations and 23,108 deaths reported statewide.

State data also shows that African-Americans comprised 22.1 percent of cases statewide and 22.1 percent of deaths for which ethnic and racial data is available, while Latinos made up 11 percent of cases and 4.5 percent of deaths.

Reported COVID-19 data as of Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023 apartments a year.

But he said many families are like his. “The opportunity to own a home and created generational wealth was never really in the cards for us,” said Mayor Stoney, whose father worked as a school janitor and maintenance worker before his death at age 49.

He said the opportunity is even more difficult with prices soaring as investors snap up much of the available housing, skewing the market and limiting the support for new homeowners.

One way to address that is to do more to help residents buy their first home with down-payment assistance and funding to reduce mortgage interest, he said.

He said he has set a goal of increasing 2,000 new homeownership opportunities in the city by 2030, working in partnership with the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority and other community groups involved with housing.

“In the coming months,” the mayor said his administration would finalize the action plan that would focus “on building, preserving and protecting homes” while also creating sustainable home ownership opportunities, which drew praise from City Council’s leading advocate for affordable housing, 6th District Councilwoman Ellen F. Robertson.

Ms. Robertson helped launch the first city-supported program promoting home ownership while serving as executive director of a nonprofit housing group in Highland Park. She said this year, the city has set aside $2 million in its Affordable Housing Trust Fund for the purpose of aiding new homebuyers.

She said the program would continue to develop so long as the mayor kept his promise to provide $10 million a year to the fund, with $8 million going to support development of incomerestricted apartments and the remaining $2 million to support homebuyer initiatives.

The mayor also highlighted efforts to deal with the violence that continues to plague some sections of the city. In January, Richmond had five homicides along with a string of other shootings, according to police reports.

“The cornerstone of a thriving community is safe neighborhoods and streets,” the mayor said. “In Richmond, we have to be tough on crime and tough on the root causes of crime.”

He said to help recruit and retain people, the city, with council’s support, has invested $22 million in pay increases for police officers and firefighters, the most significant pay increase ever for first responders. In the current year, police, fire and emergency communications have received a record $177 million.

Still, police remain shorthanded. Mayor Stoney said that new technology will play a bigger role. He said that a $750,000 state grant the city just received will enable the city to develop a Real Time Crime Center, now in use in other major cities like Las Vegas and Miami.

“Think of this as an ‘air traffic control’ for officers in the field,” the mayor said. Using cameras and computers, the center will enable the Police Department to “maximize the efficiency and speed of investigations, helping to lock up violent offenders and locate illegal guns.”

He said technology is already at work. In 2022, he said, the Summer Gun Violence Initiative “used data to divide our city into 29,000 micro areas,” enabling police to identify specific locations with the highest rates of violence and enabling the department to deploy additional resources to those specific places.

One result was a 54 percent reduction in murders in those areas, he said, and an overall drop of 34 percent into homicides citywide, he said.

In the past year, using such data-driven techniques, Richmond police seized 1,000 illegal guns and made 235 felony arrests through Operation Red Ball, he said.

He also urged the public to help the fight to reduce crime and violence by locking their cars and ensuring that any guns are secured inside. Last year, he said, 741 guns were stolen from parked cars in the city that were left unlocked.

Mayor Stoney said Richmond is better addressing individual mental and behavioral health issues through the Marcus Alert system while also adding new green spaces, installing new street lights addressing blight and building up after-school programming to improve safety.

In other words, he said, the city “is being intentional, results oriented and better than before.”

He said the city also is seeking to address last year’s record 28 traffic fatalities with a 90-day enforcement campaign involving city and state police, with the goal of reducing aggressive, impaired and inattentive driving.

“Overall, we’ve come a long way these past six years,” the mayor said. “The state of the city is better than its ever been. And I say, ‘Our best is yet to come!’”

Museum exhibit explores freedom, justice, equality

Continued from A1 opening day and pointed to the clothing, the stories of free men in antebellum Virginia, and the history of academic achievement as particular strengths of the exhibit.

“Given the news and educational environment today, the exhibit shows how necessary it is to learn these stories.”

“Forging Freedom” covers six different themes, including African-American life in Virginia before the Civil War, their part in the military, the role of religion in shaping Virginia’s Black community, and the successes of that community culturally, academically and economically.

A curator and historian who has brought more insight into the lives of Maggie L. Walker and Virginia Randolph, and served as in-studio researcher for the Steven Speilberg film “Lincoln,” Ms. Belsches was contracted by the museum to identify, acquire and research pieces for an exhibition depicting centuries of Black history in Virginia, as a guest curator, museum educator and historian.

Her work has not gone unnoticed.

“It was wonderful to witness it,” said Janis Allen, president of the Historic Jackson Ward Association, who attended the opening in September and has seen the exhibit several times since then. “The excitement that night was just palpable.”

In addition to individuals or couples who view the exhibit, Ms. Belsches has guided numerous civic and cultural groups since the opening.

And while she plans to bring in even more groups, she still delights in the excitement of those on the tour, and sees it as vindication of both the work done and the power of the lives and stories spotlighted.

“When you marry powerful storytelling with sound scholarship,” Ms. Belsches said, “the results are public history at its finest.”

In organizing the exhibit, a major goal for Ms. Belsches was to showcase aspects of African-American history in Virginia that are unknown or rarely discussed. The work of educators at historically black colleges teaching students scientific and technical trade skills or social justice efforts before emancipation are among the areas emphasized. These stories are featured alongside people such as Danville native Camilla Williams, the first known Black woman to have a leading role in a major opera company, and a vocal professor at Indiana University Bloomington from 1977 to 1997. Also featured is Richmond native George Lewis Ruffin, the first African-American graduate of Harvard Law School in 1869, the first Black Boston City Council member in 1875 and the first Black judge in Massachusetts in 1883.

For Ms. Belsches, the stories and lives on display are not just great stories that challenge misconceptions of AfricanAmerican history in Virginia. They also are “guideposts to success for today” for the public and community.

“The role of education historically and the role of the Black church, coupled with a profound sense of collectivism enabled Blacks to found and lead pioneering banks and organizations nationally in the wake of freedom,” Ms. Belsches said. “Compelling examples of social justice initiatives before freedom came and the ability to overcome unjust laws and practices offer extraordinary narratives.

“I want visitors to walk away with the firm belief that if these people born before and in the wake of freedom could accomplish these feats, with faith, education and collectivism all things are possible today!”

Besides providing new perspectives of African-American history in Virginia, “Forging Freedom” is a key part of the Black History Museum’s 40th anniversary. The museum was founded in 1981 by Carroll Anderson Sr. and debuted in 1991 at 100 Clay St. with roughly 500 items, documents and artifacts. It moved to its current location at 122 W Leigh St. in 2016.

For those who have seen the exhibit, the critical role of the museum in the creation of the exhibit, and finding and maintaining this history is clear.

“There was plenty of information that I had never heard of before and several parts of the exhibit were almost unbelievable,” said Richmonder Lynne Clark Rozier, a graduate of Hampton University and Howard Law School who attended the show’s opening with several of her Hampton classmates to support Ms. Belsches, also a fellow classmate.

“Our history is so rich and we have not been taught the depth of our contributions to this country. Thankfully, the Black History Museum and historians like (Elvatrice) are up to the task,” said Mrs. Rozier.

“The exhibit offers another great reason to visit the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia,” Mr. Smith added, “which is itself an unparalleled architectural setting and community resource.”

The exhibition will end April 29, yet plans already are underway to preserve the touring experience for the future. For her part, Ms. Belsches hopes to create a video showcasing the featured items. Meanwhile, the museum will continue to digitize its own collection while also seeking a permanent executive director.

Ms. Belsches anticipates heightened interest in the exhibit during Black History Month as word of mouth and curiosity draw more people to the West Leigh Street facility.

“Black history in Virginia is Virginia’s story,” said Mary C. Lauderdale, the museum’s director of collections who has worked at the museum for more than 25 years. “It is integral to the success of the state and of folks understanding what it is to be an African-American and to be an American.

“And that is our mission — to preserve the stories, to tell the stories, the untold stories, and how they are integral to the story of Virginia and the United States.”

Calls for police reform at Tyre Nichols’ funeral

Continued from A1 actions. He also said he believes that if Mr. Nichols had been white, “you wouldn’t have beat him like that.”

“We understand that there are concerns about public safety. We understand that there are needs that deal with crime,” Mr. Sharpton said.

“But you don’t fight crime by becoming criminals yourself. You don’t stand up to thugs in the street becoming thugs yourself. You don’t fight gangs by becoming five armed men against an unarmed man. That ain’t the police. That’s punks,” he said, to rousing applause from the crowd.

The Rev. J. Lawrence Turner called Mr. Nichols “a good person, a beautiful soul, a son, a father, a brother, a friend, a human being” who was gone too soon and “denied his rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, denied the dignity of his humanity, denied the right to see the sun set another day, to embrace his mother, hang out with his friends, hold his child, and the right to grow old.”

“As we celebrate Tyre’s life and comfort this family, we serve notice to this nation that the rerun of this episode that makes Black lives hashtags has been canceled and will not be renewed for another season,”

Rev. Turner said. “We have come and we shall overcome.”

Tiffany Rachal, the mother of Jalen Randle, who was fatally shot by a Houston police officer in 2022, sang a rendition of the classic gospel standard “Total Praise” to rousing applause from the congregation and the Nichols family.

“All of the mothers all over the world need to come together, need to come together to stop all of this,” Ms. Rachal said.

Mr. Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, fought back tears as she spoke of her son.

“The only thing that’s keeping me going is that I truly believe that my son was sent here on assignment from God. And I guess now his assignment is done. He’s gone home,” she said.

She also urged Congress to pass the law named after George Floyd. Members of his family and others who have been killed by police attended the funeral, including Breonna Taylor, Botham Jean and Eric Garner.

“We need to take some action because there should be no other child that should suffer the way my son — and all the other parents here have lost their children — we need to get that bill passed,” Mrs. Wells said. “Because if we don’t, that blood — the next child that dies, that blood is going to be on their hands.”

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Mr. Nichols’ family, referred to the graphic video showing the officers punching, kicking and beating Mr. Nichols, even after he lay helpless on the ground.

“Why couldn’t they see the humanity in Tyre?” he asked.

In the three weeks since Mr. Nichols’ death, five police officers were fired and charged with murder. Their specialized unit was disbanded. Two more officers have been suspended. Two Memphis Fire Department emergency medical workers and a lieutenant also were fired. And more discipline could be coming.

But Wednesday was about Mr. Nichols, a skateboarder and amateur photographer who worked making boxes at FedEx.

Mr. Nichols was the baby of their family, born 11 years after his closest siblings. He had a 4-year-old son and worked hard to better himself as a father, his family said.

Mr. Nichols grew up in Sacramento, Calif., and loved the San Francisco 49ers. He came to Memphis just before the coronavirus pandemic and got stuck. But he was fine with it because he was with his mother, Mrs. Wells, and they were incredibly close, she said. He even had her name tattooed on his arm.