The big reveal
Remember to set your clocks back one hour before retiring Saturday, Nov. 5. Eastern Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday as Eastern Standard Time resumes.
Richmond Free Press © 2022 Paradigm Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
VOL. 31 NO. 45
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
www.richmondfreepress.com
ee Fr
Fr ee
A6
Fall back
NOVEMBER 3-5, 2022
Reaching the peak Robert Dortch’s pilgrimage to Mount Kilimanjaro By Charles Taylor
Richmonder Robert Dortch Jr. is a man of faith. So he was pleased to learn that his guide up Mount Kilimanjaro was named Emmanuel. In the Bible, Emmanuel means “God with us.” On Aug. 22 at 11 a.m., Mr. Dortch, along with Tanzanian guide Emmanuel Kimaro, reached the summit. Uhuru Peak tops out at 19,341 feet. Kilimanjaro is Africa’s tallest mountain. “I’m humbled and honored by this moment and what this experience can mean for me, for my sons, my family and hopefully, Black people. That we can dream a different kind of dreams,” he wrote in his journal the next day. And with that, Mr. Dortch joined a small but growing number of Black American explorers ever to have scaled the world’s highest peaks. In May 2022, a group of seven African-American climbers summited Mount Everest in Nepal, becoming the first group Mr. Dortch of its size to do so. Their feat doubled the number of Black people who had ever summited Everest. “Very few African-Americans come here for the journey like this,” Mr. Kimaro, 40, said via email. “We lead about 30 Kilimanjaro groups a year, but only one or two groups will consist of an African-American or a black person of any other nationality.” Please turn to A5
Photo courtesy Robert Dortch
On Aug. 22 at 11 a.m., Robert Dortch, along with Tanzanian guide Emmanuel Kimaro, reached the summit. Uhuru Peak tops out at 19,341 feet. Mount Kilimanjaro is Africa’s tallest mountain.
Davis named to Richmond voters have few voices Hall of Fame in next week’s midterm elections By Debora Timms
Bonnie Newman Davis, managing editor of the Richmond Free Press, was among several alumni and leaders recognized on Oct. 28 by North Carolina A&T State University’s Department of Journalism and Mass Communication’s Hall of Fame. The inaugural induction ceremony took place on the university’s campus in Greensboro, N.C. Ms. Davis, who became managing editor at the Free Press last May, wrote her first article for her college newspaper after taking a journalism course during her junior year at NCA&T. That article and others later appeared in The Carolina Peacemaker, Greensboro’s Black-owned newspaper. After graduating from A&T with a bachelor’s in English in 1979, she earned a master’s Ms. Davis degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1980. After graduate school and several newspaper internships in North Carolina, Kentucky and Ann Arbor, Ms. Davis became a reporter and editor at the Richmond News Leader and, later, the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Additionally, Ms. Davis has served as a journalism professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and at NCA&T, where she was the Greensboro News & Record/Janice Bryant Howroyd Endowed Professor from 2011 to 2015. She has served on the boards of several local and national journalism organizations, including the National Association of Black Journalists. Her book, “Truth Tellers: The Power and Presence of Black Women Journalists Since 1960,” will be released later this month. Other JOMC alumni inductees include: Please turn to A4
By Jeremy M. Lazarus
The country is just a few days away from an election that will determine whether Democrats or Republicans will control one or both houses of Congress. Voters across the country will make that decision Tuesday, Nov. 8, when they go to the polls All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election along with 35 seats in the 100member U.S. Senate. The forecast is for the country to vote for gridlock. Based on pre-election polling of samples of voters, abortion-condemning Republicans who have embraced and spread the lie that President Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election are expected to easily win more than the 218 House seats needed for a majority. Democrats now hold 220 seats to 212 for the GOP, with three vacancies. However, with inflation running rampant, violent crime on
Commentary now split 50-50 with tie-breaking Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris able to give her party a slight majority, according to polls and pundits. Political watchers are following races ranked as neck-and-neck in 10 states that will decide control: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. Richmond voters, who are in Virginia’s 4th Congressional Please turn to A4
Worries grow about City’s policy for sheltering the homeless By Jeremy M. Lazarus
For apparently the first time in a decade, City Hall did not open a temporary shelter for the homeless when the temperature, including the wind chill, recently fell below 40 degrees. While the forecast temperature was above 40 degrees, a stiff northern breeze that also was forecast made it feel like 39
CoStar expansion a shining example
A time for fun Ja’Nya Williams 6, and her brother, Kevin Williams Jr., 2, attended Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan’s 15th Annual Community Harvest Festival at the Science Museum of Virginia for a Halloween outing on Monday evening. Please see more photos on B2.
By Jeremy M. Lazarus
Tuesday was a banner day for Richmond as ground was broken on one of the biggest single private developments in city history. The groundbreaking launched the $460 million complex that real estate data firm CoStar Group is undertaking on 5th Street near the riverfront, providing the company with space to add 2,000 new jobs and boost its total to more than 3,000 in the city. Gov. Glenn A. Youngkin and Mayor Levar M. Stoney joined CoStar founder and Chief Executive Andrew Florance to mark the formal start of construction of the complex, which is to include a 26-story skyscraper and a smaller six-story multipurpose building. Gov. Youngkin extolled the project. “You’re Please turn to A4
the upswing and the president’s popularity low, Republicans are predicted to win at least 225 seats and possibly as many as 243 seats, more than enough to remove California Democrat Nancy Pelosi as House speaker and replace her with California Republican Kevin McCarthy. Republicans also have a chance to win the Senate,
Regina H. Boone/ Richmond Free Press
degrees in the city – triggering a policy in place since 2012 that requires an overflow shelter. In response to a Free Press query, the city’s spokeswoman, Petula Burks, director of the city’s office of Strategic Communications, maintained that policy is still in force but declined to answer follow-up questions. According to Rhonda Sneed, founding Ms. Sneed executive director of the homeless feeding and support group Blessing Warriors RVA, the city’s inaction on making a shelter available last weekend is in line with what she heard city officials explain at a recent meeting on shelter operations. “They said that the temperature must be 40 degrees or below and that wind chill would not be considered,” said Ms. Sneed, who is upset that the city has modified the policy. “All the nonprofit shelters are filled, so there is no place for people to go.” She said the issue is becoming more serious as she finds Please turn to A4
Free COVID-19 testing, vaccines Free community testing for COVID-19 continues. The Richmond and Henrico County health districts are offering testing at the following locations: • Thursday, Nov. 3 & Nov. 10, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. - Southside Women, Infants and Children Office, 509 E. Southside Plaza; 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. - Fulton Neighborhood Resource Center, 1519 Williamsburg Road. • Wednesday, Nov. 9 & Nov. 16, 8 to 10 a.m. - Eastern Henrico Recreation Center, 1440 N Laburnum Ave. Call the Richmond and Henrico COVID-19 Hotline at (804) 2053501 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday for more information
Please turn to A4