Vol. 63 No. 13 | Thursday, March 30, 2023

Reparations Should Be Cash Plus “Investments,”

S.F. NAACP Says

Equity Report Reveals Comparative Statistics on Black Women

By McKenzie Jackson

California Black Women’s Collective Empowerment Institute (CBWCEI)

By Antonio Ray Harvey and Manny Otiko CALIFORNIA BLACK MEDIA

The San Francisco Branch of the NAACP is engaged in a public information blitz to clarify a press release it sent out urging the San Francisco city government to reject a proposal to pay each qualifying Black city resident a one-time lump sum reparation payment of $5 million.

See REPARATIONS page 2

Black women in the Golden State trail behind their counterparts from other ethnic groups in median wealth and a lower percentage of them have obtained higher e ducation degrees. Black mothers and their babies have mortality rates that surpass women from other racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Meet the Black Women Legislators Shaping California Policy

By Mark Hedin CALIFORNIA BLACK MEDIA

In 2023, five of California’s Black Legislative Caucus’ (CBLC) 12 members are women. They are:

LOLA

SMALLWOOD-CUEVAS (D – Ladera Heights)

The only Black woman in the California State Senate, Lola Smallwood-Cuevas represents state Senate District 28, a small, densely populated section of Los Angeles County that includes Culver City and parts of mid-city Los Angeles and unincorporated Los Angeles County.

See LEGISLATORS page 2

President and CEO Kellie Todd Griffin said the state of Black women in California is troubling.

“There is so much work to do,” she explained.

“There is a gap with Black women. Without immediate interventions from a policy and practice transformation standpoint, we’re not going to be able to change the trajectory.”

See EQUITY page 2

She was deeply involved with social justice causes before she met and married Martin Luther King Jr., and long after his death.

Scott King served with civil rights groups throughout her time as a student at Antioch College and the New England Conservatory of Music. Shortly after she and King married in 1953, the couple returned to the South, where they lent their support to local and regional organizations such as the NAACP and the Montgomery Improvement Association.

They also supported the Women’s Political Council, an organization founded by female African American professors at Alabama State University that facilitated voter education and registration, and also protested discrimination on city buses.

See WOMEN page 24

By Vicki Crawford THE CONVERSATION

an activist in her own right

Coretta Scott King is often remembered as a devoted wife and mother, yet she was also a committed activist in her own right.

PHOTO: Courtesy of CBM

ARTICLE CONTINUATION

reparations:

Continued from cover

Continued from cover

Griffin’s remarks came a day after the Center for the Advancement of Women at Mount Saint Mary’s University released its 12th annual “The Report on the Status of Women and Girls in California” on March 22. The 40-page report, with the tagline “Advancing Equity: Leading With Meaning and Purpose,” is the Los Angeles university’s assessment of the state of women in California based on a number of social and economic indicators.

The report highlights issues affecting women and girls in California post-COVID-19 pandemic. The trends documented pertain to women’s education, economic security, health, household labor, and wage and wealth divisions.

Robin L. Owens, Interim Director, Center for the Advancement of Women and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Mount Saint Mary’s University, said all of the study’s findings need to be addressed.

“My personal opinion, wealth impacts everything, so that is the one that struck me the most,” she emphasized. “The differences in the wealth gap between men and women, but also between African American women and other races. That was striking.”

The wealth gap among women is vast, according to the study. For every $100 owned by a White woman, Latinas own $10, and Black women own $9. Twenty-four percent of households led by single Black women and 25% of Latina households are more likely to live in poverty than single White (14%) and single Asian (15%) women households. In corporate leadership, 5% of the women in management positions and CEO chairs are African American. In comparison, 46% of women in management positions are White and 86% of women CEOs are White. Black women hold 4% of the bachelor’s degrees obtained by California women, while White

women have 47%. Among women holding graduate and professional degrees, 52% are White women, whereas African American women make up only 5%.

There is a connection, Griffin stated, between Black women’s trailing in education and wealth figures.

“We’re the smallest population amongst the groups that were assessed, however, we shouldn’t be 4% of the bachelor’s degree holders,” she noted. “It’s disheartening. How do you get into corporate leadership if a majority of good-paying jobs require a degree? We can’t get in the door to be able to accelerate up.”

Black women are more than four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than White women and Black babies are more than twice as likely to die within one year than White babies.

The maternal death rates of African American women and their babies are comparable to numbers from decades ago despite funds and efforts put into improving that rate for all women, Griffin said.

CBWCEI is focused on using the numbers from the report and other statistics they have gathered to shine a light on the challenges Black women in the state have and to uplift their voices.

The group advocated for and received state funds to create the California Black Women’s Think Tank at Cal State Dominguez Hills, which focuses solely on Black women and girls through research and leadership development. The nonprofit organization is also conducting other African American womengeared initiatives.

Owens hopes readers of the report take actions like the CBWCEI.

The Rev. Amos Brown, a member of the San Francisco reparations board, pastor of Third Baptist Church, and the president of the San Francisco NAACP, released a March 14 statement before the recommendations were presented to the supervisors rejecting the $5 million payout.

Reparations should focus on investments and opportunities in five areas: education, employment, housing, healthcare, and a culture center for San Francisco’s Black residents, the prepared statement reads.

“We strongly believe that creating and funding programs that can improve the lives of those who have been impacted by racism and discrimination is the best path forward toward equality and justice,” Brown stated. Brown is the vice-chairperson of the California Reparation Task Force, which is proposing recommendations for two million Black residents in California.

The NAACP’s press release was met with immediate backlash by supporters in the movement for reparations across the country who have, for decades now, invested time, energy and money in bringing the issue to national attention. In 2020, California became the first state to set up a task force to investigate the state’s involvement in slavery, state-sanctioned atrocities against African Americans and all other forms of discrimination and discriminatory policy that excluded Black Californians from state benefits or protections or that prevented them from gaining social or economic power.

Brown has since clarified in several public appearances that he is not against the idea of a cash payout but only wants the recommendation to be a reasonable compromise — one, he says, that does not give the city’s Black residents “false hope.”

Eric McDowell, chairperson of the African American Reparations Advisory Committee (AARAC) — a task force set up by San Francisco city government — said that recommendations presented to the Board of Supervisors is an “appraisal” and he is “hopeful” that the city will deliver much needed compensation for Black community.

McDowell made the statements in an interview with San Francisco’s KRON 4 News on March 24. AARAC presented recommendations on March 14 to address the harms

LEGISLATORS:

Continued from cover

In her first months as a state senator, Smallwood-Cuevas has introduced a package of worker and civil rights measures. Among them is SB 627, legislation that would help workers laid off by a chain business to find work at other locations nearby. Another, SB 497, would offer workers whistleblower protection in cases of alleged wage theft or unequal pay.

LORI

When she was elected mayor of Suisun City in 2018, Lori Wilson became the first-ever Black woman to serve as mayor anywhere in Solano County. She’d been vice-mayor for six years.

Now, she’s chair of the CBLC after her election in April last year to represent the 11th Assembly district, which straddles Solano and Contra Costa counties.

She serves on the Appropriations, Banking and Finance, and the Accountability and Administrative Review standing committees.

AKILAH WEBER (D – San Diego)

From the 79th Assembly district is Akilah Weber, representing parts of San Diego, her hometown, and El Cajon, Lemon Grove, Spring Valley/La Presa and La Mesa.

After becoming first Black person ever elected to the La Mesa city council in 2018, Weber left in early 2021 to run for the Assembly seat in a special election to replace her mother, Dr. Shirley Weber, who’d been named secretary of state. She won, and her mother swore her in. Akilah Weber was re-elected in 2022.

and struggles Black Americans have endured since they began migrating west after the Civil War.

“What the city will decide to do is fully in the hands of the supervisors, mayor’s office, and full leadership of the city,” McDowell said in the six-minute segment. “We’re hopeful as a committee that they will take up the charge and do what they believe both is right to do and have the capacity to do.”

The recommendations, McDowell said, are only in “draft” form at this stage. They cover economic empowerment, education, generational wealth building, and public policies for the benefit of Black San Franciscans. McDowell referred to the recommendation as an estimation of value.

The 14-person reparations committee advises the Board of Supervisors, Mayor London Breed, the Human Rights Commission, and the public on the development of a San Francisco Reparations Plan. The plan features ways that San Francisco’s policies have harmed Black lives.

Paying qualifying Black residents individual payments of $5 million, the elimination of personal debt and tax liabilities of African American households and securing annual incomes at a minimum $97,000 for 250 years are part of the package the committee is proposing.

San Francisco’s Black population consists of 6% of the city’s total number of residents and they make up 38% of the city’s homeless population.

The AARAC has documented decades of policies and laws that systematically affected Black Americans in San Francisco, limiting their access to productive employment property, education and the ability to build generational wealth.

A decision by the Board of Supervisors on the amount of compensation owed to Black residents or the form it will take is not expected until June. Meanwhile, the city is mulling over the fact that providing financial compensation will push it deeper into the red, a point that has been made by some city officials that many who oppose reparations for Black Americans have latched onto and referenced in their arguments.

In the state Assembly, she serves on six standing committees: Health, Higher Education Appropriations, Communications and Conveyance, and Water, Parks and Wildlife, Legislative Ethics Committee (co-chair) and Social Determinants of Health select committee (chair).

TINA

MCKINNOR (D – Inglewood)

Tina McKinnor’s 61st Assembly district spans communities in western Los Angeles County including Inglewood, Gardena, Hawthorne, Marina del Rey, Venice, Westchester, Westmont, West Athens and parts of Los Angeles.

She was elected to the state Assembly in July last year in a special election after the sudden resignation of Autumn Burke, herself a former CBLC vice-chair and the daughter of California Assembly alum and three-term U.S. Congresswoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke. Burke cited COVID impacts on her family at the time for her resignation.

MIA BONTA (D – Oakland)

Mia Bonta ran for and won the 18th Assembly district seat in Alameda County in a 2021 special election called atter her husband, Rob Bonta, who’d held the seat since 2012, was named California Attorney General.

She serves on six Assembly committees: Joint Legislative Budget, Public Safety, Human Services, Communications and Conveyance, Business and Professions and the Budget Committee, including two of its subcommittees No. 5 — Public Safety — and No. 6 — Budget Process, Oversight and Program Evaluation.

WILSON (D – Suisun City)

ACKNOWLEDGING BLACK WOMEN IN PARTICULAR DURING WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

By Dr. John E. Warren Publisher, The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint

It is fitting and proper that we have a Women’s History Month. Just as Black History Month which precedes it, there is an opportunity to acknowledge another g roup that history often has omitted and, in many cases, continues to do so. But while all women have had struggles, none have been as great as the Black woman, unless there was the condition of slavery attached to their life struggles. Black women achieved in spite of slavery, rape, murdered husbands and children taken from them and sold as property

While we call to the world’s attention the accomplishment of just a few Black women on these pages, it is especially important that the Black man makes these same acknowledgements without a sense of insecurity or fear. She is strong because she had to be in order for our species to survive. She is as diverse, as these pages demonstrate, as she is beautiful and she is the very fabric of this great nation built on her back and struggles

In these pages, we are limited in our recognition of the numbers and contributions of Black women past and present. We invite you to continue the research and the recognition wherever possible. We have included some local heroes recently deceased and currently with us. We invite you to join us in honoring them and their achievements.

You see, “Our struggle continues”.

THE HISTORY OF WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

By Marian Wright Edelman Founder and President Emerita, Children’s Defense Fund

There is an African proverb that says “women hold up half the sky.” Women constitute half the world’s population, but still have not realized half of the world’s potential, received half of the world’s resources, or exercised half of the world’s power. But women have always been the invisible backbone—unseen but strong—of transforming social movements and of anchor institutions in society: our families, congregations, schools, and communities. March is Women’s History Month in our nation, and a chance to reflect on women’s transformational impact on American history and turn it into inspiration and action for the future.

The National Women’s History Alliance, which champions women’s history across the U.S. all year long, puts it this way: “History helps us learn who we are, but when we don’t know our own history, our power and dreams are immediately diminished. Multicultural American women are overlooked in most mainstream approaches to U.S. history, so the National Women’s History Project champions their accomplishments and leads the drive to write women back into history . . . The impact of women’s history might seem abstract to some, and less pressing than the immediate struggles of working women today. But to ignore the vital role that women’s dreams and accomplishments play in our own lives would be a great mistake. We draw strength and inspiration from those who came before us—and those remarkable women working among us today.”

This annual observance is marking an anniversary this year. Its origins in the United States began 45 years ago in 1978, when the

CAN BLACK MEN EVER REALLY WIN IN HOLLYWOOD?

By Patrick Washington

One year after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, “so-called Black Hollywood is more like the Black Student Union at a PWI.”

Scene 1: Will

Will Smith did almost exactly what he should’ve done this entire time. As a leading man, one of the last true movie stars, and an Oscar winner, his apology tour was so cliché, it almost felt like a new Apple+ TV show pilot. The brief but anticipatory absence from the public eye, the not-so-random apology to the Rock family… and then a complete resurgence with Oscarworthy fare.

It was amazing to watch Smith’s performance in “Emancipation” and watch the powers that be scramble to come up with the right PR slant to explain why he isn’t allowed at the Oscars for a decade, even though he’s making better films than anyone in his league. The whole diversity/ inclusion/representation speech was tailor-made for times like this.

The one thing Smith didn’t do right, was do what Black men do. Where was the private personal talk with Chris Rock?

Scene 2: Chris

This year, Chris did what he was supposed to do. He stayed silent. But we all knew what was coming. Regardless if you like him or his style, in Netflix’s “Selective Outrage,” his mastery of the craft is on display full throttle. Chris is a real comedian; nothing he says on that stage is by accident or without purpose. He utilizes the oratory techniques of southern preachers, inflections of a college professor, and the pausespeak-pause-speak techniques of motivational speakers to engage the audience in a show they don’t even realize is interactive.

We all know why we’re here, too. It ain’t for the social commentary. We want to hear Chris roast Will Smith — however, not without some foundation. Like the slap itself, Chris unleashed a tirade punchlines, each one more impactful than the last.

Education Task Force of Sonoma County, California’s Commission on the Status of Women first celebrated “Women’s History Week” in Santa Rosa. They chose the week that included March 8, International Women’s Day, since that had already been celebrated in many countries for much of the 20th century and officially recognized by the United Nations one year earlier as a day to acknowledge women’s contributions and call for women’s economic, political, and civil rights. Women historians and community leaders quickly spread the demand for a national commemoration, and in 1980 President Jimmy Carter responded by issuing the first presidential proclamation designating March 2-8 as National Women’s History Week.

President Carter’s proclamation read: “From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this nation. Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well. As Dr. Gerda Lerner has noted, ‘Women’s history is women’s right – an essential and indispensable heritage from which we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long-range vision’ . . . I urge libraries, schools, and community organizations to focus their observances on the leaders who struggled for equality—Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and Alice Paul.

He was hitting Will Smith back in a way a slap could not achieve. He was playing the game Hollywood doesn’t like: the truth game. Like winning a rap battle against Drake, Will lost — but just in the eyes of the Blacks. Which in Hollywood ain’t a real loss anyway.

Understanding the true history of our country will help us to comprehend the need for full equality under the law for all our people. This goal can be achieved by ratifying the 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that ‘Equality of Rights under the Law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.’”

That persona he cultivated for so long, that image that was accepted by all four quadrants of the audience, that character of Will Smith is no more. He was just another Black man acting violently instead of communicating effectively, and it shocked people.

Scene 3: Marlon

What we didn’t know we needed in this long text thread was the opinion of Marlon Wayans. Shockingly, Marlon, had a GOOD take.

See HOLLYWOOD page 13

Of course, the measure that President Carter then hoped would become the 27th Amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment, still has not been enshrined into the Constitution. March formally became a full Women’s History Month in the U.S. following a 1987 Congressional resolution, but 45 years after that fledgling Women’s History Week, women’s rights are under renewed attack in our nation, and American women have not yet received equality on a range of key measures, including equal pay. One of those measures of disparate outcomes hangs in the balance right now: as the Supreme Court hears arguments this week on whether to strike down President Biden’s plan to cancel $10,000 of student loan debt for low- to

middle-income borrowers, women are facing a disproportionate threat. Women hold twothirds of student loan debt in our nation. Black women, who often have fewer family wealth resources to pay for higher education, have the highest average totals. For many of these women and their families, the Biden administration’s plan would bring critical relief. Now, as the Supreme Court considers the challenges to the student loan forgiveness plan from six Republican-led states and two plaintiffs, once again women have the most to gain—or lose.

Women’s chances are still unequal in our nation, but our will is not and never has been. As a growing number of women gain political power all the way to the highest levels, and a growing number of young women realize how critical it is to use their power to vote in every election, women are once again poised to lead transforming and necessary change.

IMAGE: Liz Courquet-Lesaulnier/Wikimedia Commons

Women’s History Month

Inspirational Women

African-American Female Judges in San Diego County

By Voice & Viewpoint Staff with Contributing Writer, Jeremiah Sanchez

During Women’s History Month, we want to highlight the incredible Black women who spearheaded the civil rights movements, education, government/law, the arts and many other life-changing improvements to the world, beginning with our local African American judges in the legal community here in San Diego County. The American education system focuses on history from the white male’s perspective, which fails to showcase the great women who were often at the front of these movements. Women like Roulette Armstead and Dorothy Smith worked hard to make the lives of Black people better but are rarely if ever talked about in the history books. This year’s list of incredible women is a reminder to look more closely at the history that is fed to us instead of just consuming it, and to also support and celebrate the Black women you see making strides every day. To read our publisher Dr. John E. Warren’s comments regarding this week’s issue, please see page 3.

Hon Ernestine Douglas Littlejohn

Administrative Law Judge (Ret.)

In 1974, Ernestine Douglass Littlejohn was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of San Diego School of Law. Her other firsts include: the first African American Deputy County Counsel for San Diego County and the first African American Deputy Schools Attorney for the San Diego Unified School District. Judge Littlejohn became an Administrative Law Judge for the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board in 1982, retiring in 2004. The numerous awards she has received include: The Salvation Army

Hon. Sharon B. Majors-Lewis

Woman of Distinction Award, the Women Inc Award, Mother of the Year Award and the Earl B. Gilliam Bar Association for Distinguished Service Award.

Hon Randa Trapp

San Diego Superior Court Judge (Ret.)

The Honorable Randa Trapp retired in 2021, after serving 18 years on the bench. A native San Diegan, proud graduate of Lincoln High School, and a veteran of the United States Navy, she earned a B.A. in Political Science from San Jose State University and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. Prior to her appointment to the San Diego Superior Court bench, she practiced law for nearly 20 years, as a prosecutor with the State Attorney General’s Office, civil litigator, and in-house counsel with San Diego Gas & Electric/Sempra Energy where she also served as Assistant Corporate Secretary. During her tenure on the bench, Judge Trapp remained active in all aspects

Hon Tilisha T Martin

San Diego Superior Court Judge

of her community, including as a past president of the Earl B. Gilliam Bar Association, past Regional Director of the California Women Lawyers, formerly as a member of the Board of Directors of the California Association of Black Lawyers, and Lawyers Club of San Diego.

Photo and article: cosmos.cwsl.edu/cwwc San Diego Superior Court Judge (Ret.)

The Honorable Sharon Majors-Lewis (Ret.) was a judge of the Superior Court of San Diego County in California. She left office on August 4, 2021. From 2007-2010 Judge Majors-Lewis served as Judicial appointments secretary to the San Diego County Superior Court, from 2005-2007 as Chief deputy district attorney, San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, and from 1987-2005 as Deputy district attorney, San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. Majors-Lewis received a bachelor’s degree from National

Hon Elizabeth A Riggs

San Diego Superior Court Judge

The Honorable Elizabeth A. Riggs was the first African-American female judge in San Diego County and remained the sole Black woman on the San Diego County bench for nearly 22 years. Prior to her appointment to the Municipal Court by Governor Jerry Brown in 1979, she worked as a State Deputy Attorney General. She earned her undergraduate degree from Bennett College in North Carolina and her law degree from Rutgers University. In 2007

University San Diego and a J.D. from National University San Diego School of Law and is a Life Member of San Diego’s Earl B. Gilliam Bar Association.

The Honorable Tilisha T. Martin is a San Diego Superior Court Judge. She currently sits in a juvenile justice assignment involving cases of youth accused of violating the law. In addition, she handles several specialty calendars such as dependency drug court, mental competency of juveniles, and non-minor dependent youth. Judge Martin previously sat as the lead judge in a family law assignment at the San Diego Superior Court, East County Branch, and also handled a misdemeanor arraignment calendar. She served as the supervisor for minor’s counsel in San Diego and as a deputy public defender in juvenile dependency and criminal divisions. She was also the coordinator for the first col -

Hon Desiree A Bruce-Lyle

San Diego Superior Court Judge

Since her appointment to the bench by Governor Davis in 2001, Judge Bruce-Lyle’s assignments have included a Criminal Trial Department, Drug Court, Juvenile Delinquency, Prop 36 (PC 1210) Court, Superior Court Appellate Panel, and AB 109 Post Judgment Courts. Presently, Judge Bruce-Lyle presides over courts she implemented, including: Reentry Court, Mandatory Supervision Court, Post-Release Community Supervision Revocations, and Parole Revocations. Judge Bruce-Lyle’s pioneering efforts in collaborative courts and with the AB 109 population have earned her statewide attention. In 2006, Judge Bruce-Lyle served as Special Master for the Commission on Judicial Performance. Prior to her appointment, Judge Bruce-Lyle served as a Workers’

laborative community court in downtown San Diego. Prior to becoming a judge, Judge Martin served as adjunct faculty at California Western and as a lecturer at San Diego State University. She also served for six years on the California Western School of Law’s Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Compensation Administrative Law Judge from 1992-2001 and a Workers’ Compensation Referee from 1991-1992, and as Deputy County Counsel from 1982-1991. Born in Ghana, Judge BruceLyle earned her Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Zambia, School of Law, and her Master of Laws degree from the University of California at Berkeley, Boalt Hall Law School.

Photo credit: www.jamsadr.com/trapp/

Photo credit: ebgba.org/members

Photo credit: ballotpedia.org

Photo credit: ballotpedia.org

Riggs was recognized as the 39th Senate District’s Woman of the Year.

Photo credit: www.sdcba.org

Hon. Terrie E. Roberts

San Diego Superior Court Judge

Judge Terrie E. Roberts was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom to the San Diego Superior Court on October 25, 2019. Prior to her appointment, she served as a Superior Court Commissioner on behalf of the San Diego Superior Court, making history by becoming the first African American woman to be appointed as a Commissioner in San Diego County. Prior to her appointment as a Commissioner, Judge Roberts served as a San Diego County Deputy District Attorney from 2001 to 2008. In 2014, she was awarded President Barack Obama’s Call to Service Award for her continuous service to the San Diego community and

Hon Sherry M Thompson-Taylor

San Diego Superior Court Judge

Sherry M. Thompson-Taylor, 57, of Chula Vista, is a Judge in the San Diego County Superior Court. Thompson-Taylor has been a Deputy District Attorney at the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office since 1995, where she has served in several positions, including Division Chief, Assistant Chief and Team Leader. She was Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs at Angelic Entertainment from 1999 to 2000. Thompson-Taylor earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University

Euketa L Oliver

San Diego Superior Court Judge

Photo credit: lasentinel.net

in 2008 was the recipient of the San Diego County Bar Association’s Outstanding Service by a Public Attorney Award and the recipient of the Community Service Award from the Earl B. Gilliam Bar Association in 1994.

The Honorable Euketa L. Oliver is a judge for the San Diego County Superior Court in California. She was appointed to the bench by Governor Gavin Newsom on July 9, 2021, filling a vacancy created by the retirement of the Hon. Kenneth M. Kirkman. Oliver earned a master’s degree in counseling psychology from John F. Kennedy University. She then completed a J.D. at Whittier Law School. After graduating from law school, Oliver began her legal career as a staff attorney at Legal Services Northern California in 2005. Shortly after, she joined the San Diego County Office of

Hon. Vallera J. Johnson

Administrative Law Judge

Photo credit: gov.ca.gov

of Arizona College of Law. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Margie G. Woods.

Judge Johnson has been an Administrative Law Judge with the State of California’s Office for Administrative Hearings since 1990. She’s been recognized for her commitment to diversity from several organizations including the California Lawyers Association and Earl B. Gilliam Bar Association. Throughout her career, Judge Johnson has been instrumental in diversifying the bench and developing a pipeline of qualified candidates. In 2002, ALJ Vallera Johnson initiated Women of Color in the Law luncheons to give law students and young

the Primary Public Defender, where she served as a deputy public defender until her appointment to the bench. Her memberships have included the Earl B. Gilliam Bar Foundation (president).

lawyers an opportunity to network, socialize, and learn about the legal community, particularly issues experienced by women in the legal profession.

Photo credit: ebgba.org

Photo credit: woclsd.org

Women’s History

Outstanding Black Women

Gerri Warren

Publisher (1946-2009)

Gerri Warren, Publisher, Pastor, Entrepreneur, Businesswoman, made outstanding social and civic contributions on both the East and West Coast. Born and raised in Florida, she moved to San Diego and raised two daughters while serving as President of the local NAACP, Field Representative to President of the State Senate, Delegate to Viewpoint newspaper, Founder of the San Diego Black Chamber of Commerce and, Chairperson of the California Black Chamber of Commerce and Creator of the Gold Coast Classic Football event as President of the African American Sports Association.

Dolores Van RensalierWarren

Activist (b. 1940)

Dolores Van Rensalier-Warren, Founder and President of the Huntoon-Van Rensalier Underground RailRoad Foundation, where, once a vacant lot, she led the development of what is today the Huntoon-Van Rensalier Underground Railroad Monument, now listed as one of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom sites. She is the author of Bridge Street to Freedom, which tells the story of her great grandfather, William Van-Rensalier, and his white friend, Josiah Huntoon, who jointly operated the underground railroad site for runaway slaves at Huntoon’s home. The site contains over 161 personalized bricks from across the nation, and the rare 1871 Freedom Bell rang at the passage of the 13th Amendment. A 21 year City of Los Angeles employee, with

Shirley Weber

California Secretary of State (b. 1948)

over 40 community, City, State and National awards, Dolores conceived and founded the Watts Senior Center Rose Garden, a nationally accredited rose garden and heritage site. She was a Red Cross Volunteer in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, is the recipient of four Who’s Who In America national honor inductions and four awards for authorship, and provides philanthropic donations of the proceeds of Bridge Street to Freedom to the Paterson-Passaic Community College as part of the archival history of the Huntoon-Van Rensalier Underground Railroad Monument.

elected to public office in San Diego. She was also the first Black woman to serve on the San Diego Unified School board in 1981 and was inducted in the San Diego Women’s Hall of Fame in 2019.

Photo credit: SD PoliceMuseum.com

Roulette Armstead

(d. 2020)

Roulette Armstead was the first woman and the first African American to become Assistant Chief of Police in the San Diego Police Department in 1992. She is known nationally as “one of the pioneers in law enforcement,” and was integral in developing the Police Department’s domestic violence unit and created an equal employment office to receive complaints.

Myrtle Cole (b. 1949)

Myrtle Cole is the first African American council woman elected in San Diego in 2017. While in office, she opened the first drugstore on Euclid Avenue, installed Market Street Sidewalks, and opened the new Skyline Hills Branch Library.

In 2021, Shirley Weber was sworn in as California’s Secretary of State, making her the first Black California Secretary of State. She is a former professor of Africana studies at San Diego State University and has spearheaded many legislative acts to get better treatment of Black people in America.

Patricia A.McQuater (b. 1955)

Patricia A. McQuater was the first African American appointed to the San Diego Board of Port/Airport Commissioners in 1999. McQuater was an attorney for over 25 years at Solar Turbines Incorporated.

Danielle

(b. 1989)

Danielle Moore was nominated to the San Diego Unified Port Board of Commissioners in 2022. She is a renewable energy attorney and manages multi-million dollar transactions. Moore uses her legal and business skills to help serve the San Diego community.

Karen

(b. 1953)

Prior to becoming the first woman and second African American to be elected, in 2022, as Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, Karen Bass served in the U.S. House of Representatives (2011 to 2022), and in the California State Assembly (2004 to 2010), the first Black woman to lead any state legislature, nationwide.

Photo credit: SD Regional Chamber of Commerce

Photo credit: Courtesy of Danielle Moore

Moore

Photo credit: AP: Keith Birmingham

Bass

Photo credit: SDgirlscouts.org

Photo credit: Voice & Viewpoint

Photo credit: Voice & Viewpoint

Photo credit: AP: Rich Pedroncelli

Photo credit: Journal of Blacks in Higher Education

Month

Katherine Johnson

NASA’s Trajectory Expert (1918 - 2020)

Inspirational Women

Born 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Kathrine Johnson was hired in 1953 to work at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ Langley laboratory (which would eventually become commonly known as NASA) in the all-Black West Area Computing section led by Black American mathematician Dorothy Vaughan of the movie “Hidden Figures” fame. In May 1961, after her instrumental work for NASA’s Space Task Group, Johnson worked on the trajectory analysis for mission Freedom 7, a monumental piece of American history, as it was our first human spaceflight. She was so trusted, that during the preparation for astronaut John Glenn’s historic orbital mission, Glenn himself requested that she alone verify the numerical calculations for his capsule’s trajec -

Ethel l Payne

First Lady of the Black Press (1911-1991)

Ethel Payne played a large part in the history of the Black Press and the legacy of Black journalists. Known as the First Lady of the Black Press, Payne was the first African American woman to serve in the White House Press corps. She was relentless in her pursuit of truth, and was known to be fearless as not only a journalist, but also as a Civil Rights activist. In her time, she bore witness to some of the biggest moments in the history of the United States, writing about each event while working for the Chicago Defender. During her career she covered a wide array of events, ranging from both the Korean, and Vietnam War, to the Civil Rights movement. Payne

tory into space. “If she says they’re good,’” Katherine Johnson remembers the astronaut saying, “then I’m ready to go.” Glenn’s flight marked a turning point in the race to space between the United States and the Soviet Union. Johnson would go on to make several more contributions to multiple missions throughout her time at NASA. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in America, by President Barack Obama, at the age of 97.

orothy Vaughn

NASA Pioneer (1910-2008)

When it comes to the pioneers of NASA, a name that stands tall is that of Dorothy Vaughan, an American mathematician. Vaughan was NASA’s first ever African American manager, as well as one of NASA’s few early female supervisors. From 1949 to 1958, she served as the head of the segregated, all-Black female West Area Computing Unit for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NACA (known today as NASA). After President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802 into law prohibiting racial, religious, and ethnic discrimination in the country’s defense industry, Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory hired Black women in order to meet the rising demand for aeronautical research data. Vaughan and her fellow Black female mathe -

Mary Jackson

NASA’s First Black Female Engineer (1921-2005)

maticians distinguished themselves in nearly every area of research at Langley, with Vaughan as their leader. Vaughan was an outspoken advocate for more challenging assignments for the women in NASA’s ranks. For nearly a decade, Vaughan would lead NASA”s West Computing unit, and become an expert FORTRAN programmer. She retired from NASA in 1971.

Photo credit: Brooklyn Public Library

Susan Mckinney

(1847-1918)

Susan McKinney was Brooklyn’s first Black woman physician and was the first African American woman to ever earn a medical degree in New York State in 1870. She was also a trailblazer for women’s rights and founded many clubs, clinics, and suffrage groups in the fight for racial inclusion.

was also a radio and television commentator, successfully paving the way for African American women in media. She is remembered for breaking down barriers in journalism, often taking angles and asking questions that other journalists simply were too timid to broach.

Born on April 9, 1921 in Hampton, Virginia, Mary Winston Jackson would grow up to play a pivotal role as an engineer in several NASA divisions, in an era when female engineers were a rarity. In the 1950s, she was likely the only Black female aeronautical engineer in the field. Originally part of the National Advisory for Aeronautics (NACA), which later became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Jackson served as both an aerospace engineer and mathematician. For nearly two decades she authored or coauthored a dozen or so research reports, most focused on the behavior of the boundary layer of air around airplanes. Mary retired from Langley in 1985. Among her

Photo credit: HBCUPrelaw.org

Charlotte E. Ray

(1850-1911)

Charlotte E. Ray was a teacher and is credited as the first Black female lawyer in the United States and the first woman to practice law in Washington D.C. in 1872. Ray’s most notable case was the representation of a woman named Martha Gadley who petitioned for divorce against an abusive husband. Ray was able to argue that the husband’s drunkenness endangered Gadley and won the case.

Lena Horne (1917-2010)

Lena Horne was the first Black woman to sign a long term contract with a major label in 1942. As a singer, actress, and civil rights activist, she made her broadway debut in Dance With Your Gods , and continued to perform in Noble Sissle & His Orchestra, Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939 ,and Charlie Barnet Orchestra. Her biggest role was in The Wiz (1978) as Glinda the Good Witch where she performed the famous song “Believe in Yourself.”

many honors were an Apollo Group Achievement Award and her award as Langley’s Volunteer of the Year in 1976 for her efforts as chair of one of the center’s annual United Way campaigns, as a Girl Scout troop leader for more than three decades, and as a member of the National Technical Association (the oldest African American technical organization in the United States).

Mable KeatonStaupers (1987-1993)

Mabel Keaton Staupers was a pivotal figure in the fight of putting in African American nurses in the ranks during World War II. As a registered nurse, Staupers also lobbied for full integration of the American Nurses Association. Keaton Staupers found it important to improve the health of impoverished Black people.

Photo credit:

Gwendolyn Brooks

(1917-2000)

Gwendolyn Brooks was a Black poet and the first Black author to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1950, as well as first Black woman to be the poetry consultant to The Library on Congress. Brooks’ work centered around political consciousness during the civil rights era. Her most known pieces are Annie Allen (1949) and A Street in Bronzeville (1945).

Photo credit: Blackpast.org

Wikimedia Commons

Photo credit: Associated Press

PHOTO: Public Domain

PHOTO: Public Domain

PHOTO: Public Domain

PHOTO: Library of Congress

Women’s History

Dr Frances Cress Welsing

“The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors.” (1935-2016)

Dr. Frances Cress Welsing was a notable psychiatrist known for her essay collection, “The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors”, published in 1991. In it, Welsing provided an in depth discussion on the concepts of white supremacy and racism within the U.S. She dove deeply into her theories on melanin deficiency, believing it to be the driving force behind segregation, white supremacy, and racism; arguing that, ultimately, racism was caused by a deep-seated jealousy of people with color in their skin. Welsing based her premise on her expertise in general and child psychiatry after nearly twenty-five years

Carla Hayden

Meet America’s Librarian (b. 1952)

Carla Hayden is the 14th Librarian of Congress. After distinguished service as CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland, president of the American Library Association, assistant professor for Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh, library services coordinator at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, and librarian for the Chicago Public Library, President Barack Obama nominated Hayden to be the next Librarian of Congress. She was nominated on February 24, 2016. On July 13, 2016, she received confirmation by the U.S. Senate, and was sworn in on September

working for D.C.’s Department of Human Services as a staff physician, her private practice, and her earlier publication, “The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation,” published in 1974. She aimed to aid the Black community in finding a solution to mental problems that stemmed from racism, by understanding racism itself.

Pauli Murray

First Ordained Female Episcopal Priest (1910-1985)

Anna Pauli Murray was an accomplished author, lawyer, civil rights and women’s rights activist, and the first woman and first African-American anointed to the Episcopal priesthood. After graduating from Hunter College in NYC, she decided to shorten her name to Pauli, embracing an androgynous identity. In 1945 she earned her Masters of Law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Shortly thereafter, her research into segregation laws in the South led to States’ Laws on Race and a seminal work successfully used by Thurgood Marshall in the Brown vs. the Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954.

illiams

The Only Known Female Buffalo Soldier

She was the first African American to receive a Doctor of the Science of Law (J.S.D.) from Yale Law School. In 1977, Murray became the first woman and first African American priest ordained in the Episcopal Church. She served at Church of the Atonement in Washington D.C. from 1979 to 1981 and at Holy Nativity Church in Baltimore until her death in 1985.

Photo credit: Associated Press

Lorraine Hansberry

(1930-1965)

Lorraine Hansberry was the first Black woman to have her play, A Raisin In the Sun, produced on Broadway in 1959. She was also the first Black playwright and youngest American to win a New York Critics Circle award. Her most famous work is the play The Crystal Stair, later named A Raisin In the Sun, based on a line in a Langston Hughes poem. The play ran 530 times and turned into a movie in 1961 starring Sidney Poiter. Hansberry was also active in the civil rights movement.

14, 2016. Not only did this make Hayden the first woman to lead the national library but the first African American as well. Hayden received a B.A. from Roosevelt University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago.

Dorothy Height

(1912-2010)

Most known for being a speaker at the March on Washington, Dorothy Heights was one of the first civil rights activists to focus on the inequality women experienced in America. She worked closely with Eleanor Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson to give them political counsel. She served as the fourth president of National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) and served as that position for 40 years.

Cathay Williams knew that she couldn’t volunteer to serve as a regular soldier in the U.S. military. But knowing didn’t stop her. On Nov. 15, 1866, 17-yearold Cathay Williams, born to an enslaved mother and a free father in Independence, Missouri in 1844, enlisted for a three-year engagement, passing herself off as a man. At the time, the army did not require full medical examinations. After passing the physical tests, Williams was assigned to the 38th U.S. Infantry Regiment, one of four allBlack units newly formed that year.

Shirley

(1924-2005)

Shirley Chrisholm was the first African American woman elected to Congress in 1968 and the first woman and African American to seek nomination for president of the United States. Chrisholm was a pioneer for all women and African American people who want to run for positions in America. Also known as “Fighting Shirley,‘’ Chisholm introduced 50 pieces of legislation about racial and gender equality, plight of the poor, and ending the Vietnam War.

The regiment would later be known as the Buffalo Soldiers. After being discovered, Williams was discharged honorably by her commanding officer, Captain Charles E. Clarke, on Oct. 14, 1868.

Constance BakerMotley

(1921-2005)

In 1966, Constance Baker Motley was the first African American appointed to the federal judiciary. In 1982, Baker Motley became the first woman Chief Judge and the first African American woman to serve as such for the Southern District of New York, the largest federal trial bench in the country. She also wrote the brief for the Landmark Case Brown v Board of Education and participated in many other supreme court cases.

Mae

C Jemison

(b. 1956)

Mae C. Jemison is a doctor and NASA engineer, but she is most known as the first Black woman to go into space. In 1987, Jemison also worked as a mission specialist in STS-47, Spacelab-J, a cooperative mission between the United States and Japan to conduct experiments in life sciences and material processing. During her time in the Peace Corps, she founded the Jemison Group, a research company that seeks to develop and market advanced technologies.

Photo credit: AP Images For National Council of Negro Women, Jose Luis Magana

Photo credit: Associated Press

Photo credit: Associated Press

Photo credit: Associated Press, Courtesy of the Moorland-Springs

Photo credit: Elvert Barnes (CC BY 3.0)

Photo credit: CC BY-SA

IMAGE: Courtesy of U.S. Army

Photo credit: Library of Congress

Month

Inspirational Women

Lillian Fishburne

America’s First Black Female Rear Admiral (b. 1949)

Lillian E. Fishburne was seemingly destined for military service, being born into a naval family in Patuxent River in Maryland. Her father, who served as an active duty navy sailor, has spoken highly of his daughter’s determination, stating that she never doubted her military dreams, regardless of her identity and gender. Early on in her career Fishburne demonstrated an unyielding drive, as she served as the personnel and legal officer at the Naval Air Test Facility located in Lakehurst, New Jersey. She quickly rose up the ranks, demonstrating an eagerness to learn, and a natural talent for leadership. She was commissioned an ensign in 1973. On February 1, 1998, Fishburne went on to become the 19th African

Ava DuVernay

A Natural Film Talent (b. 1972)

Ava DuVernay was 32 when she first picked up a camera, yet she has achieved many “firsts” as an African American female in the film industry: several Emmy nominations, a Best Director Golden Globe nomination, a Best Picture Oscar nomination, and director of a Hollywood film with a $100 million-plus budget. The Compton, CA native embraced her creative side in 2006 with the release of her first short film in 2006, Saturday Night Life, based on her mother’s life experiences. Her documentary, Compton in C Minor, soon followed and, in 2012, Middle of Nowhere, won her Best Director at the world-renowned Sundance Film Festival, a first for an African American woman of color.

American rear admiral, simultaneously making her the first Black female rear admiral in U.S. history, receiving her promotion from President Bill Clinton. Before retiring in February 2001, Fishburne was assigned as the Director of the Information Transfer Division for the Space, Information Warfare, Command and Control Directorate, Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C.

heryl l Johnson

America’s Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives (b. 1960)

New Orleans-born Cheryl L. Johnson is the 36th person who has served as Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. She previously served during the 116th, and was sworn in for the 117th Congress by Speaker Nancy Pelosi on January 3, 2021. She is currently serving as part of 118th Congress, serving as Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. Before serving as Clerk, Johnson worked diligently in the House for almost 20 years, and additional 10 years at the Smithsonian Institution where she worked as the Director of the Smithsonian Office of Government Relations, building and sustaining relations with Congress. Johnson also has served on Capitol

imberlé Williams

renshaw

The Woman Behind Critical Race Theory (b. 1959)

Ohio native Kimberlé Williams

Hills as the Chief Education and Investigative Counsel for the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication from the University of Iowa and her law degree from Howard University.

Joycelyn Elders

Joycelyn Elders was the first African American and the second woman to become U.S. Surgeon General. In 1993, Governor Bill Clinton appointed Dr. Elders as head of the Arkansas Department of Health where she held that position from 1987-1992.

DuVernay’s critically acclaimed work to date, among them: I Will Follow, Selma, 13th, Queen Sugar, A Wrinkle in Time, and When They See Us is just the beginning for this powerhouse talent who is bringing socially conscious filmmaking to millions of television and movie audiences.

Crenshaw is a graduate of Cornell University, Harvard University, and the University of Wisconsin and has spent more than 30 years studying Black feminist legal theory, race, gender, and racism in the law and is an advocate for measures and practices that promote an egalitarian and just society. She currently teaches at Columbia University, and also at UCLA where she became a founder and leader of the movement called Critical Race Theory (CRT). CRT is a legal concept that argues that social and legal structures are inherently racist and explores how race works within such structures. In 1989, Crenshaw coined the legal term “intersectionality”, arguing that racial and sexual discrimination overlap, subjecting

Black women to both racial and gender discrimination, and often the combination of the two. In other words, Black women, as a group, face unique and specific challenges depending on how they are viewed, understood, and treated in society and within the law. Scholars all over the world have taken to Crenshaw’s theories. Her lectures on race and similar topics have been debated and taught in the U.S. and parts of Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America.

African American Women of International Influence

Hallie Quinn Brown

(1845-1949)

who owned a Maryland plantation, bought his freedom, while her mother was freed by her white grandfather, a plantation owner and Revolutionary War officer.

Matilda SissierettaJoyner Jones

(1868-1933)

The daughter of former slaves, Sissieretta Jones was an internationally-acclaimed singer who was among the greatest sopranos of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was nicknamed “Black Patti” in comparison to the Italian prima donna Adelina Patti.

Ida B Wells

(1862-1931)

Ida B. Wells was a journalist, publisher, and teacher who advocated for the rights of women and African Americans. In 1884, she was forced to move to the train car for African Americans despite buying a first-class ticket. She sued the railroad and won a settlement, but the decision was overturned.

Wilma ClodeanRudolph

(1940-1994)

Wilma Rudolph was the 20th of 22 children and battled polio and other ailments as a child. At the age of 12, she regained her ability to walk, started on athletics, and went on to be an Olympic sprinter.

Photo credit: AP: Lennox McLendon

(b. 1933)

PHOTO: U .S. Navy

PHOTO: U.S. House of Representatives

PHOTO: usbotschaftberlin/Wikimedia Commons

PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

Photo credit: Hallie Quinn Brown photographed by F.S. Biddle between 1875 - 1888. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Hallie Quinn Brown was an educator, writer, and activist born to two former slaves. Her father, the son of a Scottish woman

Photo credit: Cihak and Zima, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, ca. 1893-1894. University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center

Photo credit: Wilma Clodean Rudolph photograph by Associated Press

Photo credit: Matilda Sissieretta Jones. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

By Gig Conaughton COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE

Federal, state, and county health officials are urging pregnant people to get blood tests and treatment if needed to keep them from infecting their unborn child with a dangerous, sometimes deadly, and almost completely preventable disease—syphilis.

“You may not even know that you are infected

with syphilis and unknowingly pass it on to your unborn child,” said County Public Health Officer Wilma J. Wooten, M.D., M.P.H.

Congenital syphilis is syphilis passed from parent to child during pregnancy. It can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth, low birth weight and death shortly after birth. Infected children who survive birth can suffer among other illnesses, deformed bones, severe anemia, enlarged livers or spleens, and brain and nerve problems like blindness or deafness.

Cases have jumped dramatically in recent years. Nationally, rates have increased every

year since 2013. Cases in San Diego County have gradually increased in recent years.

What is syphilis?

Syphilis is a bacterial disease mainly transmitted from person to person through sexual contact. But syphilis can also be transmitted from infected pregnant persons to unborn children during pregnancy, or to infants during activities like breast-feeding.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) state syphilis in early stages can cause ulcer-like sores called chancres that can occur in, on, or around the penis, vagina, anus, rectum, lips or mouth. These sores are often painless and may go unnoticed.

In mid stages it can cause rashes, and other symptoms that mimic other common diseases.

Those can include fever, swollen lymph nodes, sore throat, headaches, fatigue and muscle aches.

However, syphilis can also be dormant in infected people for years, and can be transmitted to a fetus during any stage of the infection. The risk is particularly high for people who get syphilis while they are pregnant.

Get

Test, Get Treated

The only sure way for pregnant people to tell if they are infected with syphilis is to get a blood test. Public health officials strongly recommend testing for syphilis at least twice during pregnancy—at their very first prenatal visit and early in their third trimester, ideally between 28 and 32 weeks. For more information visit the CDC’s website or go to the American Academy of Pediatrics website: aapac3.org.

County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher To Seek Treatment for PTSD, Ends Senate Campaign

County, State Address Wage Theft Crisis

By Tracy DeFore County of San Diego Communications Office

detrimental impact on my relationships, mood, and inability to sleep.

The County and the State of California are joining forces to fight a wage theft crisis that costs local employees millions of dollars

Supervisor Nate Fletcher In December 2011.

PHOTO: John Koster/Wikimedia Commons ( CC BY 2.0)

Supervisor Nathan Fletcher will check into a treatment center this week for post traumatic stress, trauma and alcohol abuse. He has also decided to forgo a run for State Senate to focus on his health. Supervisor Fletcher has released the following statement

“For many years, I have been suffering from devastating post traumatic stress associated with combat piled on top of intense childhood trauma that has been exacerbated by alcohol abuse. While I have shared some of these challenges publicly, they run much deeper than I have acknowledged. Outwardly, I have projected calm and composure. Internally, I have been waging a struggle that only those closest to me have seen; the

“I have to seek help. With the recommendation of my therapist and the insistence of my wife, this week I will be checking into an extended inpatient treatment center for post traumatic stress, trauma and alcohol abuse. I have no doubt I will not only make a full recovery, but will come back stronger, more connected and present. However, it is clear I need to focus on my health and my family and do not have the energy to simultaneously pursue a campaign for the State Senate. I am grateful to the full love and unconditional support of my wife, family and friends.”

While Supervisor Fletcher will be on medical leave from the County of San Diego, his office will continue to serve the constituents of the Fourth Supervisorial District.

Hidden Hi story Black Museum Opens in Los Angeles

By Lee Hubbard

While the rain stormed down all day in the Jefferson Park area of Los Angeles, it could not damper the excitement of the grand opening of the Hidden History Museum of Black culture, this past weekend.

Various actors and celebrities such as Vivica A. Fox, and hundreds of other people, were on hand to celebrate the last weekend of Black History Month. Founded by Tariq Nasheed, an

award-winning documentary film producer and New York Times best-selling author, the Hidden History Museum highlights current and past historical Black figures from freedom fighters, to inventors, master teachers, to founding pioneers in Black California, as well as Hip-Hop culture on the West Coast.

One example of this is an exhibit that looks at the naming of the state California, which was named after Califa, a queen who was a Black Moor. The Spanish writer Garci Rodriguez wrote the novel in 1500, and although Califa was a fictional character, when Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, founded it in 1542, he named the area after the character in the novel.

“Stories like this are featured in the museum and i t’s needed,” said Utopia Hammond, a San Francisco resident, who came to the grand opening. “People need to know our Black history and this museum features things and people that aren’t normally talked about and or featured in other museums.”

“I decided to start this museum after I was driving down Crenshaw Boulevard and saw that people were using the site where Nipsey Hussle got shot and killed as a tourist attraction,” said Nasheed. “On any given day, you can see crowds of people taking pictures in front of the mural that has Nipsey’s face on it.”

Hussle was a popular and emerging rap artist who was just coming into national acclaim when he was shot down in front of his clothing store March 31, 2019. The makeshift Nipsey Hussle memorial and daily scene behind it pushed Nasheed to create a place where people can see positive affirmations of black culture and tell the stories of black history that aren’t told.

“We need to create institutions that we as Black people and or Black groups own and control the narrative,” said Nasheed.

People came from all over the country for the grand opening. They also got to watch the premiere of Nasheed’s new documentary film, “American Maroon,” which looks at

In honor of labor rights activist César Chávez, the County’s Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement (OLSE) and the State of California’s Labor Commissioner’s Office announced on Thursday, March 23 that they’re stepping up efforts to help workers get the pay they’re due

Board Vice Chair Terra Lawson-Remer said workers can’t always fight wage theft themselves because they’re too busy trying to take care of their families. But said these workers have an ally at the County. She pointed to the new Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement and a proposed wage theft fund. The DA’s office opened a Workplace Justice Division in 2021

and learned from the community that when it comes to wage theft, people don’t really know it’s a crime

“When your wages are stolen, if they’re under $950 that is still a crime, a misdemeanor crime,” said District Attorney Summer Stephan. “But if it’s over $950, that’s a felony crime that your DA’s office is going to bring and there’s real accountability. The state is also making changes to make sure workers know their rights, especially those in underserved communities. It launched an outreach campaign called “Reaching Every Californian.” The Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement reaches out to educate workers and businesses countywide on their rights and responsibilities, too.

“We’ve also created the Fair Place Collaborative bringing together both businesses and worker advocacy organizations and stakeholders to help chart the course for our office,” said Brandon Butler, Deputy Director, County’s Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement. “We developed new policies with our County Department of Purchasing and Contracting to implement anti wage theft rules within our key contracting procedures. And we also ensured that County contract vendors comply with workers’ rights laws here in the county.

During last Thursday’s event, a proclamation was presented to a close County partner, the director of the Employee Rights Center, Alor Calderon. The news conference also kicked off a Week of Action designed to educate people about workers’ rights.

For additional information on workers’ rights and how to file a claim, you can reach the County Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement through its advice line at 619-985-1597 or at OLSE@sdcounty.ca.gov.

the Black people who maintained hidden communities while fighting with slave-owning colonizers preCivil War. Nasheed spent just under $2 million to build the Hidden History Museum.

“The Black grassroots supported my vision and this effort,” said Nasheed. “We wanted to have the museum

over in Leimert Park, a black district in LA, but when we tried to buy property there were several roadblocks, before we got to Jefferson Park.”

The Hidden History Museum is located at 2131 W Jefferson Blvd. in Los Angeles Ca. For more information, go to http://www.hiddenhistorymuseum.com

Brandon Butler, Deputy Director, County’s Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement (OLSE) on March 23, 2023. Screenshot via countynewscenter.com

Internet Pioneer Helped Create Technologies for Web Animation

Ma ny Black women have made significant strides within technology, yet they m sented across the computer sciences spectrum. According to the United Negro College Fund, Black women make up only 3% of the tech workforce, and less than 0.5% have leadership roles in Silicon Valley.

These statistics did not keep Lisa Gelobter (b. 1971) from living her dream. As a computer scientist, technologist, and chief executive, she has spent 25 years in the software industry. By working on several pioneering internet technologies and creating web animation and online video (Brightcove and Joost), she has designed products used by millions of people.

Gelobter was instrumental in the creation of Shockwave, a technology that formed the beginning of web animation, and oversaw its product release cycle. She coded the ActiveX control for the player and coordinated the engineering transition.

A Brown University graduate (at age 20), Gelobter’s degree in computer science with a concentration in artificial intelligence and machine learning was instrumental in launching her career. She served as chief digital service officer for the U.S. Department of Education during Barack Obama’s presidency and led the team that built the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard.

This is an online tool, created by the federal government for consumers to compare the cost and value of higher education institutions in the U.S. At launch, it displayed data in five areas: cost, graduation rate, employment rate, average amount borrowed, and loan default rate.

Gelobter’s background in strategy development, business operations, user-centered design, product management, and engineering is expansive. She served as chief digital officer for BET Networks and was a member of the senior management team for the launch of Hulu.

Little is known about Gelobter’s childhood. Her father was Jewish and from Poland, and her mother was Black and from the Caribbean. There is no public information available about where Lisa Gelobter was born or raised.

In 2019, Gelobter was named one of Inc’s 100 Women Building America’s Most Innovative and Ambitious Businesses. Serving on boards for the Obama Foundation, Time’s Up, and the Education Trust, she is proud to be a Black woman with a degree in computer science.

Today, Gelobter runs her own company, tEQuitable (2006), an independent, confidential platform to address issues of bias, discrimination, and harassment in the workplace, according to its website. She raised more than $2 million for the start-up, making her one of the first 40 Black women ever to have raised more than $1 million in venture capital funding. She is also a former member of the New York Urban League STEM Advisory Board and was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People. You can encourage young girls by helping them learn about pioneering women in STEM with faces like theirs who shaped the world. Read with them T.M. Moody’s “ African American Women Pioneers in STEM Activity Book.” It’s part activity book, part educational workbook. This article originally appeared in Post News Group.

To protect your finances and family in the long term, it’s important to not only reevaluate your saving and spending, but also commit to creating a more holistic financial plan. Consumers are seeking stability and preparedness in today’s uncertain economic environment, according to a recent Consumer Sentiment Tracker study by Lincoln Financial Group. With ongoing inflation and market volatility, 56% of respondents cited protection from risk as being most important to them. When it comes to thinking about their finances, people said they have the greatest interest in protecting their family (39%) followed by their income (26%).

To achieve a stronger financial future, don’t neglect your finances — instead, add a little TLC (Talk, Learn, Commit). Create a robust financial plan using these three tips from Lincoln Financial:

1Talk about it. Financial conversations play a crucial role. Be transparent with your loved ones about financial priorities so you can set expectations and work toward your shared financial goals. Initiate ongoing discussions to stay on track with everything from saving for retirement to paying for a long-term healthcare event, which can happen suddenly and be very costly. Also, consider talking to a finan -

cial professional who can help identify solutions that best meet your individual needs, as well as drive better outcomes. Lincoln’s research found those who work with financial professionals are more likely to prioritize retirement savings (26% vs. 10%).

2L earn more about tax-deferred investments. Life insurance can be more than just a death benefit, with some types of policies offering income replacement for unforeseen events. It can also protect your financial security from the impact of taxes, market volatility and longevity. It’s not just for individuals and families either, but businesses too. Also, consider diversifying your portfolio with an annuity, which can provide protected growth and monthly lifetime income to help cover expenses in retirement and ensure you have a stream of income.

3Commit to maximizing your workplace benefits. Look into supplemental coverages like disability, accident and life insurance that may be available through your employer. Solutions like these protect against unexpected events that can disrupt your ability to provide for your family or drive you into additional debt. If you have an employer-sponsored retirement plan, make sure you are contributing and getting a match, if offered. Tap into any financial wellness tools offered at work to help provide you with an accurate picture of your holistic financial situation and lower stress.

Visit www.lfg.com for more tools and resources. With a robust plan, you can help ensure a solid financial future for you and your family.

Statepoint

ARTICLE CONTINUATION HOLLYWOOD:

Continued from page 3

I’m not even sure if it was funny, to be honest, it was just so truthful. In this self-examination, Marlon gives real game to the audience. How the industry really only allows for a limited number (usually one) Black person to be in the high circles at a time. How persona can become a person’s livelihood, and that causes stress and depression and envy. And most importantly, diversity is only based on the comfort of a predominately white audience.

Scene 4: Thoughts

In the world of mainstream media, Black men are typically, if not always, seen as a threat. The criminal, the pimp, the thief, or just the plain ol’ degenerate. A lot of Black men in the industry put on a W.E.B. DuBois-like persona to counteract it. Some Shakespearian-trained, Ivy League grad who’s been playing “Crip Number 3” on some show for four years, will be escorted out with the SAT words flowing in every interview.

There have been five Black Best Actor winners in the nearly 100year run of the Oscars for the top acting honor. While running that race, NEVER make ANY mistakes, say ANYTHING wrong, or all that work is gone. It’s a crazy thing. The reality is, it’s still the same game it was in 1928 when the Oscars started. It’s just in color.

This is an excerpt of a commentary that first appeared on Word In Black. Read the entire article on www.sdvoice.info

VP HARRIS TO RESET RELATIONS WITH AFRICA ON HER FIRST TRIP

By Lisa Vives Global Information Network

The U.S. has been sending its best and its brightest to Africa with gifts and promises aimed at winning back the continent from its partnerships with China. This week, Vice President Kamala Harris went off on a 9 day trip designed to discuss increased investment in three countries to help spur economic growth. Starting with Ghana, she will stop over in Tanzania before winding up in Zambia.

It is the fifth major trip by a senior administration official since the U.S.-Africa summit in Washington, DC, following trips by Secretary Janet Yellen, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the First Lady, and Secretary Antony Blinken, most recently.

The tour reflects a growing awareness of the need to deepen U.S. engagement with the continent when it faces growing competition from other global powers, es pecially China and Russia. According to an official statement, the trip will build on December’s US-Africa summit in Washington where President Joe Biden said the U.S. was “all in on Africa’s future.”

But Ghana’s once-thriving economy is going through its most difficult financial crisis in decades which has presented President Nana Akufo-Addo with rare opposition from the youth. Once described as Africa’s shining star by the World Bank, today it is no longer the economic poster child of West Africa. The country is seeking to restructure its debt amid surging inflation of over 50%. Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has just been in Beijing leading negotiations with the Chinese government.

“So far, very positive and encouraging meetings in China,” the finance minister tweeted as he expressed optimism that it would secure external assurances “very soon”.

It is not clear what, if any help, Ms Harris can offer, but she will be under pressure to act like a willing partner in the wake of Mr OforiAtta’s China visit. Her bilateral meeting with President AkufoAddo will be followed by a visit to a local recording studio in Accra and a meeting with young people in the creative industry. Next, the VP will visit the Cape Coast slave castle where she will give a major speech about the brutality of slav -

ery and the African diaspora to an audience of young people.

On Wednesday, in Accra, the Vice President will meet with women entrepreneurs and discuss the economic empowerment of women. She will announce a series of continent-wide public and private sector investments to help close the digital gender divide and to empower women economically more broadly. Ghana will be followed by Tanzania where she is scheduled to meet President Samia Suluhu Hassan and take part in a wreath-laying ceremony to commemorate the 1998 bombing of t he U.S. Embassy there followed by a session with entrepreneurs at a tech incubator and co-working space in Dar.

Finally, off to Zambia which finds itself in a similar position to Ghana. The copper-rich nation became the first African country to default on its debt when the Covid pandemic hit. Zambia is in prolonged discussions with China to restructure its debt and has also sought financial support from the IMF.

Lastly, in Lusaka, on Saturday, April 1st, the Vice President will convene business and philanthropic leaders,

from both the continent and from the United States, to discuss digital and financial inclusion on the continent. They will discuss how to best partner together and build on the work of her trip and all the private sector announcements that she announced on the trip.

For decades, the perception of the U.S. has been that it treats African countries like charity cases, according to several regional experts. That was exacerbated during the Trump administration, which largely ignored the continent or reportedly disparaged it. Former President Donald Trump, in a 2018 meeting, referred to some African nations as “shithole countries.” At

the same time, China enhanced its investments in Africa, helping to build roads and other infrastructure projects and creating firmer economic and political relations.

“Washington is playing catch up in Africa,” said Cameron Hudson, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Africa Program. “With all of the business investment that the Chinese have made comes a lot of leverage and political influence in those countries. It’s not just that they’re making money there. It’s that they now have skin in the game in Africa in ways that we don’t. And that gives them leverage that we don’t have.”

U.S. WINS RELEASE OF JAILED HERO OF “HOTEL RWANDA”

By Lisa Vives Global Information Network

From the cinematic screen of “Hotel Rwanda” to solitary confinement in a Rwandese jail, Paul Rusesabegina has been there and back.

Now, following a round of quiet diplomacy with two U.S. senior officials of the Biden administration and a final meeting with U.S. Secy of State Antony Blinken, Rusesabegina is free and heading to the U.S. to be reunited with his family in Texas. Thus ends an ordeal of 900 days linked to President Paul Kagame and his war on dissent at home and on opponents abroad.

Rusesabagina had been accused of terrorism over his ties to the Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change, a group that opposes Kagame’s rule. He has admitted having a leadership role in the group but denies links to its armed wing. Found guilty of the charges, he was sentenced to 25 years in the Mageragere prison in 2021. While his captors kept him blindfolded,

security forces stepped on his neck and denied him food and sleep. A cancer survivor with hypertension and a history of cardiovascular disease, Rusesabagina was threatened with shortages of food, water and his medication.

In the Oscar-nominated film “Hotel Rwanda”, viewers were given a rare look inside Rusesabagina’s luxury Hotel des Mille Collines in the capital Kigali. There, 1,268 Rwandans, both Tutsis and Hutus, were saved from genocidal forces waiting beyond its walls. Rusesabagina was depicted as a hero who saved these lives.

As Rusesabagina, a Hutu married to a Tutsi, described in his autobiography, “An Ordinary Man”, i t was his ability to persuade the killers against targeting those who had sought refuge in the Hotel des Mille Collines that spared them. He was also able to use his connections and call in favors with some of the high-profile people who used to pass through the upmarket hotel. In addition he had cash.

The international community was slow to learn the horrific details of the Rwandan genocide as described in a book by Philip Gourevitch, staff writer of the New Yorker magazine, titled “We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families”. Gourevitch wrote about a Hutu pastor, Elizaphan Ntakirutimana and his son Gerard, who were later found guilty of summoning the Hutus to butcher the Tutsis in what became the worst single massacre in the entire 1994 genocide. The Hollywood movie may have saved the disaster from oblivion as many filled theaters to watch Don Cheadle in the role of Rusesabagina in 2004.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom was among the honors awarded to Rusesabagina over the years for risking his life to shelter hundreds of people when ethnic Hutus killed more than 800,000 people, mostly from the Tutsi minority.

By Lisa Vives Global Information Network

In defiance of the United Nations, the U.S. and other world government and human rights organizations, the Ugandan parliament has passed a bill imposing the most severe penalties against its gay community - criminalizing lesbians, gays and bisexuals for simply existing. Ugandan Members of Parliament tightened up the original text which provided for up to 10 years in prison for anyone engaging in homosexual acts or claiming to be LGBTQ+.

“The passage of this discriminatory text -probably the worst of its kind

in the world-- is a deeply troubling development,” said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, in a statement. “Let us be clear: this is not about ‘values.’ Promoting violence and discrimination against people for who they are and who they love is wrong and any disingenuous attempts to justify this on the basis of ‘values’ should be called out and condemned.”

The bill also impacts landlords and property owners who face penalties or imprisonment if their premises are used for “homosexual acts.” Parliamentary Speaker Anita Annet announced the bill’s passing – 283 to 389 - to cheers and

applause. Museveni, meanwhile, has vowed not to bend to western pressure.

“Western countries should stop wasting the time of humanity by trying to impose their practices on other people,” he said earlier this month.

Other African countries with harsh anti-gay laws include: Algeria, Burundi, Cameroon, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Libya, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Eswatini, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The U.S. has financial muscle if it chooses to use it – it now pays Uganda’s annual assistance budget exceeding $950 million as well as health assistance through PEPFAR.

Meanwhile, as an anti-gay bill draws more criticism, it also draws attention further away from

another unpopular bill – namely a bill approving a controversial pipeline that threatens to destroy “one of our greatest heritages,” says B en Ntale, a Ugandan tour guide who has been bringing visitors to the Murchison Falls National Park for two decades. Roaring bulldozers and excavators are already toppling ancient t rees and carving roads to reach Uganda’s newest source of riches: oil, writes Abdi Latif Dahir in a recent New York Times expose.

Paul Rusesabagina. PHOTO: GIN

EAST AFRICAN LEADERS CLASH WITH WEST OVER GAY RIGHTS, THE ENVIRONMENT

VP Kamala Harris in Ghana.

PHOTO: GIN

What Happens When We Sleep

Why

we need the right amount each night

By Laura Williamson American Heart Association News

Ag rowing body of research shows getting little or poor sleep doesn’t just make people feel tired the next day - it places them at higher risk for heart attacks and early death, along with cognitive decline, dementia, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, depression and other chronic health conditions.

There’s so much evidence linking poor sleep to poor health that the American Heart Association last year added sleep duration to its list of critical components for optimizing heart and brain health. Yet about 1 in 3 adults don’t get enough. Experts say shaving a couple of hours robs the brain of time it needs to perform vital functions.

‘’There’s lots of stuff that happens during sleep,’’ said Dr. Michael Grandner, director of the Sleep and Health Research Program and an associate professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson. “When your body doesn’t have enough time to do the things it needs to do, it won’t do them in an optimal way.’’ Grandner co-wrote the 2022 advi -

sory that added sleep duration to AHA’s list of key measures for good cardiovascular health, known as Life’s Essential 8.

The first few hours of sleep are the deepest, he said. It’s during this time that the body performs tissue growth and repair, allowing healing and restoration to occur. It’s also the time when the brain clears away stuff it doesn’t need, making room for the stuff it does need. The space between neurons gets a little wider, allowing the brain to flush out waste products.

“This is synaptic pruning, when the brain filters out the junk experiences of the day, the stuff you don’t need to learn from long-term,’’ Grandner said.

Deep sleep is followed by rapid eye movement, also known as REM sleep, which is lighter. This is when dreams and nightmares occur, Grandner said. The body actually cycles through REM and non-REM cycles several times, with increasingly longer periods in REM sleep as the night goes on.

‘’If you cut your sleep hours short, most of what you’ve deprived yourself of is REM sleep,’’ he said. That can interfere with learning, memory and mood, which are all regulated during this stage of sleep.

Studies show people who are deprived of REM sleep have trouble remembering things they learned before falling asleep.

The last stage of sleep is when more mental recovery and healing occur, Grandner said. But it’s also when the body finishes the physical recovery work begun during deep sleep.

Children and teenagers need more hours because they are still growing, and sleep is when growth hormones are released, Grandner said. The AHA recommends children ages 5 and younger get 10-16 hours of sleep each day; those 6 to 12 get between nine and 12 hours; and teens get eight to 10 hours.

Luckily, there are steps people can take to get a better night’s sleep, said Dayna Johnson, an assistant professor and sleep epidemiologist at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta.

This includes having a consistent bedtime and bedtime routine, sleeping in a dark, quiet room at a comfortable temperature and keeping electronic devices, such as televisions, phones and computers, out of the bedroom.

But there are other factors that can affect sleep that may be beyond a

person’s control, Johnson said. And that’s where sleep health disparities creep in.

For example, lower-income neighborhoods have more noise and light, which can disrupt sleep. Neighborhoods with higher levels of air pollution are associated with greater inflammation, which can lead to sleep apnea, making it difficult to get a good night’s rest. And people who work minimum-wage jobs and therefore work multiple jobs or jobs with rotating shifts may find it harder to develop regular sleep patterns, she said.

Johnson, who studies sleep health disparities, led a 2019 review of a large body of research summarizing racial and ethnic differences in sleep duration and quality. It found, for example, that Black, Hispanic and Chinese adults were disproportionately more likely to

get less than six hours of sleep each night and more likely to report poor sleep quality.

As it does in cardiovascular health, structural racism may also play a role. Structural racism has been shown to affect neighborhood environments, leading to problems such as poorer air quality and housing. Additionally, Black people with higher education, higher-paying jobs, and reside in better neighborhoods have been shown to have poorer sleep health than their white peers, Johnson said.

‘’The determinants of sleep disparities are multifactorial, and the worse sleep among higher SES Black adults may be due to increased exposure to racism/stress from being a minority in the workplace or neighborhood,’’ she said. ‘’There are many reasons someone may have poor sleep.’’

CDC Recommends All Adults Get Tested for Hepatitis B

By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Sr National Correspondent

The U.S. Centers for Control and Prevention have issued a new recommendation urging all adults to receive screening for hepatitis B at least once in their lifetime.

The agency describes hepatitis B (HBV) as a liver infection caused by the HBV virus. It can progress to liver cancer and other serious illnesses. CDC officials said as many as 2.4 million people live with HBV, and most might not know they have it. A severe infection could lead to chronic HBV, which could increase a person’s risk of getting cancer or cirrhosis.

Further, the CDC said those diagnosed with chronic or long-term HBV are up to 85% more likely to succumb to an early death.

“Chronic HBV infection can lead to substantial morbidity and mortality but is detectable before the development of severe liver disease using reliable and inexpensive screening tests,” CDC officials stated.

Even though the number of people with HBV has decreased significantly in the last 30 years, the Office of Minority Health at the U.S. Department of Health and

HOLLYWOOD:

Continued from page 3

I’m not even sure if it was funny, to be honest, it was just so truthful. In this self-examination, Marlon gives real game to the audience. How the industry really only allows for a limited number (usually one) Black person to be in the high circles at a time. How persona can become a person’s livelihood, and that causes

Human Services says it is still a problem for African Americans.

That office reported that, in 2020, non-Hispanic blacks would be 1.4 times more likely to die from viral hepatitis than non-Hispanic whites. Also, non-Hispanic blacks were almost twice as likely to die from hepatitis C as white individuals.

Further, while having comparable case rates for HBV in 2020, nonHispanic blacks were 2.5 times more likely to die from HBV than non-Hispanic whites. Medical officials noted that HBV spreads through contact with infected blood or bodily fluids, which can occur through sex, injecting drugs, or during pregnancy or delivery.

The CDC previously issued a rec -

ommendation in 2008, when it urged testing for high-risk individuals. In its most recent recommendation, the agency said that adults over 18 must be tested at least once.

The agency declared that pregnant individuals should also undergo screening during each pregnancy, regardless of whether they’ve received a vaccine or have been previously tested. Additionally, incarcerated individuals, those with multiple sex partners, or people with a history of hepatitis C should test periodically, the CDC said.

The agency warned that symptoms of acute HBV could include fever, fatigue, abdominal pain, dark urine, and jaundice. Symptoms could take several months or longer to present and last for months.

COVID-19 UPDATES ARTICLE CONTINUATION

stress and depression and envy. And most importantly, diversity is only based on the comfort of a predominately white audience.

Scene 4: Thoughts

In the world of mainstream media, Black men are typically, if not al-

ways, seen as a threat. The criminal, the pimp, the thief, or just the plain ol’ degenerate. A lot of Black men in the industry put on a W.E.B. DuBois-like persona to counteract it. Some Shakespeariantrained, Ivy League grad who’s been playing “Crip Number 3” on some show for four years, will be escort -

The CDC’s latest report further notes the following:

• It’s estimated more than half of people who have the hepatitis B virus (HBV) don’t know they’re infected. Without treatment and monitoring, HBV infection can lead to deadly health outcomes, including liver damage and liver cancer.

• The report updates and expands previous guidelines for HBV screening and testing by recommending screening for all U.S. adults and expanding continual periodic risk-based testing to include more groups, activities, exposures, and conditions.

• Providers should implement the new CDC hepatitis B screening and testing recommendations to ensure all adults are screened for HBV infection with the triple-panel at least once in their lifetimes and that people who are not vaccinated for hepatitis B – but are at increased risk of HBV infection – receive periodic testing.

“Although a curative treatment is not yet available, early diagnosis and treatment of chronic HBV infections reduce the risk for

cirrhosis, liver cancer, and death,” CDC officials noted in the report.

“Along with vaccination strategies, universal screening of adults and appropriate testing of persons at increased risk for HBV infection will improve health outcomes, reduce the prevalence of HBV infection in the United States, and advance viral hepatitis elimination goals.”

SAN DIEGO COUNTY COVID-19 STATUS

TOTAL CONFIRMED CASES 988,766

L

HOSPITALIZED

39,800

SOURCE: County of San Diego as of 3/23/23

ed out with the SAT words flowing in every interview.

There have been five Black Best Actor winners in the nearly 100year run of the Oscars for the top acting honor. While running that race, NEVER make ANY mistakes, say ANYTHING wrong, or all that

work is gone. It’s a crazy thing. The reality is, it’s still the same game it was in 1928 when the Oscars started. It’s just in color.

This is an excerpt of a commentary that first appeared on Word In Black. Read the entire article on www.sdvoice.info

PHOTO: Kebs Visuals via Pexels

PHOTO: NNPA

Hall Jr.

ARRANGEMENTS BY ANDERSON-RAGSDALE MORTUARY

Funeral Services were held on 03/09/2023 at Memory Chapel of Anderson Ragsdale Mortuary with a burial following at Miramar National Cemetery. Final arrangements were entrusted to Anderson Ragsdale Mortuary.

Willie Charlie Hall, Jr. was born September 14, 1961 in Atlanta, GA at Grady Hospital, to Cathrine and Willie C. Hall. Willie, known to the family as “Boo Boo”, moved to San Diego, CA with his mother, and continued to reside in San Diego well into adulthood.

He was baptized at an early age at Bethel Baptist Church, along with his four siblings. He attended Freese Elementary School, Bell Jr. High School and Morse High School, he was an electrician by trade, although he held various jobs throughout his lifetime.

Willie found love twice and married, of the two marriages, his first wife had three children that he raised as though they were his biological children.

Willie was a quiet kind of guy; he valued family and was very neat and tidy. Willies’ sidekick was his sister, Mary Jane. They always spent quality time together, shopping, laughing and just hanging out.

On Wednesday morning, February 15, 2023, Willie Charlie Hall, Jr. transitioned from his earthly home to his heavenly home and is now reunited with his parents Louis and Cathrine Martin, his father, Willie C. Hall, his grandparents, Richard and Mary Taylor; his daughter Ashley Hall, his stepson, Curtis Williamson, and his uncle Ronald C. Taylor, all who proceeded him in death.

Willie leaves to celebrate his life, one son, Russell C. Hall (AZ), three granddaughters, Paris Baker, Deeviana Rockins (AK) and Jasiah Hall (AZ) and one great granddaughter, Ziya Rockins (AK). Two sisters, Cynthia Hall and Mary Jane Hall of San Diego, two brothers, LaMont Martin and Derek Martin of San Diego; his stepdaughters Shanika Williamson and Patrice Jones (FL), his lifelong friend and confidant, Diane Walker and a host of relatives and friends.

Mitchell

ARRANGEMENTS BY ANDERSON-RAGSDALE MORTUARY

Funeral Services were held at Mt. Erie Baptist Church on 03/15/2023, with a burial following at Mt. Hope Cemetery. Final arrangements were entrusted to Anderson Ragsdale Mortuary.

Lizzie Mae Ford was called home for eternal rest February 23, 2023. Lizzie was born to Charlie and Annie Ford on November 26, 1934, in Summerfield, Louisiana she was the eldest of four. She was a loving child who grew up loving God, Family and giving back to others.

Lizzie accepted Christ at an early age uniting with the Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Summerfield, Louisiana. Growing up Lizzie learned to cook all the delicious homemade pies and cakes from scratch taught by her grandmother and mother, she loved to put on a spread. She spent her childhood in Louisiana and moved to Long Beach, California in 1953 to graduate high school. She met the love of her life Obadiah Mitchell and they were married in 1956 in the Frontier area of San Diego. Born to this union were daughters, Sharon and Karen; residing in San Diego, California.

Lizzie’s love for hospitality led her to employment in housekeeping and she was hired and worked as the executive housekeeper at San Diego Hebrew Home for over 38 years until retirement. Everyone who worked with Lizzie loved her, they were all drawn to her sweet spirit and kind heart. Lizzie was known for always finding the good in everyone.

Lizzie loved music and singing. She enjoyed singing in the Mt. Erie Baptist sanctuary choir she would sing and smile, lifting up her voice in praises to God every Sunday Morning.

She is survived by her loving husband of 66 years Obadiah; daughters Sharon (Tommy) Reynolds of San Diego, Karen (James) Bryant of San Diego and Deborah Smith of Manasses, Virgina; one sister Dorletha Marshall of Harbor City; Sister in-law Nettie Ford of Prosper Texas. A host of nieces, nephews, adopted children, grandchildren, family and friends who loved her dearly.

ARRANGEMENTS BY ANDERSON-RAGSDALE MORTUARY

Funeral services were held at Memory Chapel of Anderson Ragsdale Mortuary, with a burial following at Miramar National Cemetery. Final arrangements were entrusted to Anderson Ragsdale Mortuary.

Harvus Ronnae (Ronnie) Jones was born June 19, 1954 in San Diego, CA to Harvey and Maxine Jones. He was the fourth child of eight children born to this union.

Ronnie is the father of three. Harvus Jones, Jr and Carrie Jones of Columbus, Ohio. His oldest son Johnny Jones preceded him in death.

Ronnie joined church and was baptized at a young age under the pastorship of his father, Rev. Harvey R. Jones, Sr. of The Church of the Living God.

Ronnie attended and graduated from Lincoln High School in 1973. Shortly after graduation he joined the Navy. After his time in the service, he worked several jobs.

Ronnie married Arnessa Joyner, September 29, 2006. To this union he opened his heart to her adult children. In 2019, due to an accidental fall, Ronnie became paralyzed from the neck down and was bedridden, but thankfully Arnessa, his family and caregivers took good care of him until the Lord called him home on February 17, 2023. During Ronnie’s many years of illness we never heard him complain.

His parents, son Johnny and Sister Jeanice preceded his death. He will be forever remembered by his devoted wife, Arnessa Jones of San Diego, CA; children Harvus R. Jones Jr. and Carrie Earleen Jones of Columbus, OH; brothers: Harvey R. Jones, Jr. (Doreen) of San Diego, CA, Harvis R. Jones (Emmy) of Tacoma, WA and Hurvey R. Jones, Sr. (Veronica) of San Diego, CA; three sisters: Helia P. JonesMcFalls (Bob) of Cabot, AR; Merry Angelia (Angie) Jones (Don Axt) and Gaye J. Jordan (Derryll) of San Diego, CA; six grandchildren; and a host of nieces, nephews and cousins to mourn his passing and to celebrate his life.

ARRANGEMENTS BY ANDERSON-RAGSDALE MORTUARY

Funeral services were held on 03/16/2023 at Memory Chapel of Anderson Ragsdale Mortuary with a burial following at Miramar National Cemetery. Final arrangements were entrusted to Anderson Ragsdale Mortuary.

Irma Mae Polk-Brown was born March 20, 1933, in Kerens, Texas. She was the first daughter and third child of Willie Leroy Polk and Lee Etta GentryPolk. She had eight siblings: James Polk, William Polk, Raymond Polk, Pearlie Polk-Gillespie, Ozella Polk- Lindsey, Rosetta Polk, Irene Polk-Coe and Ruth PolkWilliams.

Irma married George Edward Brown Jr., June 28, 1958 in San Diego, California. He preceded her in death on June 27, 2014. They had one child Chae Brown, the love of their lives. Irma earned a Bachelor’s Degree in 1955 in Education at Texas College in Tyler, Texas in 1955. She obtained a Master’s Degree in Curriculum from San Diego State College in San Diego, California. Irma was a school counselor and retired from Creative Arts Performing School in 1991.

Irma was an active member of Calvary Baptist Church Sanctuary Choir and numerous other activities. Irma was an active member of Bayview Baptist Church as well until her health began to fail.

Irma was called to rest by her Lord and Savior on February 27, 2023. She leaves to cherish her memory her son Chae Brown (San Diego, California); sister Ozella Polk-Lindsey (Kerens, Texas); sister Ruth Polk-Williams (Greenbelt, Maryland) and many other cherished relatives and friends.

ARRANGEMENTS BY ANDERSON-RAGSDALE MORTUARY

Funeral services were held on March 14, 2023 at Memory Chapel of Anderson Ragsdale Mortuary with a burial following at Miramar National Cemetery. Final arrangements were entrusted to Anderson Ragsdale Mortuary.

Lonnie Dean Littleton was born to Hubert and Louise Littleton in Oxnard, CA on April 9, 1966. He was the second born, but soon proved that he would follow no one.

Lonnie tried karate, football and flexed his social skills at Morse High School where he graduated in 1984.

On February 13, 1985 Lonnie joined the U.S. Air Force. He served for 3 years and earned his Veteran status. Those who were close to him would joke about his love for discounts and never leaving a good coupon behind, he certainly enjoyed touring the restaurants on Veterans Day!

He was a cosmetologist, financial analyst, limo driver, self-proclaimed chef, world traveler, realtor, and bartender. He was extremely proud of his Bachelor’s in Finance, which he earned from San Diego State University in 2004. Amongst all his life experiences, he spoke most often about his love for his children. He loved to brag about Princess singing voice, Darius great career and Giselle’s quest for education. He was proud of them and shared that pride with everyone he knew.

Lonnie passed on February 19, 2023. He was preceded in death by his mother Louise Littleton. He is survived by his children, Princess Littleton of Las Vegas, NV, Darius Davis (Rebecca) of San Diego, CA and Giselle Littleton of Los Angeles, CA, his father and mother in love, Hubert and Birdie Littleton, his sister Regina (Robert), brothers Cory (Donna) and Jerome (Maureen). He also leaves to honor his memory a host of family and friends all over the world.

Willie Charlie

Lizzie Mae

Harvus

Lonnie Dean

Irma Mae

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

YOU CAN NOW EXPERIENCE EAGLE’S NEST TEACHINGS ON YOUTUBE!

Search: Pastor John E. Warren San Diego

We are a non-denominational full fellowship of believers dedicated to reach our community with the gospel and providing a place for believers to workship, learn, fellowship, serve and grow into the fullness of Christ Jesus. This ministry is to build people of Purpose, Prayer, Power, Praise and Prosperity. This mandate is being fulfilled by reaching the reality of the gospel in a simplistic fashion, and a result, learning how to apply it in everyday life.

“We are waiting for You”

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S MONTH AT THE MALCOLM X LIBRARY “AIN’T I A WOMAN?”

Once again, Black women that have contributed greatly to the financial growth and knowledge in the San Diego community are being recognized and honored.

On Saturday, March 25th, The Friends of the Malcolm X/ Valencia Park Public Library celebrated some of the women who have sacrificed their time and talents.

On Saturday, March 25, 2023 from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM, the Friends of the Malcolm X Library held an International Women’s Day & Women’s History Month Celebration. The event was held at the Malcolm X/Valencia Park Public Library location on Market Street in Southeast San Diego.

This year’s International Women’s Day theme was #EmbraceEquality. Our theme is “Aint I a Woman?”. Sojourner Truth, who famously stated the phrase in a rousing speech to the Women’s Rights Convention in 1851, was our Historical Profile and Kamala Harris, the first Black Vice-President, was our Current Profile.

Black females were speaking out and giving an overview of their professions and sharing challenges they faced as a Black Woman in their respective fields, including suggestions on how equality can be embraced. There was a Q&A Panel Discussion, prizes and music, poetry, and dance. One of the dancers was 11 year old “Kiwi” Price, who is also an aspiring poet. Our Featured Poet was from Los Angeles. We were delighted that Marquitta Lloyd carries the stage name, Poetess P.R.Y.D.E., as an acronym for “Powerful, Resilient, Young, Determined,

Educated”. She wanted to use the word “pride” to describe herself in a positive way, hence the purposeful misspelling of the word “pryde” as her poetic description. She has been performing spoken word throughout L.A. County for the last ten years. In 2017 she was the winner of the Women’s Poetry Slam. She agreed to donate her time for this performance at this important celebration of listening to Black Women.

Sylvia Cameron Telafaro, Co-Host, also performed poetry on social issues and also a poem she wrote for the Vice President, Kamala Harris. Beautiful songs rang out throughout the day from the renown local singer, “Ms. Toot”. The Pat Murphy Line Dance Team ended the event with a smash.

Purple balloons floated above the tables, with ribbons tied to books about famous women in history. We have so many to

celebrate, who have been overlooked.

A scrumptious lunch of specialty sandwiches, cookie and chips made for a great brunch for the guest speakers and those who volunteered with this event.

Our volunteers were the finest students from the local secondary schools, Samuel F. B. Morse High School and Abraham Lincoln High School. Our youth are showing a willingness to join community agencies when they are shown what is needed to be done and that they are being respected for their efforts. By contacting the teacher supervising the Associated Student Body, volunteers can be easily recruited for many community activities. The High School vendors were from O’Farrell Charter School’s Black Student Union. They showcased their arts & crafts.

Friends of the Library worked as a team to plan the scope and sequence of the afternoon’s program of dance, speeches, poetry, venders, food and music.

The Friends of the Malcolm X/Valencia Park Public Library work to encourage use of the computer services, and many other library-related offerings. Book sales are also an integral source of our funding.

The guiding force for Saturday’s event was Sylvia Telafora, Friend’s Membership Officer, the host and positive influence for the entire event.

All of the Malcolm X Staff welcomes the community and urges everyone to get their membership for the Friends of the Malcolm X/Valencia Park Public Library.

PHOTOS: Darrel Wheeler and Gloria James

Courtesy of Edwina Hardieway

(left to right) Councilmember Montgomery Steppe and Sylvia Telafaro-Cohost.

PHOTO: Gloria James

CoHost of the event, Edwina Hardieway

An enthusiastic crowd enjoying the event, held at the Malcolm X Library Performance Annex

PHOTO: Gloria James

Book Sale.

PHOTO: Gloria James

Woman 2 Woman Celebrating Self Love & Sisterhood

By Malachi Kudura

On Sunday, March 26, 2023 Woman’s Worth presented the 6th Annual Woman 2 Woman Celebrating Self Love & Sisterhood event, held at the World Beat Cultural Center. This event was hosted by Professor Starla Lewis, her daughter Ishe, and the soulful music was provided by DeeJay Dandelion, her granddaughter at the WorldBeat Center in Balboa Park.

Woman 2 Woman is an annual celebration of Womanhood, Self-Love and Sisterhood. Starla Lewis and Ishe provided “Jewels of Wisdom” and “Tangible Tools” through sharing their own personal stories to help women begin to heal, reveal and feel more empowered. Their Woman’s Worth motto is, “The more we reveal the more we heal,” and they are both dedicated to creating safe spaces where women are elevated and celebrated. Women of all ages and nationalities shared their experiences, thoughts and love with each other. They shared personal stories of both tribulations and triumphs, “healing through their revealing.” Attendees laughed, danced, and some of the women even shed a few tears from the overwhelm-

ing feeling of sisterhood being displayed.

Host Ishe told the audience, “Women we are almighty, we are remarkable human beings. I wonder why it always seems like it’s always somebody trying to downplay the Godly bodies of us women. In many ways, we’ve been brainwashed to believe we are less powerful than we are.” Ishe continued, “Women, we are so powerful. We have to sit in our power, stand in our power, rest in our power, walk on this planet in our power. Because, for some reason, the powers that be, don’t want us to know how powerful we are.”

Women gave birth to the human race and without them there would be no humanity. We need to honor, respect and protect the

mothers of creation. “A movement without women, is a movement not worth having,” famed Pan African writer, historian and professor, Dr. John Henrik Clarke said.

Help to Buy a Home of Your Own

PHOTOS: Malachi Kudura

COMMUNITY

Kemp Powers’ The Nineteenth: A Brilliant Must-See

By Amara N. Beaty

Contributing Writer

It’s 1968. A time of civil unrest and protest in America. A time of change and new beginnings. Mexico City hosts the 19th Olympics, the first summer Olympics to be televised live in color. Sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos seize their nowor-never opportunity to make a statement; their black leather-gloved fists raised high in the air with heads hung low, feet shoeless. Australian second-place sprinter Peter Norman stands in ally-ship with a button across his chest, declaring where he stands. We often only see the snapshot of this iconic moment, but never the full scope.

Not a seat was empty on the opening night of the world premiere of Kemp Powers’ The XIXth (The Nineteenth) at The Old Globe Theatre. Powers’, a Golden Globe Award-winning playwright, reimagines the silent protest with a focus on its effects on the three sprinters, their relationships with each other, and the world. Just like in his play One Night In Miami (later adapted into film), Powers uses fictionalized conversations to illustrate how the infamous photo came to be and the events that transpired after.

NAACP Theatre Award winner Carl Cofield directs the production with the energy and speed of a sprint, expertly transporting the individual throughout time. Utilizing little more than a turning race track, a cement wall backdrop, and a replica of the ‘68 Olympics emblem for set design and props, other mediums such as lighting, costumes, and audio effects were used to manipulate the sense of time and heighten the senses of the viewer.

“A GREAT AND MIGHTY WALK” John

Henrik Clarke

Documentary Viewing at the Malcolm X

By Malachi Kudura

Contributing Writer

On Saturday March 25th, 2023 the Valencia Park/Malcolm X Branch Library hosted a John Henrik Clarke documentary viewing of “A Great and Mighty Walk”, presented by the UNIA/ACL Afrikan Redemption Division #619. The film was followed by a discussion with the audience on their thoughts on Dr. John Henrik Clarke, who was an historian, black nationalist, PanAfricanist, and a pioneer in the formation of Africana studies in the United States.

The documentary was narrated, and executive produced by actor Wesley Snipes. It gave a detailed account of African history and the importance of the Pan-African Movement. Dr. John Hendrik Clarke was described by Wesley Snipes in this film as “A Legend, an African American hero, historian, an activist. He has for half a century charted a singular course dedicated to the intellectual and spiritual liberation of a people.”

The film was produced in 1996 in partnership with documentarian St. Claire Bourne. Clarke is featured in much of the film, where, in his own words, he talks about everything from his upbringing, Pan-Africanism, the civil rights and the Black Power movements, and his views on Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March, to name a few.. He schools his audience on the history of African civilization, and argues that no colonizer ever “brought civilization” to Africa.

Jardea Jenkins, President of UNIA-ACL RC2020 African Redemption Division, had this to say when asked to share her thoughts about the event that took place Saturday, “It is important for us to show documentaries like these in the community to raise awareness. We have to raise awareness of our history, who we are, spirituality.

Once we start to learn who we are, then we can think in terms of organizing

The performance definitely did not leave room for disappointment. Actors Biko Eisen-Martin (John Carlos “Los”), Korey Jackson (Tommie), Patrick Marron Ball (Pete), Christian Coulson (Neville), Michael Early (Jesse Owens), Kimberly Scott (Dora), and Nick Wyman (Avery) delivered their lines and contorted their bodies with the intent and fullness of the characters they portrayed. The chemistry on stage exuded a relatable sense of familiarity and brotherly love, strained relationships, and even hatred felt by all in attendance, allowing for a full scope of emotions to be explored in the production. Jive talk displayed authentically witty Black-male humor that generated deserved laughter, while pain and anger expressed through the experiences of loss and the unchanged mistreatment of Black Americans promoted empathetic anger in the hearts of attendees. With a standing ovation and fists raised in solidarity in the crowd, it’s clear that this is a can’t-miss production. The efforts of all involved with the performance from the writing, direction and acting to the set and costume designers and backstage production crew truly delivered an epic story that deserves to be told and seen by all.

around the common purpose.

“Currently, Black history is under attack. Events like this take the history of our people and our s truggle back to the community. Malcolm

X Library has always been a site for that sort of learning”, said Mychal Matasemela Odom, also in attendance Saturday. He continued, “To apply his ideas, we need to read, organize and build institutions. We need to also elevate the role of Black women.”

It is very clear that black and white are colors that describe a person’s skin tone, not their nationality, history or culture. It is important we seek more information about our lost African history. As Marcus Garvey said, “A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”.

(from left) Patrick Marron Ball as Pete, Biko Eisen-Martin as John Carlos (Los), and Korey Jackson as Tommie in The XIXth

(from left) Korey Jackson as Tommie and Michael Early as Jesse Owens_

(from left) Mark Pinter as Avery, Christian Coulson as Neville, and Patrick Marron Ball as Pete _

PHOTOS: Rich Soublet II

(from left) Patrick Marron Ball as Pete and Christian Coulson as Neville _

Kimberly Scott as Dora and Korey Jackson as Tommie

PHOTOS: Malachi Kudura

FHA Makes Housing

More Affordable For 850,000 Borrowers

By Charlene Crowell Center for Responsible Lending

Beginning March 20, a recent move by the Biden Administration will make owning a home more affordable for current and prospective homebuyers. Arriving just in time for the spring buying season, 850,000 mortgage borrowers who used FHA-financing for their homes as well as families choosing this popular mortgage program will benefit from lowered mortgage insurance premiums.

This monthly fee, paid along with principal and interest owed will be cut by 0.3 percentage points, thereby lowering regular monthly costs. The cut is also reflected in President Biden’s new budget proposal. With housing affordability straining many efforts to become homeowners, the lowered costs triggered by the insurance premium deduction can be an important difference.

Savings tied to median market home prices

Although actual dollar savings will vary by market and locale, families who borrowed at the national median price of $270,000 for their home will see an annual savings of approximately $800. In markets where median prices are higher, higher dollar savings will apply. Conversely, in areas where median home prices are lower than the national one, savings will be smaller.

For example, in Detroit where the median priced home is $200K, the annual savings for FHA borrowers will be approximately $600. By contrast, FHA borrowers in Prince George’s County, MD, where the average home price is $300K, annual mortgage premium insurance savings will rise to $900 each year. FHA borrowers in Austin, TX can look forward to an estimated $1,500 in yearly savings on the market’s homes valued at $500K. In Boston, Los Angeles, and New York, where the median price of homes is even higher, so too will be those borrowers’ savings.

The program’s cost-cutting is made possible by the growth in recent years in the fund’s accumulated reserves, now five times the amount required by Congress. This financial heft strengthens the program’s

California Reconsiders Potential of College Work-Study Jobs

financial stability and was accomplished by multiple factors.

Improved loan performances accumulate funds

Administratively, HUD updated underwriting policies that enabled lenders to include both rental history and student loan debt in determining mortgage applicants’ creditworthiness. Also, HUD’s mortgage loan modification practices resolved delinquencies for financially-challenged borrowers, allowing them to keep their homes.

Yet another policy change offered expanded housing counseling that prepares first-time buyers with knowledge and information gleaned from 4,000 HUD-certified counselors working in 1,500 HUD-approved community agencies across the country.

These reforms, combined with key market measures like stable home appreciation, low foreclosure rates, and significant refinance volume, generated improved loan performance and savings that could be passed on to consumers.

For low-to-moderate income consumers, these developments ensure that this long-standing federallyinsured program will remain an available, affordable, and sustainable path to homeownership. More than 80 percent of first-time homebuyers and 25 percent of buyers of color who secured these government-backed loans will benefit from the lowered fees.

In its recap of 2021 FHA lending to Blacks, the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB), found that 40 percent of Black mortgage borrowers were FHAinsured, including 42 percent of Black millennials.

Public and private sector housing stakeholders applauded the action.

“Mortgage rates have doubled over the past year and home prices have increased more than 30 percent in some counties. In this competitive market, new and low- to moderate-income buyers are often left behind,” said Kenny Parcell, President of the National Association of Realtors. “This reduction will help alleviate some of the financial stress those potential buyers encounter when purchasing a home.”

By Emma Gallegos EdSource

When she returned to school to become a nurse, Karina Mendez wanted a work-study job that she could balance with classes at City College of San Francisco. Thanks to a new program in California, she landed one that does more than pay the bills — it gives her a career boost.

Mendez works to support patients with cancer at UCSF, helping her get a foot in the door of a hospital where she’d love to be a nurse.

“It gives me a sense of hope that I could be a part of the UCSF department,” Mendez said.

She is one of the first beneficiaries of a new state-funded workstudy program called the LearningAligned Employment Program, launched in the 2021-21 budget after a report from the Governor’s Council for Post-Secondary Education warned: “Connections between higher education and the workforce are insufficient to meet the economic and workforce needs of California.”

It pays the wages of students who are considered underrepresented in a job that aims to give them a leg up in their careers — unlike traditional work-study positions in campus cafeterias or bookstores that have little connection to students’ future career goals.

The state invested $500 million of

its budget surplus into the program, which is run by the California Student Aid Commission. Over 98% of public colleges and universities have signed on to participate.

The program is in its early days. Funds were rolled out to the state’s public colleges and universities this fall, and institutions have until 2031 to use them. Some colleges and universities have small pilot programs, but most are in the planning stages.

It’s too soon to say how many students are participating statewide. In the long run, state funding could provide opportunities for about 100,000 students like Mendez — who makes $20 an hour — working 15 hours weekly for a semester.

“Students are hungry for this experience,” said Eloy Ortiz Oakley, president and CEO of the College Futures Foundation and former chancellor of California Community Colleges.

Fixing The Disconnect Between School and Work

Most students work their way through college, but often these jobs have nothing to do with their career aspirations. Critics say that the lack of opportunities for college students to learn on the job is a symptom of the larger disconnect between the California economy and higher education. The state is making important strides on this front, Oakley said, but it is still behind many European coun -

tries, Singapore and even states like Indiana and Texas.

“Employers have not invested time and effort to make this work,” said Oakley. “Colleges don’t always have the resources to make this work.”

Many fields, such as health care, technology, education and government, face shortages of educated workers. But work-based learning opportunities that help students get a foothold in a new career have often been limited to buildingtrade apprenticeships like electrician or welder. Critics say whitecollar professional internships — often unpaid — tend to go to wellconnected students who can afford to forgo salaries.

Sonya Christian, who was recently named chancellor of California Community Colleges, said the academic transfer mission should be better integrated with the vocational mission. Every student should expect a chance to learn on the job.

“It makes me feel like I belong,” said Mendez. “It gives me hope that I could do this.”

Oakley believes the state is on the right track, but he hopes that these partnerships are not just shortlived, successful “boutique programs.”

“The more streamlined we can make it, the less friction, the more we can make sure that it’s helping the people who need it the most,” he said.

By Y’Anad Burrell

The UC Berkeley Cal Bears Women’s Basketball team has a new fireball of energy and excellence by way of sophomore Jayda Curry. While she is a star basketball player, her motto is GOD, FAMILY, HOOP — in that order.

Jayda was born in Corona, California, and has played basketball since age four. Growing up, she would play golf with her father occasionally, but Jayda gravitated to basketball along with her sister Layla Curry, who plays for LMU. Jayda chose a unique academic track studying American Studies with an emphasis on Interdisciplinary Studies (ISF), where students choose the classes they would like, which can cross multiple disciplines.

Jayda shared that her priorities in life are consistent and have not changed even with her popularity as a star basketball player. Her faith in God keeps her grounded, and she has an extensive gospel song playlist on her phone and a routine of not listening to rap music

before Noon every day. Instead, her music therapy playlist has songs from several religious genres of music and a short list of her favorite artists: Marvin Sapp, Jessica Reedy, Jonathan McReynolds, Kirk Franklin and many others.

Athletes often have the challenge of balancing their mental health and sports careers, and Jayda found a balance through journaling, something she has done for a long time, well before college. Finding a healthy balance with academic success is often a challenge for athletes. Jayda attributes her success to good time management. Staying tenacious about studying and completing school assignments while on the road with the team has become a habit that gives Jayda academic success while performing at a high level on the basketball court.

She cherishes her love for family and shares how deep down she is truly a ‘kid at heart.’ A Lego wonderland moment and enjoy hanging out with family, teammates, and friends is the best for Jayda on any given day.

It was no surprise to hear that she would like to play for the WNBA one day, but succeeding in college is just as important to Jayda. She is well on her way to gracing the national stage while fulfilling her dreams and aspirations, given the path she has chosen and thus far managed well. Soon she may be another big name in basketball for other up and comers to admire.

This article originally appeared in Post News Group.

PHOTO: NAREB

PHOTO: Courtesy of NNPA

PHOTO: Courtesy of The Oakland Post

RouteNewspaperCourier(s)

AVISO de Revisión Pública Durante 30 Días y Audiencias Públicas Reporte Preliminar del Plan de Acción Anual del Año Fiscal 2024

Under Title 1 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, as amended, the City of San Diego (City) invites any interested parties to participate in the preparation of the Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Action Plan (AAP). The AAP is the yearly update to the Five-Year Consolidated Plan and identifies the projects and programs proposed to be funded through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG), and HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME). The AAP is subject to review and approval by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN

that the FY 2024 AAP will be available for a 30-day public review beginning on April 03, 2023. Hard copies of the Draft FY 2024 AAP will be available for review in select City libraries (Central, Valencia Park/Malcolm X, San Ysidro, Logan Heights, Linda Vista, and City Heights/Weingart).

The referenced document will also be available for review on the City's website (www.sandiego.gov/cdbg).

Please direct any inquiries or comments regarding the FY 2024 AAP in writing to: cdbg@sandiego.gov or to the City of San Diego, Economic Development Department, Attention: Annual Action Plan Comments, 1200 Third Avenue, Suite 1400, San Diego, CA 92101. The comment period will close on May 2, 2023 at 5:00 pm.

NOTICE IS ALSO HEREBY

GIVEN that the referenced document will be discussed during a public meeting of the Consolidated Plan Advisory Board (CPAB) on April 12, 2023. The CPAB meeting will be held at 10:00 a.m. in person at the Civic Center Plaza, 1200 Third Ave, 14th floor, Large Conference Room. NOTICE IS ALSO

HEREBY GIVEN that the referenced document will be discussed during a public meeting of the Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee of the San Diego City Council (EDIR) on April 12, 2023. The ED&IR meeting will be held at 1:00 p.m. at the City Administration Building, Council Chambers – 12th Floor, 202 “C” Street, San Diego, CA 92101. As required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), requests for information to be made available in alternative formats, and any requests for disability-related modifications or accommodations required to facilitate meeting participation, including requests for alternatives to observing meetings and offering public comment as noted above, may be made by contacting the City Clerk at cityclerk@sandiego.gov or (619) 533-4000. The City is committed to resolving accessibility requests swiftly in order to maximize accessibility. 3/30/23

De acuerdo con el Título 1 de la Ley de Vivienda y Desarrollo Comunitario de 1974, y sus enmiendas, la Ciudad de San Diego (Ciudad) invita a cualquier parte interesada a participar en la preparación del Plan de Acción Anual del Año Fiscal 2024 (AAP, por sus siglas en inglés). El AAP es la actualización anual del Plan Consolidado de Cinco Años e identifica los proyectos y programas propuestos que serán financiados con fondos del Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) y HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME). El AAP está sujeto a revisión y aprobación por parte del Departamento de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano de los Estados Unidos (HUD, por sus siglas en inglés). POR LA

PRESENTE SE NOTIFICA que el AAP para el año fiscal 2024 estará disponible para la revisión del público por un periodo de 30 días a partir del 3 de abril de 2023. El documento mencionado esta disponible en ciertas bibliotecas públicas (Central, Valencia Park/Malcolm X, San Ysidro, Logan Heights, Linda Vista y City Heights/Weingart). El AAP para el año fiscal 2024 también estará disponible en el sitio web de la ciudad (www.sandiego.gov/cdbg).

Favor de dirigir cualquier pregunta o comentario con respecto al AAP para el año fiscal 2024 por escrito a: cdbg@sandiego.gov, o por correo postal a la siguiente dirección: City of San Diego, Economic Development

Department, Attention: Annual Action Plan Comments, 1200 Third Avenue, Suite 1400, San Diego, CA 92101. El período de comentarios cerrará el 2 de mayo de 2023 a las 5:00 p.m. POR LA

PRESENTE TAMBIÉN SE

NOTIFICA que el documento mencionado se debatirá durante una audiencia pública del Consejo Asesor del Plan Consolidado (CPAB, por sus siglas en inglés) el 12 de abril de 2023. La audiencia del CPAB comenzará a las 10:00 a. m. en persona en Civic Center Plaza, 1200 Third Ave, piso 14, en la sala de conferencias grande. POR LA

PRESENTE TAMBIÉN SE

NOTIFICA que el documento mencionado se debatirá durante una audiencia pública del Comité de Desarrollo Económico y Relaciones Intergubernamentales (EDIR, por sus siglas en inglés) de la Ciudad de San Diego el 12 de abril de 2023. La audiencia de ED&IR comenzará a la 1:00 p.m. en el Edificio de Administración de la Ciudad, Cámaras del Consejo – Piso 12, 202 “C” Street, San Diego, CA 92101. Según lo exige la Ley de Estadounidenses con Discapacidades (ADA, por su inglés), las solicitudes de información en formatos alternativos y toda petición de modificaciones o adaptaciones relacionadas con una discapacidad para facilitar la participación en las audiencias , incluidas las solicitudes de formatos alternativos para observar las audiencias y ofrecer comentarios públicos, pueden hacerse comunicándose con el Secretario de la Ciudad en cityclerk@sandiego.gov o (619) 533-4000. La Ciudad está comprometida a resolver rápidamente las solicitudes de accesibilidad para maximizar la accesibilidad.

Liability Company

The first day of business was: 1/24/2023

This business is hereby registered by the following:

So-Cal Solid Transportation 5575 Oberlin Dr, Ste. 301 San Diego, CA 92121

This statement was filed with the Recorder/County Clerk of San Diego County on March 22, 2023

This fictitious business name will expire on March 22, 2028

3/30, 4/06, 4/13, 4/20

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT 2023-9006583

Fictitious business name(s): Elite Mobile Fish Processing Located at: 5244 Lewison Ct. San Diego, CA 92120 County of San Diego

This business is conducted by: An Individual Registrant has not yet begun to transact business under the name(s) above

This business is hereby registered by the following: Joel A. Arledge 5244 Lewison Ct. San Diego, CA 92120

This statement was filed with the Recorder/County Clerk of San Diego County on March 23, 2023

This fictitious business name will expire on March 23, 2028

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT 2023-9004611

name(s):

Joe's Villages

Thrift Store Located at: 815 33rd St. San Diego, CA 92102 County of San Diego 3350 E St. San Diego, CA 92102 County of San Diego This business is conducted by: A Corporation Registrant has not yet begun to transact business under the name(s) above This business is hereby registered by the following: S.V.D.P. Management, Inc. 3350 E Street San Diego, CA 92102

This statement was filed with

(To appear remotely, check in advance of the hearing for information about how to do so on the court's website. To find your court's website go to www.courts.ca.gov/find-mycourt.htm)

name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing.

NOTICE OF HEARING

Date: April 20, 2023 Time: 8:30 A.M. Dept. C-61

The address of the court is 330 W. Broadway San Diego, CA 92101

for a decree changing names as follows:

PRESENT NAME:

Siobhan Aileen Cameron

PROPOSED NAME: Siobhan Roman-Nichols

THE COURT ORDERS that all persons interested in this matter appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted.

program may contact the assigned department for the information on obtaining certified copies.

If all the requirements have not been met as of the date specified, the court will mail the petitioner a written order with further directions.

If a timely objection is filed, the court will set a hearing date and contact the parties by mail with further directions.

the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing.

NOTICE OF HEARING

Date: April 18, 2023

Time: 8:30 A.M. Dept. 61

The address of the court is 330 W. Broadway San Diego, CA 92101

If all requirements for a name change have been met as of the date specified, and no timely written objection has been received (required at least two court days before the date specified), the Petition for Change of Name (JC Form #NC-100) will be granted without a hearing. One copy of the Order Granting the Petition will be mailed to the petitioner. To change a name on a legal document, including a birth certificate, social security card, driver license, passport, and other identification, a certified copy of Decree

Changing Name (JC Form #NC-130) or Decree

Changing Name and Order Recognizing Change of Gender and for Issuance of New Birth Certificate (JC Form #NC-230) may be required. Contact the agency(ies) who issue the legal document that needs to be changed, to determine if a certified copy is required.

A certified copy of Decree Changing Name (JC Form #NC-130) or Decree

Changing Name and Order Recognizing Change of Gender and for Issuance of New Birth Certificate (JC Form #NC-230) may be obtained from the Civil Business Office for a fee. Petitioners who are seeking a change of name under the Safe at Home program may contact the assigned department for the information on obtaining certified copies.

If all the requirements have not been met as of the date specified, the court will mail the petitioner a written order with further directions.

If a timely objection is filed, the court will set a hearing date and contact the parties by mail with further directions.

A RESPONDENT OBJECTING TO THE NAME CHANGE MUST FILE A WRITTEN OBJECTION AT LEAST TWO COURT DAYS (excluding weekends and holidays) BEFORE THE DATE SPECIFIED. Do not come to court on the specified date. The court will notify the parties by mail of a future hearing date

Any Petition for the name change of a minor that is signed by only one parent must have this Attachment served along with the Petition and Order to Show Cause, on the other nonsigning parent, and proof of service must be filed with the court.

The address of the court is: 330 W. Broadway San Diego, CA 92101 3/30, 4/06, 4/13, 4/20

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA County of San Diego 330 W. Broadway San Diego, CA 92101 Hall of Justice

37-2023-00009437CU-PT-CTL Petitioner or Attorney: Alan W. Cheung,

(To appear remotely, check in advance of the hearing for information about how to do so on the court's website. To find your court's website go to www.courts.ca.gov/find-mycourt.htm)

NO HEARING WILL OCCUR ON THE DATE SPECIFIED IN THE ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE.

The court will review the documents filed as of the date specified on the Order to Show Cause for Change of Name (JC Form #NC-120).

If all requirements for a name change have been met as of the date specified, and no timely written objection has been received (required at least two court days before the date specified), the Petition for Change of Name (JC Form #NC-100) will be granted without a hearing. One copy of the Order Granting the Petition will be mailed to the petitioner.

To change a name on a legal document, including a birth certificate, social security card, driver license, passport, and other identification, a certified copy of Decree

Changing Name (JC Form #NC-130) or Decree

Changing Name and Order Recognizing Change of Gender and for Issuance of New Birth Certificate (JC Form #NC-230) may be required. Contact the agency(ies) who issue the legal document that needs to be changed, to determine if a certified copy is required.

A certified copy of Decree

Changing Name (JC Form #NC-130) or Decree Changing Name and Order

Recognizing Change of Gender and for Issuance of New Birth Certificate (JC Form #NC-230) may be obtained from the Civil Business Office for a fee. Petitioners who are seeking a change of name under the Safe at Home program may contact the assigned department for the information on obtaining certified copies.

If all the requirements have not been met as of the date specified, the court will mail the petitioner a written order with further directions.

If a timely objection is filed, the court will set a hearing date and contact the parties by mail with further directions.

A RESPONDENT OBJECTING TO THE NAME CHANGE MUST FILE A WRITTEN OBJECTION AT LEAST TWO COURT DAYS (excluding weekends and holidays) BEFORE THE DATE SPECIFIED. Do not come to court on the specified date. The court will notify the parties by mail of a future hearing date

Any Petition for the name change of a minor that is signed by only one parent must have this Attachment served along with the Petition and Order to Show Cause, on the other nonsigning parent, and proof of service must be filed with the court.

The address of the court is: 330 W. Broadway San Diego, CA 92101 3/16, 3/23, 3/30, 4/06

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA

Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing.

NOTICE OF HEARING

Date: April 18, 2023 Time: 8:30 A.M. Dept. 61

The address of the court is 330 W. Broadway San Diego, CA 92101

(To appear remotely, check in advance of the hearing for information about how to do so on the court's website. To find your court's website go to www.courts.ca.gov/find-mycourt.htm)

NO HEARING WILL OCCUR ON THE DATE SPECIFIED IN THE ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE.

The court will review the documents filed as of the date specified on the Order to Show Cause for Change of Name (JC Form #NC-120).

If all requirements for a name change have been met as of the date specified, and no timely written objection has been received (required at least two court days before the date specified), the Petition for Change of Name (JC Form #NC-100) will be granted without a hearing. One copy of the Order Granting the Petition will be mailed to the petitioner.

To change a name on a legal document, including a birth certificate, social security card, driver license, passport, and other identification, a certified copy of Decree

Changing Name (JC Form #NC-130) or Decree

Changing Name and Order

Recognizing Change of Gender and for Issuance of New Birth Certificate (JC Form #NC-230) may be required. Contact the agency(ies) who issue the legal document that needs to be changed, to determine if a certified copy is required.

A certified copy of Decree

Changing Name (JC Form #NC-130) or Decree

Changing Name and Order

Recognizing Change of Gender and for Issuance of New Birth Certificate (JC Form #NC-230) may be obtained from the Civil Business Office for a fee. Petitioners who are seeking a change of name under the Safe at Home

A RESPONDENT OBJECTING TO THE NAME CHANGE MUST FILE A WRITTEN OBJECTION AT LEAST TWO COURT DAYS (excluding weekends and holidays) BEFORE THE DATE SPECIFIED. Do not come to court on the specified date. The court will notify the parties by mail of a future hearing date

Any Petition for the name change of a minor that is signed by only one parent must have this Attachment served along with the Petition and Order to Show Cause, on the other nonsigning parent, and proof of service must be filed with the court.

The address of the court is: 330 W. Broadway San Diego, CA 92101 3/09, 3/16, 3/23, 3/30

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA County of San Diego 330 W. Broadway San Diego, CA 92101 Civil 37-2023-00008821CU-PT-CTL Petitioner or Attorney: Sakineh Aziz Tajik Khalid Ahmady

To All Interested Persons: Petitioner Sakineh Aziz Tajik Khalid Ahmady on behalf of minor child filed a petition with this court for a decree changing names as follows:

PRESENT NAME: Farzad Ahmady

PROPOSED

NAME: Ryan Ahmady

THE COURT ORDERS that all persons interested in this matter appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted. Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at

(To appear remotely, check in advance of the hearing for information about how to do so on the court's website. To find your court's website go to www.courts.ca.gov/find-mycourt.htm) NO HEARING WILL OCCUR ON THE DATE SPECIFIED IN THE ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE.

The court will review the documents filed as of the date specified on the Order to Show Cause for Change of Name (JC Form #NC-120).

If all requirements for a name change have been met as of the date specified, and no timely written objection has been received (required at least two court days before the date specified), the Petition for Change of Name (JC Form #NC-100) will be granted without a hearing. One copy of the Order Granting the Petition will be mailed to the petitioner.

To change a name on a legal document, including a birth certificate, social security card, driver license, passport, and other identification, a certified copy of Decree

Changing Name (JC Form #NC-130) or Decree

Changing Name and Order

Recognizing Change of Gender and for Issuance of New Birth Certificate (JC Form #NC-230) may be required. Contact the agency(ies) who issue the legal document that needs to be changed, to determine if a certified copy is required.

A certified copy of Decree Changing Name (JC Form #NC-130) or Decree Changing Name and Order Recognizing Change of Gender and for Issuance of New Birth Certificate (JC Form #NC-230) may be obtained from the Civil Business Office for a fee. Petitioners who are seeking a change of name under the Safe at Home program may contact the assigned department for the information on obtaining certified copies.

If all the requirements have

ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS

Notice is hereby given that the San Diego Unified School District, acting by and through its governing board, will electronically receive bids for the furnishing of all labor, materials, transportation, equipment, and services for:

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ARTICLE CONTINUATION

WOMEN:

Continued from cover

1964

TRACY CHAPMAN BORN

Tracy Chapman, born March 30, 1964, in Cleveland, Ohio. is a singer and songwriter, best known for her hit singles “Fast Car” and “Give Me One Reason”. Her mother, when Chapman was three years old, gifted her a ukulele. She later began to play the guitar and write songs at the age of eight.

Chapman was signed to Elektra Records in 1987. In 1988, she released her debut, self-titled album, Tracy Chapman. The album gained much success, boosted by her appearance at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert, was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America six times, and earned her six Grammy Award nominations.

1990

SISTER THEA BOWMAN

Sister Thea Bowman, born December 29, 1937, was a Catholic Franciscan nun, evangelist, and educator known for introducing culturally inclusive practices into the Catholic liturgy. Her contributions were so significant that she is being considered for sainthood.

In addition to teaching, Sister Bowman traveled widely in the United States and abroad, giving public speeches and lectures, short courses and workshops. Through song, dance, stories and poetry, she spread her message of joy, freedom, and pride in her culture. She argued that the Catholic Church should be more inclusive, taking into account the cultural practices of its diverse membership. To that end, she was instrumental in the publication of Lead Me, Guide Me: An African American Catholic Hymnal (1987).

On March 30, 1990, Sister Thea Bowman died peacefully in her childhood home in Canton, MS at the age of 52. In 2018, Bowman was designated a Servant of God, the first step (of four) in the process of becoming a saint. Although there are eleven Americans designated as saints in the Catholic Church, none are African American.

AROUND TOWN

38th ANNUAL

Snie Srie

In Balboa Park at the SPRECKELS ORGAN PAVILION

SUNDAY, APRIL 9, 2023

6:30 AM-7:30 AM

M ESS A G E

Rev. Paul Cunningham

LA JOLLA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

M US I C

La Jolla Presbyterian Chancel Choir

Keith Pedersen, Director La Jolla Brass

Liesl Hansen, Director William Lullo at the spreckels Organ

ALL WELCOME

Free Parking for information call:

(858) 454-7324

Entire Offering Given to the San Diego Rescue Mission for the Homeless

These local leadership efforts paved the way for widespread support of Rosa Parks’ resistance to segregation on public busing.

Following her husband’s assassination in 1968, Scott King devoted her life to institutionalizing his philosophy and practice of nonviolence. She established the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, led a march of sanitation workers in Memphis and joined efforts to organize the Poor People’s Campaign. A longtime advocate of workers rights, she also supported a 1969 hospital workers’ strike in South Carolina, delivering stirring speeches against the treatment of African American staff.

Scott King’s commitment to nonviolence went beyond civil rights at home. During the 1960s, she became involved in peace and anti-war efforts such as the Women’s Strike for Peace and opposed the escalating war in Vietnam. By the 1980s, she had joined protests against South African apartheid, and before her death in 2006, she spoke out in favor of LGBT rights – capping a lifetime of activism against injustice and inequalities.

Women and the March

While Scott King’s support and ideas were particularly influential, many other women played essential roles in the success of the civil rights movement.

Take the most iconic moment of the civil rights struggle, in many Americans’ minds: the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which King delivered his landmark “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

As the 60th anniversary of the march approaches, it is critical to recognize the activism of women from all walks of life who helped to strategize and organize one of the country’s most massive political demonstrations of the 20th century. Yet historical accounts overwhelmingly highlight the march’s male leadership. With the exception of Daisy Bates, an activist who read a short tribute, no women were invited to deliver formal speeches.

Women were among the key organizers of the march, however, and helped recruit thousands of participants. Dorothy Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women, was often the lone woman at the table of leaders representing national organizations. Anna Arnold Hedgeman, who also served on the planning committee, was another strong advocate for labor issues, anti-poverty efforts and women’s rights.

Dorothy Heights

Photographs of the march show women attended in large numbers, yet few historical accounts adequately credit women for t heir leadership and support. Civil rights activist, lawyer and Episcopalian priest Pauli Murray, among others, called for a gathering of women to address this and other instances

of discrimination a few days later. Hidden in plain view

African American women led and served in all the major campaigns, working as field secretaries, attorneys, plaintiffs, organizers and educators, to name just a few roles. So why did early historical accounts of the movement neglect their stories?

There were women propelling national civil rights organizations and among King’s closest advisers. Septima Clark, for example, was a seasoned educator whose strong organizing skills played a consequential role in voter registration, literacy training and citizenship education. Dorothy Cotton was a member of the inner circle of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which King was president, and was involved in literacy training and teaching nonviolent resistance. Yet women’s organizing during the 1950s and 1960s is most evident at local and regional levels, particularly in some of the most perilous communities across the deep South. Since the 1930s, Amelia Boynton Robinson of Dallas County, Alabama, and her family had been fighting for voting rights, laying the groundwork for the struggle to end voter suppression that continues to the present. She was also key in planning the 50-mile Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965. Images of the violence that marchers endured – particularly on the day that came to be known as Bloody Sunday – shocked the nation and eventually contributed to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Or take Mississippi, where there would not have been a sustained movement without women’s activism. Some names have become well known, like Fannie Lou Hamer, but others deserve to be.

Two rural activists, Victoria Gray and Annie Devine, joined Hamer as representatives to the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a parallel political party that challenged the state’s all-white representatives at the 1964 Democratic Convention. A year later, the three women represented the party in a challenge to block the state’s congressmen from taking their seats, given ongoing disenfranchisement of Black voters. Though the congressional challenge failed, the activism was a symbolic victory, serving note to the nation that Black Mississippians were no longer willing to accept centuries-old oppression.

Many African American women were outfront organizers for civil rights. But it is no less important to remember those who assumed less visible, but indispensable, roles behind the scenes, sustaining the movement over time.

Vicki Crawford is Professor of Africana Studies at Morehouse College, and the director of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection. She was one of the first scholars to focus on women’s roles in the civil rights movement.

3 Sister Celebrities Using Storytelling for Change

By Amaka Watson

Black millennial women have used their voices and creativity to share stories that educate, inspire and entertain the world. These women have used all forms of media and storytelling, such as art, radio, spoken word, music, television, podcasts and blogging in pursuit of truth, and the preservation of our history and culture.

Issa Rae: Creator, Director, Actor, Producer

Best known for: HBO hit show “Insecure”

Impact: She turned her YouTube series “MisAdventures of an Awkward Black Girl” into a hit series with HBO that highlights the untold stories of being a young, Black professional millennial in pursuit of love and success.

Michaela Coel: Actor, Producer, Writer Best known for: TV Series Chewing Gum and HBO’s “I May Destroy You”

Impact: The British star created a groundbreaking drama “I May Destroy You,” focus -

ing on the traumas of sexual assault. She wrote, starred, and directed it. Channeling past experiences from her life, the show was heavy, complex and touched on societal and cultural issues impacting the Black diaspora in London.

Amanda Gorman: Poet

Best Known for: Youngest Inaugural poet in U.S history

Impact: She was the breakout star who solidified her name as one of the youngest inaugural poets to grace the state at President Joe Biden’s Inauguration. She recited her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” a call for America to reconcile and rebuild its deeply rooted racial inequities.

A version of this article originally appeared on Defender Network.

Rae at BET’s Black Girls Rock show.

PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons.