August 24th, 2017 Edition

october 12, 1932 – AuguSt 19, 2017

Dick Gregory passes at 84

Iconic comedian, activist and author from St. Louis

‘A

By Kenya Vaughn Of The St. Louis American

When speaking about his father on behalf of the family, Dick Gregory’s son Yohance Maqubela almost didn’t know where to begin.

“Because the work that he has done is so dynamic, trying to give a sound-byte about him is one of the most difficult things on the planet to do,” Maqubela said.

The comedy legend, activist, health and nutrition advocate, and best-selling author passed away on Saturday, August 19 at the age of 84.

“He taught us how to laugh. He taught us how to fight. He taught us how to live,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson said via Twitter. “Dick Gregory was committed to justice. I miss him already.”

Though the St. Louis native became a pioneer of humor by paving the way for black performers in mainstream comedy, Maqubela never even mentioned that part of Gregory’s life

See GREGORY, A7

Bridging ‘the opportunity gap’ in SLPS

Superintendent Kelvin Adams is 2017 Stellar Performer in Education

By Rebecca Rivas Of The St. Louis American

Poverty critically impacts our region’s students, said St. Louis Public Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams.

“When families are in trauma and in poverty, it severely limits their opportunities,” Adams said. “I don’t think there is an achievement gap. I think there is an opportunity gap. If we could open up the doors so that every single kid would get the same opportunity, I truly believe that every kid

would be successful.” Poverty and crime in his students’ neighborhoods are two issues that Adams feels most passionate about. It should not be normal for children to have lost both parents through murder, or who have significant members of their family locked up for the rest of their lives, he said. “It should not be normal for us to have kids abused,” Adams said. “It almost seems that

See ADAMS, A6

The comedy legend, activist, health and nutrition

and best-selling author passed away on Saturday, August 19 at the age of 84.

‘Eclipsing Homelessness’ at Lucas Park

Larry Rice: ‘The homeless are often forgotten, particularly on a great day like this’

By Sophie Hurwitz For The St. Louis American

At 10 a.m. on Monday, August 21, St. Louis was getting ready for the solar eclipse. And in Lucas Park off 14th Street, just north of the St. Louis Public Library’s Central Branch, a group of several dozen homeless men and women were preparing for the eclipse, too.

n “The millennials with money moved in the neighborhood, and kicked the homeless out and put their dogs in.”

– Rev. Larry Rice

The “Eclipsing Homelessness” event, organized by Rev. Larry Rice – whose New Life Evangelistic Center’s homeless shelter was shut down a few months ago due to failure to comply with health regulations – and Bishop Jerome Bracely, of Step Into The Light Ministries, wasn’t

Breaking freshmen into high school

McCluer introduces Freshman Academy to ease transitions, increase graduation rates

By Jessica Karins For The St. Louis American

At McCluer High School in the Florissant-Ferguson School District, incoming freshman are having a new kind of high school experience, one that separates them in freshman-only classes and a closed wing of the school for their first year.

The program, called the Freshman Academy, is intended to make sure students spend their freshman year learning to adjust to high school, developing good academic habits, and most importantly, passing all their classes.

McCluer’s principal, Cedric Gerald, said the district’s data shows that

Photo by Wiley Price

Two second-grade students at Jackson Park Elementary School view the solar eclipse through special viewing glasses on Monday afternoon.

Blinded by no light

See PARK, A9

advocate,

McCLUER, A6

Kelvin Adams

JAY-Z says ‘Kill Jay-Z’ jab was not a personal Future diss

Last month, JAY-Z took shots at fellow rapper Future on the “4:44” track “Kill Jay-Z” after making reference to Future’s son being raised by pop star husband, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson.

This week, Jigga came forward to say that the line wasn’t a diss.

“I really don’t mean any malice…I’m not discredit ing all step-pops in the world. It was a line to say, that could happen to me in my future,”

JAY-Z said on the Rap Radar podcast. “It just so happened that his name was Future, and then I just made a scheme out of it. I

wasn’t trying to put Future down. We just made a song together – I don’t have any problems with him.”

Mystikal back behind bars, accused of rape

This month, an arrest warrant was issued for New Orleans rapper Michael “Mystikal” Tyler after DNA evidence linked him to an October 2016 rape in Shreveport, LA, nearly 14 years after his previous

side of the story. Her bond was set at $200,000.

A third defendant, Averweone Holman, was also linked to the rape by DNA evidence. His bond was set at $2 million after his arrest on Aug. 18th. The investigation is ongoing.

R. Kelly’s reps deny latest round of accusations

According to several reports, Mystikal turned himself in at the Caddo Correctional Center in Shreveport, LA on Monday without incident. His bond was set at $2

An associate, Tenichia Wafford, was also arrested for pressuring the victim to drop the case. She insists that she has audio proof that the accuser is making false claims – and that she only called the alleged victim to get her

A 24-year-old woman is alleging she had a sexual relationship with singer R. Kelly when she was a teen.

Jerhonda Johnson Pace told Buzzfeed she was 15 and a fan when she met the singer in 2008 outside the Chicago courtroom where he was on trial for child pornography charges.

Now a married mother of three, Pace alleges that she began a sexual relationship with Kelly after he was acquitted of those charges. She was 16 at the time, younger than the 17-yearold age of consent in Illinois.

allegations that Kelly is controlling a group of women (none of whom are minors) in what some of their parents describe as an abusive “cult.”

“If I can speak out, and I can help them get out of that situation, that’s what I will do,” Pace said. “I didn’t have anybody to speak up on my behalf when I was going through what I was going through with him.”

Kelly has denied any wrong doing and has not been charged with any crimes connected with the allegations.

R. Kelly

Pace told the publication that despite having signed a nondisclosure agreement for which she received payment from Kelly, she said she felt compelled to come forward after a recent Buzzfeed report that included new

In a statement to CNN on Tuesday, Kelly’s publicist, Trevian Kutti denied Pace’s allegations.

“The allegations against Mr. Kelly are false, and are being made by individuals known to be dishonest. It is clear these continuing stories are the result of the effort of those with personal agendas who are working in concert to interfere with and damage his career,” the statement read. “Mr. Kelly again denies any and all wrong doing and is taking appropriate legal action to protect himself from ongoing defamation.”

Wiley Price sees his Obama photo in the Smithsonian

Historic photo of AME bishops praying over candidate went viral in 2008

By Sophie Hurwitz Of The St. Louis American

When St. Louis American photojournalist Wiley Price picked up the phone in 2015, and heard a woman telling him a photo he took had been selected for the new Smithsonian Museum of African American History, he said, “I immediately didn’t believe her.”

Eventually, after an email from the Smithsonian, he was convinced. His photograph “Message for the Messenger,” which shows a group of AME bishops praying over then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama, was going to be in the museum.

“She said, ‘Mr. Price, I had three calls before you and four calls after you. Nobody believes it’s the Smithsonian calling, because the Smithsonian never calls!’” Price remembered.

This August, he finally got the chance to visit the museum and see his own photograph among others on the Smithsonian wall.

“It’s interesting to be in a museum, and stand back, and watch strangers that you don’t know come up and view your work,” Price said. “People kept saying, ‘Oh, I’ve seen that picture!’ And I’m just standing there, watching this.”

Eventually, he decided to let a museum-goer know he was the photographer. He saw a woman scrutinizing his photo, and even taking a picture of it on her phone.

“So I walked up, and I said, ‘Excuse me, why does this picture interest you?’” Price said. They talked, “and eventually she said, ‘Why’d

you ask me that?’ and I said, ‘I’m the guy that took the picture!’”

That woman, along with several others, took pictures with Price upon discovering the celebrity in their midst.

Price’s “Message for the Messenger” photo had gone viral on the internet long before the Smithsonian called. It’s been featured on everything from coffee mugs to T-shirts. Mitt Romney, Obama’s former campaign opponent, even took a similar photo, surrounded by faith leaders, after Price’s photo of Obama became famous. A similar photo was taken recently with President Trump and clergy.

When Price took the photo back in 2008 during Obama’s historic campaign for U.S. president, he had no idea it was going to be this historic. In the final months of Obama’s first campaign for the presidency, he stopped in St. Louis to speak at the national African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church convention.

“One of the bishops told me, ‘If he comes, we want to pull him in and pray for him, and we want you to be the only photographer because we want to get a picture of it, but we don’t want it to be a media circus,’” Price said. He went into the room with the prayer circle, but taking the photo wasn’t easy.

“We’re in the convention center, and because of the high ceilings, it was very dark,” he said. “So I said to myself, ‘I’ve got all these dark faces. I don’t want to flash this, but I have no other choice, I’ve got to flash it.’” He set up his flash, watched

by a Secret Service agent.

“So I just stepped back, and I started popping. And I was going like this the whole time,” he said, craning his neck and pretending to hold a camera

working.’ But the minute you think that, that’s when the image comes out great.”

After realizing he got a good photo, Price knew that his picture would have power.

n “It’s interesting to be in a museum, and stand back, and watch strangers that you don’t know come up and view your work.”

– Wiley Price

hangs in the Smithsonian, next to two other important photos in his life: one of Michael Brown Jr., and one of athletes saluting Black Power at the 1968 Olympics. He remembers watching that event with his father.

“I couldn’t understand why they were holding their hands up, and my father had to explain to me that that meant Black Power, and being recognized as African Americans in the sports world,” he said.

St. Louis American photojournalist Wiley Price recently visited the new Smithsonian Museum of African American History for the first time and saw his historic photograph “Message for the Messenger” displayed.

over his head. “Everybody in the room is six feet tall, we’re all adults. I couldn’t even hardly see him anymore, and I was looking around like there he is, right there.”

Price worried he wouldn’t be able to get a good photo out of the event at all.

“I thought, ‘This isn’t

“What I did know was that African Americans would find this picture appealing because it’s prayer,” Price said. “If nothing else, we were born into religion. We are a religious race. With all our issues and social problems, God is always in our life.”

Now, that same photograph

“I was so surprised but I was like, ‘Wow. I’m connected to all three of these images,’” he said. Price was surprised by the number of exhibits in the museum that also told parts of his personal story.

“I actually had to step away a couple of times,” he said. “I started tearing up, because I wished my parents had seen this.” The museum even includes an exhibit about

Homer G. Phillips Hospital, where Price was born.

“I always tell people I am an authentic St. Louis African American. And people always say to me, ‘What do you mean by authentic?’”

His explanation: “I was born May 27, 1956 on a Sunday afternoon. That Sunday afternoon happened to be the day of the Annie Malone Parade, the biggest black parade in the country. So if we’re talking symbolism – I’m born in the first black hospital that was built for AfricanAmerican doctors and nurses, and I’m born the day of the Annie Malone Parade! He said his mother told him, “When they actually handed you to me, the parade was coming around the corner of the hospital.” As the doctor handed him to his mother, she could hear the band playing.

“I thought about that, and I was like, ‘I’ve come this far,’” Price said. “Life can be so interesting, and especially when you can trace things back to something that happened decades before. It’s always been that way with me. Even as I walk through the community and shoot pictures of people, I think to myself, ‘I’ve stood right here with my mother, I’ve stood right here with my father. My dad and I did this over there. I shot a picture right here.’”

Both Chappelle-Nadal and Trump are unfit to lead

State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal’s comment that she hoped that President Donald Trump would be assassinated is way beyond the bounds of acceptable public discourse. Violent death is only warranted to stop someone from immediately doing violent harm to others – and we oppose the death penalty even in the case of convicted rapists and murderers. We oppose this administration on almost every policy stand and public pronouncement and would welcome an immediate end to Trump’s destructive behavior. But his violent death would only contribute to the amoral chaos that Trump brought to the White House and our national consciousness, and would make this unstable, xenophobic, racist, antifeminist president into a martyr. Chappelle-Nadal has since apologized publicly and said she posted that thought in a moment of frustration, but did not mean it. The apology is not enough. Had Trump tweeted that ChappelleNadal should be assassinated (amazingly enough, that’s not an impossibility), we would call for his resignation. Had any elected official at any level tweeted it about President Barack Obama, we would have called for that person’s resignation. It is unacceptable for any elected official to make a public death wish for any other elected official, or for anyone else. We join both the Missouri Democratic and Republican parties in calling for Chappelle-Nadal to resign. Her impulsive public death wish for another elected official shows she is unfit to represent the people of Missouri in the 14th Senate District. We understand why some people are rallying behind the state senator. She has shown courage and conviction in times of great need, such as Ferguson and the Westlake Landfill crisis. However, any effectiveness she ever had is destroyed now, as she has been removed from all of her committee assignments and is being opposed even by her own party leadership as the Senate leadership explores how to expel her.

State Senator Maria ChappelleNadal gathered with supporters in Ferguson on Sunday, August 20 to apologize to the president for posting that she hopes he gets assassinated and to restate that she would not resign.

Photo by Wiley Price

We understand championing Maria (if we may address her more familiarly) as a person and wishing her well as she regroups and brings her intellect and passion – though at times terribly misguided and erratic, she is brilliant and cares deeply about our community – to her next endeavor. And we do believe she deserves a second chance and has much more good work to do. But she has destroyed her credibility and effectiveness as an elected official, and we believe any effort expended in saving her elected position is a non-strategic waste of time and resources.

Many have said that Maria should not be targeted when many other elected officials, even Trump himself, have said and done worse and not been asked to resign or been threatened with expulsion. In the case of Trump, we certainly agree. Trump has repeatedly said and done things that put the lives of other people in grave danger – he has, in effect, wished death on many people. To name a few: He encouraged police officers to violently assault suspects, he spoke up for white supremacists who protested violently while chanting racist slogans and killing one protestor, and he rashly threatened thermonuclear war to an erratic and unstable nuclear power. The presidency of Trump is a threat to all Americans, the nation itself, and indeed everyone on the planet. He is deficient in character and intellect. On Wednesday in Phoenix, Trump demonstrated once again that he is vengeful and unmoored mentally. Yet we don’t believe Donald Trump will resign as president of the United States unless it benefits him in a bargaining process, should the Congress seek to impeach and remove him. We do support an urgent investigative process that examines his out-of-control actions closely and holds him to account for his egregious and dangerous behavior in the nation’s highest office.

Commentary

We all must stand against hatred

By Dr. Will Ross Guest columnist

Yet again, we find ourselves recoiling from brutal acts of racism and terrorism within our country, this time in the idyllic, historic town of Charlottesville, Virginia.

I spent Friday evening, August 11 at an off-campus diversity retreat for incoming first-year students at Washington University School of Medicine. We engaged in an in-depth, thoughtful discussion about the role of race, gender, and class in the medical encounter. Our deliberations centered on recognizing our multiple identities, appreciating our unique differences as individuals, and mitigating our unconscious bias as we encounter others with different, sometimes clashing worldviews.

It was a powerful evening, with opportunities to reflect on how we can build alliances across culture barriers to address the most complex problems in medicine and society. These are the values of Washington University, an institution committed to the highest principles of decency, respect, and non-discrimination.

The warmth and solidarity of that evening were shattered by the extreme, surreal images of white nationalists and white supremacists marching on the campus of the University of Virginia, spewing vile, hateful rhetoric such as “Jews will not replace us” and the Nazi slogan “Blood and soil.” I was horrified at the violent death of Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal who was protesting the march, at the hands of a white nationalist. As a child growing up

Dr. Will Ross

Memphis Tennessee in the 1960s, leaders of the Civil Rights Movement such as Benjamin Hooks taught me to be ever positive, keep my “eyes on the prize” and to counter injustice with love and civility. However, do not be deluded, love and civility is not passive; it confronts hatred, it stands firm against policies that seek to undermine the humanity of an entire class of people, and most of all, it is never silent. As a nation with so much blood already shed defending our democratic principles, we cannot watch the resurrection of Nazism and white supremacy and remain silent. There are times when we must all stand and be counted. When the leader of the free world sees moral equivalency in the tortured, racist rants of American Nazis and righteous indignation of counterprotesters like Heather Heyer, this becomes one of those times.

After our Washington University retreat, one student approached me and acknowledged his angst in not knowing how to actualize the lessons from the night. I offered one timeless response: speak out against injustice wherever you see it. The sad, tragic events in Charlottesville have presented us an opportunity to speak out not only against white nationalists and their confederate flags, but also against the policies that attempt to rein in the advances of

the New Deal and President Johnson’s Great Society. In short order, we are now witnessing restrictions on voting rights, reduced access to high-quality education, and erosion of the health-care safety net.

In 1965, in a speech at Dinkier Plaza Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “History will have to record the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the vitriolic words and other violent actions of the bad people but the appalling silence and indifference of the good people.” Therefore, there should be no silence or moral apathy from anyone with a conscience in this country. Medical schools and the medical profession must speak out. Universities, churches, and businesses must speak out. Politicians of all stripes, progressives, independents, and conservatives must stand up, call out hatred, and be counted. Good people – black and white, Asian and Latino, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, gay, straight, and any other essence, who far outnumber the fear-mongering neo-Nazis in America – have to stand and say, “I will unequivocally support the civil rights of all Americans and will not normalize hatred.”

If that happens, America can be redeemed, and we can conquer the hate. A deafening silence, on the other hand, will signal we are no longer a city on a hill, but a nation in decay with a dream unfulfilled.

Will Ross, MD, is associate dean for diversity and professor of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, at Washington University School of Medicine.

Commentary

GOP must denounce Trump for embrace of white supremacists

Donald Trump has dropped all pretense and proudly raised the banner of white racial grievance. The time has come for Republicans in Congress to decide whether this is what they signed up for.

Business leaders decided that they’d had enough, quitting two presidential advisory councils before Trump quickly dissolved the panels. Military leaders made their call as well, issuing statements – in the wake of Charlottesville – making clear they embrace diversity and reject bigotry.

With only a few exceptions, however, GOP political leaders have been too timid to denounce the president and the reprehensible game of racial politics he’s playing. I think the corporate chief executives who bailed are making the right bet: History will remember who spoke out, who was complicit, and who stood idly by.

On Twitter (where else?)

Trump poured salt in the nation’s wounds by coming out firmly against the removal of public monuments to the Confederacy – the issue that brought white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan to Charlottesville and led to the death of Heather Heyer.

“Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments,” he wrote.

“You can’t change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson – who’s next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish!”

Trump can’t possibly be so dense that he doesn’t see a clear distinction between the men who founded this nation and those who tried to rip it

apart.

Trump may indeed not know that most of those Confederate monuments were erected not in the years right after the Civil War but around the turn of the 20th century, when the Jim Crow system of state-enforced racial oppression was being established. They symbolize not history but the defiance of history; they celebrate not defeat on the battlefield but victory in putting uppity African Americans back in their place.

For Trump, the important thing is to tell the white voters who constitute his base that they are being disrespected and dispossessed. It’s a cynical and dangerous ploy.

We know this is Trump’s game because White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon told us so. In an interview with journalist Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect, Bannon is quoted as saying: “The Democrats, the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ‘em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”

But Trump’s base won’t identify with Nazis and the KKK. That’s why Trump maintained – falsely – that among the torch-bearing Charlottesville white supremacists there were also

Letters to the editor

Remove white supremacists from White House

As we mourn for Heather Heyer and her family, we are reminded that we cannot fight for justice alone. Now is the time for those who have yet to feel the sting of oppression and intolerance to unite with us in amplifying our collective voices against those who proudly brandish the hateful symbolism embraced by the likes of David Duke and Dylann Roof.

White supremacy, our nation’s original sin, has always held a prominent role in the African-American experience. However, we aren’t alone in our endeavor to combat domestic terrorism. Jews, Muslims, LGBTQ individuals, and other marginalized groups have a long and rich history of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with us as part of our shared efforts to extinguish the flames of racism and extremist views of white nationalism.

The vile expressions of hate that occurred in Charlottesville, while surprising to some, evoked all too familiar feelings of vulnerability and anger for communities of color. Such vitriol demanded nothing less than our country’s strongest and immediate condemnation, starting with the president. But when initially presented with the opportunity to reject white supremacy and address the ongoing scourge of hate aimed at intimidating and terrorizing us, we were offered vague objections.

In the face of days of public admonishment by leaders on both sides of the aisle, the president of the United States finally condemned those whose actions led to the death of Heather Heyer. Although, I am relieved that President Trump eventually issued an explicit denouncement of these hate groups, actions speak louder than words. If the president is sincere in his rebuke of white supremacy, I call on him to

plenty of “nice people.” That’s probably also why Bannon, in the interview with Kuttner, referred to the white-power clowns as, well, “clowns.” He’s smart enough to reassure Trump supporters that they’re not like those racists and that all the racial gameplaying is on the other side. Trump’s desperation is palpable. His approval ratings have slid perilously close to the danger zone where Republican officeholders no longer fear crossing him. For titans of the business community, the chief executives of such companies as General Electric, Campbell Soup, Johnson & Johnson and 3M decided they could no longer serve on Trump’s advisory Manufacturing Council or his Strategy & Policy Forum.

Prospects that Trump can actually follow through on a business-friendly agenda, including tax reform, look increasingly dim. And Trump’s “many sides” reaction to Charlottesville wasn’t going over at all well with employees, customers or the executives themselves.

“Constructive economic and regulatory policies are not enough and will not matter if we do not address the divisions in our country,” JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon wrote in a message to his employees. The chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and National Guard also publicly condemned hate groups in the wake of Charlottesville. They, of course, could not mention the commander in chief by name. But politicians can. And they must.

remove those in his inner circle who embrace such hateful ideals, starting with Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka.

U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore Milwaukee

Glad to see Bannon go, but …

The NAACP is glad to see Steve Bannon out of the White House. Ousting one key staffer, however, can’t erase the words used by President Trump in defense of domestic terrorists, neo-Nazis and white supremacists. President Trump provided permission for these hate groups to exist. Following the travesty in Charlottesville, Virginia, numerous other rallies

and white supremacist groups are being mobilized across the country. These groups are not rallying for peace, or for the preservation of Confederate memorabilia. They exist purely to foment hatred and violence. And they march with the president’s blessing. President Trump must denounce in words and in deeds these white supremacists and urge them to stop their senseless rallies and killings. We further call upon the president to remove the people who share Steve Bannon’s poisonous beliefs from the White House, including Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka.

Derrick Johnson, interim president and CEO NAACP

Columnist Eugene Robinson

Columnist

Photo by Michael Thomas

Back to school in Ferguson

Steven Gaines, 5, walks with his aunt, Shanna Williams of Ferguson at the Community Appreciation Day on August 13 held at the Canfield Green Apartment Complex in Ferguson. Hundreds were on hand for the event held by the Southwest Ferguson Community Association to provide members of the community with the resources they need and help reshape the world’s perception of the Ferguson community.

Pattonville needs kindergarten tutors

The Pattonville School District is seeking older adult volunteers who can spend up to one hour a week tutoring a student in kindergarten through third grade as part of Pattonville’s OASIS intergenerational tutoring program. Tutors help children with reading, writing and language skills. New tutors must participate in training before being paired with a student.

Pattonville’s training consists of two parts: an online session and in-person session. The in-person session takes place on Sept. 8 at the Pattonville Learning Center. The online training session must be completed prior to the in-person training. New tutors can complete the online training on their own or can sign up for times on Sept. 7 to use computers at the Learning Center. To volunteer, contact Kelly Gordon in the Pattonville school-community relations office at (314) 213-8025 or kgordon@psdr3.org.

Resistance is not a spectator sport

By Jamala Rogers For The St. Louis American

Looking at the tsunami of the recent hate-motivated, mean-spirited, anti-black racist incidents going on in St. Louis, in Missouri and in the U.S., reminds me of a favorite saying of my mother: This country is going to hell in a hand-basket!

To that I reply, we’re already in hell. The NAACP’s travel advisory for African Americans coming to or through Missouri could’ve easily been expanded to a cautionary reminder for black folks living in the U.S.

The closing arguments in the trial of Jason Stockley happening on the third anniversary of Mike Brown Jr.’s killing by then-Ferguson cop Darren Wilson was an ironic twist. We don’t know what the verdict will be for the former St. Louis cop who murdered Anthony Smith. What we do know is that Wilson never faced a day in court trying to prove his case. The unintended linking of the two cases is a grim reminder that black bodies are in constant danger of cops who will always see them as a threat. Warning!

In Missouri, black drivers are 75 times more likely to be stopped by police than white drivers. Warning!

Black students already face disproportionate suspension and expulsion rates. The Republican-dominated General Assembly felt the need to add another criminalizing element in public schools making it a felony for students who end up in a fight and one gets hurt. Warning!

Living in certain zip codes can be dangerous to black folks’ health and wealth. So sayeth the For the Sake of All report on the St. Louis region. Warning!

Whether we’re talking about racism in policing, housing, voting, employment, education, health care and all other areas that affect quality of life, there are anti-black practices, policies and laws that continue to erode the lives and life-styles of citizens. Warning!

The NAACP was correct in bringing national attention to these practices, policies and laws, centering on the most recent one signed into law by Missouri’s Republican Governor Eric Greitens. The law makes it all but impossible to sue your employer for discrimination. Warning!

The NAACP’s advisory is the first action of its kind in the history of the civil rights group. It NAACP advises “African American travelers, visitors and Missourians to pay attention and exercise extreme caution when traveling throughout the state.” What is implicit in the alarm is that there is no place to hide and no real relief or redress when wronged. Warning!

The whole damn country has become a dangerous place for black and brown people. Trump has spewed out misogynous, racist and Islamophobic rants and provided political cover for those who violently acted against others. Acts of racist domestic terrorism like Charlottesville, Virginia will increase with frequency and intensity.

What people in this country should be real clear about by now is that fighting for social justice and racial equity are not spectator pastimes. Because we must deal with the racist injustices daily, black folks stay in perpetual defense mode. We need to go to the next strategic mode of struggle.

And blacks shouldn’t have to go it alone. White people have a colossal stake in this fight for sanity and humanity. After all, this capitalist system was designed to ensure and protect their white privileges. White people must aggressively take the leadership in protesting racist acts like those of “Unite the Right” and racist symbols like Confederate statutes.

Those protests must also be taken to the corporate board rooms, to the legislative halls and to any other space where racist schemes are being hatched to disenfranchise people of color, over-incarcerate them or deny their basic human rights.

When people are passive, indifferent or cowardly, our fragile democracy pays the price. How heavy a price depends on how serious and decisive citizens are in defending those democratic ideals. Right now, racist bigots are calling the nation out on the commitment to its values. You’ve been warned.

Jamala Rogers

McCLUER

Continued from A1

once a student fails one class, their chance of not graduating from high school triples. That makes the Freshman Academy a kind of early intervention program, aimed at making sure students start on the right foot and McCluer’s teachers and administrations identify who is struggling, and why.

“This is an effort to make sure that problem does not begin in the ninth grade year,” Gerald said.

The program’s main goal is to increase academic success, with the goal of eventually meeting the district’s goal of a 100 percent four-year graduation rate.

Tracee Lewis, now the Freshman Academy principal, started out at McCluer as a senior principal. Many of the students she worked with were not on track to graduate on time, due to failing classes earlier in their high school careers.

“I was trying to recover students, to get them to graduate through summer school or to graduate as fourand-a-half-year seniors or fifthyear seniors,” Lewis said. “We saw the need to begin at the beginning.”

While the focus is on academic success, the program’s philosophy involves

ADAMS

Continued from A1

we accept the abnormalcy, if you will, of the kind of trauma that kids face every day. Those are things that keep me up at night.”

Since Adams arrived in the St. Louis Public Schools as superintendent in 2008, the school district has earned full accreditation and is on the best financial ground in 50 years. The district has also launched a pilot program to develop

addressing many factors that can lead to difficulties and delays. It emphasizes building relationships between students and adults, closely monitoring academic progress and slowly introducing freshmen to the regular flow of high school.

“In order for a student to be successful, we have to teach what that looks like in high school, because it is quite different from middle school,” Lewis said. “We are spending a lot of time teaching the expectations in a centered environment where they’re not necessarily exposed to older students who have kind of learned a way around the system.”

The program is based largely on research ideas derived from the University of Chicago’s Freshman Success Institute; several administrators in the Florissant-Ferguson district, including Gerald, attended a conference on their ideas. After that, McCluer put together a program within eight months.

Sarah Winstead, a science teacher at the Freshman Academy, has been teaching freshmen at McCluer for five years. The requirements, she said, are very different from those for teaching older students.

“I have seen year after year the struggle through that transition,” Winstead said.

Key’Mon Jenkins, a current student in the Freshman

trauma-informed teaching and discipline practices within its classrooms – which addresses the issues of poverty and crime that are close to Adams’ heart.

St. Louis Public Schools, the largest district in Missouri, was struggling to stay afloat in 2007, with $40 million in debt and low test scores. In March of that year, the state school board revoked the district’s accreditation for not meeting state standards and took control.

When the Missouri State Board of Education removed authority from the locally

Academy’s inaugural class, said he likes the program so far and thinks interacting with a smaller segment of students will be a positive experience.

Jenkins is a member of the Honors Cohort, a group of above-average students who attend all four classes together throughout the day. He said he thinks dividing classes this way will be helpful both for students like him and those who struggle academically.

elected St. Louis Board of Education, it created a threemember Special Administrative Board (SAB) to manage the district. The old school board still meets on a monthly basis, but it does not have any power in terms of finance and policy.

Rick Sullivan, president and CEO of the SAB, said years of mismanagement and inconsistent leadership was the main reason for the district’s financial and academic struggles.

“The district was severely impacted by constant turnover of board members and

“Say, last year I was in a class with some other students who didn’t learn like I did. The teacher usually talked too fast for the other students, and it didn’t allow them to learn at a good rate,” Jenkins said. “So I feel like it’ll help them if the fast learners are in one group and other learners are in a different group. They can learn at a different pace.”

Winstead said she hopes the more structured nature

superintendents,” Sullivan said. “Prior to Dr. Adams, seven superintendents had come and gone in a five-year period, so it’s easy to see why many things weren’t managed properly and how operational and academic problems occurred as a result.”

Sullivan said the SAB’s main goal when they started was getting students reading on an age-appropriate level.

“Accreditation was a step along the way, and many people will identify that as Dr. Adams’ crowning achievement,” Sullivan said.

of the Freshman Academy will help students understand the resources available to them, as well as provide a better introduction to the expectations of high school.

“As a teacher, I have to be a lot more deliberate in the way that I structure my classes, from the environment to what’s on the walls to the things that I say,” Winstead said. “You’re not just teaching academics, you’re teaching the

“But I think there is a lot more to be said about what he’s done. There’s a terrific foundation that he’s put in place at St. Louis Public Schools.”

That foundation includes strong principals and teachers in the schools, financial stability and overwhelming community support, Sullivan said.

Early childhood programs have also expanded since Adams’ arrival. He worked with the SAB to create more preschool classrooms and, as a result, the number of children

skills for being a high school student, and you’re teaching the skills for being an adult too.”

Gerald said it’s important to talk about the many factors that influence education, including race. Most of the students at McCluer are African-American. Gerald believes schools are often an environment where students and educators feel uncomfortable discussing race and current events, but he wants to change that.

“It manifests in ways that are not healthy, because nobody talked about how you respond to an officer of the law,” Gerald said. “So you watch this play out in the news, you come back to school and nobody still talks about it. And you think, ‘Why did that kid do that?’ Well, just maybe, we can talk about it in class.” Gerald said one of his biggest goals is to rewrite the narrative about what educators in North County can accomplish.

“We’re doing work that is going to change how we educate children, and it’s worth talking about,” Gerald said. “If nothing else, what this is going to do is begin a dialogue for what we can do different to educate children better right here in St. Louis.” Jessica Karins is a St. Louis American editorial intern from Webster University.

enrolled in early education increased from about 1,400 in 2007 to about 2,300 currently. Since 2007, attendance is up from 89 to 92 percent overall, and from 80 to 90 percent at some of the district’s 15 high schools.

On September 23, Adams will receive the 2017 Stellar Performer in Education Award at the St. Louis American Foundation’s Salute to Excellence in Education Scholarship and Awards Gala. The proceeds from the event, continued on page A9

Michael Smith teaches leadership to students in McCluer High School’s new Freshman Academy on Tuesday, August 22.

Photo by Wiley Price

GREGORY

Continued from A1

except to say that his father knew his place in the canon of comedy and used it to bring attention to the causes he worked for.

“My father truly believed that it was his responsibility – his mandate – to use every gift he had and every privilege given to him to fight every day for the advancement of the human race,” Maqubela said.

He offered up little-known facts about his father’s activism. How he traveled to Ethiopia during their period of famine in the early 1980s, giving away his nutritional products to the masses. How the resistance of Northern Ireland reached out to him for tips on how political prisoners should safely fast and engage in hunger strikes.

The irony – that he helped one group to eat and taught another how to starve – was not lost on Maqubela.

“If it had something to do with the uplifting of humanity,” Maqubela said, “he was there.”

Origins of an icon

Richard Claxton Gregory was born to Lucille and Preston Gregory on October 12, 1932 in St. Louis and raised in the historic neighborhood known as the Ville.

Growing up poor in a single-parent household during the Great Depression helped him to develop his sense of humor and a resolve to demand change when he witnessed inequality or injustice at an early age.

“It was vicious what we went through in this town,” Gregory said during his keynote address for the Missouri Statewide Kickoff of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday at Harris-Stowe State University in 2012.

He was a student – star track athlete and class president – at Sumner High

School when he led his first civil rights campaign. At the time there were 11 high schools in the city – eight white and three black – and the conditions were so substandard and congested that it spurred Gregory into action.

“The students decided they didn’t like these conditions,” his younger brother Ronald Gregory, also a star track athlete, told The American in 2012. “So Dick said, ‘We don’t need to walk out just to walk out – if we are going to walk out, let’s organize.’”

The elder Gregory helped unify the students at all three of the black schools. The Sumner students walked out and marched to Vashon High School and picked those students up. The Sumner and Vashon youth walked to Washington Tech High School, and then all three schools marched together to the St. Louis Board of Education.

“They marched to the board in the fall of 1951,” Ronald Gregory said. “And in the start of January ‘52, the incoming freshman went to their own building at the site of the old Bates Elementary School – and they filled the whole school up. That lets you know how crowded it had to be at Sumner.”

Even before the march, Dick Gregory fought for black student athletes to have the opportunity to compete on the state level.

“At the time he started running, black and white athletes weren’t allowed to compete together,” Ronald Gregory said. “Missouri state track championships and cross country was exclusively for white athletes. And he pushed legislation, telling them that they had to open this door.”

Dick Gregory went on to become the first African American to win the Missouri state mile title at the state cross country championships.

The track at Sumner High School was eventually named after Gregory and his brother – who became acclaimed distance runners in high

school and college.

First black crossover comic

After being drafted in the military derailed his college career, Gregory eventually settled in Chicago in 1956 and decided he would make a life for himself as a standup comedian. His big break came when he became a last-minute replacement at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club in 1961.

His racially charged observations made Hefner an instant fan and quickly catapulted Gregory into the national spotlight. He was the first black standup comedian to cross over into mainstream entertainment.

“Dick Gregory used his razor-sharp wit to slice open and expose the racial injustices that are a continuing reality for people of color in America – and he forever changed the landscape of black comedy in the process,” said Donald M. Suggs, executive editor and publisher of The St. Louis American “He became a national

sensation in the early 1960s, but after he joined a demonstration for black voting rights in Mississippi in 1962, he became a dedicated activist for social change. As a participant in the Civil Rights Movement, he not only put his livelihood – but also his life –at risk.”

He was comedy’s first black star, but he chose to focus on the movement work instead of his career after getting a call from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“It was Dick Gregory that went with us around to the bars and pool halls,” Andrew Young, a civil rights icon in his own right, said about Gregory in the television special “Why We Laugh.” “He was there to help people to realize that the only way this movement could be defeated is if people lost their cool and got angry.”

Eventually it became too taxing to do both, so he walked away from comedy at the height of his fame and popularity to fully devote himself to the fight for civil rights. His activism came first –

before his career and even before his family.

“Because of his commitment to constantly work for social change, at best he was home 60 days out of the year – at best,” Maqubela said. “But when we did see him, he was Dad. And he made sure to include us in his work in activism.”

Lillian Gregory, his wife of 59 years, was pregnant with one of their 11 children when she spent a week in jail during the unrest in Selma.

“As a family, all of us

understood that this work was not going to just be done by him,” Maqubela said. “One of my sisters, Ayanna Gregory, jokes about the fact that in our family, being arrested in the name of civil rights was a badge of honor.”

Accessible and committed

One character trait that set Gregory apart among other celebrities of his caliber was his accessibility. He never traveled with bodyguards. His home number was listed in the phonebook. If he was home, he would answer. If he had the

time, would lend himself to causes, big or small.

“When someone was in need – whether it was at the level of Dr. King or Medgar Evers, or it was a small boy in a rural town who felt he had been done an injustice – Dick Gregory was there,” Maqubela said. “He would travel to the top universities, being paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak. At the same time, he would travel on his own dime and pass up paid engagements for those who he felt needed his support.”

It was when they helped their father begin to carry his torch that the Gregory children truly grasped an understanding of their father’s status as a global treasure.

“The love our community had for our father, when he would be out about around this country – and the world – he would want for nothing,” said Maqubela. “Because they knew that Dick Gregory would fight for them, and that’s exactly what he did up until the very end.”

As an author, speaker and activist who even returned to his comedy roots for special engagements, Gregory kept up with the rigorous demands of his time up until a couple of months before he passed away. Maqubela spent the last couple of weeks before he was hospitalized working with him in editing and finalizing what would be his last book, “Defining Moments of Black History: Read Between the Lies.” He kept his love for humanity top of mind.

“He said this up until the day he died – it was literally written on the dry-erase board in his hospital room – ‘Be loving and lovable.’ For him, it was not about being loved; it was ‘are you loving and lovable to those you are interacting with?’ That was him, always putting others first.”

Dick Gregory is survived by his wife Lillian, ten of their children, and a host of grandchildren, family and friends. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Dick Gregory speaks his mind to CNN anchor Don Lemon in Ferguson in August, 2014.

Photo by Maurice Meredith

All kinds of messed up on the Scottrade deal

The Scottrade Center deal has turned into a complete mess. Lawsuits and accusations galore. Petty talk and residual hard feelings abound. It’s hard to know where to start.

First, you have the St. Louis Board of Aldermen who, in February, passed an ordinance to put $67.5 million in taxpayer’s money – or $105.9 million with interest over 30 years – into making improvements at the Scottrade Center – the home of the Blues hockey team.

Comptroller Darlene Green told the aldermen back when they were deliberating the bill that promising this money would hurt the city’s credit rating and she didn’t support it. Green has since refused to sign on the dotted line to authorize the issuance of the bond for that very reason. (There are legal precedents that say she is within her right as comptroller to do this, but the Blues have since filed a lawsuit against her, challenging her authority to protect the city’s credit in this way.)

Then on August 11, 20th Ward Alderwoman Cara Spencer and activists sued the city and the Blues, arguing that the new city ordinance goes against the 50-year leasing agreement that the city and the Blues agreed to in the 1990s. The lease states that the owners of the St. Louis Blues and Scottrade Center need to pay for their own improvements on the facility. The suit also alleges that the ordinance goes against state law.

The latest came out in Tony Messenger’s piece in the Post-Dispatch about political in-fighting between Green, Mayor Lyda Krewson and Treasurer Tishaura Jones Basically, because Green has refused to sign the issuance of the bonds for the arena improvements, Green and Krewson’s office asked Jones if she could help. Jones has the authority to issue bonds, and the city makes a good bit of money off the parking from Scottrade events.

Messenger writes that Jones would have agreed to use her

but that offer got lost in politics and lawsuits.

approach that was a variation of the board bill and state law, Martinez said.

However, she said the mayor’s office has repeatedly asked Green for the financial projections of whether or not the Treasurer’s Office would be able operate under the new structure. She has never received them, she said.

bonding authority to help the deal under two conditions.

First, the Scottrade ordinance would have to be repealed and replaced with one that more accurately reflected the new financial agreement – specifically stating her involvement. And she also asked that the Blues agree to a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), which was one of Jones’ most widely supported ideas during her mayoral campaign. Basically, if the public is going to dole out money for stadiums, then those sport teams’ owners need to give something back to the community – other than promises of new revenues from area hotels and restaurants, etc.

Messenger wrote that Linda Martinez, the mayor’s director of economic development, told Jones that there would be no CBA. A spokesman for Krewson said that was because the deal was already done and signed into law. And Green stopped returning Jones’ calls, according to Messenger’s story.

(Green told The American that this is not true.)

Before this story moves on, it should be noted that Martinez was the attorney who represented the Blues when they signed the original lease in 1992.

The ‘second ask’ Martinez – who was not contacted for his story by Messenger, who wrote from e-mails he obtained – told The American that the story did not stop there. Messenger only wrote about what Martinez called the comptroller’s “first ask,” she said. Three and a half months ago, Martinez got a call from the comptroller, who was trying to find a way to get Jones to issue bonds for $1.5 million annually so that it would reduce the amount that city would be required to put forth from the general fund.

Green told The American that this was accurate. Before she asked the mayor’s office

to be involved, she and Jones had had a friendly meeting where Jones agreed to take a look at becoming involved in the Scottrade funding. Green had told Jones that she was surprised that the aldermen hadn’t included Jones in the decision-making sooner, and Jones seemed appreciative of that sentiment, she said.

“I called Linda Martinez because I thought the mayor’s office should be involved, so now all parties could know what everyone was doing,” Green said.

Martinez said that the comptroller’s ask would not require any kind of rewrite of the Scottrade ordinance, as Messenger stated in his article. It would require for the Parking Commission to approve an amendment to the financial agreement. Because the bill would remain intact, she didn’t see how a CBA would be able to be added at this point. Jones told The American that her financial advisor advised her that repealing the ordinance to reflect her involvement would be necessary for bond holders to support the deal. However, Martinez said that she never heard that from Jones at that time.

The $1.5 million bond support was the “first ask.” There was a second ask that Messenger didn’t write about, Martinez said.

“Later on, the comptroller wanted more and that would require Board Bill 92,” Martinez said.

Board Bill 92 was introduced by Alderman Jeffrey Boyd on June 30 – just after letters stopped flowing between Jones and Green. The bill, which passed on July 14, dramatically changes the Treasurer’s Office’s funding structure. In essence, the bill takes more revenue from the Parking Commission and puts it into the city’s general revenue fund.

This was one of several moves that Boyd made against Jones since she buried him in the 2017 mayoral contest that Jones lost to Krewson by 888 votes. It was the second time she beat Boyd in a citywide race, as he also ran against her for the position she now holds, and Boyd clearly did not forget.

As a parking commissioner, Boyd also moved and passed a policy change making Jones’ office’s travel budget subject to commission approval.

In her second “ask,” the comptroller and her financial advisers proposed a second

“I’m not saying it’s a bad idea,” Martinez said. “If for some reason there was a big fire and the treasurer had to come up with $4.5 million, would she be able to operate?” She said the Board of Aldermen saw some kind of financial study that showed “the positives will cover the costs.” And that’s why they approved it, she said. Now this is where it gets really interesting. The American reached out to Green for her perspective on Martinez’s timeline, and Green said, “The comptroller’s office had nothing to do with Board Bill 92.” Green even said that Martinez was trying to pull her staff “over in that direction,” of supporting the board bill. She disagrees with Martinez’ version of events.

“I cannot allow Linda Martinez to rope us into something we were not in agreement with,” Green said. “I am one of the few who happened to agree (with the treasurer) that it could harm the Office of the Treasurer. That was very explicitly stated publicly.” Green even said that at the time Board Bill 92 was introduced, she asked Martinez, “Why would you guys support that if you want [Jones’] support for Scottrade?” From hearing Martinez’s comments, Green said it sounds like “she’s backing up Board Bill 92 on me.”

“If they would have agreed with us, then the mayor would not have signed it,” Green said. “She was with it.” Green said that from what the bill outlines, Jones’ office would have to make a transaction to the city’s coffers before paying her own expenses.

“I think that would be incorrect,” Green said, and she told Martinez that. And as far as Martinez not being able to access certain projections from the comptroller, Green said she didn’t know what Martinez was talking about.

Green believes that Board Bill 92 has thrown a big wrench into the mix, and she didn’t have anything do with that, she said.

As for a “now what,” everyone is in the middle of litigation.

In January, attorney Elkin Kistner filed a lawsuit that questions whether the Parking Commission is constitutional. The city counselor has filed a motion that supports some of the claims in Kistner’s suit. The commission generates revenue which gives Jones her bonding authority. Boyd, who serves on the Parking Commission himself, has now become a plaintiff in the suit. Yet he also supports the treasurer using her bonding authority to seal the Scottrade deal – despite the lawsuit and despite sponsoring a bill that muddies her office’s financial clarity for potential bond holders.

It’s all kinds of messed up. Jones basically said that in an August 9 letter to Green: “We are confounded by the request to help Scottrade Center renovations through state statutes that the City of St. Louis interprets as unconstitutional and board bills that are in direct conflict with state law.”

She said she can’t commit to any major decision for financing Scottrade with these legal issues pending. Green is having to respond to the Blues’ lawsuit against her while keeping up with her regular responsibilities, so all the accusations that she came up with an alternative for Board Bill 92 is a “distraction.” She is now questioning whether she made the right decision including Martinez in the mix, or if it actually made it harder for Jones and her office to communicate.

“It’s unfortunate that all sides don’t want to be in the same room to get things done,” Green said. “This is sometimes what happens at the beginning of a new administration.”

Photo by Wiley Price

Treasurer Tishaura Jones, seen here in a February 7 file photo, offered to help the city finance the Scottrade renovations –

PARK

Continued from A1

an ordinary eclipse watch party.

They did give out the standard, ISO-approved eclipse glasses to all attendees, but they also distributed clothing, food, toiletries and Metro Transit passes. There were booths helping people with health services, and others helping connect people to psychological evaluations and job placements.

The park filled up with people, who picked out new clothes and sandwiches, and sat talking or dozing on folding chairs in the shade. Chris Rice, Larry Rice’s son, played acoustic guitar and sang for the attendees.

This green space, which covers about half a block, is now mainly used as a dog park. But as Larry Rice explained, it was once a gathering place for the homeless residents of St. Louis.

“What happened is the millennials with money moved

ADAMS

continued from page A6

held at the America’s Center, benefit the Foundation, which distributed more than $700,000 in minority scholarships and grants last year.

“He came into the district at a really tough time, and he did something I think is so admirable,” said Becky JamesHatter, president and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri. “He just went to work. He didn’t get into fights. He didn’t make this political. I can think of no one more deserving of this award because he took on the biggest challenge that faces this region and he did it with grace and success.”

into the neighborhood, and kicked the homeless out and put their dogs in,” Rice said.

“We’ve got a legal permit for this today, and already they’re calling the police over and over.”

This eclipse party was held to restore dignity to these human beings by “retaking the park back from the dogs” for the day, as Rice put it. “The homeless are often forgotten, particularly on a great day like this when there’s an eclipse,” Rice said. “A lot of people were getting glasses, and getting ready for the eclipse, and we wanted the homeless to feel a part of it too,” Bracely said. “We want to see people coming out of the dark, into the light. We are here giving hope back to the hopeless.”

One man, who gave his name as Liam, said he wasn’t really there for the eclipse as much as for the resources. Like most of the attendees, he had heard about the event through word of mouth.

“We need resources! We need help, and we’re tired of the police harassing us!” Liam

Up from New Orleans

Adams spent his early years in New Orleans living with his grandparents.

“My mother and father had a lot of kids – there were six of us, and they were having a difficult time raising all of us,” Adams said. “They asked my grandparents to take a couple kids, and they did.” He was about 4 when he started living with his grandparents.

“My grandparents were incredibility influential in the kind of character I have,” he said.

Adams graduated from Northeast Louisiana University in his home state in 1978, earned his masters of arts degree in elementary education from Ohio’s Xavier University in 1991, and received his

said. He wasn’t surprised when he heard that the eclipse gathering was getting complaints.

“All these lofts all around, they’re calling cause they’re rich white people,” he said. “We’re not disturbing nobody. There is no trash. We’re not drinking, we’re not drugging. What’s the problem?”

A man with a bag of candy walked around the park, distributing it to all attendees.

give her name because she was worried her abusive ex might find her – disagreed, saying she would rather sleep in a vacant building “than at Larry Rice’s place” where, she said, “The bedbugs just jump out at you.”

n “A lot of people were getting glasses, and getting ready for the eclipse, and we wanted the homeless to feel a part of it too.”

Another man at the gathering wouldn’t give his name, but said he’d been on the streets for about three months now. He came to the eclipse party because of Larry Rice.

– Bishop Jerome Bracely

“I been knowing about Larry Rice,” he said. “He’s the only person I know that’s into helping people that don’t got no homes.”

One woman – she wouldn’t

But two other women, Rhonda and Angela, said a shelter unable to meet health codes is better than no shelter at all.

“It’s dangerous for us women to be out here by ourselves,” Rhonda said. “It’s very scary. You don’t know what you’ll end up meeting, or who’ll be beside you the next morning, or what’ll happen.”

Connie Lamka, a former caseworker from New Life Evangelistic Center, said she has been working to find a church willing to lend some space. “The main thing is sleep,” Lamka said. “And maybe showers, but those are negotiable.”

n “When families are in trauma and in poverty, it severely limits their opportunities. I don’t think there is an achievement gap. I think there is an opportunity gap.”

– SLPS Superintendent Kelvin Adams

doctorate in educational leadership in administration from the University of New Orleans in 2005.

After earning his bachelor’s degree, he went to work in a traditional neighborhood school

“that you might find in North City,” he said.

“It was there that I learned how important it is to have the right person in front of that classroom,” he said.

Although he was continually asked to become a principal,

Most of the homeless women there said they were trying to get away from former husbands or boyfriends who had abused them.

Most of the people there expressed hope that after this eclipse, the work to “eclipse homelessness” and get people the resources they need to get back on their feet will continue.

Another St. Louis area shelter – the emergency summer shelter St. Louis County set up – is scheduled to close on September 15. That will, according to Lamka, “put another 40 or 50 people out on the street.” At this time, there are no new shelters planned to take those people.

“We all are out here for different reasons, we all want to do different things, but keep in mind we’re still human,”

Liam said. “Even you. You’re just one paycheck away from being homeless. I hate to say it, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s gonna hit home, and it’s gonna hit everybody.”

Around 1 p.m., after hours of waiting, the eclipse itself finally began.

“If I look at it without my

which had been created in 2003 to rescue under-performing schools, before returning to SLPS as superintendent in 2008.

“I’ve never looked at what I do as a job,” Adams said. “I enjoy coming to work every day. When it’s no longer fun, then you stop. It’s still fun today.”

he refused. After 10 years, he finally caved, he said. He soon became principal of the largest middle school and then the largest high school in New Orleans.

After Hurricane Katrina, he spent a brief stint as the executive director of human resources for St. Louis Public Schools from 2006 to 2007.

Then he returned to New Orleans to serve as the chief of staff for the state-appointed Recovery School District,

On the personal side, he’s most proud of his family and especially his wife, Karen Collins-Adams, who has supported him throughout his time as superintendent. His children – Jeremiah, Jessica and Lyndsay – have also been strong supporters, he said.

On the professional side, he said he is most proud that “we’ve been able to continue to do the work at a high level without a level of controversy.”

He believes he has earned

glasses, do you think I’ll turn into a superhero?” one man joked. Everyone gathered in the middle of the park, looking up through their glasses as the sun got smaller and smaller. A couple of people had been sleeping by the fence at the edge of the park, but someone nudged them awake as the eclipse approached totality. When the sun shrunk to just a sliver, all the streetlights switched on, as did the lights inside the library, and it looked like dusk in the middle of the day.

“That’s God! That’s God!” said Larry Rice. After a few minutes, the light started to come back. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” one man said softly, staring up at the partly covered sun. “That something so small can make so much light?”

The eclipse perceptibly cooled the park for a moment.

“I see why we need the sun now,” said a man who had slept on the street in the cold. “It would be so cold. I appreciate the sun now.”

the support of the community’s businesses, students, parents, faculty and staff.

“What happens as a result of that, whether that’s high achievement or balanced budget, means nothing if you don’t have people supporting you in terms of doing this work.”

The 2017 Salute to Excellence in Education Gala will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday, September 23, 2017 at the America’s Center Ballroom, following a reception at 5 p.m. Tickets are on sale now. Individual tickets are $85 each/$850 table, and VIP/ Corporate tickets are $1,500 table. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www. stlamerican.com and click on Salute to Excellence, or call 314-533-8000.

Healing after the shooting

Survivors

of gun violence can face an expensive, painful, lifelong struggle to adapt

By Durrie Bouscaren

St. Louis Public Radio

In 2011, Aaron Murray bought his first gun at a sporting goods store — a .40 caliber Beretta pistol. He and his wife were fixing up a foreclosed home in a tough neighborhood in the northern suburbs of St. Louis, and he wanted to protect himself. Two years later, a bullet from his own gun during a home invasion would leave him paralyzed from the waist down. Every year, as many as 600 people in the St. Louis region survive an assault with a firearm. Those close calls are not only emotionally and financially draining, but leave many victims with a lifelong disability. A first-time gun owner, Murray checked videos on YouTube to learn how to clean and use his gun. His wife, Tamieca Murray, chose a lightweight Ruger pistol. When the pair visited a local shooting range to practice their aim, they were surprised at how good it felt to shoot. “We never realized that shooting could be so cathartic,” he said. Their home in Northwoods was spacious and close to his parents. Steps

n “You spend your entire life taking something – sensation, being able to tell when someone’s touching you – for granted, and you just can’t feel it anymore.”

– Aaron Murray

lead from the lower-level driveway to the front door, past a tidy green lawn.

“We poured our heart and soul into it,” Aaron Murray said. The couple adopted two dogs; a beagle named Max and a pugChihuahua mix named Christine. The house needed new floors and some fresh paint. Murray, then 25, balanced projects with shifts as a personal trainer and graduate classes at Logan University in Chesterfield. But a spate of nearby robberies and assaults weighed on his mind.

Tamieca Murray’s younger brother lived in their spare bedroom at the time, so Murray showed him where the guns were stored, in case of an emergency. His brother-in-law shared this information

with an acquaintance, 18-year-old Saudi Lamont Brown. A few days later, on March 9, 2012, Brown came back to steal them.

Aaron Murray remembers the day clearly because his morning class at Logan was canceled, giving him an extra blissful hour of sleep. His wife had left for work, so he was alone when an intruder appeared in his bedroom.

“Around 10:30, 10:45 my bedroom door opens and I have no idea who it is,” Murray recalled. “He reaches right in the drawer before I can react.”

The intruder – later identified as Brown, who was convicted of the crime – pulled out Aaron Murray’s gun and pointed it at him. Then, he moved towards where Tamieca’s gun was stored. When Murray started to process what was happening, his first reaction was anger. He felt violated.

“He puts [my gun] to my head and says, ‘Are we really going to do this?’” Murray remembered. At that point, one of Murray’s dogs jumped from the bed down to the floor, catching the intruder’s eye.

“I see him look away for a half second, and I jump at him,” Murray said — reasoning that

Michael Johnson and the criminalization of HIV

By Dr. Fred Rottnek Guest columnist

As a physician who has spent his career in correctional settings and providing health care to persons who are homeless, I have seen how racism, poverty and heterosexism form a Bermuda Triangle, creating a deadly trap for thousands of men and women. Sometimes the barriers are in our attitudes, but sometimes they are in our structures – especially public policy.

HIV criminalization laws in the United States were written at a time when we knew little of the virus, the epidemiology, or the disease. Missouri’s laws – and those in more than 30 other states – have not been updated with our much-improved knowledge of transmission and treatment.

HIV is not easily transmitted. With diagnosis and treatment, that risk is reduced to effectively zero. With diagnosis and treatment, HIV is a manageable disease, no longer a death sentence.

The severe penalties of HIV-specific criminal codes spring from bias, misinformation and fear. They increase stigma, which drives testing and treatment underground and serves to spread HIV by discouraging people to know their status or to seek appropriate treatment if HIV-positive.

n We should end the stigma of being HIVpositive and encourage Missourians to be tested and treated.

Michael Johnson is a man trapped in the Bermuda Triangle of our racism, sexism and heterosexism. An African-American gay man from Indianapolis who grew up in poverty, Johnson struggled against the barriers that our society erects. By perseverance and hard work, despite a learning disability, he managed to access an opportunity for college education through a wrestling scholarship. Then Missouri’s outdated and flawed policies intervened in Johnson’s life. He was convicted and sentenced to more than 30 years in prison for “reckless exposure and transmission of HIV” in July 2016. The conviction was overturned, however, on December 20, 2016, based on the state’s failure to comply with Johnson’s discovery request and his inability to prepare a meaningful defense. He has now been returned to St. Charles County and has pled not guilty as the process of a re-trial gets underway.

Michael Johnson has already spent over three years incarcerated for his alleged actions. I teach our medical students at Saint Louis University not only about HIV, but also about health equity, health literacy, the effect of repetitive and cumulative trauma, and other social determinants of health. These are the influences that shape, for good or ill, an individual’s ability to thrive and flourish. Continued incarceration is unlikely to create conditions for Johnson’s future success, nor does it improve society in any way.

Johnson’s incarceration is an indictment of our society for our failures, and we would do well to heed the lessons we can learn and change our direction. Race, class, and sexual orientation continue to divide our nation, and we see dramatic results of our responses to these topics in our physical and virtual communities with some frequency.

The massacre at Pulse, the night club in Orlando, is perhaps the most shocking recent example. Ignorance can breed fear, which, in turn, can breed hatred. But this process is not inevitable. We can slow down and alter this

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ST. LOUIS AMERICAN • AUGUST 24 – 30, 2017

Dr. Fred Rottnek

Of

Aaron Murray completes a workout at Paraquad in St. Louis. Physical therapy and weight training has helped him regain his strength after he was paralyzed from the waist down when his home was invaded in 2012.

Photo by Carolina Hidalgo/St. Louis Public Radio

Bringing the hospital to the school

Children’s Hospital nurses now serving four SLPS schools

By Sandra Jordan Of The St. Louis American

With the new school year in St. Louis Public Schools comes an expanded collaboration between BJC HealthCare, St. Louis Children’s Hospital and SLPS through the “Healthy Kids-Healthy Minds” program designed to increase school nurse staffing in the district and provide health care to students, families and faculty.

BJC is funding four St. Louis Children’s Hospital nurses to staff full-time at four SLPS elementary schools: Pierre Laclede, Hodgen, Lexington, and Woodward. Adding nurses at these schools also brings SLPS closer to having a full-time school nurse in every school, as endorsed by both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Association of School Nurses.

For Ta’Lisa Davis, RN, working at Laclede is a perfect fit. She has been a nurse at Children’s Hospital for 18 years, a nurse clinician for its sickle cell program and a director at Camp Crescent, which is for children with sickle cell anemia.

When The American arrived at Laclede two mornings into the new school year, the school nurse was already tending to a young patient, a little girl.

SHOOTING

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if he was going to die, he’d rather go down with a fight.

In the struggle, Brown fired three rounds — two went through his torso, and one buried itself in Murray’s spine. Murray’s knees buckled and he dropped to the ground, as Brown fled the scene with his gun.

Bleeding profusely, Murray dragged himself to his cell phone to call 9-1-1. Police broke down the front door to get to him, and paramedics folded a sheet to carry him out to the ambulance.

That’s when the adrenaline was replaced with a searing, burning pain.

When a bullet enters a human body, it pierces through skin, organs and bone. Depending on the angle and velocity, it may tumble in a circular motion, spewing fragments of lead and ripping apart a torso as if it were jelly.

An ambulance whisked Murray to Barnes-Jewish Hospital’s emergency room in St. Louis, which treats a dozen gunshot victims every week. Because the shooter was still at large, Murray’ name was removed from the hospital’s patient rolls as a precautionary measure. Even his wife, whose coworker drove her to the hospital in a panic, was barred from seeing him for six hours.

“It was horrible,” Tamieca Murray said. “We didn’t know what was going on.”

After an emergency surgery to stop the bleeding and look for bullet fragments from his intestines, Murray was confined to a hospital bed for 11 days. After a visit by a worried aunt, hospital staff moved him to another room. Only immediate family members could know

ROTTNEK

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A few minutes later, we went upstairs to an inviting and brightly decorated nurse’s office, and the child was all smiles as the nurse escorted her back to her classroom.

The goal is to keep students healthy and in school where they can learn, and to free up teachers to teach.

“If the teachers have to do more medical stuff, that’s not their field,” Davis said. “They need to do what they are trained to do, which is teaching, and let us help out with any type of medical issues.”

Other than a couple of minor cuts and falls, her work as an onsite school nurse has mainly been treating children with asthma.

“We have asthma packets we give out to the families introducing the program and how we will be able to treat them. The success with it is we teach them while they’re here, how to use their inhalers properly and how to have the spacer available when they use it,” Davis said. “It’s a good learning model for the kids because, some of the time, the kids can go home and teach the parents.”

When medication is needed for a child with asthma, it is available, paid for by the Allergy and Asthma

where he was.

High costs of gun violence

In 2014, 943 people were shot and killed in Missouri –leaving hundreds of families mourning the loss of a child, a life partner, a breadwinner. Most of the state’s gun deaths every year are suicides. About a dozen are accidents. But even the fatality statistics mask the full toll of gun violence. According to state data, 190 patients in the city of St. Louis with assault-related gunshot wounds racked up more than $16 million in charges from St. Louis hospitals in 2014.

The figures reflect initial costs, before the bills are negotiated down by insurance companies and individuals. But not all victims are included in the data, which hospitals provide to the Missouri Information for Community Assessment database.

About half of Missouri’s gunshot victims had health insurance between 2010 and 2014 — often publicly funded Medicaid or Medicare — and were somewhat buffered from the cost. The rest were on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars, charges that may be absorbed by the hospital if the patient cannot pay.

Aaron Murray was lucky. Though young and healthy, he had enrolled in a health insurance plan through his graduate school. But the deductible was $10,000, and that proved challenging to meet.

Murray’s bills at Barnes reached $62,000 for his 11-day stay. After a month of rehabilitation care, the costs to his insurance company totaled $110,000.

For expenses that were not covered by insurance, Aaron Murray and his family

Foundation. In September, Children’s mobile asthma van will come to the school to treat students.

The Children’s Hospital nurses will perform the same duties as the more than 60

nurses hired by SLPS. They will assess health complaints, administer medications and assist students with special health care needs. They will also provide intensive case management, implement vision

and hearing screenings, verify immunizations and assist with any emergencies.

There are programs available where students can get free eyeglasses and dental care.

The nurses will also help manage students’ chronic health care needs that could affect educational achievement, such as diabetes, asthma, lifethreatening food allergies and sickle cell disease.

Superintendent Kelvin Adams selected the schools to receive the expanded health services, a health model that includes an onsite nurse, and the expertise of a licensed clinical social worker, behavioral health services and a health professional trained in trauma-informed care. A Children’s Hospital mental health care provider will work within each of the schools to consult with staff and parents regarding social, emotional and behavioral needs of students.

This could include small-group and individual counseling and behavioral assessments when needed. These providers will collaborate with the current counselors and social workers at the schools.

“Our students work hard to be their best, and these staff additions will be a tremendous addition to our

members dipped into their savings. They also applied for assistance through the Missouri Crime Victim’s Compensation Program, which covered what the family could not.

Medical bills make up the largest chunk of expenses for the state’s $7.2 million victim’s assistance fund, totaling $5.6 million in fiscal year 2013 – the most recent numbers provided by the Missouri Department of Public Safety. Victims can receive no more than $25,000 each, according to state statute.

“The biggest cost is probably the cost to the person’s individuality,” said Shawn D’Abreau, a Jefferson City-based lobbyist for people with disabilities. D’Abreau sees a direct link between the glut of handgun availability and the St. Louis murder rate.

process through our words and our actions. We all have the power to influence others. As Michael Johnson faces the next step of his legal journey, we have the power to frame public and private discussion around him and the issues surrounding his case. We should honor Michael Johnson, ourselves and our community by pursuing knowledge, reflecting on our biases, and carefully selecting our vocabulary. We can choose to always use language about Johnson that respects his full humanity. We ought to do even more. We should seek medically

D’Abreau also lives with a spinal cord injury that he sustained as a teenager, after a random attack at a south St. Louis high school.

From recovery to career

For Murray, the weight of his injuries first hit him as he lay in bed at a rehabilitation hospital.

His mother was giving him a sponge bath, wiping his feet.

“I couldn’t tell if the water was warm, if it was cold, I couldn’t tell how hard she was scrubbing … all of a sudden I just lose it,” Murray remembered. “You spend your entire life taking something – sensation, being able to tell when someone’s touching you – for granted, and you just can’t feel it anymore.”

n HIV criminalization laws in the United States were written at a time when we knew little of the virus, the epidemiology, or the disease.

accurate information about HIV and use our power as citizens to change public policy so that

dedicated nurses, who will help ensure students stay healthy – both physically and emotionally – to achieve their academic goals,” said Stacy Clay, deputy superintendent of student support services, Saint Louis Public Schools.

“The partnership between our schools and Children’s reinforces the commitment we all share to St. Louis youth.” As part of the current “Healthy Kids-Healthy Minds” program, Children’s Hospital provides immunization administration, dental care and health screenings through the St. Louis Children’s Hospital Healthy Kids Express. Children’s also provides access to educational programs including Safety Street for K – 5 grade, teen outreach in middle schools, and food allergy toolkits.

Davis is grateful for the opportunity from BJC and Children’s Hospital, SLPS and Laclede leadership, including Principal DaMaris White, to have what she already describes as an “amazing” experience.

“I really love my job,” Davis said. “It’s not a huge difference from the hospital; I just bring the hospital to the community – it’s the same population, it’s just in a different setting.”

Believing he could no longer be the type of chiropractor he wanted to be, he applied to Washington University’s graduate program for occupational therapy — a career that would allow him to help people with disabilities manage their daily needs.

Five years after his shooting, Murray pauses his workout at the gym to demonstrate special maneuvers on a wheelchair. Learning do a wheelie is important, he explained, because it can help reduce the pressure that builds up in his lower back. Hopping a curb, or balancing on the back wheels to get down shallow stairs, makes getting around easier.

He teaches this to other people, at his job as an adaptive exercise therapist for Paraquad in St. Louis. In the fall, he helps run a wheelchair basketball team for the Disabled Athlete Sports Association.

Murray spent a month at the Rehabilitation Institute, receiving physical therapy.

The costs of this type of care are not included in state totals, and are not always covered by insurance. Hospital spokeswoman Tracie LeeLambert said the facility charges $1,000 to $1,500 a day for patients with new spinal cord injuries.

On top of medical bills, the Murrays realized that remodeling their house to accommodate his wheelchair would cost $70,000 or more.

So they rented out their home and moved into a smaller one, originally built as a Habitat for Humanity project in the early 2000s.

Murray had to re-learn how to shower, drive and cross the street without the use of his legs.

it is based on medical science. We should end the stigma of being HIV-positive and encourage Missourians to be tested and treated. The impact of that change would create a healthier and safer world for all of us.

Fred Rottnek, MD, MAHCM, is the director of Community Medicine and

“It’s sad to think how much my life changed and everything. But over the past five years there’s been a lot of positivity in my life, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Murray said. In November of 2013, Brown pleaded guilty to the shooting. A St. Louis County Circuit Court judge sentenced Brown to 25 years in prison. Murray waived his right to make a victim’s impact statement, saying he was too angry to face his assailant. As for the guns, Tamieca Murray’s firearm was taken by police investigators as evidence after the shooting. Police never recovered Murray’s gun.

Follow Durrie on Twitter: @durrieB Reprinted with permission from news.stlpublicradio.org.

Professor in the Family and Community Medicine at Saint Louis University. As the previous medical director of Corrections Medicine for the Saint Louis County Department of Public Health, his clinical practice for the past 15 years was at the Buzz Westfall Justice Center and Family Courts.

Photo by Wiley Price

Ta’Lisa Davis, RN, a Children’s Hospital nurse now assigned to Pierre Laclede Career Academy in the St. Louis Public School District, demonstrates the proper technique for using asthma inhalers.

Aaron Murray pops a wheelie to get down a shallow flight of stairs at Paraquad in St. Louis, where he works as an adaptive exercise therapist.

Photo by Durrie Bouscaren / St. Louis Public Radio

Business

Wells Fargo gives –and connects

Corporate program encourages nonprofits to work together and increase impact

By Sophie Hurwitz

For The St. Louis American

On August 8 at the Vue 17 event space, Wells Fargo held an educational event to teach nonprofit leaders how to apply for grant funding through Wells Fargo Gives, the corporation’s competitive grant-funding program.

Any nonprofit leader in the St. Louis area was eligible to come to the event, whether they’d been previously involved in Wells Fargo’s charitable programs or not. By bringing nonprofits together, Wells Fargo Gives aims to increase its philanthropic impact in the St. Louis area and to connect nonprofits with Wells Fargo employees.

Wells Fargo’s charitable efforts are twopronged. It is investing $5 million per year in efforts to bridge racial and economic divisions in the region, and it also encourages its own employees to go out into the community and volunteer. Each Wells Fargo employee gets 16 hours per year of paid community service time.

n Wells Fargo has hosted two to four Wells Fargo Gives sessions since September 2014, and in that time they’ve managed to reach “over 556” organizations, according to Vanessa Cooksey, head of Community Affairs.

“Before I started working here, it kind of blew my mind that people here could actually get this benefit,” said Elisa Tomich, a communications consultant at Wells Fargo.

“So every Monday, if I wanted to take two hours for eight weeks to go volunteer at a school, I could go do that, and that would count as work time, actually.”

At the Wells Fargo Gives event, the giving and volunteering components of Wells Fargo’s philanthropic efforts were combined.

Executive directors of St. Louis area nonprofits came to see if Wells Fargo grant funding might be available for their organizations (Wells Fargo Gives provides $275,000 per year to St. Louis nonprofits). Wells Fargo employees also were able to find new places to volunteer.

“Wells Fargo Gives is so important to us because it allows us to meet nonprofits, and so when our team members, say, ‘Hey, I’m interested in volunteering,’ we’ve got a rolodex of places they can get involved,” said Vanessa Cooksey, head of Community Affairs at Wells Fargo Advisors.

The corporation has hosted two to four Wells Fargo Gives sessions since September 2014, and in that time they’ve managed to reach “over 556” organizations, Cooksey said. In that time, the need for support from nonprofits in the St. Louis community has increased, while those nonprofits have often struggled to grow and meet that demand.

See PROGRAM, B6

Local bar association honored for pro bono program

Sparked nearly 17K hours of free legal service in first half of 2017

American staff

Willie J. Epps Jr., board treasurer of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis (BAMSL), recently accepted the LexisNexis Community & Educational Outreach Award from the National Association of Bar Executives on behalf of BAMSL. The awards honor outstanding bar public service and law-related education programs. BAMSL received the 2017 “Local Bar with 5,000 or Members or Affiliated Foundation” award for its Hon. Richard B. Teitelman See BAR, B2

Darion D. Robinson joined the executive administrative team at City Garden Montessori School as the Volunteer and Community Engagement Coordinator. The St. Louis charter school follows the Montessori model of education, which focuses on children’s’ independence and individuality. Robinson will lead the school’s volunteer program, community engagement efforts, and affordable housing initiative.

Lydia McGhee joined SSM Health’s Marketing and Communications Department in the newly created role of system manager for Recruitment Marketing. McGhee will develop recruitment initiatives to attract qualified candidates to work for the Catholic nonprofit health service. She previously worked as a branch marketing coordinator for AXA Advisors, LLC.

William F. Tate the dean of the graduate school at Washington University, received the Inspiring Leaders in STEM Award from INSIGHT into Diversity magazine. The award recognizes professionals from underrepresented groups who have made advances in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education. As dean, Tate has worked to strengthen interdisciplinary graduate education and to encourage students of all kinds to consider STEM careers.

Cecilia Nadal was named the 2017 Ethical Society of St. Louis Ethics in Action Awardee. The award recognizes Nadal’s work with the organization she founded to bring diverse communities together through music and theater, Gitana Productions. The Ethical Society, a secular Humanist congregation, awards a monetary stipend to St. Louis leaders who “try to help the powerless and bring hope and positive change.”

Ron Hines was appointed to the Board of Directors of The St. Louis Crisis Nursery. The organization works to prevent child abuse and neglect by providing emergency care and support to families and children in need. Hines works as a Package Division manager for UPS and has an MBA from the University of Missouri.

BAMSL Board Treasurer Willie Epps accepts the National Association of Bar Executives LexisNexis Community & Educational Outreach Award on Aug. 10 at NABE’s annual meeting in New York City.

Lisa Alexander was appointed to the board of the Lions Club International for a two-year term as a director. She is the first AfricanAmerican to hold this position. The Lions Club is the world’s’ largest international service club, with the goal of providing diverse kinds of community aid through volunteering. Alexander works as a marketing specialist at Realty Exchange.

Darion D. Robinson

William F. Tate

Cecilia Nadal

Desiree Coleman, vice president of Community Relations, Wells Fargo Advisors, addressed local non-profit leaders about Wells Fargo Gives, the corporation’s competitive grant-funding program, on August 8 at Vue 17.

Lisa Alexander

Ron Hines

Photo by Wiley Price

Lydia McGhee

Tips to avoid college ID theft

Better Business Bureau

If you have a college student packing to live on or near campus this fall, now’s a good time to talk about preventing fraud while they’re away from home. Better Business Bureau (BBB) recommends that they take seven simple steps to protect themselves from identity theft and other fraud on campus.

“Identity theft can affect penniless students as much or more than their parents,” said Michelle Corey, St. Louis BBB President and CEO. “Sometimes a relatively clean credit record can be very attractive to thieves. By establishing good habits for monitoring and detecting fraud, students can establish healthy financial habits for the rest of their lives.”

About 4 percent of identity theft reported to the Federal Trade Commission last year involved people 19 or under –a total of 15, 496 complaints. The number jumped to 15 percent for those age 20 to 29, for a total of 58, 904 complaints.

BBB recommends that college-bound students take the following steps to fight identity theft on campus: School mailboxes are not always secure and often can be accessed easily in a dorm or apartment. To combat sticky fingers in the mailroom, have sensitive mail sent to a permanent address, such as a parent’s home or a post office box.

Important documents should be stored under lock and

continued from page B1

Memorial St. Louis Pro Bono Challenge.

In partnership with Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, BAMSL implemented this program to encourage and support pro bono work, and to publicly recognize those lawyers and law firms who step up to the Pro Bono Challenge. Participating firms pledge to actively encourage pro bono work and strive to perform a total of 10 hours of pro bono work on average per year per attorney located in St. Louis. The Pro Bono

n “Judge Teitelman’s legacy was that of service to people in need.”

– Willie J. Epps Jr., BAMSL board treasurer

Challenge law firms provided a collective 16,995.4 hours of pro bono work to the St. Louis community during the first half of 2017. Current participating firms include Bryan Cave LLP, Husch Blackwell LLP, Capes Sokol, Jacob Law Firm, LLC, David B. Lacks, P.C. Law Offices, Lathrop & Gage LLP, Dennis Buchheit, Attorney, Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C., Dentons US LLP, Paule, Camazine & Blumenthal, P.C., Dowd Bennett LLP, Polsinelli PC, Fox Galvin, LLC, The Simon Law Firm, P.C., Gray, Ritter & Graham, P.C., Stinson Leonard Street LLP, Herzog Crebs LLP and Thompson

n About 4 percent of identity theft reported to the Federal Trade Commission last year involved people 19 or under – a total of 15, 496 complaints.

potential fraud, the less you’ll suffer in the long run. Getting your statements online is more secure, but make sure you actually look at the statements. When shopping on unfamiliar websites, always check the company out with BBB. Look for a BBB Accredited Business seal; click on the seal to confirm it’s legitimate.

Check your credit report at least once a year with all three reporting bureaus for any suspicious activity or inaccuracies. You can do this for free at www. annualcreditreport.com. For more tips you can trust, visit bbb.org or call toll free at 888-996-3887. Consumers may obtain BBB Business Profiles or post Customer Reviews by going to www.bbb.org.

Coburn LLP. “Judge Teitelman’s legacy was that of service to people in need,” Epps said. “I am so proud of the BAMSL lawyers and law firms who met the 2017 pro bono challenge.” For more information about the LexisNexis Community and Educational Outreach Awards, visit http://www.nabenet. org/?LexisOutreach. For more information about BAMSL, visit www.bamsl.org.

Right-to-work law suspended after unions turn in 300K signatures

If signatures are valid, it will go to a statewide vote

By Jo Mannies and Marshall Griffin Of St. Louis Public Radio

With the submission of more than 300,000 signatures on Friday, August 18, Missouri’s right-to-work law won’t go into effect on August 28 and its fate likely will be put to voters in 2018.

The law is suspended, Secretary of State spokeswoman Maura Browning told St. Louis Public Radio. The office still needs to verify that at least 100,000 of the signatures are from registered voters — the minimum to force a statewide vote in November 2018.

She said the count will take weeks and that, if there isn’t enough, the law will be put in place.

More than 1,000 union members packed the rotunda at the state Capitol on Friday, and then many marched down the street to Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s office, where they turned over the petitions.

“It’s not about one party, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican,” said Billy Dicken, a Harviell resident and member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. “It’s not even about who the governor is upstairs, even though we don’t agree. It’s all about the voters, and letting us decide what we need for our families.”

State Sen. Bob Onder, a Republican from Lake St. Louis, is among the law’s major supporters. He cast the union effort as unfair to workers and the public.

“Union bosses are attempting to stifle the will of Missouri voters who voted for a pro-right-to-work legislature and governor in order to create jobs and protect workers,” Onder said in a statement sent out by the Liberty Alliance, a political action committee that supports the law. “Every signature must be examined to protect the integrity of the referendum process.”

Reprinted with permission from news.stlpublicradio.org.

The right-to-work law would bar unions and employers from requiring all workers in a bargaining unit to pay dues or fees. The General Assembly swiftly passed the law during the regular session and then-Gov. Eric Greitens signed it in February.

BioSTL named model for inclusion as growth strategy

BioSTL was named a model for other cities looking to drive cluster growth by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) in a new report, “Building Strong Clusters for Strong

Urban Economies.” The report highlights BioSTL’s longterm leadership of the cluster initiative to form a broad coalition of industry partners dedicated to promoting and supporting biosciences in the region, to develop

entrepreneurial assets and to recognize inclusion as a growth strategy. The report focuses on actionable insights like these for other city leaders looking to leverage their area’s competitive industries to build stronger urban economies.

“I said he was wrong for what he did.”

– N.Y. Giants safety Landon Collins on the low hit by Cleveland’s Briean Boddy-Calhoun that injured Giants teammate Odell Beckham, Jr.

Lutheran North makes early statement

Lutheran North enters this season with a lot of high hopes and expectations as one of the top small schools in the state of Missouri.

The Crusaders were a Class 2 state contender last season, but their season was ended by fellow smallschool powerhouse Trinity 28-21 in a classic district championship game. Trinity went on to play for the state championship while North went back to work to prepare for 2017-18.

The Crusaders were able to make an early statement this season as they ventured to Evansville, IN to take on Mater Dei High, which was the No. 1 Class 2 program in the Hoosier State. Lutheran North came away with a 39-18 victory to begin its season in high style.

Lutheran North’s dominant defense was the story of the game as it held Mater Dei to just 144 total yards with two quarterback sacks and three interceptions. Standout linebacker Devin Ruffin had two of those interceptions for North. Senior Donovan Marshall rushed for 135 yards and two touchdowns while fellow running back Canaan Brooks also scored twice, including a 58-yarder in the third quarter.

Clock busting offense

The points were coming at a fast and furious rate at a couple of opening night games last weekend.

Seven years ago, boxing legend James “Lights Out” Toney stepped into the UFC Octagon to face former UFC Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight champion Randy Couture. Toney, who was 42 at the time, was no longer a relevant fighter. Still on the strength of his tongue, Toney managed bait UFC President Dana White into a war of words and talk his way into a lucrative, multifight deal with the UFC. Real fight fans knew Toney didn’t stand a chance against Couture in a cage match. Fitness and dedication had never been Toney’s claim to fame. Still, the UFC promoted the circus as a legitimate fight. The UFC went so far as to Photoshop another fighter’s abs over Toney’s pot belly in the promotional photos in order to dupe the fans into buying the event.

How did UFC 118 turn out? Toney was taken to the mat just 15 seconds into the bout and forced to tap out just 3:19 into the fight. It was clear that Toney belonged in an Old Country Buffet, not an Octagon. His UFC contract was immediately cancelled, but not before he pocketed $500K and left a long trail of disappointed fans. Couture vs Toney wasn’t the first circus show fight. In 1976, Muhammad Ali earned $6 million to fight

Earl Austin Jr.

Photo By Wiley Price

SportS EyE

With Alvin A. Reid

Sun, moon join to briefly eclipse sports, American dramas

The Los Angeles Dodgers

staged a depiction of the total solar eclipse in their clubhouse Monday afternoon with expressionless outfielder Yasiel Puig passing in front of redhaired third baseman Justin Turner

The video goes dark for a second, then Puig continues passing by Turner. Simple, funny and effective.

Puig writes on Twitter and an anonymous voice says on the video, “This is just a joke,” before the humorous rendition begins. It’s sad that it is necessary to put a disclaimer on the simplest of pranks these days, but that’s where we are as a nation – especially if skin color is possibly involved.

I’m not alone in saying I was moved by the eclipse. My family was prepared to drive where needed to view the spectacle either Sunday night or early Monday. We caught a break and got a bright sun and no clouds in Kirkwood.

Whether this feeling I have today wears off in time, I don’t know. But for one brief, un-shining moment there was Camelot. When the sun went dark, it’s corona blazing around that black disk, all of our squabbles and troubles seemed so petty.

n When the sun went dark, it’s corona blazing around that black disk, all of our squabbles and troubles seemed so petty.

The score of a game, sitting for the national anthem, a race-driven boxing match, KKK and Nazis marching in the streets – it all seemed as far away as the sun. It’s now back to reality – but with a renewed sense of purpose and dedication to seeing “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Little League, big stunt

While watching the St. Louis Cardinals play against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Williamsport, Pa., last Sunday I commented to a friend, “this is a real game, with real

importance. The team that loses won’t find it amusing.”

The Cardinals lost 6-4 and dropped three-and-a-half games behind the Chicago Cubs. Cardinals announcer John Rooney said earlier in the week “They’re going to play a Sunday night game in Williamsport, so ESPN can promote their telecasts of the Little League World Series. That’s what it comes down to,” he told KMOX.

“It’s strange to me. It’s a nice thing to promote baseball, and I’m all for that, but with teams trying to win a division, and to do that at this point in the season, I just find it rather

strange.”

I think the Little League World Series is one of the biggest shams in the annals of sport. The most ridiculous aspect is calling it a “world series” while there are separate brackets for American and international teams.

The USA is guaranteed a spot in the final game, even though there could be two or more international teams better than the American representative. It could be that two or more American teams are better than the best international team, but I seriously, seriously doubt that.

Another problem involves

the diversity of American teams. You sometimes have a “black team,” or a “Latino team,” that reaches Williamsport and has a chance to represent this nation in the title game. If a black or brown team is not there, there are hardly any minority participants. Why aren’t there more teams with black, brown AND white players? All-white teams dominate the American bracket of the Little League World Series. There’s probably more diversity in the NHL than the U.S. bracket of the LLWS.

Mayweather, McGregor messy

Thank goodness, this travesty between Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Conor McGregor will be over sometime late Saturday night in Las Vegas. The fight begins at about 10:45 p.m. in St. Louis, by the way.

The race-baiting, namecalling and innuendo anchored

championship boxing match can’t be over soon enough. It’s an embarrassment to boxing. I’m not sure what it is to MMA, because I’m not a fan of street fights and barefoot brawling.

As ugly as the racial aspect is, Mayweather’s history of domestic abuse seems to be off limits in press conferences and media coverage. The American sports media can’t get enough of Ezekiel Elliott’s suspension and appeal, yet the guy who did time for abusing a woman isn’t under verbal or written attack.

Mayweather, who owns a strip club in Las Vegas, seems to take women for granted. He shared this story this week after he and McGregor, supposedly, just happened to be in Brooklyn in the same place at the same time.

“I was like, ‘I am going to let him know straight up. … I am going to let everybody know where I stand,’” Mayweather said.

“He was with all his guys and at the time I was with all my female friends. I say having

one [woman] is too close to having none so I had about four of my girls with me and then my daughter was with me.

“I let him know, even without my security or my team, I’m still tough. ... I ain’t no punk. I’m just letting [McGregor] know that. So, I’m saying, ‘What’s up little dude?’ Just to see if he wants to pop off, because he was popping off on stage.

“He didn’t say nothing.” Well, I too am lost for words. I hope this fight has the same ending as the Bootney Farsnworth – 40th Street Black rematch.

Although that would most likely mean there would be a second Mayweather-McGregor spectacle. With my luck, it would be held in St. Louis.

Alvin A. Reid is a panelist on the Nine Network program, Donnybrook and appears on ABC’s The Allman Report and several sports radio shows, including Frank Cusumano’s “The Press Box” on KFNS. His Twitter handle is #aareid1.

Alvin A. Reid

Andrew McCutchen watches a game with members of a Little League team that will participate in the Little League World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals played against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Williamsport, Pa., last Sunday, the home of the Little League World Series to draw more attention to the event.

InsIde sports

With Earl Austin Jr.

Dick Gregory, track star

Before he was a comic or civil rights leader, he burned at Sumner and SIUE

Our city lost a local icon and national treasure over the weekend when Dick Gregory passed away at the age of 84.

Gregory was a prominent civil rights activist, comedian, author, motivational speaker and entrepreneur all wrapped up into one powerful package.

I had the honor of sharing the same stage with Mr. Gregory years ago at a couple of Gateway Classic Sports Foundation events in which he was the guest speaker and I was the master of ceremonies. To spend

n I can speak to his prowess as excellent athlete before he ever became the social conscience of Black America for so many decades.

time with him was a oncein-a-lifetime experience that I’ll never forget. He was an amazing man. There are people much more qualified than me who can speak to Dick Gregory’s enormous impact as a civil rights leader. As a sports person, what I can speak to is his prowess as an excellent athlete before he ever became the social conscience of Black America for so many decades. Dick Gregory was a fantastic track and field/ cross country performer during his high school days at Sumner High in the early 1950s.

CLUTCH

Continued from B3

see the fight live. Just think about it. The greatest technical boxer of his generation will stand across the ring, a boxing ring, against a guy who has never fought in a professional boxing match in his life. If it wasn’t for the massive amount of revenue at stake and the larger-thanlife personalities involved, the Nevada State Athletic Commission would probably not even sanction such a farcical fight.

Whoever first uttered the phrase “talk is cheap” is probably rolling over in their grave. Talk is lucrative. Look no further than the two brash fighters who will collectively earn hundreds of millions of dollars this weekend if you don’t believe me.

Mayweather vs McGregor is the second-greatest con job in American history (See the

PREP

Continued from B3

Francis Howell Central defeated Fort Zumwalt East 70-52 in a major league shootout in St. Charles County. The teams combined for nearly 1,200 yards of total offense with Howell Central racking up 763 yards. Junior Dontae Horace rushed for 158 yards and three touchdowns while Keon Waters rushed for 129 yards and four TDs. Quarterback Justin Pawlowski rushed for 156 yards while passing for 184 yards and two scores.

Ritenour defeated Holt 86-49 in a score that resembled more of a basketball game than a football game. Senior quarterback led the Huskies’ offensive onslaught with 262 yards rushing and five touchdowns. Despite the onesided margin, the Indians still managed to put up nearly 50 points.

current White House occupant for #1). McGregor, who sports an 18-3 MMA record, has no chance of defeating Mayweather in a boxing match. He’s too slow, too inexperienced and too unskilled. Just like Toney was embarrassed in the Octagon, nine years ago, McGregor will be humiliated against Mayweather. The only real question is whether the defensive-minded Mayweather will stick to his usual script and outbox McGregor for 12 rounds or use his superior reflexes and skills to counterpunch McGregor into unconsciousness.

I believe anyone who drops $100 on this spectacle, expecting a real fight, will be punished for twelve full rounds of boredom. My prediction: Floyd Mayweather Jr. wins via the easiest decision victory of his life.

Promising Wildcats

Hazelwood West lost its opener 34-27 to visiting Webster Groves in a hard fought game, but I came away very impressed with a couple of its talented young players. Junior wide receiver Vicario Upchurch is a big target at 6’3” with excellent speed. He had five receptions for 150 yards and three touchdowns on scores of 31, 14 and 78 yards. Sophomore running back Charles Davis is a 6’3” 225-pound bruiser who scored excited the home crowd with some gut-busting runs with breakaway speed. These two young athletes will be worth watching this season.

An impressive debut

Sophomore running back Gideon Niboh of Francis Howell enjoyed an excellent debut performance in his first high school start in last Friday’s victory over Mehlville. The 5’6” 155-pound Niboh rushed for 120 yards

Sumner High has been the home to some of the greatest athletes that this city has even seen. Dick Gregory is one of those great former Bulldogs.

Win/Win for

Cavs and Celtics

Tuesday night, the NBA world was set on fire when the Cleveland Cavaliers traded Kyrie Irving to the Boston Celtics for Isaiah Thomas Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic and the Brooklyn Nets’ 2018 firstround draft pick.

The trade is rare in many ways. First, it was a deal between the top two teams in the Eastern Conference. Secondly, the deal features two current NBA All-Stars. Fans and analysts are racing to determine a winner and a loser in this blockbuster deal. In reality, both teams come out ahead.

The Cavs found themselves in a bind after Irving demanded requested a trade at the start of the offseason. Irving is one of the best and most-exciting stars in the league, but was tired of being overshadowed LeBron James

It’s nothing short of amazing that the Cavs were able to net Thomas (28.9 points and

and scored three touchdowns on runs of 59, 4 and 6 in the Vikings’ 49-19 vivctory.

RIP

The St. Louis prep football community lost a couple of young men over the past two weeks. Former SLUH standout David Jackson tragically died last week in a drowning accident near Rolla. He was 19. Jackson was an excellent football and basketball player for the Junior Billikens. Hazelwood East lineman

Daven Turner passed away just before he was to begin his senior season. Turner was a returning defensive tackle for the Spartans this season. Our thoughts and prayers go out the families and friends of these young men who left us way too soon.

After his stellar high school career at Sumner, Dick Gregory ventured to Southern Illinois University, where he competed for two seasons. At one time, he held the school record in both the mile and the 880. He was the first African American to receive the SIU Outstanding Athletic Award.

Along with his younger brother Ronald, the Gregory brothers dominated high school distance running in the state for the first half of the decade. Both of

5.9 assists), the ultimate 3-andD guy in Crowder (13.9 points and 5.8 rebounds) and still land a pick that will likely be a Top 5 pick in next year’s draft.

The deal gives the Cavs enhanced depth as they attempt to make another run at the juggernaut Golden State Warriors. The team signed point guard Derrick Rose earlier this offseason, giving them another option in the backcourt for those times when the diminutive Thomas puts the team at a disadvantage on the defensive side of the ball.

Also, If James bolts for greener pastures after the season, the Cavs will have the money to keep Thomas and a chance to land Michael Porter Jr. or Marvin Bagley

The Celtics swapped Thomas, who hinted that he would accept nothing less than a max contract to re-sign, for an elite guard in Irving. Irving has two years remaining on his contract. He’s also not grossly undersized like Thomas, who is generously listed at 5-foot-9.

Top Games of the Week

• Jefferson City (1-0) at Kirkwood (1-0), Friday, 7 p.m.

• Francis Howell (1-0) at Eureka (1-0), Friday, 7 p.m.

• Hazelwood Central (1-0) at O’Fallon (0-0), Friday, 7 p.m.

• MICDS (1-0) at Park Hills Central (1-0), Friday, 7 p.m.

• Cardinal Ritter (1-0) at Christian-O’Fallon (1-0), Friday, 7 p.m.

• CBC (1-0) at CBC at Memphis (1-0), Friday, 7 p.m.

• Belleville East (0-0) at Chaminade (0-1), Friday, 7 p.m.

• Naperville North (0-0) at Edwardsville (0-0), Saturday, 3 p.m.

• Providence Catholic (0-0) at East St. Louis (0-0), Saturday, 3 p.m.

them have been inducted into the Missouri Track and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

Dick Gregory got things rolling for the family when he won consecutive state championships in cross country in 1951 and 1952. He also became a state champion on the track in the 880-yard run and the mile.

After his stellar high school career, Gregory ventured to Southern Illinois University, where he competed for two seasons. At one time, he held the school record in both the mile and the 880. He was the first African American to receive the SIU Outstanding Athletic Award. Gregory is also a member of SIU’s Athletic Hall of Fame, where he was inducted in 2000.

Gregory’s tremendous success at Sumner merely set the stage for his brother Ronald, who continued the family dominance in cross country by winning state championships in 1954, ’55 and ’56. On May 25, 1956, he broke the national record in the mile with a time of 4 minutes 19.2 seconds.

Ron Gregory earned a scholarship to Notre Dame, where he went on to stardom in both cross country and track. When his career ended, he left Notre Dame with 13 school records.

The late, great Dick Gregory was a stellar performer on so many levels. It was cool to see that part of his legendary story began on the athletic field.

Due to those facts, it’s unlikely that the Celtics would have the same reservations at maxing out Irving that they did with Thomas. Also with Gordon Hayward, Jayson Tatum and Marcus Morris on board in Boston, Crowder became expendable. Giving up Brooklyn’s draft pick won’t hurt Boston at all, as the team still has a bazillion an impressive cache first-round of picks over the next few seasons as a result of various trades. Though the Celtics gave up a lot for Irving, “Uncle Drew” could be the final piece of the puzzle to help vault the Celtics past the Cavs in

Ishmael and In the Clutch on Twitter @ IshmaelSistrunk

the st. LouIs AmerIcAn prep AthLete of the Week Kyren Williams

Vianney – Football

The junior offensive standout enjoyed a big performance in the Golden Griffins’ 42-28 victory over visiting Pattonville last Friday night. The 5’10” 190pound Williams caught five passes for 129 yards and scored three touchdowns. He scored on receptions of 50 and 33 yards and on a two-yard

run. As a sophomore, Williams played a huge part in Vianney winning the Class 5 state championship. He amassed 748 yards rushing, 591 yards receiving and scored a team-high 29 touchdowns. Williams has been a starter since his freshman year.

Nestlé Purina hosts national inclusion conference

Company goes beyond race and gender to focus on ‘24 Dimensions of Diversity’

American staff

This summer, Nestlé Purina hosted the first Leading Together Conference focused on Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) for all the Nestlè companies in the United States. Nestlé professionals from around the world showed up for two days of educational seminars and networking opportunities. The emphasis was on accountability and commitment.

“This was the first conference in the United States focused on Nestlé companies creating and sharing D&I strategies across all the companies and brands,” said Steve Degnan, head of Human Resources, Nestlé Purina.

emphasis this year on gender disparities and disabilities.

n “This was the first conference in the U.S. focused on Nestlé companies creating and sharing Diversity and Inclusion strategies across all the companies and brands.”

– Steve Degnan, head of Human Resources

The conference highlighted the “24 Dimensions of Diversity” that Purina celebrates with a special

PROGRAM

continued from page B1

“When communities have greater need, the organizations that respond need greater capacity to serve them,” Cooksey said.

The conference featured a four women-panel that included leaders across the markets. Panelist Stephanie Hart, VP of Technical and Production for Nestlé, spoke on the challenges of being a female in any industry, especially in sectors like manufacturing and factory management. She talked about knowing yourself first, and then accolades and promotions will come. Purina also featured Jeffrey Tobias Halter, renowned author and speaker. Halter spoke on the role of men in the fight for equality for women in the workplace. His book

“Why Women: The Leadership Imperative to Advancing Women and Engaging Men” was paramount in his speech.

To do so, Wells Fargo Gives directs much of its grant money towards general operating expenses for nonprofits, as opposed to specific projects or events. “They appreciate that,” said Cooksey. “It gives them the flexibility to build their capacity to serve more people, versus being limited to only being able to fund a specific program or a specific event,” which donors often prefer. In addition to the growing

He later led a very impactful commitment ceremony where participants wrote their personal and professional commitments to D&I and placed them on a note board for all participants to see. Purina achieved more than 90 percent participation in this effort.

need for nonprofits to do more with less money, said Cooksey, the focus of St. Louis nonprofits has shifted towards programs serving the area’s youth and elderly populations. And many nonprofits that send staff to the Wells Fargo Gives events realize they’ve been working towards the same goal without working together.

“Last year in September,

Another unique aspect of the conference was Nestlé Purina’s spin on gender balance, disability, racial empowerment and their own version of TED Talks series called NESTalks. This segment featured four stories from females who spoke on disability, being women of

when we hosted one of the sessions, we had five breast cancer organizations attending the same session,” Cooksey said. “They didn’t know each other. And so at the end of the session, we always leave time for networking, and it was really cool to see them all kind of huddled up in the side of the room.”

Thanks to Wells Fargo

color and finding your voice. The diversity seen in the audience was impressive, with men and women from various demographic groups present.

Annette Morris, head of Diversity, Inclusion and Gender Balance for Purina, explained that Purina recognizes “24

Gives, those organizations were able to connect and combine their resources.

Bringing together dozens of nonprofit leaders in the same room, Cooksey said, is efficient: “instead of having 100 30-minute meetings,” she said, “we can have one 90-minute meeting.”

This summer, Nestlé Purina hosted the first Leading Together Conference focused on Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) for all the Nestlè companies in the United States. The conference highlighted the “24 Dimensions of Diversity” that Purina celebrates with a special emphasis this year on gender disparities and disabilities.

Dimensions of Diversity” and that we all fall somewhere in the spectrum. She reminded the audience that diversity is “far more than race and gender.” For more information, visit https://www. nestlepurinacareers.com/whypurina/we-are-inclusive.

“It has actually encouraged collaboration and networking among the St. Louis nonprofit community,” Cooksey said. With Wells Fargo Gives information sessions and grant funding, she said, nonprofits are “finding ways to have a greater impact in the community, particularly when dealing with fewer resources.” For more information, visit https://www.wellsfargo.com/ about/corporate-responsibility.

Living It

Mourning comedy’s first black king

Dick Gregory gifted the genius of African American humor to mainstream culture

By Kenya Vaughn Of The St. Louis American

While on a trip home to support the annual festivities of the Gateway Classic Sports Foundation in 2009, comedy legend

Dick

Gregory stopped by a set at The Ambassador to check out a couple of rising comics who were passing through the city. The audience of 150 or so was swallowed up in the huge space, but the comics performed as if they were playing a soldout show at Madison Square Garden.

Gregory laughed so hard his big white beard appeared to shake along with the rest of his body. During intermission, he took it upon himself to walk backstage to greet the comics – and offer a “job well done” to the duo who didn’t let the scores of empty seats affect their funny in the least. They were Kevin Hart and Tony Rock.

“Yo! Do y’all know who this is?” Rock asked at the top of his lungs, barely able to grasp the moment. “Do y’all even know? This is the cat that started it all.”

Rock then asked if Gregory would be so kind as to pose with him for a photo.

After the photo and greetings, Gregory went back to his seat to catch Hart’s set. Rock was still raving after casually running into one of his comedy idols. “I just got a picture with Dick [expletive] Gregory. Dick [expletive] Gregory came to my [expletive] show!”

It would have been easy to write off him and Hart as too young to understand Gregory’s impact and groundbreaking legacy on the genre. The reaction that night proved otherwise. His passing on Saturday at the age of 84 served as a somber reminder that the world feels the exact same way.

“We lost a king,” Tony’s older brother Chris Rock said via Instagram. “There will never be another.”

Though Richard Pryor is often credited for creating the blueprint for urban comedy as it is today, Pryor himself was quick to point out that the distinction wasn’t his to claim.

“Dick Gregory was the greatest,” Pryor told the Independent Newspaper in 2004, a year

By Kenya Vaughn Of The St. Louis American

“We are getting ready to turn up,” said DC Young Fly, rapper, comedian and cast member of the hit MTV staple “Nick Cannon Presents: Wild ‘N Out.”

“All of the excitement that you see on MTV…we are getting ready to bring that to you live.”

DC Young Fly will be joined by fellow cast member and St. Louis native Hitman Holla as well as Rip Michaels to kick off Mathews-Dickey Boys and Girls’ Club Family Reunion Weekend on Friday, August 25 with Hoopin’ & Hollerin’: Basketball, Hip-Hop & Comedy Live at Center Court. The festivities blend basketball, battle rap and comedy. Teams will face off on the court and the “Wild ‘N Out” crew will

bring the jokes and rhymes.

“We are bringing that heat,” DC Young Fly promised.

The event was the brainchild of MathewsDickey alum Diamond Gladney, a past member of the “Wild ‘N Out” crew.

“He basically kicked Hollywood to the curb to give back to his community and I respect that,” DC Young Fly said. “Diamond was passionate about telling us that we had to do this –and that we have to give back for the kids.

Gladney has been working hard to add various entertainment-based classes for students that he teaches or has other professionals teach at Mathews-Dickey and throughout the community since he returned home last year.

“Y’all know what Mathews-Dickey has been doing over the years,” DC Young Fly said. “The

Elements of ‘fresh’

The Saint Louis Art Museum will explore how hip-hop culture became a fashion force next Friday (September 1) with the panel discussion “Hip Hop and Fashion: From the Streets to the Runway.”

Saint Louis

Art

Museum panel to discuss influence of hip-hop on fashion

By Kenya Vaughn Of The St. Louis American

Since the days when Run DMC rapped about their Adidas, hip-hop has featured consumer-driven brand ambassadors who specialized in “fresh” – the genre’s longstanding slang for stylishness.

Even before the rap trio proved that there was money to be made by linking up with the tastemakers to influence the trends, style has been as synonymous as the beats and rhymes since the genre’s inception.

Hip-hop has also had its share of unwitting (and unpaid) advertisers that helped shape the culture through clothing.

n Some elite moguls – like Russell Simmons and Sean “Diddy” Combs created their own fashion empires.

“Being in New York, the streets were like runways for all of the fashion brands,” Rapper Nas said in the Sacha Jenkins’ documentary “Fresh Dressed,” which chronicled the history of the intersection of hip-hop and fashion.

The genre itself has gone from what was expected to be a passing fad, to a global multi-billion-dollar industry – with a say on what its broad listener base thinks, speaks and dresses.

“Being fresh is more important than having money,” Kanye West also said in “Fresh Dressed.”

“The entire time I grew up, I only wanted money so I could be fresh.”

With their latest in the Conversation and Cocktails series, The Saint Louis Art Museum will explore how hip-hop became a fashion force next Friday (September 1) with the panel discussion “Hip Hop and Fashion: From the Streets to the Runway,” at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

The discussion, a part of the museum’s Conversation and Cocktails series, is presented in conjunction with the exhibition “Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear, 1715–2015,” which is on view through Sept. 17. Rikki Byrd and Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr. will discuss the evolution of hip-hop culture and its impact on fashion, art and ideas of black

Dick Gregory during his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in 2015.

How to place a calendar listing

1. Email your listing to calendar@stlamerican. com OR

2. Visit the calendar section on stlamerican.com and place your listing

Calendar listings are free of charge, are edited for space and run on a space-available basis.

concerts

Tues., Aug. 29, 8 p.m., The Pageant presents 2 Chainz –Pretty Girls Like Trap Music Tour. 6161 Delmar Blvd., 63112. For more information, visit www.thepageant.com.

Fri., Sept. 1, 8 p.m., 95.5 The Lou District Rhythms presents Johnny Gill. Ballpark Village, 601 Clark Ave., 63102. For more information, visit www.facebook.com.

Sat., Sept. 2, 7 p.m., Voce presents Smooth Jazz feat. Kenya. 212 S.Tucker Blvd., 63102. For more information, call (314) 488-4196.

Sat., Sept. 9, 4 p.m., Alton Jazz & Wine Fest. Performances by Ptah Williams Quartet, Keyon Harrold and more. Liberty Bank Alton Amphitheater, 1 Henry St., Alton, IL. 62002. For more information, visit www.metrotix.com.

Sept. 9 – 10, Loufest 2017. Performances by Weezer, Snoop Dogg, Cage the Elephant, and more. Central Field – Forest Park, 5300 Wells Dr., 63112. For more information, visit www. seatgeek.com.

Sun., Sept. 10, 8 p.m., RockHouse & Still Blessed Entertainment present Tony! Toni! Tone! The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., 63112. For

more information, visit www. ticketmaster.com.

Wed., Sept. 13, 8 p.m., Fox Theatre presents An Evening with Mary J. Blige: Strength of a Woman Tour. 527 N. Grand Blvd., 63103. For more information, visit www. metrotix.com.

Wed., Sept. 13, 8 p.m., Shabazz Palaces with special guest Porter Ray. The Ready Room, 4195 Machester Ave., 63110. For more information, visit www.ticketfly.com.

local gigs

Sun., Aug. 27, 5:30 p.m., Mo Egeston All-Stars CD Release Event. Celebrate the release of Groove Suites Vol. 1. Dark Room, The Grandel, 3610 Grandel, 63108. For more information, visit www. moegeston.com.

Sun., Aug. 27, 5:30 p.m., Union Communion Ministries presents Dirty Muggs Concert. Activities include yoga, arts and crafts, bouncy house, a raffle, and more. Ivory Perry Park, 800 North Belt, 63112. For more information, call (314) 3672112 or visit www.ippconcerts. com.

Tues., Aug. 29, 6 p.m., Missouri History Museum presents Twilight Tuesday: Brazilian Night. 5700 Lindell Blvd., 63112. For

The St. Louis American recommends

more information, visit www. mohistory.org.

Sun., Sept. 3, 6 p.m., Soul Train: The Ride of Life, Love and Happiness. Sieglinda Fox with featured artists Alli Mays and Cheron Brash. The Signature Room, 9002 Overland Plaza, 63114. For more information, visit www.thesignatureclub.net.

Fri., Sept. 8, 7:30 p.m., Chamber Project St. Louis presents Faith. A program that explores the power, practice, and questioning of faith through the lens of music by American composers. 5700 Lindell Blvd., 63112. Wed., Sept. 13, 8 p.m., Shabazz Palaces with special guest Porter Ray. The Ready Room, 4195 Machester Ave., 63110. For more information, visit www.ticketfly.com.

Broadway, 701 S. Broadway, 63102. For more information, call (314) 621-7880.

special events

Thur., Aug. 24, 4 p.m., Saint Louis Crisis Nursery presents Celebrity Waiters Night 2017. 80 West County Center Dr., 63131. For more information, call (314) 292-5770 or visit www. crisisnurserykids.org.

Aug. 24 – Sept. 4, UniverSoul Circus. Downtown Dome Tailgater’s Lot, 1111 N. Broadway, 63102. For more information, visit www. ticketmaster.com.

Sat., Aug. 26, 6 p.m., Summer Fusion. Come out for food stations, drinks, a raffle, and silent auctions. Proceeds benefit those living with severe and persistent mental illness. Independence Center, 4245 Forest Park Ave., 63108. For more information, visit www.independencecenter. org/events.

Aug. 26 – 27, 10 a.m., International Institute St. Louis invites you to the Festival of Nations. Tower Grove Park, 4256 Magnolia Ave., 63110. For more information, visit www. festivalofnationsstl.org.

Sat., Sept. 2 & 9, 7:30 p.m., CommUNITY Arts Festival

An Evening with Mary J. Blige: Strength of a Woman Tour. See CONCERTS for details.

Aug. 25 – 26, MathewsDickey Boys’ & Girls’ Club presents the 2nd Annual Family Reunion Weekend. Fri: Hoopin’ & Hollerin’: Basketball, Hip-Hop & Comedy (4525 N. Kingshighway); Sat: A Serenade by Brian McKnight & Ginuwine (527 N. Grand Blvd.). For information, visit www.mathews-dickey.com.

Sat., Aug. 26, 10 a.m., Taste of COCA. A free open house event for families to sample bite-sized classes, see live performances, and check out our latest gallery exhibition. 524 Trinity Ave., 63130. For more information, visit www. cocastl.org.

A lineup including dance, theater, poetry, and film has been assembled to speak out against violence. Sept. 2: Marcelle Theater, 3310 Samuel Shepard Dr.; Sept. 9, Grandel Theatre, 3610 Grandel Sq. For more information, visit www.communityartsfestival. com.

Sat., Sept. 2, 8 a.m., The Covering house invites you to Race for Refuge. We will have a 10K/5K/Run/ Walk. Proceeds assist us in fighting human trafficking. Tower Grove Park Sons of Rest Shelter, 63110. For more information, visit www. raceforregure.org.

Wed., Sept. 6, 11 a.m., National Career Fair. Meet top employers and to interview

Thur., Sept. 7, 5:30 p.m., Prison Performing Arts 11th Annual Bash: Empowering Voices. Join us for food from Sugarfire, a silent auction, music, and more. Centene Center for the Arts, 3547 Olive St., 63103. For more information, visit wwww. prisonartsstl.org.

Sat., Sept. 9, 9 a.m., Ferguson 1000 Hiring Event. Meet employers ready to hire people on the spot. St. Louis Community College – Florissant Valley, 3400 Pershall Rd., 63135. For more information or to register, visit www.eventbrite.com.

Fri., Sept. 15, 7 p.m., Tribute to Gladys Knight feat. Kim Massie. The Beale on for several positions during the course of the day. Double Tree – Westport, 1973 Craigshire Rd., 63146. For more information or to register, visit www.nationalcareerfairs.com.

Sat., Sept. 9, 12 p.m., Solidarity Economy St. Louis presents Reclaim + Sustain: A Food and Farm Weekend. Everyone should have access to healthy and affordable food. Thomas Dunn Learning Center, 3113 Gasconade St., 63118. For more information, visit www.facebook.com.

Sat., Sept. 9, 6 p.m., St. Louis University Black Law School Association’s 15th Annual Casino Night Scholarship Fundraiser. 100 N. Tucker Blvd., 63101. For more information, email blsa@slu. edu.

Wed., Sept. 13, 10 a.m., St. Louis Partners Job Fair

Several companies will be on site to provide information and assist in the hiring process. Dress professional and bring a resume. Bringing Families Together, 7151 N. Lindbergh Blvd., 63042. For more information, visit www. eventbrite.com.

Wed., Sept. 13, 11 a.m., St. Louis Diversity Job Fair. Employers for education, finance, optical care, human resources, clerical, healthcare, and more. Ferguson Community Center, 1050 Smith Ave., 63135. For more information or to register, visit www.eventbrite.com.

Thur., Sept. 14, 10 a.m., Job News St. Louis Job Fair. In addition to have employers on scene we will have two workshops and resume review. Double Tree – Westport, 1973 Craigshire Rd., 63146. For more information or to register, visit www.eventbrite. com.

Sat., Sept. 23, 6 p.m., The St. Louis American Foundation presents the 30th Annual Salute to Excellence In Education Scholarship and Awards Gala, America’s Center. For more information, call (314) 533-8000 or visit www.stlamerican.com.

comedy

Aug. 24- Aug. 26, Helium Comedy Club presents Marlon Wayans. 1151 St. Louis Galleria, 63117. For more information, visit www. st-louis.heliumcomedy.com.

Fri., Aug. 25 – Sat., Aug. 26, Funny Bone St. Louis presents Roy Wood Jr. 614 Westport Plaza, 63146. For more information, visit www. stlouisfunnybone.com.

Aug. 31 – Sep. 3, Helium Comedy Club presents Arnez J. 1151 St. Louis Galleria, 63117. For more information, visit www.st-louis. heliumcomedy.com.

Aug. 31 – Sep. 3, Funny Bone St. Louis presents Langston Kerman. 614 Westport Plaza, 63146. For more information, visit www. stlouisfunnybone.com.

literary

Wed., Sept. 6, 7 p.m., St. Louis County Library hosts author Tess Gerritsen, author of I Know a Secret: A Rizzoli and Isles Mystery. Library Headquarters, 1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd., 63131. For more information, visit www. slcl.org.

Thur., Sept. 7, 7 p.m., Missouri History Museum, hosts author Keona Ervin, author of Gateway to Equality: Black Women and the Struggle for Economic Justice in St. Louis 5700 Lindell Blvd., 63112. For more information, visit www.mohistory.org.

Aug. 25 – 27, 29th Midwest Salute to the Arts. Featuring 100 Award winning artists in 11 mediums displaying their work under seven large tents. Moody Park, 525 S. Ruby Ln., Fairview Heights, IL. 62208. For more information, visit www.midwestsalute.com.

Sat., Aug. 26, 7 p.m., St. Lous Effort for AIDS hosts The Art of PAWS. A celebration of phenomenal local art, music and cuisine. Gallery 400, 400 Washington Ave., 63102. For more information, visit www.stlefa. org.

Fri., Sept. 1, 7 p.m., HipHop and Fashion: From the Streets to the Runway. This discussion will examine the impact of hip-hop culture on fashion, art, and black masculinity. St. Louis Art Museum, 1 Fine Arts Dr., 63110. For more information, visit www.slam.org.

Sept. 1 – 3, The Greater St. Louis Art Association presents the Fall Art Fair

The St. Louis American recommends

at Queeny Park. 550 Weidman Rd., 63131. For more information, visit www. artfairatqueenypark.com.

Sept. 8 – 10, Centene Charitable Foundation presents Saint Louis Art Fair. We will have artists displaying their work in ceramics, jewelry, drawing, photography, and more. Forsyth Blvd. & Meramec Ave., 63105. For more information, visit www. saintlouisartfair.com.

lectures and workshops

Aug. 24, 9 a.m., Small

Business Majority, Center for the Acceleration of African American Business (CAAAB), Justine PETERSEN and Edward Jones for a free Small Business Growth Resources Workshop Better Family Life, 5415 Page Blvd. Register @ https:// small-business-capitalhealth-retirement-8-24-17. eventbrite.com/ or call (314) 718-0377 or email wray@ smallbusinessmajority.org

Fri., Sept. 8, 6 p.m., Ferguson 1000 presents Empowerment Lecture Learn about technology for financial literacy, poverty, social justice and more. St. Louis Community College – Florissant Valley, 3400 Pershall Rd., 63135. For

more information, visit www. eventbrite.com.

Tues., Sept. 12, 7 p.m., Let’s Talk About What Happened. Join Stacey Newman, Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould, and Rabbi Susan Talve to talk about What Happened by Hillary Clinton. Left Bank Book, 399 N. Euclid Ave., 63108. For more information, visit www.left-bank.com.

Thur., Sept. 14, 6 p.m., Sickle Cell Association presents Diversity in Clinical Trials and Research Forum. Understand clinical trials and the importance of diverse participation. Regional Arts Commission, 6128 Delmar Blvd., 63112. For more information, visit www. eventbrite.com.

theatre

Aug. 24 – 26, JPEK CreativeWorks Theatre presents Respeck My Shoes A group of women tell a compelling story and demand society respect every woman’s journey. Marcelle, 3310 Samuel Shepard Dr., 63103. For more information, visit www.metrotix.com.

Through Sept. 3, R-S Theatrics presents In the Heights..Zack, 3224 Locust St., 63103. For more information, visit www. metrotix.com.

Sept. 6 – 24, The St. Louis Black Repertory Company will open their 41st season with Colman Domingo’s new comedy DOT. The Edison Theatre on the campus of Washington University. For more information, visit www. theblackrep.org or call (314) 534-3807.

health

Sun., Aug. 27, 6:30 p.m. doors, Hatz 4 Hearts presents the 3rd Annual Fedora Swag Sunday, a charity fundraiser supporting cancer patients, Voce, 212 S.

Tucker. For more information, call (314) 922-0983 or visit www.hatz4hearts.com.

Thur., Aug. 31, 6 p.m., International Overdose Awareness Day. Celebrate stories of survival, remember those lost, and discuss what is being done to save lives. Tilles Park, 9551 Litzsinger Rd., 63124. For more information, visit www. facebook.com.

Sat., Sept. 2, 8:30 a.m., Ajuma’s Counseling Services, LLC invites you to Black Men & Boys Mental Health Forum. Harris Stowe, 3026 Laclede Ave., 63103. For more information, visit www.ajuma.org.

spiritual

Thur., Aug. 24, 7 p.m., First Community Baptist Church of Pagedale Spiritual Healing and Restoration Elder Ricardo Malone of The Bethel Church shares his testimony of God’s healing and restoration. 6815 Page Ave., 63133. For more information, call (314) 6444120.

Sat., Aug. 26, 5 p.m., Leonard Baptist Church invites you to our By the Grace of God Banquet. We are celebrating the elevation of Bishop Steven Thompson to Presiding Bishop. Hilton St. Louis Frontenac, 1335 S. Lindbergh Blvd., 63131. For more information, call (314) 534-1967.

Sun., Sept. 3, 9 p.m., James Hall Tribute feat. the Rapture Reunion Choir. Good News Baptist Church, 8850 Jennings Station Rd., 63136. For more information, visit www. amosandrapture.com.

Fri., Sept. 8, 7 p.m., Believers Temple Word Fellowship Annual Women’s Conference feat. Jekalyn Carr. 2115 Chambers Rd., 63136. For more information, visit www.bandsintown.com.

Helium Comedy Club presents Marlon Wayans. For more information, see COMEDY.

masculinity.

Byrd, a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis, is co-editor of the Fashion and Race Syllabus. Her research interests include Black studies, fashion history and cultural studies. McCune is the author of “Sexual Discretion: Black Masculinity and the Politics of Passing,” and he has been featured on the webcast and the television program “Bill Nye Saves the World.”

He is an associate professor of African and African-American studies and women, gender, and sexuality studies at Washington University in St. Louis. The panel will also feature Genevieve Cortinovis, the museum’s assistant curator of decorative arts and design and the co-curator of the St. Louis presentation of “Reigning Men.”

Much like the music saturated mainstream popular culture, so went hip-hop in the fashion industry. Stars endorsed their favorite brands. Designers like Karl Kani and Daymond John of FUBU created clothes specifically for the hip-hop community.

Some elite moguls – like Russell Simmons and Sean “Diddy” Combs created their own fashion empires. Simmons’ then-wife Kimora Lee Simmons, a St. Louis native, created the Baby Phat that was the women’s wear response to Russell’s Phat Farm. Rap star Nelly was also in the mix for a while with his Vokal Clothing and Apple Bottoms brands. Kimora Lee

Simmons and Nelly enjoyed solid runs considering the “here today, gone later today” pace of trends and fads within the genre – both in the music and beyond. And while fads have come and gone (Encye, Cross Colours, Rocca Wear to name a few) and the styles are constantly evolving, hip-hop’s overall place in fashion is

GREGORY

before he passed away. “And he was the first.”

He wasn’t the first black comedian. But he catapulted black humor from the “chitterling circuit” to mainstream America. The Washington Post called him “the Jackie Robinson of comedy.”

“Greg opened the door,” fellow St. Louis native and late comedy legend Redd Foxx told The New York Times in 1961. “Somebody had to be first. There’s room for all of us.” Foxx was right. Through that door came Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle and Hart – who since their 2009 encounter, exploded to become the reigning comedy “it guy” and fellow St. Louis natives, Foxx and Cedric The Entertainer.

A funny bone rooted in St. Louis

Gregory sharpened his humor on the playgrounds, schoolyards and street corners of his historic neighborhood, commonly known as The Ville.

[expletive] over here,” Boo said, according to Gregory. “Want you to tell me and Herman how many kids sleep in your bed.”

“Googobs of kids in my bed, man,” Gregory responded. “When I get up to pee in the middle of the night, gotta leave a bookmark so I don’t lose my place.”

Kids from the neighborhood went from terrorizing him to becoming his first captive audience. They would crowd around him on the corner waiting for what he had come up with since the last time he held court.

Bill Cosby said in the 2012 television special “Why We Laugh: Black Comedians on Black Comedy.” “He’s very, very, very brilliant.” One of his most recited jokes went, “The last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant and this White waitress came up to me and said, ‘We don’t serve colored people here.’ I said, ‘That’s all right. I don’t eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.’” He became a resident performer at the Playboy Club, which landed him a spot on “The Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar Show.” Gregory became the first black comic to have a seat on “The Tonight Show” couch following a performance.

Within the year he was on top of the world of comedy – and on the cover of Time Magazine

The following year, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reached out to him asking him to join the Civil Rights Movement.

“That was interesting because that’s where my spirit changed.” Gregory said. “Comedy pushed me into the movement, and through the movement I found what I was looking for.”

permanent.

Combs’ proved this nearly 15 years ago when won Council of Fashion Designers of America award for men’s wear designer of the year in 2004.

“For Sean John, if Ralph (Lauren) was doing it, we wanted to do just as good or even better,” Combs said in “Fresh Dressed.”

A rapidly evolving machine, the looks of hip-hop fashion looks as differently today as the music sounds when compared to its origins. Since it was birthed in the Bronx nearly 45 years ago, the ebb and flow of hip-hop and fashion continues. The music inspires the style and the style influences the sound. The lone prerequisite for those who partake is that they keep it fresh.

And the only thing that can be said with certainty as far as what to expect with respect hiphop-related fashion is that it’s here to stay.

The “Hip Hop and Fashion: From the Streets to the Runway,” panel discussion will take place at 7 p.m. on Friday, September 1 at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Tickets are available in-person at the museum or through metrotix. com, which charges a service fee. For more information, call 314.721.0072 or visit slam.org.

“St. Louis is where I learned everything that I’m doing,” Gregory told The American in 2011. “Everything that gets the world’s respect started here.”

He used jokes as a defense mechanism against the bullies who targeted him because of his impoverished upbringing. Born in St. Louis in 1932, he came into this world at the height of the Great Depression. Everybody was poor, but the Gregory family was poorer still.

In author and Washington University

Professor Gerald Early’s 1998 book Ain’t But a Place: An Anthology of African American Writings about St. Louis, Gregory spoke of the transformative moment that birthed his signature style. His childhood best friend Charles “Boo” Simmons unwittingly helped him take the first steps towards becoming a comedy pioneer.

“At first, Boo wasn’t around to help me. I’d just get mad and run home and cry when the kids started,” Gregory said in the book. “And then, I don’t know just when, I started to figure it out. They were going to laugh anyway, but if I made the jokes they’d laugh with me instead of at me.

“Hey Gregory, get your

“This is one of those guys so into performing that when he opens the icebox and the lights come on he ends up doing 15 minutes,” Ron Gregory joked of his big brother back in 2012.

Breaking down barriers

He moved to Chicago in the 1950s to establish his comedy career – and applied the same method of laughing at the pain of his poverty when it came to framing his material around the black American experience during segregation and the Jim Crow South.

A 1961 performance at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club changed his life and the course of black comedy.

“While you could sing and you could dance, you couldn’t stand flatfoot before a white audience and talk to them,” Gregory told The American in 2011. “I didn’t know that you couldn’t, so that’s exactly what I did.”

His observations elicited laughter. The punch lines lingered – and became conversation starters about the taboo topic of racism.

“What was laughable, Dick turned it into extra, extra laughable because he turned it back on the perpetrator,”

The biggest entertainer in comedy – and standup’s first black breakout star – immersed himself in the fight for equal rights.

“Comedy didn’t free grandma or open up jobs for men or women,” Gregory said.

“All of that happened from the movement – not from a Negro getting on stage telling jokes.” He became so committed to the cause of Civil Rights that while on the top of his game, he simply walked out of the door he kicked open – but not before delivering the brilliance of black comedy to the rest of the world.

“[He was a] True legend, trailblazing comedian and outspoken leader of the causes,” Cedric The Entertainer said via Instagram.

“He was tough on me (my character in ‘Barbershop’) and anybody he felt offended the culture. I appreciated him for that. He helped me see things another way.”

His love for his people and work through the Civil Rights Movement expanded to Gregory’s life’s work as a human rights activist and frontline solider against the oppression through numerous causes that continued until his final days.

“Read his books. Look him up. You won’t be disappointed,” Chris Rock said. “Unfortunately, the America that produced Dick Gregory still exists.”

Run D.M.C.

Dick Gregory

Fall’s Twilight Tuesdays bring world music and tributes

Series opens Aug. 29 with Brazilian Night with Samba Bom

By Nicholas Hoffman For The St. Louis American

The Twilight Tuesdays Edward Jones Concert Series is ramping up for its fall run, bringing a slate of musical styles and local talent. For more than 15 years Twilight Tuesdays has been the embodiment of the Missouri History Museum’s commitment to serve as a welcoming and inclusive place for the whole community. This concert series celebrates the history of popular music, brings together people of all ages, and reflects the diversity of our St. Louis region.

Join us on the Museum’s front lawn on Lindell Blvd. on Tuesday, August 29, when we groove to the Brazilian sound of Samba Bom.

Like the rest of the concerts—which take place every Tuesday, weather permitting, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. through October 3—the show is free of charge, and space is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

On September 5 the Museum will honor local music history with A Tribute to Chuck Berry featuring Billy Peek. Even after Berry’s death last March, his influence on music is strong as ever. Known as the Father of Rock and Roll, this musical pioneer counted “Maybellene,” “You Never Can Tell,” and “No Particular Place to Go” among his many legendary hits, and his inimitable style has inspired generations of musicians. Peek was one of them, and he says Berry is one of the reasons he became a professional musician. Early in his career Peek was invited to perform at one of Berry’s clubs. (In fact, it was located on DeBaliviere Avenue just a few blocks from where Twilight Tuesdays take place.) Peek went on to become one of Berry’s backup guitarists. They toured the world together and had a close friendship that lasted for decades.

Anita Jackson and Eric Slaughter bring their Jazz Explosion to the stage on September 12, David Graham pays tribute to Lionel Richie on September 19, Farshid Etniko’s LatinPersian fusion sound takes over Forest Park on September 26, and Project X tips its hat to New Edition on October 3.

Be advised that large crowds and rush hour

JOKES

Continued from C1

entertainers that kids look up to, we’ve got to start being more visible –and make it where the community can touch us.”

DC Young Fly, born John Whitfield, got his start as an internet sensation before he earned a space on “Wild ‘N Out” as a recurring during the show’s seventh season.

“This show is helping me perfect my hustle and making it where I can grow my brand,” DC Young Fly said. “Being a funny guy in your neighborhood – or on social media –doesn’t mean that you can take it to the stage and do it.” His work on the show gave him the growth to venture further into the fields of acting, comedy and music. Last year he appeared in David E. Talbert’s holiday film “Almost Christmas,” alongside an allstar cast that included Danny Glover, Gabrielle Union and

traffic can make parking a challenge during Twilight Tuesdays. Concertgoers are encouraged to use public transportation, find street parking in Forest Park, or use the lots near the Forest Park Visitor and Education Center behind the Missouri History Museum. This concert series is a great chance to break out your blankets and baskets. Picnics, snacks, chairs, and coolers are all welcome, though we ask you to refrain from bringing glass bottles into the park. Or you can let someone else do the cooking. Some of the best food trucks in St. Louis will also be on hand with a variety of food and drink available for purchase. Besides fantastic music, every concert night also features educational opportunities for the whole family. The History Clubhouse, located inside the Missouri History Museum, is a fun, hands-on experience designed for children and their caretakers, and it will stay open until 7:30 p.m. Kids can also stop by an outdoor family zone and make their very own craft to take home.

Special guided tours of #1 in Civil Rights: The African American Freedom Struggle in St. Louis will be offered each Twilight Tuesday night. The exhibition examines how St. Louis has helped advance racial justice on local and national scales. From ground-level activism to groundbreaking court rulings, St. Louis has long been front and center in contesting racial inequity. These tours are a wonderful way to delve even deeper into this powerful exhibit; meet at the Thomas Jefferson statue inside the Museum by 5:00pm to take part. Listen to Lionel Richie: Head to the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park for the next six Tuesday evenings and dance all night long with thousands of your friends!

2017 Fall Twilight Tuesdays Schedule August 29: Brazilian Night with Samba Bom September 5:

A Tribute to Chuck Berry featuring Billy Peek September 12: Jazz Explosion featuring Anita Jackson and Eric Slaughter September 19: The Lionel Richie Experience featuring David Graham September 26: Farshid Etniko— Latin flavor with a Persian touch October 3:

A Tribute to New Edition by Project X

Nique. He credits St. Louis native Hitman Holla (born Gerald Fulton Jr.) among the crew of cast members that are helping him continually sharpen his skills.

“I hate working with Holla, he’s too good with the freestyle – so we’ve got to bring our A-game every time,” DC Young Fly said jokingly. “But for real, it’s like getting in the ring with Floyd Mayweather.

You know you’ve gotta be on you’re A-game because you are going up against the best.” Audiences will see for themselves tomorrow night when DC Young Fly and Holla go head-to-head.

“I’m so happy to be coming to St. Louis. We are bringing that heat – it’s going to be something like you’ve never seen before,” DC Young Fly said. “This is a big weekend for Mathews-Dickey and I’m coming to spread the love.” Hoopin’ & Hollerin’: Basketball, Hip-Hop & Comedy Live at Center Court will take place at 5 p.m. on Friday, August 25 at Mathews-Dickey Boys and Girls Club’s 4245 N. Kingshighway headquarters. The Family Reunion weekend will also feature a concert with Brian McKnight and Ginuwine and Martin L. Mathews Awards program and Benefit Concert featuring Brian McKnight and Ginuwine on Saturday, August 26. For more tickets, or more information, visit www. mathewsdickey.com or call (314) 382-5952.

The Missouri History Museum opens the Twilight Tuesdays Edward Jones Concert Series on Tuesday, August 29 with Brazilian Night with Samba Bom.

Mo’

Hitman Holla

Celebrations

Birthdays

Happy Birthday to this Virgo duo! Jasmine (August 24) and Cayden (August 26) Flagg are celebrating their birthdays, and we wish y’all many, many more together! We love you, Your family

Happy 50th Birthday to my loving, wonderful husband

Eric “Coach E” Easter on August 26. I wish you the best birthday! Love you, Mary

Happy 106th Birthday to Myrdie Mae Rembert on August 20! Her daughter (Carol Ann Drew), family members and friends celebrated this wonderful gift. Thank God for another year of celebration!

Reunions

Beaumont High Class of 1968 Reunion Committee will begin planning for our 50th Class Reunion to be held in St. Louis, Missouri in 2018. For more information contact Vanetta Cobbs, 314-869-5665, or email vanetta.cobbs@ sbcglobal.net.

Jasmine and Cayden Flagg

Retirement

Darrell Keely recently retired from Bi-State Development Agency (Metro) after 40 years of service as a domestic transportation engineering specialist in the capacity of being a bus driver, a MetroLink train operator, a reserved supervisor and training new student drivers in passenger service. Congratulations and enjoy your retirement!

Beaumont High School Class of 1977 will celebrate its 40year reunion Sept. 15–17, 2017. For further information, please contact: Karen Handley (314) 330-0129, Audrey Dixon (314) 413-9202, Lois Moore (314) 315-0474, Kelvin Ellison (314) 599-6733.

Beaumont High Class of 1978 will celebrate its 40-year reunion in 2018. For further information, please contact: Marietta Shegog Shelby, 314-799-5296, madeshe@ sbcglobal.net.

Hadley Tech Classes of 1962-1963 are having their 55th year reunion on October 13-15, 2017 at the St. Louis Airport Marriott. For more

information, please contact Hellon (Merritt) Jefferson at 314-307-3681, Ora (Scott) Roberts at 314-222-3662, Wilhelmina (Gibson) Baker at 314-630-9647, Pearl (Tillman) Holden 314-6850466 or Virdell (Robinson) Stennis at 314-773-8177.

Northwest High Class of 1978 is planning its 40 year reunion for next year. PLEASE reach out to our classmates, tell them get ready for this. If you have any questions please contact Sly at ( 314) 397-0311 or email us at northwestbluedevils@78 gmail.com. Check us out on Facebook Northwest High School-Class of 1978.

O’Fallon Technical High School Class of 1967, will be celebrating its 50th reunion on September 15-17, 2017. If you have not received a letter or e-mail, please call 314630-8452 with your contact information, and a committee member will contact you.

Soldan High School Class of 1967 will be holding its 50th class reunion September 29-30, 2017. For additional information, please contact Nona Binion Simpkins at 314-361-3799or Melvia Forniss at 314-725-8103.

Sumner High Class of 1972 reunion will be held September 15-17, 2017 at the Airport Hilton, 10330 Natural

Bridge Rd., 63134. Please contact Earlene Brown 314226-7019/314-534-0467 or Jazelle Brown 314-954-1470 or Kathi Washington Scott 314-445-4715.

Vashon High School will celebrate its 90th anniversary October 5-7, 2017 for alumni, students and community activities to celebrate educational commitment and tradition. For additional information, go to Vashonhigh.org or contact Elvis Hopson, elvishopson@ att.net, (314) 535-0243, Pearl Lake, lakep6@aol.com, (314) 388-0743 or Cozy W. Marks, Jr., jr3810@sbcglobal.net, (314) 383-5682.

Do you have a celebration you’re proud of? If so we would like to share your good news with our readers. Whether it’s a birth, wedding, engagement announcement, anniversary, retirement or birthday, send your photos and a brief announcement (50 words or less) to us and we may include it in our paper and website – AT NO COST – as space is available Photos will not be returned. Send your announcements to: kdaniel@stlamerican. com or mail to: St. Louis

MO 63103 FREE OF CHARGE

Reunion notices are free of charge and based on space availability. We prefer that notices be emailed to us! However, notices may also be sent by mail to: Kate Daniel, 2315 Pine St., St. Louis, MO 63103 Deadline is 10 a.m. on Friday. If you’d like your class to be featured in a reunion profile, email or mail photos to us. Our email address is: reunions@ stlamerican.com

Eric ‘Coach E’ Easter

Myrdie Mae Rembert

Movie producer Will Packer was in the building as the celebrity host of the Delta Sigma Theta/Omega Psi Phi “Stomp the Yard” Greek Step show to support his cousin Val Saturday at The Ambassador. Packer was the man behind the film “Stomp the Yard.” His latest box office smash “Girls Trip” recently became the first film with a black producer, black writer and black director to cross the $100M mark at the box office.

Swag Snap of the Week

RIP Dick Gregory. I won’t be long with this, since we pay proper tribute to the icon all up and through the paper this week. But my soul wouldn’t be right if I didn’t take a moment to honor the life and legacy of Dick Gregory, who – as everybody knows at this point – passed away on Saturday at the age of 84. Mr. Gregory did our city proud as one of our most famous native sons, a symbol for activism and a comedy pioneer as the first black comedian to be embraced by the general population. All of your favorite funnymen – every.single.one – are indebted to him for their respective spots. I would need a whole other Partyline to truly pay tribute to his comedy and activism, so I will end here with a heartfelt R.I.P.

Stomping with the Deltas, Ques and Will Packer. The Deltas and the Nu Chi Ques brought the black Greeks to the Ambassador Saturday night for their Stomp the Yard Step Show. I got there way early –and was a wreck that the event might take the “l” for the event, but I had nothing to worry about. The DST divas and their frat came through! And I know some of y’all were looking at the flyer sideways when it said that super producer Will Packer – who is actually responsible for the film “Stomp The Yard” would be in the building. He might have been the only Alpha up in there – and had me crackin’ up the way he kept taking jabs at the Ques while putting in work the whole night as host. His favorite cousin Val is involved with a local chapter of DST. I’m not giving any more of her information (including her last name) because some of y’all will try it by sending your scripts c/o Val with the hopes that she will pass them along to Will Packer. She won’t be able to say I had any hand in that foolishness. But what she will be able to tell the folks at the next chapter meeting is that Delores Shante got her life from the show. Okay Chesley Waddell of Radio One St. Louis…I saw you stomping all up and down that Ambassador stage in the name of your beloved DST!

Fridazed at The Marquee. I finally made my way to the Marquee for Fridazed – that’s their new Happy Hour event that’s more like a grown folks Friday dinner party. I knew it was going to give me life when I looked up and saw my boy DJ Deevine Soundz on the tables…and looked down and saw shrimp and grits on the menu. I’m particular about my shrimp and grits – and hate that I broke my annual pre-Salute diet to taste the ones at the Marquee. I refuse to let them come between me and staying able to zip and clasp the gown I intend on slaying the game with on September 23rd, but they pose a severe threat. But back to the Fridazed…I really suggest the folks who like to eat, drink and be merry – that want to hear good music, but aren’t that interested in tearing up the dance floor – should stop through. They have food specials might become my official cheat meal for the foreseeable future. The party starts at 4 p.m. and continues through 9 p.m.

Salute’s big 3-0. Since I’ve already talked about kicking off and simultaneously failing my 2017 30-Day Salute Body Challenge, I might as well let the folks know that we are less than a month out from the 30th Anniversary of the Salute to Excellence in Education Scholarships and Awards Gala. Listen, this year my goal is to leave the girls shook. I’m actually hoping that the weather is uncharacteristically cool this year so that I can commission a plus-sized version of Daenery’s coat from last week’s episode of “Game of Thrones.” I don’t watch the show, but that double breasted fitted floor-length fur number would be just what I need to take my opulence to the point where the folks stare me down like I’m the second solar eclipse –in full totality. Seriously, I know I focus on the fashion – because it’s the most elegant annual evening in Black St. Louis. But it’s for the best of causes. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships are given each year and educators are honored for their tireless work. And when that’s all said and done, we get all the way down – either from DJ Kut’s Old School Party or the Jazz offerings of grand diva Denise Thimes. Save the date, September 23rd (at America’s Center) and be prepared to slay. Visit www.stlamerican.com or call (314) 533-8000 for tickets or more information.

Silent Heat. After having so much fun at the last one several weeks back, I stopped by Patois for their latest Silent Party Friday night. Silent sauna was more like it. It was packed to the gills and all the way live, but it felt like I was reliving that heat wave from the end of last month. As soon as I stepped into the space, I was like, “Hammercy!” The heat and humidity were real, but the room temperature being on broil because of all of the folks didn’t stop the turn up one single itty bitty bit. Sewin’s and twist outs went to heaven on that dance floor with the slightest twerk. I’d recommend that the powers that be at Patois set the a/c to meat locker in preparation for the next one – or wait until the winter and just don’t bother turning on the furnace.

Money Bagg Yo brought them out. I’m still debating with people about rapper Money Bagg Yo’s latest trip to the Marquee (courtesy of Liquid Assets) pulling the biggest numbers the club has ever seen before. Folks say Lil Boosie had it, but I beg to differ. I know you’re thinking, “Who is Money Bagg Yo?” A rapper who the folks will pay good money and stand in line in six-inch heels to see on stage. Even Jayson Tatum came through. I don’t who he thought he was hiding from with the witness protection glasses and FBI informant ball cap? I was like, “Sir, you are 6’9. It is impossible for you to be inconspicuous.” I’ll tell you what wasn’t hiding – the “girls” in those Rated R blouses made of mesh, fishnet and pantyhose nylon. So full bosom is the new cleavage these days? I am appalled. They could have at least put some pasties on and given PG-13 realness. The disgraceful attire doesn’t take anything away from the second consecutive super win by Phil Assets and the crew.

Raphael and Damion scored another win with their Black Hollywood All Black Affair Leo Bash Friday night @ Mood

Kesha and Keshia were in the building to celebrate team Leo @ The Black Hollywood All Black Affair Leo Bash Friday @ Mood

Ebony, Jackie and Kara were among the capacity crowd @ Patois’ Silent Party Friday night

AKAs Coretta, Tiffani and Erica showed their solidarity with DST by stopping through the Stomp the Yard Step Show Saturday @ The Ambassador

Beauties TeTe and Tezz rolled thru Marquee to catch Money Bagg Yo Saturday night

These men of Iota Phi Theta represented for their frat as guests of the Stomp the Yard Step Show Saturday @ The Ambassador

Lakecia and Brittany loved the unique flavor the listening variety @ The Silent Party Friday night @ Patois

Photos by V. Lang

CC, Leah and Dionne were in the mix @ the Stomp the Yard Step Show

Toi and Kendra @ the latest edition of Nappy DJ Needles’ AfroSexyCool Friday night @ Blank Space

St. Louis’ own Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum came through the Marquee with his dad Justin Tatum to check out rapper Money Bagg Yo Saturday night