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Atlas’ INTERSECTIONS Festival As Zika Virus Spreads, Uncertainty Breeds Fear Page 18 Set to Kick Off Page 5
VOL. 51, NO. 20 FEB. 25 - MAR. 2, 2016
Don’t Miss This Month’s Issue of the WI Bridge - Center Section
Prince’s protégé, Vanity, Dead at 57 Page 31
Demolition Makes Room for Sports Complex
ASALH Pays Homage to Blacks’ Hallowed Grounds Annual Luncheon Points to Continued Importance of History
By Sarafina Wright WI Staff Writer The Association for the Study of African American Life and History [ASALH] recently held its 90th annual Black History Month Luncheon under the theme “Hallowed Grounds: Sites of African American Memories.” The event took place on Saturday, Feb. 20 at the Washington Renaissance Hotel in Northwest. Keynote speaker Dr. Karsonya Wise Whitehead, associate professor of African and African Amer-
ican Studies at Loyola University [Maryland] and an interdisciplinary scholar who focuses on topics that include race, class and gender, drove the point home with a lecture on the spirit of Black folks “I suggest to you that at this moment we are standing on holy ground,” Whitehead said. “Frederick Douglass said we shouldn’t be forced to leave America because it was built on our backs.” “We are fighting now for justice in this land. This fight has been a
ASALH Page 11
Artists Salute Maurice White of Earth, Wind, Fire Page 32
But Bowser Met With Unexpected Protest in SE By Sarafina Wright WI Staff Writer
5 Karsonya Wise Whitehead, professor of communications at Loyola
University, in Maryland, was the featured speaker at ASALH’s 90th annual Black History Luncheon at the Washington Renaissance Hotel in Northwest on Sat., February 19. / Photo by Roy Lewis
Congressional Medal Recipients Want Voting Rights Restored By Stacy M. Brown WI Senior Writer
5 The Rev. C.T. Vivian was assaulted by Selma, Alabama Sheriff Jim Clark during Bloody Sunday in 1965. / Photo courtesy of blackamericans.com
One day before leaders of the U.S. House and Senate were scheduled to present a Congressional Gold Medal in honor of the foot soldiers of the 1965 Voting Rights marches, some prominent Black leaders called on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act that many sacrificed so much to secure. The Rev. C.T. Vivian, a leader of the infamous Bloody Sunday march in which he and others were brutally beaten as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River on March 7, 1965, and Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said Congress needs to act immediately on legislation to restore what was lost in the Supreme Court’s Shelby Decision
VOTING Page 19
Mayor Muriel Bowser, collided with outraged protestors when she led the demolition of two buildings at St. Elizabeths campus in Southeast – an action that paved the way for a new state-of-the-art sports and entertainment arena at the historic site. Bowser, joined by Ward 8 Councilmember LaRuby May, Events DC CEO Greg O’Dell, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Brian Kenner, Department of General Services Director Christopher Weaver and residents witnessed the beginning of the $50 million project in Congress Heights on Thursday, Feb. 18. “Today is a great day for the District of Columbia and the residents of Wards 7 and 8,” Bowser said. “With this new development, we are delivering on a promise to revitalize Congress Heights, create quality affordable housing, generate hundreds of jobs and put more District residents on a pathway to the middle class.” Scheduled to open in September of 2018, the 5,000-seat venue is projected to produce $90 million in new tax revenue over 20 years, attract more than 380,000 visitors per year and produce more than 600 construction jobs and 300 permanent jobs.
DEMOLITION Page 11
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