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Captain White Seafood Sets Sail for Oxon Hill
Ward 7 D.C. Councilmember Vincent Gray continues to recover from illness in his Southeast home but did not attend the Jan. 4 council sessions.
“Councilmember Gray is recovering at home,” a statement from his office said on Jan. 4. “He has daily, physical therapy sessions and is doing well. Gray attends to council issues and is working on behalf of the residents of Ward 7 every day.”
Gray, a Democrat, suffered a mild stroke after checking himself into a hospital in early December. He did not attend council sessions in December due to recuperation.
WI
Washington Football Team Set to Announce New Name
The Washington Football team will finally have a nickname. Nearly two years after ridding itself of the Redskins moniker and going nameless, the team told NBC’s Today show on Tuesday, January 4, that it has a new name. The NFL franchise will officially announce the organization’s team name live on the Today Show on February 2. The franchise has been known as the Washington Football Team since July 2020, when it announced that it no longer would be called “Redskins” after decades of being criticized because many consider the moniker a racial slur. One of the NFL’s oldest and most-storied franchises, the Washington Football Team were founded in 1932 as the Boston Braves. A year later, the team took on the name, Redskins. They relocated to the District of Columbia in 1937 and won five NFL titles.
In addition to NFL Championship Game victories, the Washington Football Team have won three Super Bowls, culminating their 1982, 1987 and 1991 seasons with Super Bowl titles. WI
Last November, the popular takeout restaurant Captain White Seafood City found itself in the midst of severe flooding in The Wharf. And many wondered what the future would hold for the restaurant – a mainstay for decades in the region. But it seems that its owner, Penny White, has finally found a new home for her business, leaving the D.C. Wharf in Southwest for Oxon Hill, Maryland. The takeout restaurant has called The Wharf home since 1972 and has garnered thousands of diehard fans. We hear they’re delighted to hear the news and so are we.
WI
D.C. Redistricting Shifts to Advisory Neighborhood Commissions
James Wright WI Staff Writer
District leaders have turned their attention to redrawing advisory neighborhood commission and single-member district borders after completing the city’s eight ward lines in December.
“Many people believe that redistricting is over now that the new ward boundaries are in place,” said D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At Large), a member of the redistricting subcommittee. “We still have to draw advisory neighborhood boundaries and that is a little bit different from the wards.”
The District redraws advisory neighborhood commission [ANC] lines every 10 years based on the latest official U.S. Census data. Presently, there are 40 commissions with 296 single-member districts represented by a commissioner. The number of commissions and single-members districts could change based on the new ward boundaries approved by the D.C. Council and signed into law by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser in December.
RUBRICS OF THE ANC PROCESS
Henderson said each ward council member selects a ward task force to create the borders for the ANCs. The task force will consist of residents that could include present commissioners.
Henderson and her three other atlarge colleagues, D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D), Elissa Silverman (I-At Large), Robert White (D-At Large) and Anita Bonds (D-At Large), can also select residents to serve on ward task forces.
Henderson said the ward task force members are expected to meet for a number of weeks to draw the new boundaries. The task force will determine the type of public input, including meetings and hearings, that will aid it in drawing boundaries. Sometime in the spring, Henderson said, the task force will vote on new ANC boundaries and the send that information to Henderson’s subcommittee.
The subcommittee will consider all eight of the ANC boundaries plans and has the power to make adjustments. After subcommittee consideration, the ANC plans go to the D.C. Council. The matters pertaining to the plans will be discussed and perhaps adjusted in the council and will be subject to two votes. After the votes, the ANC boundary plans go to Bowser as a package for her signature. The congressional review period begins after the mayor’s approval and if no objections occur, the ANC boundaries become set for the next 10 years.
“It is critical that the ward task force starts their work as soon as possible,” Henderson said. “We in the Council should vote on the new ANC lines by June, so that ANC candidates can plan their campaigns and pick up their petitions for the November general election.”
During the ward redistricting process, Ward 8 added the Navy Yard neighborhood located west of the Anacostia River. Brian K. Thompson, who represents 8A03 single-member district that encompasses the Fairlawn neighborhood, has agreed to serve as the interim chair of the ward’s task force after being approached by D.C. Councilmember Trayon White (D-Ward 8).
“I was very engaged in the ward redistricting process,” Thompson said. “I want to shape the last developmental frontier of D.C., which is Ward 8. I have an interesting vantage point because I represent Fairlawn, an area that borders Ward 8 and Ward 7 and I see a lot of shifting around me.”
Thompson said he hasn’t committed to becoming the chairman and said it will be up to the task force members, which number over 20, what office, if any, he serves. He said the task force had a preliminary gathering on Dec. 20 and will have organizational meetings throughout January.
Former Ward 8 D.C. State Board of Education member Markus Batchelor has knowledge of the ANC redrawing of the lines process. Former D.C. Councilmember Marion S. Barry, Jr., appointed Batchelor, then a commissioner, to his ward task force about 10 years ago.
“It was a very interesting process for me,” Batchelor said. “My task force colleagues consisted of incumbent commissioners and community members. I am not on the task force this time.”
Batchelor said the addition of Navy Yard residents in the ANC redistricting process will make it complicated.
“The new task force will have to look at other natural boundaries and neighborhoods,” he said. “When I was on the task force it was a tough process. There was a lot of wrangling going on among members about who should represent what street and neighborhood. I don’t expect this process to be any different.” WI @JamesWrightJr10
5 Christina Henderson serves on the D.C. Council as an at-large independent member. (WI File Photo)
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JAN. 6
1993 – Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (bottom right) dies at 75 of pancreatic cancer in Englewood, New Jersey.
JAN. 7
1890 – African American inventor William B. Purvis receives patent for the fountain pen. 1891 – Writer Zora Neale Hurston (right above) is born in Notasulga, Alabama. 1955 – Singer Marian Anderson becomes the first Black person to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
2002 – Shirley Franklin
is sworn in as mayor of Atlanta, the first Black woman to be elected mayor of a major Southern city.
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1750 – James Varick, the first bishop of the African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, is born near Newburgh, New York. 1888 – A.B. Blackburn patents the railway signal. 1924 – Legendary jazz drummer Max Roach is born in Newland, North Carolina. 1938 – Baseball Hall of Famer Willie McCovey is born in Mobile, Alabama. 1957 – The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is founded in Atlanta.
JAN. 11
1971 – Mary J. Blige, "The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul," is born in New York City. 1987 – Three scientists announce they have discovered evidence of a woman who lived in Africa 200,000 years ago and may be the mother of the human species.
JAN. 12
1910 – Famed U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves dies of Bright's disease in Muskogee, Oklahoma, at 71. 1948 – Supreme Court rules that Blacks have the right to study law at state institutions. WI
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A petition to recast the late Chadwick Boseman’s character T’Challa in Marvel’s “Black Panther” has garnered over 50,000 signatures, though some fans disagree with attempting to revive the character. What are your thoughts?
SANDRA BOOKER /
WASHINGTON, D.C. No recasting of T’Challa. Leave his legacy intact. He earned it.
CHRISTIAN MILLER /
ATLANTA, GEORGIA No one has a problem with a reboot sometime from now. Just not an immediate recast with the current Marvel character universe.
JILL ROBI /
WASHINGTON, D.C. Had Chadwick not passed, T’Challa’s existence wouldn’t be a question. His story clearly is unfinished. So finish it with a recasting. Chadwick’s brother said that’s what he would have wanted. T’Challa, the only Black king in the MCU and he doesn’t have to perish prematurely. Banner has been recast in this universe. They can recast the king.
JOHN SUGGS /
WASHINGTON, D.C. His brother said it was OK, and I’m cool with that.
BRETT WILSON /
TULSA, OKLAHOMA Recast T’Challa for “Black Panther”! For all those who do not want a recast, when would be the appropriate time to recast in the future?
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Blaxploitation Film Star Max Julien Displayed the Complexities of the Black Male in ‘The Mack’
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As a young teenaged-Black boy facing the throes of puberty, the actors who dominated the screen in Blaxploitation classics during the early 70s served as formidable instructors in my arduous march toward and into manhood.
And while some have long criticized the cult for its often negative images of Black men and women that pervaded the screen, for me and my friends, the stars of films that included “Shaft,” “The Mack,” “Super Fly” and “Coffy” served as our heroes and heroines.
They were strong, independent, sharp as a tack and most important, unwilling to yield to the hardships, hatred and prejudice that characterized “the man” – white men who still held the reins in racist America and refused to give Blacks a fair shot at realizing our dreams – the so-called “American Dream.”
We were just beginning to believe in the possibility of actually realizing an identify best described as “young, gifted and Black.” We were just hearing and repeating the mantra made famous by James Brown: “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” And I was bound and determined to be proud – just like my Dad.
And so, with our afros, bell bottoms, dashikis and a swag still in its pubescence stage, it would be beautiful Black men and women like Richard Roundtree, Pam Grier, Ron O’Neal, Fred Williamson and Max Julien who gave us hope.
These formidable thespians came to mind recently after news reports revealed that Max Julien, the star in the 1973 Blaxploitation classic, “The Mack,” had died on January 1 in Los Angeles at the age of 88.
A native Washingtonian and classically-trained actor, Julien attended Howard University where he pledged Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. in 1954. He began his career in off-Broadway theater before turning to film. But it would be his portrayal of Goldie, an Oakland-based pimp determined to make it to the top at any cost, for which Julien will be most remembered.
As the movie begins, John “Goldie” Mickens gets out of prison and finds that his brother is into Black nationalism. But that’s not on his radar. Goldie wants to be the biggest, baddest pimp in California.
Clearly, I had no aspirations to become a pimp nor a mover and shaker in the darker aspects of society. However, Julien added dimensions to his role that helped me realize something profound about other Black men. Despite the negative persona associated with his “profession,” Julien as the Mack refused to allow his label to overshadow other aspects of his personality. He loved his mother and his friends and experienced the full array of human emotions. Some might call these the redeeming qualities of his character.
As for me, watching Max Julien personify the business-minded pimp Goldie showed me that neither people or things are ever as simple or one-dimensional as they may seem.
“The Mack” served as a political expose that took a hard look at the state of Black life in America. Julien would say about his character in a 2002 documentary about the film, “Mackin’ Ain’t Easy,” that there was a sense of sadness in the figure he portrayed “because that’s where I was as a human being and I couldn’t hide that. That is me,” he said.
The film first screened in mostly Black markets and quickly became a hit. In a 2013 interview with the Los Angeles Times, the film’s director, David Campus, said when the film debuted in Oakland, people stood up and started screaming at the screen by the first scene.
I did the same thing when I saw it as 13-year-old boy.
“They never sat down. No one had shown that world – no one had portrayed the Black underworld,” Campus said.
Adding to his many accomplishments, Julien also co-wrote and co-produced another hit of the Blaxploitation era, “Cleopatra Jones,” which featured Tamara Dobson and Bernie Casey.
The Blaxploitation film genre, initially launched by Black actors and directors in the ‘70s to illustrate “controversial” slices of life in their communities, has had its time in the sun and in the shadows.
But I will always have fond memories of going to the Mercury Theater, the neighborhood show on the westside of Detroit for Saturday matinees. Too young to date, I went with my besties: Mark, Roger, Michael, David and Ronald.
And we, like so many others in the audience, talked to the actors on the screen in movies that we would never forget: “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song,” “Blacula,” “Black Caesar,” “Dolemite” and “Foxy Brown.”
Those were the days.
Rest in Peace Brother Max Julien – the Mack and the Man.
WI
5 Richard Pryor (far right) and Max Julien in “The Mack,” 1973. (Photo courtesy American International Pictures)
MLK Peace Walk to Highlight Voting Rights Legislation Passage Effort
James Wright WI Staff Writer
Several family members of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., will join the District’s peace walk on Jan. 17, the federal holiday commemorating King, to encourage the U.S. Senate and the Biden administration to focus on passing voting rights legislation.
Martin Luther King III and his wife, Arndrea Waters King and their daughter, Yolanda Renee King, will join thousands of District residents on the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Southeast to call on the Senate to pass The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021, the Freedom to Vote Act of 2021 and The Washington, D.C. Admission Act of 2021.
The King family and the peace walkers will echo King’s call “to give us the ballot.”
“President Biden and Congress used their political muscle to deliver a vital infrastructure deal and now we are calling on them to do the same to restore the very voting rights protections my father and countless other civil rights leaders bled to secure,” said King III, chairman of The Drum Major Institute.
“Like those who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, we will not accept empty promises in pursuit of my father’s dream for a more equal and just America,” he said.
The King family will march under the District’s King Holiday committee’s theme: Changing Happens with Good Hope and a Dream.
Peace walk leaders said the parade will be virtual and start at 12 p.m. A peace walk will occur due to the presence of the coronavirus in the city and in an effort to keep walkers safe. Social distancing and wearing masks will be monitored during the peace walk, leaders say.
The peace walkers are scheduled to meet at the halfway point on the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Southeast. They will proceed east until they step off of the bridge and head to Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue., S.E. Once there, they will proceed north until they reach the intersection with Good Hope Road, S.E. From there, they will march east on Good Hope Road until they reach the Minnesota Avenue. On Minnesota Avenue, the walkers will proceed a few steps to the Ambassador Baptist Church. The peace walk will start at 10 a.m.
On Jan. 15, the prayer breakfast, a virtual event, will feature a keynote address from the Rev. Tyrell Holcomb, the chairman of the 7F advisory neighborhood commission. There will be other speakers, music and additional forms of entertainment.
A health and wellness fair will take place on Jan. 17 at the intersection of Good Hope Road and Minnesota Avenue. Registration can be done on the Martin Luther King Jr., Holiday Committee’s website.
On Jan. 17, there will be a clothing giveaway at Martha’s Table outfitter location on Martin Luther King Avenue. In addition, local organization Community Connoisseurs will sponsor a coat, hats and masks giveaway with barbers and hair stylists on site. Food will be offered to people on a grab-and-go basis. These activities will take place in front of the Washington Informer Newspaper and in its basement, located at 3117 Martin Luther King Jr., Ave, S.E.
The annual essay contest will occur with District students addressing the theme “Is Voting the Vehicle for Effective Change?” Students in elementary, middle and high schools will compete for prizes. Jan. 7 with 11:59 p.m. serving as the deadline for submissions. The King Holiday committee co-sponsors the essay contest with the Mayor’s Youth Leadership Institute Alumni Association and other partners.
WI @JamesWrightJr10
5 Martin Luther King III, son of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., will participate in the District’s Jan. 17 peace walk honoring the life and work of his father. (Robert R. Roberts/ The Washington Informer)
– MARTIN LUTHER KING III
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More Children in D.C. Being Hospitalized for Omicron Variant
Natalie C. Hockaday WI Staff Writer
Dr. Sarah Ash Combs, an emergency room doctor at Children’s National in D.C., sees first-hand the impact the Omicron variant continues to have on children in the District.
“I’ve personally admitted a couple of babies [to the hospital],” Dr. Combs said. “Then we are also seeing a number of kids who are in the 5 to 11 year [old] range. That’s been a harder group for us to get the vaccine message out to.”
As of Monday, 48 children remain hospitalized at Children’s National in D.C. due to COVID-19 – double the number of children hospitalized during the Delta variant wave, according to Dr. Combs.
“We’ve basically seen almost an exponential rise both in case numbers . . . just positive COVID tests coming out of the hospitals and then also in the hospitalizations,” she said.
Over 50% of COVID-19 tests are coming back as positive through the Children National Hospital system, Dr. Combs said. And while there’s a mix of positive cases among vaccinated and unvaccinated children, those unvaccinated or partially vaccinated remain the ones most hospitalized.
In the District, 11% of children between the ages of 5 and 11 count as fully vaccinated with 9% reported as partially vaccinated.
Children ages 5-ll years-old have recently been approved by the FDA for a booster shot with the approval by the CDC anticipated soon. However, young people still represent the smallest percentage of those who received their booster shot. In D.C., 13.8% of young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 years-old have received their booster shot.
Black children make up the majority of those hospitalized at Children’s National Hospital, especially in the emergency room, according to Dr. Combs. She said the hospital continues to see “high numbers of positives in that childhood population.”
The data on who’s vaccinated and the status of each ward overall as well as additional demographics continue to be released and updated on the District’s coronavirus dashboard. However, specific statistics related to age, race, and economic standing as each category intersects with vaccination status cannot be determined by ward on the dashboard.
However, Ward 8, a majority-Black ward in the District, has seen the most cases of COVID-19 in D.C. and also reports the lowest vaccination rates in the District. Currently, 34% of Ward 8 residents
5 Children’s National hospital is seeing a high number of children being admitted due to the impact of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. (Courtesy photo) report being fully vaccinated, falling significantly lower than most of the other wards in the city, excluding Ward 7, with a vaccination rate of 40%. The case rate per 100,000 population in the District has increased since November. The data through Dec. 30 shows the weekly case rate increased from 73.7 in November to 1,868 in December. The daily case rate for COVID-19 in D.C. continues to grow worse, according to District officials with the current daily case rate standing at 266.9. As a doctor who encourages people to get vaccinated, Dr. Combs said she understands parents’ hesitancy with vaccinating younger children. However, she says the trials being done have proved to be robust, safe and effective. “I’m not just a doctor – I’m also a parent,” she said. “I have a child who’s too young to be vaccinated though I would be keen to vaccinate him if he were in the eligible age group,” Dr. Combs added. WI
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