18 minute read
BLACK FACTS
Need Help Getting Social Security Disability Benefits? We Can Help!
Steady monthly income depending on your paid in amount A lump sum payment of benefits owed from back-pay
• We simplify the process & strive for quick claim approval
Annual cost of living increases
• Starting the process is easy and takes only minutes to complete
855-549-3119
Helping thousands get the benefits they deserve
Bill Gordon & Associates, a nationwide practice, represents clients before the Social Security Administration.
Bill Gordon & Associates, a nationwide practice, represents clients before the Social Security Administration. Member of the TX & NM Bar Associations. Mail: 1420 N W St Washington D.C. O ce: Broward County, FL. Services may be provided by associated attorneys licensed in other states. Member of the TX & NM Bar Associations. Mail: 1420 NW St Washington D.C. Office: Broward County Florida.
Services may be provided by associated attorneys licensed in other states.
FULL-SERVICE SIGN & ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS
Professional VISUAL BRANDING INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS to help grow your business
...because image matters
Call Today! 301-273-3462
Stacey Brown
“Chief Image Builder”
stacey@signarama-silverspring.com
8930 Brookville Rd Silver Spring, MD 20910 signarama-silverspring.com
MBE/DBE Certi ed | Woman-Owned Business
black facts
FEB 3 - 9, 2022
SOURCE: BLACK AMERICA WEB
CHRIS ROCK
FEB. 3
1920 – The Negro National League, one of several organized Black baseball leagues, is founded. 1989 – Bill White is named president of Major League Baseball's National League, becoming the first Black to head a major professional sports league. 1956 – Autherine Lucy enrolls as a graduate student at the University of Alabama, becoming the first African American ever admitted to a white public school or university in the state.
FEB. 4
1913 – Rosa Parks, the "first lady of civil rights," is born in Tuskegee, Alabama. 1997 – Then-Rep. J.C. Watts becomes the first Black selected to respond to a State of the Union Address. 2006 – NFL great Warren Moon becomes the first Black quarterback inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 2007 – Tony Dungy (right) becomes the first African American head coach to win the Super Bowl when his Indianapolis Colts defeat the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI.
FEB. 5
1934 – Baseball legend Hank Aaron is born in Mobile, Alabama. 1972 – Bob Douglas, "the father of Black professional basketball," becomes the first African American elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. 1990 – Barack Obama becomes the first Black elected to Head Harvard's Law Review.
1994 – Avowed white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith is convicted of murdering civil rights activist Medgar Evers in 1963.
FEB. 6
1882 – Famed Black poet and civil rights activist Anne Spencer is born in Henry County, Virginia. 1933 – Walter E. Fauntroy, longtime former delegate to the U.S. Congress and former pastor of the New Bethel Baptist Church in the District, is born in D.C. 1945 – Reggae music icon Bob Marley is born in Jamaica's Saint Ann Parish. 1993 – Tennis great Arthur Ashe dies in New York City from AIDS-related pneumonia at age 49.
FEB. 7
1887 – Famed pianist Eubie Blake is born in Baltimore. 1965 – Comedian and actor Chris Rock is born in Andrews, South Carolina. 1974 – The Caribbean country of Grenada declares its independence from the United Kingdom. 1991 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide takes the oath of office as Haiti's first democratically elected president.
FEB. 8
1944 – Harry S. McAlpin becomes the first African American journalist admitted to a White House press conference. 1986 – Oprah Winfrey becomes the first African American woman to host a nationally syndicated talk show.
FEB. 9
1944 – Writer Alice Walker, author of "The Color Purple," is born in Putnam County, Georgia.
1965 – Martin Luther King
Jr. meets with President Lyndon Johnson to discuss Black voting rights. 1971 – Pitcher Leroy "Satchel" Paige becomes the first Negro League veteran to be nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame. 1995 – Bernard Harris becomes the first Black astronaut to walk in space.
WI
view P INT
BY SARAFINA WRIGHT
Cheslie Kryst, winner of the 2019 Miss USA pageant, died Sunday at 30 years old after jumping to her death from her New York City apartment building. What are your thoughts on the tragedy?
PAULETTE BECKFORD /
NEW YORK, NEW YORK So beautiful. Wow. A deeper investigation must take place. Depression and mental health are demons that come to take hold of you and destroy you. Cry out to Jesus and have someone you can trust to speak with and hold you in prayer. Condolences go out to her family and friends. Father God, heal the brokenhearted, heal mental illnesses, and heal the sickness of depression.
YOLANDA COOPER /
DALLAS, TEXAS Wow! I've literally had this woman's picture on my treadmill since she won as motivation to stay active and fit. She was such a beautiful spirit. My prayers and deepest condolences to her family.
CARLENE EDWARDS /
WASHINGTON, D.C. Only God knows why? Such a beautiful, smart and talented young lady. Condolences to those affected.
LILLIE HUFF /
WASHINGTON, D.C. So tragic! Condolences to her family.
wasn't worth living.
JANICE RUCKER /
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY Wow! After watching the Janet Jackson documentary and seeing what she went through in her life, I thought to myself, thank God she survived this life with no drugs and alcohol. And then I saw this. My heart is broken, wondering what happened in her life that she felt it
IF YOU WANT QUALITY WORK, JUST CALL! Quality Assurance Home Improvement, Inc.
“We Stand By Our Name” FREE ESTIMATES! / Office: 301-248-3325
DECK
ADDITION & 4 SEASON SUN ROOM FINISHED BASEMENT
ADDITION Kitchens • Bathrooms • Room additions • Retaining walls • Screen rooms • Carports •Sun rooms • Carports • Porches • Roofing • Siding Decks • Complete renovations • Enclosed porches • Basements Solid virgin final replacement Solid virgin vinyl replacement windows • Bay and bow windows Financing Available 90-day Deferment Payment
Bonded / Insured / Licensed MHCI#86727 / D.C. License #53005449 Lead Paint Removal Certified
PROFESSIONAL INSTALLERS A+ Rating in home improvement from the Better Business Bureau for 15 years straight 17 KITCHEN KITCHEN
Visit our website today at: www.fortwashingtonhomecontractors.com
$2500 off Sunrooms & Additions Up to 15% off Any ServiceHomeowners are you in need of a new roof, kitchen, bathroom? If so, take advantage of our 90 days or 6 months deferred payment plan now for as low as $199 a month.
Purchase today and receive FREE cable outlet and FREE A/C & Heating Unit With this coupon. Not valid with other offers or prior purchases. For Senior Citizens Extra 5% Off
With this coupon. Not valid with other offers or prior purchases.
Stay Informed!
www.washingtoninformer.com
D. Kevin McNeir / WI Senior Editor
(301) 864-6070 EMPLOYMENT LAWYERS
MCCOLLUM & ASSOCIATES, LLC ADA, Age Discrimination, Benefits, Civil Rights, COBRA, Contracts, Deaf Law, Defamation, Disability Law, Discipline, Discrimination, FMLA, FLSA, FOIA, Family Responsibility, Harassment, HIPPA, OSHA, National Origin Discrimination, Non-Compete, Race Discrimination, Rehabilitation Act, Retaliation, Severance Agreements, Sexual Harassment, Torts, Whistleblowing, Wage-and-Hour, Wrongful Discharge
SERVING MARYLAND, DC, & NORTH CAROLINA
www.jmlaw.net (301) 864-6070 jmccollum@jmlaw.net
As a proud, card-carrying member of the Black Press for more than 25 years, I have grown to both love and abhor the arrival of February when America, perhaps in an act of penance, holds its annual “lovefest” known as Black History Month. As much as I long to review the annals of African-American contributions, sacrifices and the achievement of “firsts” secured despite overwhelming odds, I still lament the fact that the Black community, for the most part, knows but a small portion of our actual, true, collective history.
We are the progeny of a people whose origins and story began on the other side of the world in a place called Africa before our ancestors and therefore our saga, would be forced to reconfigure ourselves and itself in a strange and often frightening new land.
Yet, we tend to view the Motherland much like the ancestors of the white “businessmen” who first kidnapped us, destroyed our families, treated us like animals and forced us to work in the industry of chattel slavery. Many of us have willingly embraced tales of Tarzan which only reinforced the so-called superiority of the whiteskinned, all-knowing savior — much to our detriment.
False narratives written by those with pale skin, peaked noses, eyes of blue and green and heads adorned with waves of blond became the norm, serving as the predominant, if not sole foundation of our reconstructed history. These stories asserted that we were “less than,” backwards, inferior, without education, without governments, without positive family structures, lacking any semblance of religion, architecture, philosophy, theology or medical prowess — strangers to both agriculturally- and economically-based ingenuity.
All of this, however, has been nothing more than a carefully-constructed lie.
Even more, while whites knew and continue to know that they have been ingeniously forcing us to ingest, digest and regurgitate ugly, distorted images that caused Blacks to eventually believe in our own inferiority, four centuries later, many African Americans have yet to awaken from this nightmare.
So, while we can rattle off the names of a few “acceptable” Blacks — Martin, Malcolm, Sojourner, Harriet and Thurgood, for example — we do not know the fuller story — the real deal.
Even more, I fear that we have little interest in discovering the truth — a path toward knowledge that will be painful, arduous and which will require us to give up “histories” with which many of our people seem to have grown “comfortable.”
This is the reality that we continue to swallow hook, line and sinker. In other words, Black history remains an epic saga whose truth remains untold, unknown — and therefore impossible to pass down to subsequent generations. The story that we know, at least many of us, is no more than a lie, conceived and constructed with ulterior motives, holding an entire race in chains even when the actual chains have long been removed.
And so, we have evolved with a narrative that still defines a oncemighty race, stripped of its lineage — beautiful and distinguished by our many “shades of Black” that adorn our skin — hues of Black which grow with intensity in the sunlight bearing colors reminiscent of God’s complete garden of caramel, cocoa, copper, bronze and midnight-blue.
I have been a writer for the Black press for more than 25 years and I continue to serve because I know that the work is still incomplete — that the story, our history, has huge empty spaces and places that must be filled in so that we can regain the pride that was once commonplace.
Once upon a time, people who did not look like us, who did not live like us, who did not dream like us or believe in the world like us, realized that we were a superior people — a learned community — and they envied us and all that we had accomplished.
I would like to think that we would have shared what we knew with “them” and that the world would be a better place today — a kinder world, a safer world, a cleaner world. But in the pursuit of dominance and privilege, humanity has taken giant steps backwards. And we have suffered.
It’s Black History Month. Read, listen, reflect, question, surmise and reach a new and different history — then share that truth with others whose only “sin” has been, for hundreds if not thousands of years, that we were a people of a different color.
WI
Originally published February 2021 in The Washington Informer
Plans Move Forward for New Grocery Store in Far Northeast D.C.
James Wright WI Staff Writer
District officials announced on Jan. 27 plans for a new grocery store to be built in Ward 7 on a vacant site located close to the Prince George’s County, Md. border.
The store would be located at the intersection of East Capitol Street., N.E. and 58th Street., N.E., across from the Capitol Heights Metro Station in Capitol Heights, Md.
Known as the Capitol Gateway Marketplace, D.C. Councilmember Vincent Gray (D-Ward 7) expressed enthusiasm about the new store’s prospects and said he will work to get the process for construction started immediately.
“Today, we are setting in motion a significant breakthrough in the long-stalled development of Capitol Gateway,” Gray said. “When this legislation is passed, we will be on the fast track to opening another new grocery store in Ward 7. Though the East End of the District remains underserved, we are making progress to eliminate food deserts and bring equity to residents of Wards 7 and 8 who live with far fewer grocery and shopping options than residents who live west of the Anacostia River.”
Gray noted the groundbreaking of the only Lidl store in the District last month that will be part of the Skyland Town Center located in his ward as another example of economic progress.
“We will continue to find public resources and work with partners in the private sector to develop retail options and deliver amenities to residents in underserved neighborhoods,” the councilmember said.
Gray will work with the Bowser administration to have the D.C. Council approve seizing the land through eminent domain. When Gray served as District mayor from 2011-2015, he negotiated a deal with retailer Walmart to build a store on the land.
In addition to Walmart, plans had been made for a sit-down restaurant and a mixed-use building with 312 residential units and 18,000 square feet of ground-floor retail uses. However, in 2016, Walmart abruptly withdrew from the project.
There’s has been no development of the land since then. Meanwhile, the closest full-service grocery store in the area, a Safeway located in Addison Plaza in Seat Pleasant, Md., closed in July 2016. Both District and Prince George’s County residents patronized the Addison Road Safeway.
The D.C. Department of Planning and Economic Development [DMPED] said it has received a preliminary commitment from one of the largest grocers in the Washington metropolitan area to build and operate an approximately 55,000 square feet store that would serve as Capitol Gateway’s anchor.
DMPED Deputy Mayor John Falcicchio said the new store will bring fresh food options to the far Northeast area.
“Providing access to fresh food and advancing delayed projects are top priorities for Mayor Bowser,” Falcicchio said in a statement. “Food justice is an emergency and together we need to take these immediate, bold actions to deliver it.” WI @JamesWrightJr10
5Vincent Gray (D-Ward7) (Courtesy photo) BEST DEALS FOR EVERYONE
Ask how to get the iPhone 12 mini ®
for as low as
with trade-in
Find out how to get our most popular phones, call now!
Iv Support Holdings LLC (877) 370-2155
Call AT&T sales rep for details. For trade-in instructions visit tradein.att.com/o er-details
Limited time o er. All products and services are o ered, supplied and performed by AT&T Services, Inc. (“AT&T”). AT&T is not an a liate of or endorsed by Sam’s Club. AT&T is solely responsible for the products and services advertised. Sam’s Club has no obligation to perform any responsibilities of AT&T, and Sam’s Club does not guarantee the performance of AT&T’s obligations.
Prepare for unexpected power outages with a Generac home standby generator
SCHEDULE YOUR FREE IN-HOME ASSESSMENT TODAY! 855-993-0969
FREE 7-Year Extended Warranty* A $695 Value!
O er valid March 16, 2020 - Sept 6, 2020
Special Financing Available
Subject to Credit Approval
*Terms & Conditions Apply
Satellite Internet That is Unlimited With No Hard Data Limits!2
25 Mbps Download Speed
25mbps download and 3mbps upload1 No Hard Data Limits2 Wi-Fi Built-In
Connect your wireless devices at home
Call For Special O ers In Your Area
Pricing varies by region
CALL TODAY - LIMITED SPECIAL OFFERS IN YOUR AREA! 1-855-973-9254
HughesNet is a registered trademark of Hughes Network Systems, LLC, an EchoStar Company. 2 If you exceed your monthly plan data, you will experience reduced data speeds until the start of your next billing period. Reduced speeds will typically be in the range of 1 – 3 Mbps and may cause Web sites to load more slowly or a ect the performance of certain activities, such as video streaming or large downloads/uploads.
Blazing Fast Internet!
ADD TO YOUR PACKAGE FOR ONLY $19./mo. 99
where available
2-YEAR TV PRICE GUARANTEE
MO.
for 12 Mos. America’s Top 120 Package
190 CHANNELS
Including Local Channels!
CALL TODAY - For $100 Gift Card Promo Code: DISH100
1-855-407-6870
O er ends 1/31/21.
All o ers require credit quali cation, 24-month commitment with early termination fee and eAutoPay. Prices include Hopper Duo for qualifying customers. Hopper, Hopper w/Sling or Hopper 3 $5/mo. more. Upfront fees may apply based on credit quali cation.
Jaren Lockridge Assumes the Helm for Ward 8 Health Council
Natalie C. Hockaday WI Staff Writer
As a mother, former government employee, director of The Well at Oxon Run Park and now the chair of the Ward 8 Health Council, Jaren Lockridge said she plans to expand resources for Ward 8 residents and make them more accessible.
“We are so resourceful and we have such an abundance once we’re able to tap into it and see the value of it,” Lockridge said.
The first Ward 8 Health Council Meeting of 2022 kicked off at United Medical Center in Southeast during which Lockridge included in her opening remarks, the request that everyone share their gifts. She clarified her comment, saying the “gifts” represent anything an individual has within and which they can share with the community.
“The greatest resource that we have in Ward 8 is our human resources, our people,” she said. “That was on full display in my first meeting as chair of the Ward 8 Health Council.”
She said “standing on the shoulders of giants” – something which she frequently realizes and relishes – has humbled her, knowing that others have paved the way in Ward 8 whose contributions will serve as a guide in the work before her.
The council needed a new chairperson after Calvin Smith, the former chair, announced his plan to step down in September 2021.
Lockridge, a native of Memphis, Tenn., said community is everything to her. She said she hopes some of her innate southern hospitality and charm have been positively received. She hopes those attributes will be beneficial and she works with neighbors and community leaders to empower the residents of Ward 8.
“The beautiful thing about how my life is aligning right now is that it’s bringing my personal and professional capacities and passions into the forefront,” Lockridge said.
Health experts and professionals shared the many programs and resources that currently exist and which residents of the ward can now access. But with attendance meager, Lockridge said other methods of sharing that information to a larger audience and in plain language must be found.
Communicating health information to the public, Lockridge says, is like code switching and that “when it comes to the subject matter expertise, it can be really jargon heavy.”
Prior to working in the non-profit sector, Lockridge worked in government.
She said she’ll use her knowledge of how government communicates and apply a version of what she’s learned after retooling it “in a way that’s actually resourceful.”
“I’m trying to lead by example by understanding firsthand what resources are available when it comes to my own health care team and healthcare system,” she said. “Then, I have to make sure those around me, including our children, are empowered with that same information.” WI
5 Jaren Lockridge, director of The Well and chair of the Ward 8 Health Council. (Courtesy photo).
MOLANGEE GUINYARD (AGE 91)
It is with great sadness that we announce the transitioning of Molangee Guinyard, age 91 from Raleigh, North Carolina on January 15, 2022. Molangee was a loving and devoted Mother, Grandmother, Great Grandmother, Sister, Aunt, great friend to many, and longtime member of the Meridian Hill Baptist Church.
Family and friends will gather for ‘A Celebration of Life’ on Saturday, February 5, 2022, 10am (Viewing) 11am (Service) at Marshall-March Funeral Homes, 4217 9th Street NW Washington DC 20011.
