Washington Informer - February 7, 2013

The African race is a rubber ball. The harder you dash it to the ground, the higher it will rise. – African Proverb Black History Month Celebration Inside •

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D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray delivers his third annual State of the District Address on Tuesday, Feb. 5 at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Northwest. See story on Page 13. /Photo by Khalid Naji-Allah

The Forces Behind Anacostia’s Resurgence

By Michelle Phipps-Evans WI Staff Writer Ward 7 resident Patrice Irby enjoyed a meal at the Big Chair Bar & Grill on Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue in Southeast one recent Wednesday afternoon. During her meal, she marveled at the many changes taking

place in the neighborhood.

“This is my first time here,” said Irby, 57, a federal government contract specialist and native Washingtonian who grew up in Southeast. “It’s fun to see how D.C. has [been] revitalized.

It’s not the same.”

Irby voiced what longtime residents have witnessed of late in

Ward 8’s Anacostia community: a flurry of economic activity, a budding arts district and an influx of new residents.

“We’re seeing an unprecedented renaissance, which collectively plugs into [Mayor Vincent Gray’s] vision,” said Stanley Jackson, 60, newly appointed president of the Anacostia Economic Devel-

opment Corporation (AEDC), a nonprofit that’s promotes Anacostia real estate and business expansion. “We have the opportunity to look at this vision and optimize assets to help the government, the community and the bottom line. We must have a community that’s proactive in engaging developers.”

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Give Kids a Smile Clinic Held Page 4

School Closings Challenged Nationally Page 22

Jackson, who served as the deputy mayor for planning and economic development under former Mayor Anthony Williams, said his mission with AEDC is a culmination of his efforts under Williams between 2005 and 2007.

“We want to maximize this

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The CoLumn

5th Annual Red Dress Event

Hon. Shirley Watkins Bowden (President of the Arlington Links ) with her Connecting Link Kirk

The Arlington Chapter of the Links, Inc. presented their 5th Annual Red Dress Event at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center in Alexandria, VA. Arlington Link President, Hon. Shirley Watkins Bowden did the welcome address, Dr. Nicholette Martin was the event Mistress of Ceremonies The expert panelist were Dr. Barbara Hutchinson, and Dr. Jacqueline Eubany. Certificate of appreciation were given to Lauren Miles, Carolyn Gartzje, Mrs. Adriana Glen (MSN) , Mrs. Darhyl Jasper (MSN), Hon. Shirley Watkins Bowden (Arlington Links President), Tracy Gore, Christopher Anderson, Shannon Collier, & Bridgette Glover and to Social Sightings Columnist & Publisher “Mick5th Annual RED Dress Event ey” Thompson. Patricia Wilson demonstrated a life saving (L-R) Arlington Link Lavern Chatman Brown (2013 Red Dress Day Committee Chair), Dr. Barbara Hutchinson, Ph.D, FCC, (Cardiology, Chesapeake Cardiac Care), Hon. technique. For more about the Arlington Links go to Shirley Watkins Bowden (Arlington Links President), Dr. Nicholette Martin (Chair, www.arlingtonlinksinc.org Health & Human Servs Facet) & Dr. Jacqueline Eubany, FACC (Cardiologist GW University)

Certificate of Appreciation Awardees

(L-R) Lauren Miles, Carolyn Gartzje, Mrs. Adriana Glen (MSN) , Mrs. Darhyl Jasper (MSN), Hon. Shirley Watkins Bowden (Arlington Links President), Tracy Gore, Christopher Anderson, Shannon Collier, & Bridgette Glover (L-R) Arlington Links Beth Jackson Hodges & Florence King (Guest)

(L-R) Mary Clark (Reston Link) & (L-R) Arlington Links Caroline Lang & Emily Arlington Link Dr. Nicholette Martin (Event Mistress of Bryant Ceremonies)

(L-R) Arlington Links Dr. Drue S. Guy and Pearl Hicks

Arlington Link Gwendolyn Lewis

(L-R) Connecting Links Hugh Brown, Bill Mitchell & Bob Brown

Want to be a Social Sightings?

(L-R) “Mickey” Thompson (Publisher & Photo Journalist of Social Sightings) is presented a Certificate of Appreciation by Dr. Martin from the Arlington Links for media coverage.

(Center) Patricia Wilson (Basic Life Support Instructor) Demonstrates Life Saving Techniques

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Kurt Pommonths, Sr, Photographer *Photo Enhancer *Graphic Designer Social Sightings The CoLumn is Also published in Hill Rag, DC Mid-City & East of the River 2003 © SOCIAL SIGHTINGS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED — DUPLICATION IN ANY FORM REQUIRES WRITTEN PERMISSION | E-mail SocialSightings@aol.com

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2/7/2013 2/13/2013 AROUND THE REGION Black Facts Page 6 PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY Page 12 BUISNESS William Reed’s Business Exchange Page 16 COMMNETARIES Pages 32-33 SPORTS Page 44 RELIGION D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton celebrates the relocation of the Frederick Douglass statue that was formerly housed at One Judiciary Square in Northwest to the U.S. Capitol on Monday, Feb. 4. /Photo by Khalid Naji-Allah

Lyndia Grant’s Religion Column Page 47

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Women Break the Cycle of Domestic Violence

By Tia Carol Jones

law enforcement. She said they threat,” she said. had come together to bring a Among the programs Marlow sense of uniformity in the way wants to see implemented are When L.Y. Marlow's 23-year- domestic violence victims and stricter restraining order policies, old daughter told her the father survivors are treated. more rights for victim's families of her daughter threatened her “She's using her own personal to intervene on behalf of a viclife, and the life of their child, story, her own personal pain to tim, a domestic violence assessshe knew something had to be push forward,” Davis-Nickens ment unit coupled with further done. Out of her frustration said about Marlow. training for law enforcement with law enforcement's handling Davis-Nickens said anyone agencies, a Child's Life Protecof the situation, she decided to who reads Marlow's book will tion Act and mandatory counselstart the Saving Promise cam- “get it.” She said she “puts the ing for batterers. paign. case in such a way, the average “If we are ever going to eradi“It seems to be a vicious cycle person can get it.” She said at the cate domestic violence, we must that won't turn my family end of the day, the book will look at both sides of the coin. loose,” Marlow said. Marlow help people begin to have a dia- We need to address both the vicshared her story with the audi- logue about domestic violence. tim and the batterer,” Marlow ence at the District Heights Also present at the event was said.

Domestic Symposium Dr. Adrian Violence Wilson, right, and Dr. Jenny Rhee, leftMuhammad, provide dental the care toexKeilly De Leon-Peraza her to visitsee Mildred Marlow wouldduring also like on May 7 at the DistrictCollege Heights to the Howard University of Dentistry Northwest, part of the nationwide Give Kids a Smile Day wife ofinJohn Allen as Muhammad, programs designed to on raise Municipal Center.

The sympoFriday, February 1. /Photo

by Khalid Naji-Allah who was sentenced to six consec- awareness among children in sium was sponsored by the utive life terms without parole public and private schools. She Family and Youth Services by a Maryland jury for his role in feels children need to be educatCenter of the city of District the Beltway Sniper attacks in ed about domestic violence.

Heights and the National Hook- 2002. Mildred Muhammad is “We have to stop being pasUp of Black Women. the founder of After the Trauma, sive-aggressive with poor chilMarlow has Phipps-Evans written a book, said Dr. Sally Cram, of dren and this day can help turn a page an organization thatpresident helps the about domestic violence,” By Michelle “Color MeWriter Butterfly,” which is a the survivors of domestic D.C. Dental Societyviolence Foun- Marlow said. need,” said Granton an unmet WI Staff story about four generations of dation, and their Marlow has worked break thechildren. philanthropic arm of Mills who added it was to unfortudomestic violence. The book is the“IDental lived in fear for six years.

Six the cycle of abuse in her family, Society, which helped More than 150 District elenate that a child was lost but it was inspired by her own experiences, raise yearsfunds in fearforisthe a long time. Itwas is and is confident the policies she day, which mentary school children received a “wake up call for the need for and those of her grandmother, approximately not an easy thing to come out is pushing for will start that $10,000 this year. free dental care on the first day more intervention.” her mother and her daughter. “Part of,” she said. process. of our goal is to educate of History Month in a Howard She Black said every time she reads Mildred “I plan toalum, takeorthodontist these policiesAnto parents as anMuhammad important partsaid of nationwide effort raiseshe awareexcerpts from her to book, still people who want to help a Congress drew Orchin, who has athem practice and implore to … we want to totally ness about the the importance of prevention can not believe words came domestic violence victim must change our laws,” Marlowdental said. in Northwest, supervised tooth decay in five year fromhygiene. her. “Color Me Butterfly” eradicate oral be careful of how they go into “I will notNkechi stop until these polistudents, Nwagwu and olds by 2020.” won 2007of National Thethe District Columbia “Best Den- the victim's life, and understand cies are passed.”

M. Pham as they worked on Started the ADA the Tuan Books” Award. she by may be inin 2003, “survival Tia Carol Jones can be reached tal Society, the local arm of the that 6-year-old Mariama Conteh.

District’s partnership has always “I was just 16-years-old when at tiacaroljones@sbcglobal.net American Dental Association mode”.

“She was very cooperative,” been with Howard, which had my eye first blackened and my “Before you get to 'I'm going (ADA), the professional group of “lots of equipment and said lips bled,”who Marlow said. to killwith you,' it started as a verbal WINwagwu, 27, a third-year dentists, hosted the annual space Elaine Davis-Nickens, presi- provided a great opportunity for student who used a sealant beGive Kids a Smile Day with Howdent of the National Hook-Up the dentists at the Dental Society cause the little girl had bruising ard University College Dentistof Black Women, saidof there is no to mentor dental students and the on her teeth. ry in Northwest, provided an array consistency in the way domestic children,” Cram added.

“I had a good experience here, of services. violence issues are dealt with by “This partnership will im- and I wanted to come back to Ten-year-old Elvis Ohia, a fifth prove the oral health disparities help,” said Orchin, 45, a native grader who attends Bruce-Monin the District,” said Howard roe Elementary at Parkview in Associate Professor Dr. Donna Washingtonian who graduated Northwest, had his teeth cleaned.

Grant-Mills, and chair of the from Howard in 2002.

“It was fun,” said Elvis, who’s Department of Dental Hygiene.

According to the Dental Socivisited a dentist before. “They gave “We’ve come a long way over the ety, since the Give Kids a Smile us toothbrushes and made sure past decade where national data Day began, the District has treated our teeth were clean and showed states dental decay is the most about 1,800 children and provided us how to clean our teeth.” chronic preventable childhood $495,000 in free dental treatments Children ranging in ages from disease. It’s five times more com- because of the annual efforts of 4 and up visited dentists who vol- mon than asthma.”

30 to 40 volunteer dentists and unteered a half-a-day, and Howard Treating these low-income chil- their staff. dental students to receive multiple dren could prevent deaths like “Oral health affects overall types of treatments. These includ- Deamonte Driver, the 12-year-old health.

A child with dental pain ed dental sealants to prevent decay, boy from Prince George’s Councan’t function properly, misses fluoride and cleanings. If needed, ty who died Feb. 25, 2007, after school, and can’t concentrate. A the children could receive fol- bacteria from an untreated tooth healthy mouth influences general low-up care for fillings, extractions abscess reached his brain. His L.Y. Marlow health,” said Grant-Mills, adding and root canals. mother found it difficult to find a that during the day, the focus was “Lots of kids need treatment dentist who accepted Medicaid. and less than 25 percent of the “We realized there’s a silent ep- on “restoration, prevention and parents will send them back,” idemic of oral disease in children education.” WI WI Staff Writer

Dentists Promote Oral Hygiene

4 / May 15 - 21, 2008 The Washington Informer / www.washingtoninformer.com The Washington Informer

4 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

“

We have to stop being passive-aggressive with poor children about domestic violence. I plan to take these policies to Congress and implore them to change our laws. I will not stop until these policies are passed.

“

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Silverman Wants to Address Disparities Elissa Silverman is ready to take her skills from the worlds of media and think tanks to politics where she hopes to become a model legislator at the John A. Wilson Building in Northwest.

Silverman, 40, is a candidate for the at-large position on the D.C. Council that was vacated by Phil Mendelson last year when District voters elected him as chairman of the legislative body.

Silverman, one of eight candidates competing in the April 23 special election, said that District residents will experience a difference in government if she’s given the opportunity.

“I can show District voters 15 years of service to the city,” said Silverman. “I will have a commitment to ethics reform, integrity, accountability and strategic investment while serving on the D.C. Council.”

Silverman, currently on leave from the Fiscal Policy Institute in Northeast, where she works as a budget analyst, said that her years at the institute have heightened her sense of what needs to be done to help struggling District residents. For years, Silverman covered the District as a reporter for The Washington Post and the Washington City Paper.

“We have a growing city but we have our problems,” the Northeast resident said. “We have to work the income and opportunity gaps in our city. We have to close the achievement gap in our schools.”

She said that her years as a journalist will help hold governmental officials and her council colleagues accountable for their actions.

“Being a reporter, it is ingrained in you to advocate for openness and transparency and I will definitely do that on the D.C. Council,” Silverman said.

“Also, I hope to be treated fairly by the press during this election season.”

However, it’s her work with the institute that may pose problems for Silverman with some District residents, D.C. political analyst Chuck Thies said.

“Elissa knows how the political game is played because of her years as a journalist and working with the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute but she will have problems with higher income residents of

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Elissa Silverman has decided to run in the April 23 special election to fill the seat of Phil Mendelson. /Photo courtesy of Elissa Silverman

Denise Rolark Barnes

the city,” said Thies, 47. “These residents pay a lot of taxes and they may not want to support a candidate who may raise their taxes to help less fortunate D.C. residents, which the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute supports. I can see her opponents now branding her a ‘tax and spend liberal.’”

Silverman wants a city that’s for everyone and will work to ensure that happens on the D.C. Council, if elected, she said. “I want to make our communities better places to live and to see our families healthier.”

Brown Prepares to Win Former D.C. Council member Michael Brown is methodically planning his way back to the John A. Wilson Building in Northwest.

Brown, 47, who lost to D.C. Council member David Grosso (I-At Large) in the November general election last year and is a candidate for the April 23 special election to fill the at-large seat of Phil Mendelson, said that his campaign is taking shape.

“On Jan. 23, we turned into the D.C. Board of Elections

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Independent Beauty Consultant more names than any other canwww.marykay/drolark-barnes.com didate,” he said. “We have identi202-236-8831 fied our office team and we have professionals from the Clinton and Obama campaigns working with us as well as local political professionals.”

Brown served on the D.C. Council as an independent from 2009-2013 and gained a reputation as a lawmaker concerned about economic development in working-class areas of the city and affordable housing. Brown continues to work as a partner at The Madison Group in Northwest and said that he still has some assets that will help him win on April 23.

“I have high-name recognition and I know how to build a citywide operation for the campaign,” he said. “Our organizaPlease set all copy in upper tion is filled ‡with people who are and lowercase, flush left as indicated on artwork at these point sizes: Consultant name in 11-point Helvetica Neue Bo Beauty Consultant in 9-point Helvetica Neue Light; Web site or e-mail address in 9-point Helvetica Neue Light; phone number in 9-point Helvetica the Independent energized andToexcited about Beauty this Consultant: Only Company-approved Web sites obtained through the Mary Kay® Personal Web Site program may campaign. I want to go back to the John A. Wilson Building so [that] I can continue to be the ‘conscience of the council.’” wi

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February 9 1944 – Award winning novelist Alice Walker is born in Eatonton, Georgia. She is known for “telling the black woman’s story.” Perhaps her most famous novel was “The Color Purple.”

1995 – Dr. Bernard Harris becomes the first African American to walk in space as part of a joint Russian and American mission.

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prison in Atlanta, Georgia after being convicted of what many blacks felt were trumped up mail fraud charges.

February 7 1871 – Alcorn A&M College (later “University”) opens in Mississippi. The great black legislator Hiram Revels resigns his seat in Congress to become the first president of the institution which would grow to become one of the leading black colleges in the nation.

1883 – Eubie Blake is born James Hubert Blake in Baltimore, Maryland.

Along with Noble Sissle, he popularizes Ragtime music.

February 8 1894 – Congress repeals the Enforcement Act and thus made it easier for states, especially in the South, to take away black voting rights. Originally passed in 1870, the Act had established criminal penalties for interfering with a person’s right to vote. After its repeal, Southern states passed a host of measures including poll taxes, literacy tests and so-called vouchers of “good character” - all designed to block or limit the number of blacks who could vote.

1925 – Marcus Mosiah Garvey, the “Black Moses,” enters federal

February 10 1927 – Opera singer Leontyne Price is born Mary Violet Leontyne Price in Laurel, Mississippi. She first achieved international fame when she was selected to play “Bess” during the European tour of the George Gershwin Broadway production of “Porgy and Bess.”

1989 – Ron Brown was elected chairman of the Democratic Party becoming the first African American to head one of the two major political parties.

1992 – Renowned author Alex Haley dies. He was also a biographer and scriptwriter. Haley is perhaps best known for the novel “Roots” which became a major television series and for the “Autobiography of Malcolm X.” Haley was born August 11, 1921 in Ithaca, New York.

February 11 1644 – Eleven blacks confront the ruling Council of New Netherlands (later New York) with a petition demanding their freedom. This was probably the first legal protest action by blacks in American history.

The petition is granted and the blacks are freed because they had worked off the terms of their indentured servant contracts which were usually for seven years.

1990 – Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is released from prison on Robben Island after 27 years. He had been jailed for his militant activities against the then white-ruled South African government and its system of rule

known as Apartheid honorary title given to elders in his tribe.

February 12 1793 – Congress passes the first Fugitive Slave Law. The law made it easier for a slave owner to re-take control of a slave who had escaped to freedom. Blacks and their supporters were outraged because the 1793 law only required the “word” of a white man before a magistrate to declare any black person a run-away slave and have him or her arrested and placed in bondage 1900 –Legendary poet James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) writes the lyrics to the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as part of a birthday tribute to Abraham Lincoln. In time, the song would become the Black National Anthem.

1930 – The infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment is funded.

Over 400 black men from rural parts of Georgia and Alabama are lured into the program with the promise that they would be treated for syphilis.

But the program was actually designed to study the effects of untreated syphilis on the body. Thus, the men were given fake anti-syphilis medicines as their diseases advanced. The unethical “experiment” went on for 40 years as most of the men gradually died. A reporter exposed the study in 1972.

Several government agencies, including the U.S. Public Health Service and Center for Disease Control, were involved. On behalf of the nation, President Clinton apologized to Charlie Pollard and other surviving members of the racist experiment in 1997.

February 13 1635 – The nation’s first public school is established in Boston, Massachusetts. It was called the Boston Latin School. Blacks could not attend.

1907 – Wendell P. Dabney establishes the groundbreaking black newspaper known as The Union in Cincinnati, Ohio. The paper’s motto was “For no people can become great without being united, for in union there is strength.”

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AROUND THE REGION

Stanley Jackson, the newly appointed president of the Anacostia Economic Development Corporation sees tremendous potential in the neighborhood. /Photo by Khalid Naji-Allah

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ANACOSTIA continued from Page 1 neighborhood to create a walkable community to live, work, eat; and where we can attract any of the 17 million people visiting Washington, D.C. Few come east of the river,” said Jackson, a longtime resident of the Bellevue neighborhood in Ward 8.

In early January, Jackson introduced himself at a meeting of the civic organization, the Historic Anacostia Block Association (HABA), in front 75 people, said Charles Wilson, the association’s president.

“He’s excited and he wanted people to prepare themselves for the changes,” said Wilson, 36, about Jackson’s presentation, “and to ensure [that] we work together.”

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Anacostia Historic District is a small geographical location built between 1854 and 1930. Wilson said, it’s bounded west by Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, north

by Good Hope Road, east by Fendall Street and the rear of the Frederick Douglass home, and south by Bangor Street and Morris Road. It also includes The Washington Informer

a District landmark, The Big Chair, the Anacostia Metro and the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum.

Anacostia residents are abuzz, said Nikki Peele, director of business development and marketing at the ARCH Development Corporation (ADC), a nonprofit focused on Anacostia’s revitalization through arts culture and small business development.

“We’re seeing the fruits of our labor, as of late,” said Peele, 36, who added that although ADC used arts as a revitalization tool, it wasn’t the only catalyst.

“We match arts efforts that go well with something else.” For instance, she said that the arts could be paired with a business improvement district. To date, residents who live in Historic Anacostia have witnessed the opening of two gallery spaces, and small business incubators – all ADC projects.

Peele has a theory about the sudden popularity of Anacostia.

“The true story of the neighborhood was told for the past five years,” said Peele, who writes a blog, Congress Heights on the Rise. “People are blogging, tweeting and [using Facebook to talk about real life experiences],

educating the mainstream, and balancing the negative [stereotypes] about the community.”

A combination of changing attitudes and moderate housing prices, afforded Anacostia an opportunity to entice arts-related development from a burgeoning community in Northeast.

This spring, a performing arts venue, H Street Playhouse, will reopen as the Anacostia Playhouse.

Managing director, Julia Robey Christian, said moving from H Street to Anacostia took a minute.

“It already has an arts presence, and people who trust us will come with us,” said Christian, 36, who added that rising costs partly led to the move. She said a new mission will develop as the playhouse begins to produce more socially conscious productions with more community involvement.

Anacostia’s growth, however, has been slower than H Street’s due to the negative reputation that’s still attached to the area, said Kenneth Brewer, executive director of the H Street Community Development Corpora-

See ANACOSTIA on Page 9 www.washingtoninformer.com

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around the region

“We’re seeing unprecedented renaissance, which collectively plugs into [Mayor Vincent Gray’s] vision.”

– Stanley Jackson, newly appointed president of the Anacostia Economic Development Corp.

ANACOSTIA continued from Page 8 tion, a nonprofit established to reinvigorate the corridor.

“You would think because Anacostia has the Metro, it would do better,” said Brewer, 52, a longtime resident of the Hillcrest neighborhood in Ward 7. “But population must grow to support retail.” It took 25 years to get “this much movement” on H that relied on “market forces and conditions.”

The H Street corridor in Northeast, which spans from North Capitol Street to 17th Street, has become a destination spot – with a cornucopia of restaurants, theater venues and retailers. Voted as the sixth most “hipster” place in America by Forbes magazine in September 2012, the H Street corridor – counted among one of the District’s earliest and busiest commercial districts; it was the location of one of the first stores Sears, Roebuck and Co., opened in 1929. The H Street corridor waned after World War II and businesses suffered after the 1968 riots. However, the once bustling corridor has experienced a resurgence within recent years.

“To see the change is good,” said Carolyn Thomas, the owner of C.A.T. Walk boutique in Northeast. “I used to be afraid of this area when I was growing up. Now, I’m looking forward to Ben’s Chili Bowl coming across the street.” Thomas has been on 10th Street in Northeast since May 2012.

“I disagree it’s just the arts driving the changes,” said Brewer about Anacostia. “It’s more. I think Stan Jackson understands economic development and the framework that [the late] Albert ‘Butch’ Hopkins left behind.”

Hopkins led AEDC for more than 30 years.

The two communities share bragging rights.

Both neighborhoods boast about their local festivals. The H Street Festival, sponsored by H Street Main Street, attracts thousands. Last year, ADC hosted Lumen8Anacostia, a festival of lights, arts and music, which Peele said will take place again this year. The event attracted a large and diverse crowd.

Regardless of what’s driving the Anacostia engine, Michael Sterling, The Big Chair Bar & Grill’s new owner said, he sees progress. Sterling, who relocated from Detroit in 2011, has noticed an influx of new faces.

“I see lots of Caucasians trying to field out the area, and they will ask about the neighborhood,” said Sterling, 40, who has managed the café for a year.

Sterling said that he’s a silent partner in the reopening of the Uniontown Bar & Grill, across the street from his café.

Uniontown, a sit-down restaurant, closed in 2012, after the owner was charged in a federal drug-trafficking case. Sterling said that his two partners have restaurant experience; and one has managed a nightclub.

“This is still a transitional community, and we need to learn from the history of those who were there before,” said Jackson.

There’s a sense of excitement throughout the halls of the John A. Wilson Building about the renaissance taking place in the Historic Anacostia district. Mayor Vincent Gray, 70, said he’s excited about the initiatives that are creating jobs and tax revenue in Washington, D.C. “The mayor is committed to seizing opportunities to revitalize neighborhoods across the city with a mix of office, retail and residential development,” said Doxie McCoy, the senior communications manager for the mayor.wi

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This Week’s Top Online Story: Unemployment Rate Rises Despite Jobs Increase Although employers added 157,000 jobs in January and hiring was stronger over the past two years, the unemployment rate still rose to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent in December.

Health: Is It Strep Throat?

A sore throat can be mild or severe. But when does it become “strep” throat, and how should it be treated? Your doctor can do a quick test and provide answers on prevention and how not to spread the condition to others.

Arts and Entertainment: Kerry Washington Wins Big at NAACP Image Awards The star of ABC’s “Scandal” picked up three trophies at the 44th annual ceremony: outstanding actress in a dramatic series for “Scandal,” supporting actress in a motion picture for “Django Unchained” and the President’s Award, which is given in recognition of special achievement and exceptional public service.

National: Chicago Homicides Outnumbered Troops in Afghanistan In 2012, Chicago faced a surge in its

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homicide rate, with reports stating that 228 people were murdered in contrast to the 144 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan over the same period.

International: As Spain’s Economy Worsens, Young Adults Flock to Mexico for Jobs Thousands of young Spanish professionals are leaving their homeland in search of employment in Mexico, where a similar mass exodus has not been seen since the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939.

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A MASTER CLASS

CONVERSATIONS IN JAZZ WITH DC’S OWN BASSIST BEN WILLIAMS Presented by THEARC Theater and the DC Jazz Festival Friday, March 22, 2013 at 10:30 • FREE • 60 Minutes Bassist Benjamin Williams, a DC-native, also performs on electric bass and piano. His musical influences are rooted in various genres of music including jazz, hip-hop, R&B, gospel, and classical. A graduate of the Michigan State University School of Music where he majored in Music Education with an emphasis in Jazz, Ben has won several competitions including the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Competition (2010). He is also a two-time winner of the Fish Middleton Jazz Scholarship Competition at the East Coast Jazz Festival; a two-time winner of the DC Public School Piano Competition; and a 2002 recipient of the Duke Ellington Society Annual Scholarship Award. Ben also took first place in the 2005 International Society of Bassists (ISB) competition in the category of jazz. Ben has performed nationally and internationally with artists such as Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Roy Hargrove, Mulgrew Miller, Cyrus Chestnut, Stefon Harris, Winard Harper, Buster Williams, Me’Shell N’degeocello, Gene Lake, Wycliffe Gordon, and Delfeayo Marsalis, among others. He has also opened for artists such as John Legend, Kirk Franklin, and Eric Roberson.

Q & A will follow by students. Moderated by Sunny Sumter, executive director, DC Jazz Festival.

Directions and Metro [M: Southern Avenue; Bus: 32, 34, 36, 92, 94, W2, W3] Recommended Age: Middle and High School.

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Ben Williams and the Sound Effect Jazz Band performing at THEARC Theater Friday, March 22, 2013 at 7:30 PM. Click here for details. Special $10.00 tickets available to master class participants, teachers, and their families. Program Code: DCJAZZFEST

Stay connected to the DC Jazz Festival at www.dcjazzfest.org This tour engagement of Ben Williams is funded through Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s Jazz Touring Network program with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The 2013 Roberta Flack Music Education Program is made possible through the generous support of the UnitedHealth Group, the NEA Foundation, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, CrossCurrents Foundation, and the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; and, in part, with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. The Roberta Flack Music Education Program is a project of Festivals, DC, Ltd d/b/a DC Jazz Festival, a 501(3)3 non-profit service organization. ©2013 Festivals DC Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

9

AROUND THE REGION

Voting Rights Bill Filed for This Congress

By James Wright WI Staff Writer A member of the U.S. House of Representatives who is a civil rights icon and a U.S. senator who is considered a rising star in Democratic Party circles recently introduced similar bills to ensure that Americans have an easier time voting in elections.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) reintroduced, on Jan 23, the Voter Empowerment Act of 2012 in the House while U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) has introduced a companion bill that’s designed, according to the language of the Lewis bill, to “help ensure equal access to the ballot for every eligible voter, modernize our voter registration system to help more Americans participate and

every historic and current impediment to the democratic process.”

Lewis marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in the 1960s, fighting for civil rights. He was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1986 and he represents most of the city of Atlanta and a few of its suburbs.

Gillibrand, 46, took the seat of Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2009, when Clinton became the U.S. Secretary of State. Gillibrand is often talked about as being placed on the national Democratic presidential ticket in 2016 or 2020.

Gillibrand invoked Lewis’s mentor, King, when talking about her companion legislation.

“Dr. Martin Luther King often spoke about the fierce urgency of now; now is the time to protect the voting rights battles that have already been won and to press for new protections,” she said.

After the 2010 midterm elections, the U.S. Department of Justice received a number of complaints from citizens and vot-

take steps to eliminate deceptive practices and voter fraud that deters voters from casting their ballots.” Lewis reintroduced his bill on the anniversary of the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which outlawed the poll tax where voters had to pay to exercise their right to vote.

“The right to vote is precious, almost sacred,” Lewis, 72, said.

“Too many people in this country had to give their lives to exercise a right already guaranteed them by the Constitution. Outlawing the poll tax 49 years ago does not mean we are finished protecting democratic freedom.”

Lewis said that “new challenges to equal access still arise today” and “to be a credible voice for equal justice abroad, we must be watchful here at home to alleviate

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ing rights organizations about the excessively long lines at polling places on Election Day that year, unfair voter identification laws and confusion about early voting in many states where it’s offered.

While the Democratic Party had its president re-elected, added U.S. senators and eight new members to the House last year, the voting challenges have prompted the House Democratic leadership to support Lewis’s bill.

“I am proud to join in reintroducing the Voter Empowerment Act,” House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said. “Last year, this bill was introduced after several Republican-controlled legislatures enacted restrictive new voting laws, which made registering to vote and casting ballots difficult or impossible for many. This legislation introduced is needed to protect Americans seeking to exercise their right to vote.”

Hoyer, 73, said that “House Republicans ought to waste no time in bringing this bill to the floor and working with Democrats to pass it.”

However, David Bositis, a se-

nior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Northwest, doesn’t think that the Republican leadership will do anything with Lewis’s bill.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Bositis said. “Yes, it is a good idea to add resources to making the voting process more efficient but there are some who don’t want that to happen and they are in the majority in the House of Representatives. Frankly, I don’t think it will make it out of committee.”

Bositis said that it works to the advantage of Republicans when people of color or those who are inclined to vote for Democrats don’t vote.

“Florida changed its laws so that groups like the League of Women Voters will get frustrated in trying to register voters,” he said. “The secretary of state in Ohio shut down early voting. As far as this becoming law, I am not going to hold my breath.” wi

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AROUND THE REGION

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11

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY

Gun Violence Forum Draws Maryland Leaders

By Gale Horton Gay WI Staff Writer

The challenge of addressing gun violence in Maryland was the focus of a recent forum convened by the state’s attorney general.

The forum brought together law enforcement officials and community leaders from throughout the state to Westminster Hall on the campus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore on Feb. 4.

“I can think of few issues more important and in need of practical solution than gun violence,”said Phoebe Haddon, dean of the University of Mary-

land Francis King Carey School of Law. She said that due to recent shooting incidents – such as the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December that took the lives of 20 children and six adults – the nation may be at a “tipping point” to change its gun culture.

Attorney General Doug Gansler said “there’s no panacea to gun violence in the U.S. and here in Maryland. There really is middle ground in this whole gun issue. We have to figure out what’s the right answer for our society.”

Among the participants in the forum: Angela Alsobrooks, Prince George’s County state’s attorney; Scott Shellenberger,

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Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks /Courtesy Photo

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Violence. They counted among 22 participants who made opening remarks or were involved in one of two panel discussions.

While some of the speakers talked about statistics and programs that have been initiated to curb gun violence, Alsobrooks said it was important to remember the “faces and lives behind every number.”

She cited several cases such as a 2-year-old who was shot in the face by a 17-year-old and how the younger boy came to court with a tracheotomy tube in his neck. The teen was sentenced to 25 years of incarceration. She called the case a double tragedy for both families.

Alsobrooks said Maryland is one of only seven states that have no laws addressing individuals who make threats of mass violence and said she favors legislation that would make such threats a felony.

Ronald Weich, dean of the University of Baltimore School of Law, said federal legislation is needed to improve the gun violence situation, adding that “Maryland has an important role to play. What Maryland does resonates well in Washington. If Maryland moves forward on this issue, it could create momentum [nationwide].”

Tom Manger, police chief of Montgomery County, said that the mental health aspect of the gun debate is one of the most difficult to “get our hands around because of privacy issues” and how to “connect the dots of people who shouldn’t be around firearms.”

Tara Harrison-Jackson, principal deputy in the Prince George’s County state’s attorney office, said she served on a task force that dealt with making recommendations on persons with mental illness and their access to firearms.

“It’s challenging,” said Harrison-Jackson. “We want to make sure in our efforts to protect the community we’re not infringing on the rights of persons with mental illness.”

She also said it was critical to engage community partners and win the trust of the community.

“More often than not, persons witness gun violence, [and] then they don’t want to talk about it or step forward,” said Harrison-Jackson.

Several of the speakers voiced their support for Gov. Martin O’Malley who has pledged to push for tougher statewide gun control laws.

According to a handout at the forum, there are 26 House bills and 13 Senate bills related to gun and gun safety legislation being considered by the Maryland General Assembly.

S. Todd Yeary, senior pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore, urged those who attended to approach the challenges from a practical standpoint.

“My appeal is to do what makes common sense,” said Yeary. wi www.washingtoninformer.com

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Mayor Vincent Gray greets Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry at the third annual State of the District Address on Tuesday, Feb. 5. /Photo by Khalid Naji-Allah

Gray Discusses Housing, City’s Growth in Annual Address

By James Wright WI Staff Writer The mayor of the District sounded upbeat as he talked about the growing revenue and population of the city and the decline in its crime rate but it was his call for more affordable housing and economic equity for all of its residents during his annual address that resonated with the audience.

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray (D) delivered his third State of the District Address, which lasted one hour, on Tuesday, Feb. 4 at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Northwest before hundreds who included members of the D.C. Council, leaders of executive agencies along with community leaders. Gray talked about the District being a “big league city.”

“Our city is safer than it has been in decades, with murders at a 51-year low,” said Gray, 70. “We are growing more quickly than we have in decades, with more than 30,000 new residents in the last two years – a growth rate of more than 1,100 net residents per month. The District has just 11 percent of the [D.C.] region’s population but over the last two years, we’ve had 54 percent of the region’s housing starts.”

Gray pointed out that the “District is booming with new businesses, new development and newly revitalized neighborhoods.”

“All of this economic activity has created 28,000 new private sector jobs in the past two years,” www.washingtoninformer.com

he said.

The mayor said that the economic growth in the city has fueled its job market and decreased its unemployment rate “from a high of 11.2 percent in June 2011 to 8.5 percent today.”

“Establishing the One CityOne Hire Program, through which 5,300 previously unemployed D.C. residents have now gotten jobs with nearly 900 participating employers and the lion’s share of people we’ve helped to find work live in areas of the city where unemployment is the highest – Wards 5, 7 and 8,” he said.

Gray said that economic activity is taking place across the city.

“We’re currently experiencing a level of development that is unprecedented in our history,” he said. “You can tell simply by counting the 55 construction cranes that currently do the skyline, from Congress Heights to Petworth, and from Brookland to Glover Park.”

He mentioned the St. Elizabeths East Gateway Pavilion project in Ward 8 and the Skyland Town Center project in Ward 7 in Southeast as examples of developments that will provide jobs for residents in those areas. When he mentioned the Skyland project – the mayor received a loud applause from the audience.

However, he received nods of agreement when he discussed the lack of affordable housing in the city.

“We are increasingly in danger of becoming a city of only ‘haves’,” he said. He pointed out that longtime residents, police

officers, firefighters and teachers should be able to live in the District and his administration plans to address the problem.

“This investment means we must preserve and expand affordable housing,” he said to a standing ovation.

“Since coming into office, my administration has completed the construction of nearly 1,500 units of affordable housing and broken ground on an additional 1,700 units,” Gray said. “Last September, I announced $35 million in financing to create and preserve additional affordable housing.”

Robert Brannum, a Ward 5 activist, liked what he heard from Gray.

“I think what he is doing is fabulous,” said Brannum, 60. “Our city is accelerating its growth and I liked the mayor’s vision.”

However, Ron Moten, a Republican and co-founder of Peaceoholics, an anti-gang organization, wasn’t impressed.

“This is nothing but Dream City,” said Moten, 42. “Who is getting all of these new jobs he is talking about? I noticed he did not talk about ethics.

However, Gray’s speech resonated with others.

D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) said that the speech had the right message and it worked for him.

“I think it helped him a great deal,” said Barry, 76. “It took his mind off of other junk.”wi The Washington Informer

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Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

13

NATIONAL

Dr. J. Nadine Gracia Stays Focused on Minority Health

By Michelle Phipps-Evans WI Staff Writer As the country marches toward the realization and final implementation of the most ambitious health care reform in history, state, local and federal government officials anticipate fully functional and operational health insurance marketplaces or exchanges by Jan. 1, 2014. At that time, insurers and consumers can sell and buy health insurance.

However, in October, individuals will be able to obtain information about plans available in their local areas; enroll themselves directly through the

website or call a toll-free phone number.

The October deadline is the focus for Dr. J. Nadine Gracia, the recently appointed deputy assistant secretary for minority health and the director of the Office of Minority Health (OMH) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“October is leading an important path for our office, which is focused on doing outreach and gaining access to the public,” said Gracia, 39. “Our charge is to ensure that minorities understand” the changes coming out of the Affordable Care Act, more pop-

Dr. Gracia participates in a White House Blogger Town Hall during April 2012 National Minority Health Month with fellow panelists U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin and others. /Photo courtesy of Chris Smith

ularly known as Obamacare.

Signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, Obamacare offered several

sweeping changes that gave the insured public more consumer protections such as preventing insurers from random rescissions, preventing pre-existing condition exclusions for children and allowing children to stay on their parents’ policies until they are 26 years old.

A key benefit for the African-American community, said Gracia, will be expanding community health centers and expanding access to preventive care, which could avert several diseases with a disproportionately high impact on the community. The death rate for African Americans is higher than that of whites for heart disease, stroke, cancer, asthma, influenza, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS – conditions

           





that can often be prevented, according to OMH. According to HHS, an estimated 20.8 percent of African Americans are uninsured, compared to 16.3 percent of all Americans.

“Today, the health care law is already making a difference,” said Gracia, adding that it’s the most ambitious and far-reaching health care law ever passed and that it was created to fix a broken health care system. New estimates suggest that 3.8 million African Americans who would otherwise be uninsured will gain coverage by 2016 through the expansion of Medicaid eligibility and the creation of the insurance exchanges.

Even further, 2012 research

by HHS’s Office of Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation showed that an estimated 5.5 million African Americans with private insurance were given access to expanded preventive services with no co-payments or deductibles, including mammograms, well-child visits and cholesterol screenings; and 4.5 million elderly and disabled African Americans receiving Medicare coverage were given access to an expanded list of preventive services, also with no cost-sharing. About 410,000 young African-American adults between 19 and 25, now have coverage under their parents’ employer-sponsored or individually purchased health plans.

Eliminating these health disparities is the mission of OMH, which was created in 1986 as a result of a taskforce report on black and minority health.

See GRACIA on Page 15

14 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

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NATIONAL GRACIA continued from Page 14 It’s dedicated to improving the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs, according to its website.

And who best to head up OMH than Gracia, said longtime mentor and friend, Dr. Henri Ford, vice president and surgeon-in-chief of Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, Calif.

“Unequivocally, she’s one of the most amazing and brilliant people I’ve met and ever worked with,” said Ford, 54, who met Gracia 15 years ago when she was a medical student at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School. “Even then, she distinguished herself from her peers as a leader. As a student, she was independent and motivated and I know the sky’s the limit due to her commitment to excellence.”

When Gracia was named to lead OMH on Jan. 14, the Assistant Secretary for Health Howard K. Koh, MD., said that her appointment “reinforces the department’s commitment to eliminate health disparities and to create a health care system that is accessible and affordable to all.”

Gracia, who served as acting OMH director since November 2011, is a pediatrician with epidemiology training. She has worked both in academic medicine and the government. From 2010 to 2011, she was the chief medical officer for the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health where she provided policy leadership and coordination of issues such as child and adolescent health, disaster preparedness, Haiti recovery, and the White House Council on Women and Girls.

A first-generation Haitian-American, Gracia grew up in Northern California with three siblings. Her parents migrated to the United States in the late 1960s and took the children to visit Haiti often. However, Gracia began making trips herself, especially after the earthquake in 2010, which had devastating effects in the small-island nation of Haiti.

“I’ve been helping with disaster relief,” said Gracia. She also made it possible for Ford to head to Haiti to work on efforts.

“After the earthquake hit Haiti, I told her I wanted to go to www.washingtoninformer.com

work,” said Ford, who’s a Haitian American who left Haiti before he was 14 years old. “I’m a pediatric doctor with specialization in trauma, so my skill set provided value and I worked there for two weeks. For her it was a no-brainer to have my participation.” They have also been working on some reforms that could help Haitian medical schools.

In 2008 to ’09, she was one of 14 White House fellows and was assigned to HHS. During her last few months of the fellowship, she became a policy advisor in the Office of the First Lady, assisting in the development of the childhood obesity initiative.

Previously, Gracia was a clinical instructor and general pediatrics research fellow at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, conducting research on community risk factors for violence.

She received a master’s in clinical epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania and a medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Gracia completed her pediatrics residency and served as chief pediatrics resident at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. She is board-certified in pediatrics and is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Gracia who lives in Silver Spring, Md., lectures nationwide on health disparities and children’s health. She is a national president emeritus of the Student National Medical Association (NMA) and a past postgraduate physician trustee of the NMA, a professional organization representing African-American physicians and their patients. Gracia earned a bachelor’s in French at Stanford University, and studied briefly in Paris.

“My study helped augment my ability to interact with other cultures,” said Gracia who also speaks Haitian Creole fluently.

“God and my faith are important to me,” she said, adding that she cherishes time with family and friends, and that she’s a diehard Pittsburg Steelers fan.

In the meantime, she’s looking forward to continuing the work and the outreach efforts that will ensure that the health reform law can make positive changes to the lives of minorities.

“This is an unprecedented time to implement these changes and to give everyone a healthier life,” she said. wi

Dr. J. Nadine Gracia.

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Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

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CP SIDE 1

business Business Exchange

Do You Support Obama’s Deficit Spending?

There’s considerable confusion surrounding President Obama’s record on spending, debt, and deficits. First time around, Barack

By William Reed Obama campaigned for president on a promise “to cut annual fedSales Rep: eral budget deficits in half by the Final Visual AT end” of hisAM term. 310503.8632 As we start cits are significant threats to the rth Tue - 12/18/2012 - 9:45:49 his second term, out of control country and Obama’s presidential spending and rising federal defi- legacy.

The question Blacks, and the nation, have to deal with straight on is: Do current government Individual • Business • Contractors • Self-Employed spending patterns make sense?

Individual Returns Blacks shouldn’t continue as willing partners in this ineffective governance. Since Obama took 9470 Annapolis Road, Suite 108 office, the national debt has inAlleviate Lanham, MD 20706 creased to more than $16 trillion IRS Audits Business Returns Amani Ahmed from about $10.6 trillion. People, CPA, MS Taxation Black and White, need to consider For FREE Tax Information visit us at www.agagroupllc.com the fact that $16 trillion surpass• Tax Preparation & Planning • Annual & Quarterly Taxes • Late Filing/Multiple Year Filings • Bookkeeping & QuickBooks • New Business Start-Ups & Incorporations: L LC’s & S-Corporations • IRS Audits • IRS Tax Settlements • Individual & Business Tax Notices es the total U.S. gross domestic product.

Three decades ago, the national debt stood at $908 billion. Over the years, Washington spent more than it took in as the debt rose THIS IS A FINAL VISUAL OF YOUR AD. COLORS DISPLAYED HERE WILL NOT MATCH THE PRINTED AD EXACTLY. to $10 trillion in 2008. Just two This is not an opportunity to make changes. Thank you for choosing Valpak® Direct Marketing Systems, Inc. (“Valpak®”). months into FY 2013, the government has racked up a mind-blowing nearly $5 billion per day record of deficit spending. This administration has a record of five years of deficit spending in excess of a trillion dollars.

President Obama’s supporters won’t admit it, but gasoline prices, the rate of poverty, food stamp use and the federal debt are worse today than when he first took office. By 2020, public debt in the United States is set to reach the point where accumulated debt pushes our economy to fiscal demise. The Obama administration’s deficit spending is bad policy that’s occurring at unprecedented levels and burying future generations of Americans under a mountain of debt. Black voters have to be cognizant that persistent deficit financing, along with tax increases in hard economic times, are job killers that stifle growth and choke job creation.

There is nothing wrong with Blacks “having Obama’s back” if we were all enjoying high levels of economic success, but continuing to applaud ineptness is dishonest.

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The Washington Informer

ey this month than your income.

To keep going you borrow. The amount you now owe is “debt.”

You have to pay interest on your debt. If next month you spend more than your income, you must borrow more and still have to pay the interest on your now larger debt. If you keep borrowing eventually you will reach a point where all you can do is pay the interest and not have money left for anything else. This is known as “bankruptcy.”

Are we racing toward bankruptcy under Barack? In August 2011, the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) rating agency stripped the U.S. government of its prized AAA bond rating because of America’s dysfunctional political system’s inability to deliver plans to reduce the federal government’s debt. All the while, Black Americans suffered, yet remained complacent with what is happening. It’s time Black Americans ask themselves: “Can these practices go on forever and can we pretend that what has been occurring is “good governance?” Talk about a “racial divide”: Polls show that Blacks and mainstream America view this economic imperative differently. While 96 percent of Black Americans support Obama and his policies, 85 percent of Americans worry that growing deficit spending will hurt their children and grandchildren, and 56 percent think that within the next decade the red ink will spark a major economic crisis.

Entitlement spending for the big three: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid accounts for 50 percent of government spending.

The Congressional Budget Office concludes entitlement spending in the next 75 years will be responsible for virtually 100 percent of deficits. The American people understand that cuts need to be made to what is obviously perceived as a spending problem of immense proportions. The solutions seem fundamentally simple.

Drastically reduce spending and cut programs, repeal Obamacare and other hazardous regulations.

Are Black voters, and their political representatives, willing to give the Obama administration authorization to borrow more money to pay for ever-expanding expenditures and continue raising the debt ceiling? wi William Reed is publisher of “Who’s Who in Black Corporate America” and available for projects via the BaileyGroup.org www.washingtoninformer.com

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17

health

/Courtesy Photo

      •   •  •  

 

      

•     •   • 

    Fiduciary Panel Attorney - Superior Court of the District of Columbia - Probate Division Former DC Fraud Bureau Examiner - Insurance Administration  Former Law Clerk for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

18 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

Health Officials Suggest Precautions when Temps Drop

By Gale Horton Gay WI Staff Writer While this winter’s weather continues to makes wild swings, local health officials offer warnings about conditions that can occur when temperatures dip.

Hypothermia is one of the serious health problems that can be caused by exposure during cold weather. If a person’s body temperature drops below 95 degrees Fahrenheit, seek immediate medical attention.

“When exposed to cold weather, our bodies lose heat faster than it can be produced which could result in bodily injury, illness, and even death,” said Pamela B. Creekmur, Prince George’s County’s health officer.

Symptoms of mild cases of hypothermia include uncontrollable shivering and pale, cold skin. More serious signs include confusion or sleepiness, slurred speech, shallow breathing, weak pulse, stiffness in the arms or legs and poor control over body movements.

For those who suffer from poor circulation, and others who aren’t properly dressed for the wintry season, frostbite can occur without a person being cognizant of what’s taking place.

It’s the freezing and destruction of body tissue which is likely to occur any time skin temperature falls below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Toes, fingers, ears, cheeks and the tip of the nose are the areas of the body that are most likely to freeze. The danger increases when extremities beThe Washington Informer

come wet.

Signs of frostbite include gradual numbness, hardness and paleness, pain and tingling following warming as well as skin color changing to purple. Health experts advise never to massage or rub frostbitten areas as this may cause further damage to the skin.

One should contact a doctor or call 911 if serious symptoms are present. “Until help arrives or the person is seen by a doctor, move the person to a warm room, warm the body with dry layers of blankets or clothing, and give warm beverages,” the health department advises.

Douglas Mayo, chairman of Prince George’s Hospital Center’s Emergency Department, said temperatures don’t have to reach freezing to be dangerous.

Prolonged exposure to temperatures hovering above 32 degrees Fahrenheit can be potentially hazardous to one’s health.

However those who are active when they are outdoors in frigid weather – using their muscles by running, skiing or snowboarding – are less likely to run into trouble, he said.

“Sitting still you can get in trouble a lot quicker,” said Mayo.

Those most vulnerable to hypothermia and frostbite are the homeless, substance abusers, those with mental health illnesses and the elderly. In addition, individuals with diabetes and vascular issues are also at risk, he said.

He said severe hypothermia results in a “clouding of the

mind,” which may make some people less aware of what is happening to their bodies.

Mayo said he wasn’t aware of any hypothermia or frostbite cases coming through his emergency department this winter.

However, the public should take precautions.

The Prince George’s County Health Department suggests local residents check up on elderly relatives and neighbors to ensure they have adequate heat and protection from the cold.

“We want to remind residents to dress in layers, wear mittens versus gloves and to cover your head when outside for significant periods of time” said Creekmur.

“These are just a few of the simple ways to prevent illness that may result from extreme cold weather conditions.”

The health department also offers the following winter weather health tips: Cover the head. As much as 50 percent of body heat is lost through the head. Wear several layers of lightweight, loose-fitting clothing. The air between the layers acts as insulation to keep one’s body warmer.

Cover one’s mouth with a scarf to protect lungs from direct, extremely cold air. Cover ears and the lower part of the face as well.

Wear mittens rather than fingered gloves. The close contact of fingers helps to keep hands warm. Wear warm leg coverings and heavy socks or two pairs of lightweight socks. Wear waterproof boots or sturdy shoes to keep feet warm and dry. wi www.washingtoninformer.com

CTM CTM

NAACP IMAGE AWARDS 2013

The 44th NAACP Image Awards, sponsored in part by Chevrolet, took place at the historic Shrine Auditorium on February 1, 2013.

This premier multicultural awards show, kicked off Black History month by celebrating the outstanding achievements and performances by people of color in the arts, as well as individuals or groups who promote social justice through their creative endeavors. Actor Don Cheadle and wife Bridgid Coulter, and Actresses Alfre Woodard, Kerry Washington, and Singer Gladys Knight each walked the Shrine Auditorium red carpet at the NAACP Image Awards Friday, February 1, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. / Photos by Kiya Gibbons and General Motors

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Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

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20 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

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education

School Closings: A Nationwide Issue

By Dorothy Rowley WI Staff Writer A highly-vocal and growing alliance of public education advocates have united to end what they describe as the discriminatory shuttering of schools in black and Latino neighborhoods.

In “Journey for Justice’s” latest efforts to safeguard the future of inner-city public schools from threat of extinction due to the rapid growth of charter schools, increased availability of voucher programs, unequal funding streams and attacks on teachers’ credibility, a cross-country march and speaking tour was launched, culminating on Jan. 29 with a hearing at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) in Washington, D.C., where a representative from the department fielded complaints.

“The voices of the people directly impacted can no longer be ignored,” said Chicago organizer Jitu Brown, who called the closures a direct “violation” of human rights. “This type of mediocrity is only accepted because of the race of the students who are being served.”

The nearly two-dozen cities represented in the journey which attracted more than 500 students, parents and community groups, included New Orleans; Philadelphia; Chicago and Detroit. Members from District of Columbia organizations who voiced opposition to 15 school closings over the next 18 months, also attended, and officials for the Northwest-based, Empower D.C., who recalled the effects of 24 local school closings in 2008, said they plan to sue the District.

“Parents have really packed

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our forums with their complaints,” said Dorothy Douglas, 68, a Ward 7 School Board representative, who attended the Jan. 29 hearing. “You just can’t [fail] to inform people of [the school chancellor’s] intention without proper notification . . . a lot of [rights] that also involve students with disabilities have been violated with these closings.”

Helen Moore, 76, of Detroit added that the basis for the alliance’s trek to D.C., was to convey how the closings that include both under-enrolled and under-performing schools violate civil rights [laws], and promote non-investment among underprivileged communities of color.

Other issues, she said, center on how the closings would result in increased violence and destabilization at schools that receive the displaced students as a result of school building re-assignments.

“We’re dealing with the same problems that all black and brown school districts face,” said Moore.

“It seems that the people who are making sure that we get no education are corporations that have made up their minds that they know what’s best for us.”

Moore alluded to organiza-

tions like the Illinois Facilities Fund (IFF) which was commissioned two years ago by the District to study its public schools.

The IFF reported back early last year to the District’s deputy mayor for education that there were at least 20 under-performing and under-enrolled schools, and recommended some for consolidation with high-performing public charter schools.

IFF, which is based in Chicago, has oversight over several charter facilities in the Midwest.

“Corporations like that just want to make sure they get the money that would otherwise be going to our school systems,” Moore said.

Karran Harper Royal of New Orleans, founder of Parents across America, said the impact with school closings in her city is two-fold.

“It really impeded the rebuilding of some of the neighborhoods as we were rebuilding after [Hurricane] Katrina,” Royal said. “Plus, it has taken away our rights as African Americans in a city that’s majority African American, to have an elected school board govern the majority of our schools. It’s putting

that into the hands of private, nonprofit organizations that are not accountable through our democratic system.”

Meanwhile, alliance members have demanded that DOE place a moratorium on school closings. While the department’s civil rights office has reportedly investigated numerous complaints related to school closings, Daren Briscoe said no evidence has been found surrounding any violations of civil rights.

The alliance has also called for a meeting with President Barack Obama to discuss the impact of the closings – 37 school buildings in Philadelphia are slated for closure in June. Their plight, many public education supporters say, is fast becoming a civil rights issue.

“To a great extent, it’s already evolved into a civil rights matter,” said Moore. However, “we caught it before they completed the task of throwing our children into prison, and we’re mad as hell about the fact that the Department of Education isn’t doing anything about it.”wi

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Economy II Service*: $3.00 per month for unlimited local calling. Value-added services are not included (e.g., Call Waiting, Caller ID). No connection charges apply. Also, customers will not be charged for the federal subscriber line charge. Economy II customers who are 65 years of age or older can have this service at a further reduced rate of $1.00 per month. * Full terms and rates for these services, including terms of eligibility, are as set forth in federal and in Verizon’s tariffs on file with the Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia. Rates as stated here are effective as of September 1, 2011. But, the rates and other terms are subject to change in the future.

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22 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

Parents, education advocates and students converged on the nation’s capital to voice their concern over the number of schools that are closing in minority neighborhoods. /Photo by Roy Lewis

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black history & Diversity

Baba S. Zulu, founder and director of Ujamaa Shule, has been educating black children for the past 45 years. The Civil Rights pioneer said African-centered education is a means to free children’s minds from white supremacist thought. /Photo by Khalid Naji-Allah

Barrington M. Salmon WI Staff Writer When Dr. El Senzengakulu Zulu traveled to Mississippi as one of the Freedom Riders during the early 1960s, he remembers that many of the black men, women and children he encountered couldn’t read or write.

If a person couldn’t read or write, they wouldn’t be allowed to vote. In this way, segregationists and those who favored the continuation of the caste system enshrined in slavery and Jim Crow, kept black people in bondage by another name almost 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed granting them freedom.

“One hundred and thirteen children and young people were arrested in Laurel, Miss. The government wouldn’t allow them to go back to school after they had demonstrated. They couldn’t read or write so we started the freedom schools,” said Zulu.

While engaged in voter registration efforts, Zulu said he and his compatriots held classes whenever and wherever they could. www.washingtoninformer.com

Civil Rights Pioneer Continues Struggle in the Classroom

“We put on overalls, went out into the fields, pretended to chop and pick cotton and took people into the woods where we had a blackboard,” he recalled. “That’s why I’m so gung-ho to educate and free our people.”

Zulu said he met Fannie Lou Hamer, who later became a powerful Civil Rights grassroots organizer, in Rulesville, Miss.

“We found her on a cotton plantation. She didn’t know she had the right to vote. We took her downtown and registered her,” he said. “The plantation owner came to where she lived

and said, ‘Fannie, Fannie Lou, come out here. I understand that you went downtown and became a registered voter. Go back downtown and take your name off that book.”’

Hamer refused and the Ku Klux Klan came at night to where she lived and shot it up.

No one was hurt, Zulu said, but activists spirited her out of town.

Zulu said any blacks who dared register in the South faced death and serious injury for bucking the status quo. Many lost their jobs, were harassed, beaten and lynched. But he and

his cadre of activists continued to teach African Americans how to read and write.

It is from these experiences that Ujamaa Shule – located in Northwest – came into existence. The school, founded by Zulu opened on May 4, 1968.

He took over as director after the two people asked to take that role said they didn’t think an African-centered school could succeed.

“When I came to D.C., I went to law school at Howard University,” he said. “I thought we can demonstrate all we want, but until we make education a part of

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our DNA, nothing will change.

We didn’t have funds but we started anyway.”

Zulu said the institution started with five or six children and moved a grade a year although the system is ungraded. Students are promoted based on their ability not their ages. He accepts no money from any outside institution to maintain the school’s independence.

Zulu, born Lester G. McKinnie in a small town in western Tennessee, said he began fighting racism, bigotry and

See ZULU on Page 24

Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

23

black history & Diversity ZULU continued from Page 23 discrimination as a young man.

He recalls shining shoes as a 10-year-old and having a white man try to kick him. The daily indignities grated on him and he said he moved naturally into the Civil Rights struggle.

“I was leaving a small town going to the big city thinking I could get away,” he said soberly of his move to Nashville, Tenn.

“Mothers and fathers, our elders couldn’t sit down, get a cup of coffee in downtown Nashville so John Lewis, Diane Nash, Freddy Leonard, Paul Brooks, we all decided to do something about it.

They called us the ‘Dirty Dozen.’

Hot or cold, we were out there.”

“We got hundreds of high school students to join us. There was not much involvement from college students until they saw our success. We just moved right into it.”

He said he was taking his final exam at Tennessee State, left and journeyed to D.C. to join the Freedom Riders. Zulu said he was beaten and brutalized by police in Nashville, jailed at

the notorious Parchment Prison in Mississippi for six months, arrested 69 times and thought many times that he was going to die. He is a reluctant hero.

“I’m sure that I get tired but I don’t,” he said as he adjusted a photo in the school’s lobby. “I feel lucky for myself that I’m in this role as an educator; I don’t want to be in this role, I want it to end, but we’re talking about building here and lending those skills to our family in Africa.”

“I am thankful to God and the Ancestors for their love and support and for allowing me to do this work.”

In the Shule’s lobby, on the walls hang pictures which document the institution’s 45 years and those who’ve been a part of its growth. Included are photos of Zulu with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Hon. Louis Farrakhan; Hamer; Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.); Drs. Maulana Karenga, Frances Cress Welsing, Yosef Ben Jochannan, Chancellor Williams and John Henrik Clarke; Kwame Ture aka Stokely Carmichael, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, former Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah and Shirley Graham

it’s always been about

A student who attends Ujamaa Shule concentrates on her studies on Tuesday, Feb. 5. /Photo by Khalid Naji-Allah

DuBois.

When he began Ujamaa, Zulu said too many children graduating from District schools couldn’t read or write. Using

BEING THERE

the Zulu method of learning, his students learn math and science, English, computer science, Zulu and Kiswahili, Pan African/Black Nationalist Critical Thinking, African dancing and drumming, Kung Fu, capoeira and womanhood and manhood training. Students usually graduate at ages 15 or 16 and recently students’ SAT scores ranged

from 1600 to 1900. Most are college graduates with jobs across a spectrum of careers.

“The school was organized for African children because we were discriminated against and not allowed to succeed. We focus on dealing with African people doing all we can to be successful.

We’re not racist, we just want our children to excel,” Zulu said. wi

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black history & Diversity

Harriet Tubman Jumps off History Pages

By Michelle Phipps-Evans WI Staff Writer On Valentine’s Day, the voice of ex-slave and Underground Railroad “conductor,” Harriet Tubman will come to life as she takes audiences through the harrowing and often dangerous journey to freedom.

Tubman will be channeled through veteran actress, Gwendolyn Briley-Strand, who has portrayed the abolitionist since 1993 in her one-woman play, “Harriet Tubman: The Chosen One.” “I ask the audience to become fugitive slaves, talking to them, taking them on a journey and I have them exhausted at the end,” said Briley-Strand, a 50-something-yearold performer who’s been in the businesses for more than 30 years.

“She was to me, such a well-rounded, passionate person. She devel-

oped her mind, and the fact is, this was what she was destined to do.”

Briley-Strand, who created the dialogue for the 45-minute show for about 20 years, will perform at The Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus (THEARC) on Mississippi Avenue in Southeast on Thursday, Feb. 14 for two shows. In the performance, she transforms into more than a dozen characters, taking the audience on one of the 19 journeys Tubman traveled through The Underground Railroad. Some of the characters are Tubman as an adult, as a child, her father, brothers, and other slaves.

“She had such stamina and strength and was a warrior for the Lord,” Briley-Strand said.

Each performance is followed by a brief question and answer session. The actor spent the last two decades perfecting the character, discovering who she was, visiting

libraries, and doing extensive research.“She was a great suffragette and entrepreneur. God gives a wonderful direction and purpose for her life.”

Tubman was an African-American slave who escaped from slavery in the South to become a leading abolitionist before the Civil War. Born in Maryland in 1820, she successfully escaped in 1849. However, she returned numerous times to rescue family members and others from the plantation system. She led hundreds to freedom in the North as the most famous “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, an elaborate secret network of safe houses and anti-slavery activists organized for that purpose. This year, March 10, marks the 100th anniversary of Tubman’s death.

Born in Harlem, N.Y., Briley-Strand grew up in Mt. Vernon, N.Y. She graduated from Fordham

University and is a member of several acting organizations. Besides “The Chosen One,” her television and movie credits are extensive and include movies such as “A Dirty Shame,” and “Species II,” and television shows such as “Law and Order,” and “Homicide,” as well as several voice-overs and commercials. She was a 1997 Cable Ace Award winner for the best educational program series for the health education of children in Prince George’s County Public Schools.

Briley-Strand is the founder, and chief executive of See The Fruits Inc., a company that uses the arts to teach American History. She lives in Ft. Washington, Md., and has been married for nearly 40 years to Edward Strand; she is a mother of

two adult children and four grandchildren. She has performed before many student audiences to critical acclaim.

“We were all moved and riveted by both your acting and singing abilities,” wrote a youth services supervisor in the Prince William Public Library System in Prince William, Va., on Briley-Strand’s website for “The Chosen One.” “You drew the biggest audience that we’ve had for a storytelling program all year.”

“Thank you for coming to Laurel Ridge and performing as Harriet Tubman. It was really cool that you performed for us,” wrote another audience member. “It was like there were 20 actors and actresses

See TUBMAN on Page 27

February 14, 2013 |10-11am & 1-2pm THEARC Theater Presents…

A dynamic one-woman show takes the audience on a journey through the Underground Railroad with historical heroine and abolitionist, Harriet Tubman.

/Courtesy Photo THEARC ● 1901 Mississippi Avenue, SE ● Washington, DC 20020 ● 202-889-5901

26 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

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black history & Diversity programs like this to the community to educate and inspire children and adults living east of the Anacostia River. This event was made possible in part by the support of the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C., and William C. Smith & Co. Besides the two upcoming free shows at THEARC, Briley-Strand has a slate of performances throughout Black History Month and beyond.

“To do what you love and to get paid for it, I’m living in grace,” Briley-Strand said. wi THEARC Theater at 1901 Mississippi Ave., SE, will hold two showings of “Harriet Tubman: The Chosen One,” on Feb. 14th, at 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., and 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. For more information or to RSVP, please visit http://www.thearcdc.org/events/harriet-tubman-chosen-one-0 or call 202889-5901.

TUBMAN continued from Page 26 instead of just one … I never knew that Harriet was a spy and a nurse in the Union Army. I really liked how you were so dramatic.”

To add further to her performance, she has a traveling photographic exhibit, Portals Through Time, which is displayed during the show. It offers the audience an opportunity to walk through some of the most interesting times in American history with a glimpse into Tubman’s life. The exhibit is a combination of photographs and other artifacts.

“I’ve been to 38 states, and my husband is the photographer and he takes pictures of all the places we’ve been,” she said, adding that the exhibit also brings history to life. It shares the experience, including real shackles she received from a museum, as well as a quilt made in 1895.

Each year, THEARC brings

Gwendolyn Briley-Strand. /Courtesy Photo

Association for the Study of African American Life and History

87th Annual Black History Luncheon and Featured Authors’ Event 2013 National Black History Theme:

At the Crossroads of Freedom and Equality: The Emancipation Proclamation and the March on Washington

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel 2660 Woodley Road, N.W. Washington, DC 20008 (202) 328-2000 Featured Authors’ Event 10:00 a.m.

Doors for the Luncheon open at 12:15 pm Program length: 12:30 – 3:30 pm

Dr. Mary Frances Berry Former Chair U.S. Civil Rights Commission Guest Speaker

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Dr. Daryl Michael Scott President – ASALH

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Gwendolyn Briley-Strand portrays Harriet Tubman in her one-woman play, Harriet Tubman: The Chosen One. /Courtesy Photo

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black history & Diversity

Do You Know Sodexo?

By William Reed WI Staff Writer Sodexo is one of the largest food services and facilities management companies in the world, and the leading provider of integrated food and facilities management services in North America. Founded in 1966, Sodexo is a $20 billion-a-year firm and the world’s 22nd largest employer. Sodexo has 413,000 employees who serve 50 million consumers a day at 33,400 sites in 80 countries. Currently, African Americans account for 28 percent of Sodexo’s 120,000 U.S. employees.

Now, and into the future, Sodexo will be one of America’s major employers. Sodexo’s impact in the labor force started in 1998, with the merger of Marriott Management Services to become Sodexo Marriott Services and one of the largest food service providers in America. Sodexo operating divisions serve private corporations, government agencies, schools, hospitals and clinics,

assisted-living facilities, military bases, and correctional facilities.

In 2006, Sodexo settled an $80 million class action discrimination lawsuit brought by disgruntled African-American employees.

During this period, Sodexo hired Dr. Rohini Anand as the company’s diversity officer. Anand’s will to right the company’s errant ways has enabled Sodexo to become a bellwether in diversity activities and programs. As the company’s Global Diversity Chief, Anand says, “Today diversity and inclusion and sustainability are drivers of Sodexo’s business growth and progress.” Under Anand, Sodexo has received widespread recognition for leadership, and fostering equal opportunity. Anand says that “diversity and inclusion strengthens our company, maximizes the investment of our stockholders, and prepares us to lead in the 21st century.”

Under Anand, Sodexo was ranked No. 1 in 2010 and No. 2 in 2011 and 2012 on the Diversity Inc. business index of Top

Companies for Diversity and Inclusion. The National Restaurant Association awarded Sodexo its Faces of Diversity Inspiration Award and Working Mother Media named Sodexo a Best Company for Hourly Workers three consecutive times. Sodexo’s remarkable culture change has been featured as a Harvard Business School case study. The Sodexo Foundation is committed to ending childhood hunger and supports programs that fight poverty and unemployment.

Sodexo is wide ranging, but Anand says “Sodexo considers diversity and inclusion a business imperative as well as a social and ethical responsibility grounded in core values of team spirit, service spirit, and spirit of progress.” Sodexo offerings range from self-service food that include staff restaurants, catering, executive dining, vending, and meal delivery, to integrated facilities management services that include services such as reception, concierge, cleaning, pantry, laundry, landscaping and waste management.

Sodexo made headlines across the country when they established

a joint venture with Magic Johnson Enterprises. SodexoMAGIC is 51 percent owned by Magic Johnson Enterprises and 49 percent owned by Sodexo Inc. SodexoMAGIC is primarily a federal contractor that provides management and services such as vending, housekeeping, landscaping, plant operations and maintenance, asset management, and laundry services.

Anand says that “12 percent of Sodexo’s executive corps is Black.” She says that careers in her company are evolving.

Anand, and Sodexo’s Black executives, work with the National Urban League Black Executive Exchange Program to bring students at four-year Historically Black Colleges and Universities together with professionals in their fields and industries of interest. Sodexo helps students to become employees and corporate executives in their fields of interest. In addition, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples’ Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics Youth Initiative Program (ACT-SO) helps develop new generations of chefs. Sodexo

and Hyatt Hotels partnered with ACT-SO to develop a new Culinary Arts Competition program.

Anand says Sodexo “have opportunities” for diverse suppliers across the country “ranging from regional to national contracts.” Anand says Sodexo is committed to receiving products and services from diverse suppliers who provide products and services for food menus, high-quality goods, and service divisions. Individuals and companies interested in participating in Sodexo’s programs and business activities, or being on Supplier Listings should contact: Supplierdiversity.NorAm@sodexo.com.

Anand says that “In coming years, Sodexo expects to continue hiring of traditional culinary jobs, facilities, engineering and general management positions within large metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Chicago, D.C., and Los Angeles.”

William Reed is publisher of “Who’s Who in Black Corporate America” and available for projects via the BaileyGroup. org wi

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ecutive orporate Ex Sterling, C ent, ly Managem s p p u S f, e h C tate n, United S Test Kitche

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February is Black History Month

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opinions/editorials

Mayor Gray Delivers “Grand Slam” Speech

Not only is the District in great shape today but D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray believes the District is “proving we are a big-league city.” Using baseball as a metaphor throughout his State of the District speech on Tuesday, Gray referred to the progress the city has made as “hitting grand slams” particularly in areas of employment, economic development, sustainability, crime, early childhood education and global investments.

City officials, business leaders, heads of nonprofit agencies, residents and even protestors applauded Gray for turning the city around during the first two years of administration. “When I came into office, I inherited a rainy day fund that had been spent down by nearly half after being repeatedly raided to balance the budget,” Gray said. “Just two short years later, we’ve posted two major end-of-fiscal year surpluses in a row – including $417 million surplus from fiscal [year] 2012 ... and we’ve restored the District’s fund balance to a new historic high of $1.5 billion.”

However, the promise of employee raises and a $15 million One City Fund aimed at supporting local nonprofits didn’t prompt the crowd to stand and applaud as they did when he committed $100 million to establish 10,000 units of affordable housing in the District. The money to pay for it, Gray explained, will not come from the city’s savings, but from a “prosperity dividend” projected for the next fiscal year.

Despite the city’s fiscal turnaround, there are neighborhoods and residents who have yet to benefit from the District’s rebound. But Gray’s vision for the District also includes them. “There will be a job for every District resident who wants one, and all District residents will have the skills to compete,” he said.

The District is in an enviable position compared to other big cities or urban districts around the country. President Barack Obama, who speaks of signs of a national recovery, knows it’s much too soon to start calling out home runs anywhere yet.

Undoubtedly, the District isn’t only experiencing a comeback, but what we are seeing is a metamorphosis of a city yet unknown. Increasing signs of new residents, new buildings, new jobs, and new technology are all clear manifestations of the vision Mayor Gray described. It’s real and it’s spreading like green turf across the District’s quadrants.

Who will complain about that?

A Life Saving Reminder: Get Tested for HIV

We can’t say enough about HIV and AIDS, especially when it comes to African Americans.

Today, Feb. 7, is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, which serves as an annual reminder for every sexually active man or woman, adult or teen, to get tested, again if necessary, for HIV. The statistics remain alarming, especially for African Americans. At a press conference scheduled for today in Atlanta, Ga., representatives from the Black AIDS Institute, along with the Centers for Disease Control, will reveal statistics that show Black America represents 44 percent of all new HIV infections. Black women are 15 times more likely to be living with HIV than white women. New infections among young Black gay and bisexual men rose 48 percent between 2006 and 2009. Currently, three in five Black Americans know someone living with or who has died from HIV/ AIDS. In the District, while the numbers of HIV/AIDS cases remain high, the good news, reported last summer, was that newly diagnosed HIV and AIDS cases were declining, while HIV testing had tripled. Mobile testing units and increased cooperation from the medical community help to make it easier for people to get tested and increases the chances for early detection and treatment. That’s the message the District took to the World AIDS Conference, which took place in the nation’s capital last July. But residents haven’t heard much more about the progress of HIV/AIDS programs in the District since the delegates left. There was no mention on World AIDS Day in December or on Black AIDS Day this week.

And, by press time there was no public acknowledgement by the D.C. Department of Health of any initiatives related to National Black HIV/ AIDS Awareness Day, nor did Mayor Vincent Gray mention HIV or AIDS in his State of the District speech on Tuesday. As a matter of fact, Gray’s speech was silent on the subject of health care, in general.

Meanwhile, the Black AIDS Institute will soon release a 2013 State of AIDS Report, which outlines a five-year action plan to combat AIDS in Black America by assisting the 515,000 Black Americans living with HIV. Much credit should be given to Phill Wilson, the Black AIDS Institute founder and director, who has been the one consistent driver on the Black AIDS issue nationally and globally. D.C. has its share of HIV advocates, including A. Toni Young of Community Education Group, whose volunteers distribute condoms in at-risk communities all across the city. And, the Rev. Frank Tucker, pastor of First Baptist Church, in Northwest, who strives to motivate his parishioners to get tested. He has taken an HIV test in front of his congregation at least twice a year, for the past several years.

The battle against HIV is far from over and now is not the time for D.C. to allow this teaching moment to go unnoticed.

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First Impressions Matter

I must say that I’m optimistic about David Grosso’s term in office as a new at-large member of the D.C. Council, based on the article, “Members of the Council Chat with Residents” in the most recent edition of your paper. District residents would love to interact more with our representatives on the D.C. Council and have an opportunity to exchange ideas with them personally. What better way to make contact than to come out to the neighborhoods and meet us where we are?

I congratulate Mr. Grosso, not only because he’s a new council member doing the right thing, but also because he chose to start his outreach in Ward 8, the most underserved ward in the city. I commend other council members who have been doing the same in their respective wards.

Hopefully, we in Ward 5 will see more of our new representative, Kenyan McDuffie, as well as Mr. Grosso, very soon. There are lots of issues to discuss.

Curry’s On Point!

I totally agree with George Curry’s opinion piece “Hands off Malia and Sasha Obama” in your paper. The National Rifle Association (NRA) should be ashamed to make that statement about the president’s children having armed protection while other children have none.

They accuse Mr. Obama of being self-contradictory when he decries gun ownership while his children are kept safe by gun-toting security guards.

Obviously, the president’s entire family is at risk of deadly attacks because everybody knows who they are! It would be foolish not to have armed security for them, as well as anybody else who happens to be in the public eye. Mr. Curry is absolutely on point regarding the NRA’s ridiculous statement. Why would we provide armed security for all other presidents and their children, and not do the same for the Obamas?

What an inappropriate way for the NRA to try to make a point!

Marian Harlan Washington, D.C.

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opinions/editorials

Guest Columnist

By Julianne Malveaux

Embracing Black History One hundred and fifty years ago, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It was a flawed document that freed enslaved people in Confederate areas that he did not control. At the same time, it was a progressive document because it initiated discussion about the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteen “FREEDOM” Amendments.

One hundred years later, in

1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. riveted the nation with his “I Have A Dream” speech during the August 28 March on Washington. Many will remember that he said, “I have a dream that one day people will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Somehow people forget that in the same speech he said, “We have come to the nation’s capital to cash a check that has been marked insufficient funds.”

If people said “cash the check” as often as they said “I have a

dream,” we’d move more quickly forward in closing the economic gaps that African Americans experience.

We’ve been doing this 50-year thing for the past couple years, and we’ll be doing it for another few. The “Greensboro Four” North Carolina A&T State University Students (with the help of Bennett College students, often ignored) sat in at Woolworth counters on February 1, 1960, more than 50 years ago. The March on Washington happened 50 years ago. The Civil Rights

Guest Columnist

Act was passed in 1964, and beyond that the 1960s will resonate for the next few years with commemorations and anniversaries.

These celebrations are important historical moments, but who remembers? The median age of the population in the United States is about 37 years old.

Many of these folks remember the civil rights moment through twice and thrice told tales.

Those who are under the median age see the civil rights movement as something like a fable, something they heard about, but

doesn’t really matter to them.

Many of these young people see themselves as “post-racial.”

They hang out with their peers, race notwithstanding. They have never experienced discrimination. Even when they experience it, they are slow to embrace it.

They are post-racial, whatever that means.

If some of these young people had been immersed in history, they might understand why the Black unemployment rate is

See MALVEAUX on Page 53

By Lee A. Daniels

Envisioning Emancipation: Theirs – and Ours Deborah Willis and Barbara Krauthamer, two scholars of African-American history, have written a book that shows what contemplating history is good for: It simultaneously illuminates the past and provokes questions that may help those of us living today find our future.

Their book, Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery, presents more evidence, in the form

of nearly 150 photographs, that many Black Americans of the decades from the 1850s to the 1930s – when the promise of the American ideal flared brightly for an instant and then was nearly extinguished in a deluge of bigotry — lived rich, complex lives and never psychologically surrendered to the White majority’s demand that they feel inferior.

For me, their analyses of these pictures of the well-known – such as abolitionists Sojourn-

er Truth, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman – the little-known, and the unknown underscored a lesson I learned in the early 1970s when, just out of college and, so I thought, steeped in Black American history, culture and pride, I began to notice something peculiar about my reaction to many of the photographs I would come across of Black Americans taken before the 1940s.

It didn’t matter whether the photographs were of ur-

Guest Columnist

ban, well-dressed, middle-class Northern Blacks, or of the largely illiterate survivors of slavery still residing in the rural South and clad in threadbare clothes, my reaction was always the same: How handsome (or beautiful) they look, I would think to myself. Look at their dignity, their poise, their fearlessness, their determination to persevere.

After a while, I began to ponder a question that shook me to the core: Why am I surprised?

It was then I began to fully un-

derstand the power of the visual in contemplating Black Americans’ history. I realized that I was, subconsciously, still being influenced by the racist images of Black Americans that dominated American popular culture until the early 1960s.

I began to correct myself. I began to fully accept that Black Americans then were just like Black Americans today: The photographs were proof that

See Daniels on Page 53

By Marc Morial

Black Leaders Announce Recommendations

“In Unity There is Strength” – Aesop’s Fable During the first week of President Obama’s second term, I joined a coalition of civil rights leaders in Washington, D.C. to call for immediate action on the urban jobs crisis and a host of other issues adversely affecting communities of color. Standing with National Action Network President, Rev. Al Sharpton;

NAACP President, Ben Jealous; National Coalition on Black Civic Participation President, Melanie Campbell and others, we called for swift action on a number of recommendations geared to leveling the playing field and giving a hand up to the thousands of urban Americans who are being left behind by the nation’s economic recovery.

While each of us in the meeting has made our individual voices heard, we believe our unity gives us greater strength.

This was our second meeting.

32 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

When we gathered in Washington a little over a month ago, we urged our nation’s leaders to commit to economic and educational parity as well as voting rights protections, and criminal justice reforms to strengthen America and improve the lives of the millions of working and middle class citizens we see and serve every day. On Friday, we presented our preliminary recommendations on how best to achieve those goals.

We propose: Reintroduction and passage The Washington Informer

of the Urban Jobs Act allocating resources for job training, education, and support services for eligible young adults, including many who have not finished high school, to prepare them for entry into the workforce.

Reintroduce the American Jobs Act, President Obama’s proposed package of tax cuts, investments and incentives designed to put American back to work and speed economic growth.

We support the President’s recently announced push for a

ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines, and his call for universal background checks.

In addition, we recommend a stronger focus on violence prevention, including investments in programs that create safe spaces for kids after school and improved mental health services and treatment.

We also call for citizens to mobilize around the upcoming February 27th Supreme Court case challenging the constitutional-

See Morial on Page 53 www.washingtoninformer.com

opinions/editorials

Child Watch©

By Marian Wright Edelman

Our Turn to say ‘No More’ Gabrielle Giffords to the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 30, 2013 At the January 30 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the survivor of a gunshot to the head, gave us our marching orders. The United States stands alone in the world in our tolerance of gun violence but in the wake of the devastating Newtown, Conn. murders, a powerful outcry of ordinary Americans across the country is saying no more. This time we

This is an important conversation for our children, for our communities, for Democrats and Republicans. Speaking is difficult but I need to say something important. Violence is a big problem. Too many children are dying. Too many children.

We must do something. It will be hard. But the time is now.

You must act. Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you.

Statement of former Rep.

want our collective heartbreak and outrage to be followed by real change.

How have people in other countries responded after a gun massacre or mass shooting?

Australia and Great Britain provide two examples. In 1996, 35 people were killed and 23 others were wounded by a gunman at the Port Arthur tourist site in Tasmania, Australia, in one of the largest massacres ever committed by a single shooter.

Within 12 days of the shooting, spurred by strong public

Guest Columnist

support, the Australian federal and state governments agreed to the historic National Firearms Agreement (NFA), which banned semi-automatic and pump action rifles and shotguns and required registration of all firearms, strict standards for gun licenses, and a permit for each gun purchase subject to a 28-day waiting period.

Just weeks before the Port Arthur massacre in Australia, 16 5and 6-year-olds and their teacher were killed in a devastating school shooting in Dunblane,

Scotland. After those murders the public outcry in Great Britain was very similar to the one we are seeing in the U.S. right now.

The shooter owned his guns legally and the outrage over his crime started a public campaign for tighter gun control culminating in a petition being handed to the government with more than 700,000 signatures. A 1987 mass shooting by a man who killed 16 people and wounded 15 others had already led Great Britain to

See Edelman on Page 54

By James Clingman

Claim all of your Credits and Deductions this Tax Season this brief delay means tax filers have more time to identify and include every available credit.

Depending upon family income, size and filing status, several tax credits can boost refunds – especially among low- and moderate- income households. Applying every eligible tax credit will maximize refunds.

For example, although four out of five workers are eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), IRS advises that one out of four fails to claim the credit for one of two reasons.

When W-2 forms begin arriving in the mail, it’s a sure sign that tax season has again returned. This year, however, there will be a slight delay for tax filers.

Due to the lateness of tax law changes made by Congress, IRS will begin processing returns on January 30. This date will apply regardless of whether tax returns are e-filed or on paper.

The consumer benefit from

Either they failed to file a tax return at all, or filed one, but failed to claim what they were due.

In 2011, 27 million eligible workers received a total of $62 billion in EITCs, making it the largest tax program for working families, according to the Office of the Controller of the Currency (OCC).

This year, workers earning $50,270 or less can apply for EITC. The exact amount of EITC eligibility will vary by income, family size and filing status. Even so, last year the average

ASKIA-AT-LARGE

EITC credit was $2,200, according to IRS. This year, IRS expects that workers, the self-employed and farmers that qualify for this credit could receive even higher refunds.

Another key tax credit is the American Opportunity Credit, designed to financially assist parents and students to pay for college expenses. Either individual filers with modified adjusted gross income of $80,000 or less, or married filers with a joint return earning $160,000 or less are eligible to apply. The maximum

amount of the annual credit is $2,500 per student, not per family. Eligibility for this tax credit can cover up to four years of post-secondary education.

For consumers of any age pursuing post-secondary education, a Lifetime Learning Credit can help for that cost. Up to $2,000 in qualified, paid educational expenses can be claimed when enrolled in an eligible educational institution. There is an important caveat to claiming this

See clingman on Page 54

By Askia Muhammad

Statehood Now! The District of Columbia deserves to become the state of New Columbia, the 51st state in the American Union now! Period.

First: there is no Constitutional obstacle to making 95 percent of what is now within the boundaries of D.C. a state, with a star in the flag, with two senators and a representative in the House of Representatives. www.washingtoninformer.com

There is none.

If a majority in the House and a majority in the Senate vote for it, and the president of the United States signs it, a law could be passed overnight making the bus shelter in front of your house a state, and it would be just that: the state of Bus Shelter (or whatever it was called). That’s what the Constitution has to say about it. Trust me.

There’s absolutely no reason why more than 600,000 residents of the U.S. capital city should not have the same rights and

privileges when it comes to representation in Congress, that all other residents of the continental United States have already, which the residents of all other so-called “democracies” in the world accord to the citizens of their capitals. There is none.

There is a compelling political reason why the District of Columbia will likely never attain that status. Then non-voting Congressional Delegate Walter Fauntroy said the reason D.C. will never be treated equally

by Congress is because of its

“Three Toos.” No.1. The District is “Too Black.” No. 2. The District is “Too Democratic.”

No. 3. The District is “Too Liberal.” Did I mention that D.C. is “Too Black?”

It’s as simple as that, and no other arguments will trump the “too Black” argument, even when there is a White majority population here. Instead of any sense of gratitude to the descendants of the millions of slaves who worked for free from “can’t see in the morning until can’t see at night,” for 310 years, instead

The Washington Informer

of any sense of gratitude to the slaves who enriched both the North and the South with their free labor; who fought and died in every war to make this country the sole Superpower in the world; instead of appreciation for the contribution of Black people to the well being of this society, Blacks are viewed as “the enemy within;” as a Fifth Column, as a brooding, restive, soon to be a marauding mob of criminals which must be con-

See Muhammad on Page 54

Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

33

LIFESTYLE

Jazz

Musician Becomes a Renaissance

Man

Marcus Johnson

Celebrates his Music and New Wine Label

By Stacy M. Brown WI Contributing Writer

M

arcus Johnson has been called a renaissance man, an innovator and a few other superlatives, all which can easily be backed up by a glance at his resume.

The jazz musician has earned a juris doctorate, a master’s of business administration, and he’s a top selling recording artist who happens to own a wine label.

“My job is, through music, to make your morning drive a little easier, a little better,” he said.

“When I was in law school, I understood that being a lawyer especially when you deal with contracts, is art. I’m very different.

My exposure was to make sure that I acquired the educational instruments to fight forward.”

A native Washingtonian, Johnson grew up in Silver Spring, Md. He founded the Silver Spring Jazz Festival, owns the Three Keys Music label and has released 17 CDs. Johnson is pre-

Marcus Johnson. /Photo courtesy of Flo Brands

paring the release of his next album, “Live and Direct,” which is scheduled to be released in May. “(Playing) live in front of a crowd is my element and, for me, it’s taking advantage of the energy that accompanies a live setting,” Johnson said. He also has taken advantage of a family background that includes doctors, lawyers and other professionals.

A graduate of Howard University, Johnson, 41, earned his law and business degrees from Georgetown University in North-

34 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

west. He won the Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2010 and, a year later, Johnson secured funding for a new wine label under his Flo Brands company.

“A motivational speaker I know comes to me all the time and tells me that I have a law degree and an MBA and tells me that I’m a businessman who happens to be a musician,” Johnson said. “The majority of my day is spent in business meetings.”

Johnson not only focuses on The Washington Informer

the challenges that the music industry presents, his finger remains on the pulse of the world of business, he said.

“It’s to be able to control my own destiny. To be able to ask the right questions,” he said.

“You have to be able to play the game to the best of your ability and, to do that, you must have an idea of what the rules are and to stay above board.”

While pursuing his education, Johnson independently produced and distributed his first

jazz album in 1995, “Lessons in Love,” which sold more than 40,000 copies.

A year later, Johnson released, “Inter Alia,” which surpassed the “Titanic” soundtrack in the first two weeks of its release.

Despite a busy schedule, Johnson has continued to expand his lifestyle branding company, Flo – or For the Love of.

Flo began as a music publishing company and expanded to See Johnson on Page35

www.washingtoninformer.com

LIFESTYLE

Marcus Johnson. /Photo courtesy of Flo Brands

Johnson

continued from Page 34

include Flo Wines which is now sold in Giant Food and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., around the country and Target Corporation Stores www.washingtoninformer.com

inside the District, Johnson said.

Johnson sells two types of wine, a Chardonnay and a Red blend. The wine is bottled in Northern California and created using grapes from appellations around the Golden State. The

wines sell for $10 per bottle at most locations.

“People like Warren Thompson of Thompson Hospitality and Bob Johnson of BET, don’t rest on their laurels, they go out and become 10 times better than

they need to be.”

The key to his placement in Walmart turned out to be a chance meeting with one of the chain’s District representatives while Johnson performed on a cruise ship.

The Washington Informer

“On the cruise, I spoke to the audience about how excited we were to have our wine in Costco and other places and this woman approached me and said that I didn’t mention that I’d be appearing in her store, which was Walmart,” Johnson said. “She was manager of distribution with 94 stores and $10 billion in revenue and she took my card and we talked and, during the conversation, she told me she had already sent an email to a guy at Walmart in D.C.” Walmart has changed the destiny of Flo, Johnson said, adding his experience has been nothing short of incredible.

In a statement, Walmart said it had pledged to use its global size and scale to empower minority and women-owned businesses across the chain. “We partner with leading organizations in business diversity to continually identify and reach potential suppliers,” said company spokesman Bruno Tager.

“Walmart’s Supplier Diversity Program began in 1994 to ensure minority- and women-owned businesses are an integral part of our supplier network. Our goal is to increase the amount of business we do with minority- and women-owned businesses, to integrate supplier diversity into all of our procurement practices and to ensure Walmart has a diverse supplier community that can supply products that meet our customers’ needs,” Tager said.

Through Walmart’s program, more than 3,000 women- and minority-owned businesses play an integral role in the store’s network of suppliers, Tager said.

“It is important to understand that a company like Walmart isn’t, ‘just going to call you up out of the blue,’” Johnson said.

“You have to make it happen.”

The musician plans an “UnValentine” social event and performance at Takoma Station Tavern on Feb. 14 and a traditional Valentine’s show on the 15th at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Northwest. At each venue, Johnson plans to bring his wines.

“Come and hang out and hopefully fall in love,” he said.

“If you’re not with someone, well you can fall in love with yourself and there’s nothing wrong with that.” wi

Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

35

LIFESTYLE

If Your Ad Were Here Someone Would Be Reading It! Contact me, Ron Burke, at 202-561-4100 or rburke@washingtoninformer.com

Adesola Osakalumi as Fela Kuti in the production of FELA! presented at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. /Photo courtesy of Sharen Bradford

FELA! Returns to Washington

Bound and Gagged Stage play

Bound by Fear, Gagged by Love – Bound and Gagged is a story that unfolds the life of a prestigious family well loved and respected in the community and church. Mr. Chase Alexander, a highly respected business man, owning one of the largest leading architect firms in Washington, D.C. Chase Alexander not only is the son of legendary Pastor Joel Alexander, but the husband of playwright Tatum Alexander.

UPDATE: Just added to the phenomenal cast!

As we journey through the seemingly happy 2012 Stellar Award winner for best new artist couples life, we will soon realize that the smile on and 2009 BET’s Sunday’s Best Winner, Gospel Recording Artist Y’Anna Crawley!

Tatum’s face is not that of happiness, but rather covered hurt, a mask that so many of us wear from day to day. A women that seems to be at the height of her career and is married into the most prominent family is secretly holding onto a vow that even God can’t break without permission. Bound and Gagged exposes the very depth of how a woman so powerful allows a man to abuse and tear her entire being into shreds. Tatum goes through life covering for a husband that people on the outside don’t really know.

Bound and Gagged reveals how children that are not validated or told who they are in the home by their parents fall prey to some form of abuse. Raising children in an abusive environment causes them to repeat or allow the same violent behavior throughout their life. Bound and Gagged has taken an up close and personal endeavor to bring information, knowledge, awareness, support, self worth and most of all freedom to those that NEED to be BOUND and GAGGED NOMORE!!!

Get tickets here: http://shannonwhren.com/

36 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

The Washington Informer

By Barrington M. Salmon WI Staff Writer Since the hit musical and biography of Fela Anikulapo Kuti hit Broadway several years ago, it has mesmerized audiences from New York to London to Nigeria with its vibrant music, energy and passion. Now, the Washington area is getting another chance to see the award-winning musical.

FELA! tells the story of a man who was a musician, shaman, rabble-rouser and creative genius. Fela Kuti created Afro Beat, a dizzying, hypnotic but incendiary combination of funk, jazz and sensual African rhythms and harmonies which he laced with acerbic lyrics to chastise and criticize Nigeria’s corrupt, impervious and despotic regimes.

The play celebrates an artist and human rights activist, who despite his womanizing and love of marijuana, embodied the defiance, frustration and aspirations of his fellow Nigerians. The play, which won three Tony awards, opens with Fela mourning the untimely death of his 77-yearold mother who was thrown out of a window by Nigerian soldiers. She was fatally injured when her son’s compound, the Kalakuta Republic, was raided by about 1,000 soldiers.

Cast members Melanie Marshall and Maija Garcia said they are grateful to be associated with the critically acclaimed theatrical production, adding that it has affected them in profound ways.

“It’s great to see who this transforms. The artists and the audience, no one is the same,” said Garcia, the production’s assistant choreographer and tour director. “They’re met with heat and style and energy.

It’s not something they see, it’s something they feel.The work speaks for itself and Fela comes through the channels we use.”

“We have the original cast and new talent. It’s sort of like a chemistry experiment that will explode beautifully to evolve new characters. It’s always very exciting to bring up the energy of 1977 in Los Angeles or Lagos.”

Marshall, who plays Fela’s mother Funmilayo Ransome Kuti, described her experience as “an amazing process from beginning to end.” She said she is humbled to have the opportunity to play an extraordinary woman who walked the path less traveled.

“This is a strong, feminist role.

She was very regal, she’s very po-

See FELA on Page 37 www.washingtoninformer.com

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Melanie Marshall as Funmilayo and Adesola Osakalumi as Fela Kuti in the production of FELA! presented at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo courtesy of Sharen Bradford

FELA continued from Page 36 litical minded and no-nonsense,” said Marshall, who admits that she’d planned a singing career until she was invited to audition for ‘Carmen Jones.’ “She was the first woman to drive a car in Nigeria and the first to go to China. She was on first- name terms with so many leaders and notable people. I wish I could have met her and Fela. I’d never heard about him before this job. But I learn something about him every moment, every minute, every second.”

Marshall said the play’s songs struck a nerve, especially “Trouble Sleep.”

“All of them are just so poignant. Some of them are funny, some of them you just sit and think about the lyrics,” she said.

“For a man who’d been shot, beaten and tortured more than 200 times, if there’s any word that people should come away with and what the show invokes, is courage. He was still standing, still singing, still standing for his people.”

Marshall also said she’s grateful to director Bill T. Jones for pushing her to stretch beyond her comfort zone.

“He gave me another five notes on the top of my range.

He is very subtle in bringing something out of you that you don’t know you have,” said Marshall, who studied classical singing at the Royal College of Music www.washingtoninformer.com

Michelle Williams as Sandra Izsadore in the production of FELA! presented at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo courtesy of Carol Rosegg

in London. “It hasn’t been hard because it’s been so much fun.”

“Bill T. Jones took what I brought to the table, put the jazz, gospel and church I had and made me into Olufunmilayo.”

“I can honestly say this is my best role to date,” said Marshall, a 51-year-old Briton of Barbadian parentage.

Marshall and Garcia said the fact that cast members were chosen from American and British casts strengthened and added an entirely different dimension to the final product. Each spoke of the hugely influential role Jones played in creating and developing the play and his effect on them.

“There’s always that screw

that needs tightening, that little knot, but it all comes together,” Marshall said. “He scared us.

He doesn’t stand on ceremony, doesn’t stand for any nonsense.

He picked you and you’re chosen for a reason and you better not let him down because you represent him, the Kuti family, the show and you’d better not be disrespectful of all of that. That is not an option.”

Garcia, who spoke proudly of her Cuban roots and who described herself as the creative impulse for the play, said she’s awed by her mentor.

“He’s a force to be reckoned with,” she said with a laugh. “He really is an artistic genius. I respect and admire him. He has the insight and ability to draw things out of people. He is a real phenomenon to witness. This play is a monument to his will and creative genius.”

Garcia, a member of the production’s original creative team, said she’s enjoyed taking creative risks and has grown as an artist.

“This is a medium of social activism, my place in the global village. Theater is the proverbial fireplace where people gather and where the spirit stays alive.

Fela! asks what’s your life’s purpose and what do you plan to do. It’s very exhilarating,” she said. wi The play’s run ends on Feb 10.

Performances are at the Shakespeare Theatre in Northwest.

The Washington Informer

Email The Washington Informer at RBURKE@WASHINGTONINFORMER.COM with the subject line “FLIGHT” for your chance to win a complimentary Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.

THIS FILM IS RATED R. Winners will be chosen by random drawing of all entries received, while supplies last.

All federal, state and local regulations apply. Paramount Pictures, Allied/THA and The Washington Informer and their affiliates accept no responsibility or liability in connection with any loss or accident incurred in connection with use of a prize. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase necessary. Participating sponsors their employees and family members and their agencies are not eligible.

FLIGHT IS AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAYTM, DVD AND DIGITAL DOWNLOAD FEBRUARY 5, 2013!

“Second Show added at 11 PM” Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

37

LIFESTYLE

Griot “The Amistad Rebellion”

by Marcus Rediker c.2012, Viking $27.95 / $29.50 Canada 288 pages

By Terri Schlichenmeyer WI Contributing Writer History is filled with halftruths, especially about our heroes.

Lincoln, for instance, wasn’t the stern, humorless man that old photos lead you to believe. Queen Victoria was very definitely “amused” quite often. Roosevelt made mistakes, Boudica had her fears, even Churchill undoubtedly had his doubts.

Or so we hope, because we want our heroes to be human, too. And for that, author Marcus Rediker dug deep to present

a few surprises in his new book “The Amistad Rebellion.”

It should’ve been a routine trip for Ramon Ferrer, captain of the Amistad. He was hired to accept cargo, sail it from Havana to another port in Cuba and drop it off, where it would be sorted and sold. Routine, but it cost him his life because the cargo, 49 men and four children, had other ideas.

Up until then, the journey for

these men and children had been like that of every other slave who came through the Middle Passage: most had been snatched by slave hunters (although some had been taken in exchange for a family member’s debt), they were crammed beneath the deck of the ship, stacked on shelves with little-to-no room to move, often with less than three feet of headroom. Food was scarce, water was often denied, the stench

of bondage choked them, and many died. Of those who did not, it was said that their bodies sometimes never recovered from the voyage.

But on the moonless night of July 2, 1839, the Amistad Africans, as Rediker calls them, had had enough. One broke a padlock that held them below deck and, through the leadership of four men from various tribes who shared membership in a cultural society, they snatched cane knives, snuck up from below, and immediately killed the ship’s slave-cook, who had been taunting them for days. They attacked other crew members, slashed at the captain, seized the ship, and forced their Spanish “owners” to sail back to Sierra Leone.

But the surviving Spaniards tricked the Africans and kept the Amistad near American shores, hoping that U.S. authorities would help. And they did – which ended in a major trial, political wrangling, and a 19th-century media circus that changed history.

So you saw the movie and you know all about what happened on the Amistad. But you don’t … until you’ve read this book.

Author Marcus Rediker does an exceptional job in putting individual faces on each of the ship’s passengers and those who assisted them on their journey home. We come to see their strength, wisdom, and playfulness, which softens this story with personality and turns these men into more than just historical figures. I appreciated that Rediker doesn’t stop there, but carefully explains how the Amistad Rebellion affected slavery and history in general.

Though I must admit that I liked the first two-thirds of this book better than the latter part, I think it’s an exciting, horrifying, triumphant tale overall, and definitely worth reading. If you’re in need of a story like that, then “The Amistad Rebellion” is truly what you want. wi

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CAPRICORN Shopping has its appeals this week, and you’ll want to check your bankbook balance before indulging in anything that is whimsical and expensive. Give yourself hours to think about what’s important to you. Control impulses this week. Soul Affirmation: I change the way I look at business this week. Lucky Numbers: 5, 10, 18

5

SAGITTARIUS You learn something this week that makes you very happy. One of your most wonderful gifts is your ability to be delighted with all forms of learning and education. This is a terrific week for personal delight. Soul Affirmation: Trust gives me a deep sense of peace and joy. Lucky Numbers: 27, 33, 45

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Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

39

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6/6/12 11:07 AM

The Washington Informer

With its bold styling, long list of optional equipment, and excellent fuel economy, the Hyundai Elantra is a smart choice for those looking for a good all-around compact car. /Photo courtesy of Hyundai Motor America

Hyundai’s Elantra Compact Combines Function with Style

By Njuguna Kabugi WI Contributing Writer Hyundai Motor Company, the largest automobile company in Korea, is now one of the top carmakers worldwide. Hyundai has not only weathered the global economic downturn, it has set innumerable sales records while the competition has struggled.

It is all so easy to forget just how far Hyundai has had to climb to be a contender. The manufacturer entered the U.S. auto market in 1986 with a basic car that offered Americans an inexpensive alternative to buying a used car. The Hyundai Excel (called Pony in Canada), set a record for the most automobiles sold by a new import (126,000) in the first year of business in America.

The bargain-basement economy car had a rock-bottom price of $4,995, which was hugely appealing, until the bottom dropped out of Hyundai’s image. The car buying public soon realized the Excel was woefully unrefined and unreliable.

As sales collapsed, Hyundai became the butt of jokes by late-night talkshow hosts. Jay Leno quipped that filling up a Hyundai doubled its value while David Letterman joked how much it would frighten astronauts if the Hyundai logo were placed on the spacecraft’s control panel.

Rather than drop out of the world’s largest automotive market, Hyundai began investing heavily in the quality, design, manufacturing, and long-term research of its vehicles. It also introduced a 10-year warranty – an industry first. The Hyundai program was far more comforting than the industry’s standard three-year, 30,000-mile warranty, and essentially guaranteed the car for its entire expected working life.

By 2004, sales had dramatically increased, and the reputation of Hyundai cars improved. In 2008, Hyundai had tied with Honda and Toyota, the perennial leaders in quality, and was only slightly behind Porsche and Lexus.

Sales are up more than 60 percent

since the recession began and with every other automaker racing to roll out new models; can Hyundai continue its run of success for another model year? We think so, and this week’s test vehicle, the Hyundai Elantra is proof.

Ever since the latest Elantra arrived last year, it has hit home run after home run. Its combination of affordability, sporty styling and performance, and roomy, attractive cabin led to the car being named the 2012 North American Car of the Year by juries of automotive journalists in both Canada and the United States.

The Hyundai Elantra looks striking with crisp, edgy styling. While most of the rest of the competition looks dated, the Elantra appears to have the sleekest exterior design in its class. The car is powered by a 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine that makes 148 hp. This all-aluminum DOHC engine with variable valve timing delivers 29 mpg city and 40 mpg highway, according to the EPA, trouncing most of the competitors.

The car readily keeps pace with fast-moving highway or city traffic and the optional six-speed automatic (a six-speed manual is standard) shifts smoothly and is always willing to downshift when you need more power. You feel bumps and ruts, but true harshness is damped before it reaches the cabin. The car stays flat in corners, but the ride is comfortable.

The Elantra seats up to five and has very accommodating trunk space. All the controls are clearly organized and labeled; whether you want to change the radio station, enter an address in the navigation system, or adjust the windshield wipers, everything seems to be right at your fingertips.

At $22,500, our test car sat near the upper reaches of the Elantra model.

In Hyundai tradition, that price brings a staggering level of standard equipment; includes stability control, a power sunroof, automatic headlights, remote keyless entry, Bluetooth connectivity, one of the industry’s most straightforward iPod interfaces, leather seats – all heated front and rear. wi www.washingtoninformer.com

CTM

Dance to the Beat!

Performer Malaiyka Reid (foreground), teaches students the rhythms of Fela! during a master class at THEARC on Monday, Feb. 4. /Photo by Khalid Naji-Allah Bottom

A Lively Discussion!

Rosalynn Hughey of the D.C. Office of Planning discusses gentrification during a forum hosted by River East Emerging Leaders in Southeast on Jan. 31. /Photo by Khalid Naji-Allah

Welcome to the Neighborhood!

D.C. community leaders and officials gather at Food & Friends in Northeast to welcome Walmart to the neighborhood at a reception following the groundbreaking ceremony in Fort Totten Square on Jan. 30. /Photo by Roy Lewis Andrew Lightman, managing editor at Capital Community News, discusses gentrification during a forum hosted by River East Emerging Leaders and moderated by Denise Rolark Barnes in Southeast on Jan. 31. /Photo by Khalid Naji-Allah

www.washingtoninformer.com

The Washington Informer

Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

41

“Changing America:

The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863 and The March on Washington, 1963”: Revisits Two Historical Landmarks at Once

By Eve M. Ferguson WI Staff Writer

T

he first thing that a visitor to the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s latest exhibit, “Changing America: The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863 and The March on Washington, 1963” notices is that this exhibit joins two pivotal events that gave racial relations in the United States momentum toward equality and freedom.

The second thing one notices are the many precious artifacts, landmark documents and other vital ephemera relating to both events in a soul-stirring educational experience.

At the entrance to the exhibit, housed in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, one can go back 150 years to the Emancipation Proclamation and the history that led up to that decisive moment when enslaved people of African descent were officially freed. Or, one can enter 50 years ago to encounter the more recent fervor of the March on Washington, and experience the events and consequences of the movement that galvanized the push toward the passage of

the Voting Rights Act of 1964, which finally gave all Black people the right to vote in this country.

The elements of this exhibit are diverse, important and numerous, housed in a temporary gallery in the National Museum of American History until the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) debuts on the National Mall in 2015.

Tightly packed into the limited space, various glass display cases containing documents, medals, even 10 shards of stained glass from the blown-out window of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., where the terrorist act that took the lives of four little girls, serve as reminders of our progress as African Americans, or the lack thereof.

Those mementos are complemented by film clips of Civil War historians and Civil Rights Movement figures shown on continuous film loops.

“There are some wonderful national treasures throughout this exhibit that tell both very personal as well as national stories of the American experience,” said Harry Rubenstein, co-curator of the exhibit.

A rare example of a Sibley tent, which housed the slaves who endeavored to join the Union Army, is the size of a medium camping tent, yet it would house

42 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

The Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C., 1963. /Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress

upwards of 20 people who were willing to fight in the Civil War in exchange for their freedom.

Faded sepia-toned photographs of African Americans in Union uniforms bear witness to their service, as do the medals awarded for valor.

On the other side, the film clip of Martin Luther King, Jr. addressing the marchers on that hot, August day in 1963, The Washington Informer

still creates a sense of electricity followed by an age-old sadness remembering his fight, his victories and his eventual assassination.

The same can be said of the materials that belonged to Abraham Lincoln; his handwritten notes announcing his intention to free the slaves to aid in the Union’s fight against the Confederacy, and a rare copy of the 13th

Amendment bearing Lincoln’s signature. One of Lincoln’s classic black suits and the top hat he wore to Ford’s Theater, where he would be assassinated, generate the same sense of melancholy realizing that within days after he signed the document on January 1, 1863, John Wilkes Booth had already decided it would be the

See EXHIBIT on Page 43 www.washingtoninformer.com

March on Washington participants, August 28, 1963. /Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress

EXHIBIT continued from Page 42 16th president’s last great act.

A sense of poignancy emanates from the wall text quote, where the revered president declared, “If my name ever goes into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is into it.”

The deep divide that separates the entrances and exits to each section may be metaphorical, as those 100 years in between these two milestones in American history were confusing, unsettling and represented a stalemate in racial progress that spawned Jim Crow laws, segregating Blacks and Whites and a host of promises yet to be fulfilled.

Lonnie Bunch III, founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture commented, “America’s promise of freedom is filled with contradiction. Perhaps no one understood this more than the 4 million enslaved Africans living in the United States before 1863.”

Addressing the racial environment 100 years hence, Bunch, who is also the co-curator of the exhibit, concluded, “Move forward to 1963 and the March on Washington, and you see a www.washingtoninformer.com

“America’s promise of freedom is filled with contradiction. Perhaps no one understood this more than the 4 million enslaved Africans living in the United States before 1863.”

Lincoln’s Hat. /Photo courtesy of the National Museum of African American History and Culture

– Lonnie Bunch III, founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture

coalition of people and organizations continuing the pursuit of liberty and equality for all. This is a shining moment in America’s story.”

“Changing America: The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863 and The March on Washington, 1963” is on view through September 15, at the NMAAHC Gallery of the National Museum of American History at Constitution Avenue between 12th and 14th Streets, NW. A schedule of related public programs accompanies the exhibit, including a National Youth Summit on Abolition to take place on February 11 at noon and a book talk on “The

King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement,” a conversation with author and King biographer Taylor Branch on February 28th at 7 p.m. in the museum’s Warner Brothers’ Theater. Visit www.nmaahc.

si.edu for other programs and more information.

At the Library of Congress, the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation in Abraham Lincoln’s own hand is on view in the exhibit, “The Civil War

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in America.” The document, which has not been exhibited publicly since 2009, remains on view through February 18th in the ongoing exhibit which runs through June 1st in the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First Street, SE.wi

Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

43

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Members of the D.C. Blue Devils youth basketball program provided the halftime entertainment during NBA action between Washington and Sacramento on Monday, Jan. 28 at the Verizon Center in Northwest. /Photo by John E. De Freitas

View

Sports Photos

by John De Freitas

at:

 44 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

President Barack Obama accepts a basketball from LeBron James during a ceremony that honored the Miami Heat and their 2012 NBA Championship victory, in the East Room of the White House on Monday, Jan. 28. /Courtesy photo by Yusuf Abdulah

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www.washingtoninformer.com

sports

Georgetown Defeats Seton Hall 74-52

Seton Hall guard Brian Oliver rolls past Georgetown forward Nate Lubick during Division I basketball action on Wednesday, Jan. 30 at the Verizon Center in Northwest. Georgetown defeated Seton Hall 74-52. /Photo by John E. De Freitas

Georgetown center Otto Porter Jr., shields the basketball from Seton Hall center Gene Teague during Division 1 basketball action on Wednesday, Jan. 30 at the Verizon Center in Northwest. Georgetown defeated Seton Hall 74-52. /Photo by John E. De Freitas

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Georgetown guard Markel Starks slips past Seton Hall guard Aaron Cosby during Division 1 basketball action on Wednesday, Jan. 30 at the Verizon Center in Northwest. Georgetown defeated Seton Hall 74-52. /Photo by John E. De Freitas

Georgetown guard John Caprio is defended by Seton Hall center Kevin Johnson during Division 1 basketball action on Wednesday, Jan. 30 at the Verizon Center in Northwest. Georgetown defeated Seton Hall 74-52. /Photo by John E. De Freitas

The Washington Informer

Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

45

Music’s Biggest Stars Perform at Super Bowl

Beyonce, Alicia Keys and Jennifer Hudson Make History

By Stacy M. Brown WI Contributing Writer Three of music’s biggest stars helped to kick off Black History Month in grand fashion with much-ballyhooed performances at the Super Bowl in New Orleans on Feb. 3.

Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, and Beyonce, made history while more than 108 million people watched the telecast and another 72,000 filled the Mercedes Benz Superdome to witness the contest

firsthand between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers.

“These women are at the pinnacle of the entertainment world and the biggest stage in the world is the Super Bowl, so this is as significant a Black History Month moment as we’ve seen,” said Ronald Newman, operations manager of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Northwest.

The performances by the women marked the first time that the Super Bowl’s entertainment included an all African-American

46 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

lineup from the national anthem to the halftime show.

In 1998, the National Football League (NFL) commissioned an all black lineup for the halftime show to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Motown sound.

However, while Smokey Robinson, Boyz II Men, Martha Reeves, The Temptations and Queen Latifah performed at halftime, Jewel sang the national anthem.

College marching bands took center stage at the Super Bowl in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. That

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Alicia Keys. /Courtesy Photo

all changed when the late Michael Jackson became the first mega-star to perform a halftime show at the big game in 1993.

The King of Pop mesmerized viewers with his trademark, “moonwalk,” as he belted out such hit songs as “Billie Jean,” “Jam,” and “Black or White.”

N’Sync, Britney Spears, Phil Collins, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Madonna, Nelly, Justin Timberlake and Bruce Springsteen are among the many to perform at the big game.

Jackson’s dazzling show and Prince’s 2007 halftime performance remain among the more memorable, according to music critics.

“This was a great opportunity for African Americans to really see the progress this country has made and, just two weeks after President Barack Obama’s inauguration, it’s a profound statement,” Newman said.

Critics agreed.

“Jennifer Hudson has the pipes, she sang, ‘America the Beautiful,’ with the Sandy Hook Elementary School choir and nailed it, of course,” said D.C.’s Roger Friedman, who is a writer and chief editor at Showbiz411.com. “Hudson is the voice of her generation, and she can belt it out in any weather, live without augmentation. Give her an A-plus,” said Friedman, formerly of Fox News and The Hollywood Reporter.

Keys performed a jazz-like version of the “Star Spangled Banner.”

“The fact that the Super Bowl entertainment was Keys, Hudson, and Beyonce was very cool. Let’s appreciate it,” Friedman said.

Beyonce proved not only that she can sing, “but that she can also entertain on a stage as big as the Super Bowl’s,” said Associated Press music writer Mesfin Fekadu. “(She) was far better than Madonna, who sang to a backing track last year, and miles ahead of

the Black Eyed Peas’ disastrous set in 2011.”

Prior to the performance, Beyonce had promised a special surprise for her fans and she didn’t disappoint. Her band mates from Destiny’s Child, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, joined her for a short medley of songs and the singer announced a new world tour to begin in June.

Keys, through her spokeswoman, said she had butterflies before the Super Bowl.

“I’m really excited about it,” she said. “I’ve had to rehearse (the ‘Star Spangled Banner’) as if it is a brand new song. It is a brand new song [considering] the style that I’ll deliver it.”

Hudson called her performance with the Sandy Hook Elementary School students a privilege and said she felt the pain of the Connecticut School District, where a mass shooting took place in December.

Hudson lost her mother, brother and nephew in 2008 to gun violence, so the singer could relate to the senselessness of the tragedy that befell Sandy Hook.

“It was an emotional performance that had some players on the sidelines on the verge of tears,” Fekadu said.

George Singleton, who studies music at George Washington University in Northwest, said the NFL and CBS television did a great service to the game and to African Americans with its choice of entertainment.

“The fact that we had just kicked off Black History Month and to have three of the best singers and performers in the world, who happen to be black, says a lot,” Singleton, 22, said. “It says that everyone is paying attention.

There is progress. It also says that on such a big stage, there is no bigger or better choice than our sisters, who rocked the house.” wi www.washingtoninformer.com

The Religion Corner

religion

Black Women Who Changed the World Black History Month was founded by Carter G. Woodson. It began as “Negro History Week” but was extended to include the entire month of February in 1976. Not very long ago is it? Yet here we are in 2013, shocked to see how far we’ve come. We’re rejoicing that a man of color and his family now reside in the White House. This week though, I write about five African-American women, and next week, another five will be featured.

Sojourner Truth: She once said, “Religion without humanity is very poor human stuff.” Sojourner was born into slavery with the name Isabella Baumfree. She changed her name after escaping from her owner and became a Christian preacher while living with a family in New York.

After the state’s Emancipation Act was passed, she became a vehement and vocal supporter of abolition and women’s rights. She traveled the country giving speeches, including a famous one entitled, Ain’t I a Woman? The speech emphasized the strength and power of women and the need for equality between the sexes.

Harriet Tubman: She believed she had been called by God to help her people.

Like Sojourner, Harriet was born into slavery and found a means of escape with the help of her abolitionist neighbors. In 1849, she fled her slave life in Maryland and found respite in Philadelphia. There she formulated a plan to liberate the rest of her family by way of the Underground Railroad, a system that involved moving slaves from one safe house to another under rigid secrecy; freeing more than 300 slaves throughout the years, taking them as far as Canada and helping

them find safe jobs.

Maya Angelo: Before she was celebrated for her poems and autobiographical texts like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya was a nightclub singer and dancer who toured Europe. She settled in New York and became part of the burgeoning black writing scene in Harlem. After moving to Ghana to teach at the University of Ghana’s School of Music and Drama; she returned to the U.S. and was involved with the Civil Rights Movement, working closely with Martin Luther King Jr. She continues to inspire others and promote change through her writings and public speaking engagements. She once said … “I realized that I didn’t get here by myself. I am a child of God and that’s a blessing and because I have the blessing of God and the knowledge.”

Oprah Winfrey: Early in her career, Oprah was the protégée of Maya Angelou; they are open about their close bond. Now, Oprah is one of the richest and most powerful people in America. She uses her resources and celebrity to enact positive change in communities worldwide, such as fostering literacy through her book club, building a school in Africa, encouraging others to perform good deeds, she gives millions of dollars to colleges for scholarships for the needy; and now runs her own television network, entitled OWN for the Oprah Winfrey Network. Oprah’s favorite scripture, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Mary McLeod Bethune: In 1906, a teacher named Mary Bethune built the Daytona Literacy and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls in Florida. Initially a

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one-woman operation, she enlisted the help of a few community members and sold baked goods to help raise funds for supplies and maintenance. After getting funding from one of the founders of Proctor and Gamble, the school joined forces with an all-boys school in Jacksonville and it became the Bethune-Cookman College. Later, she went on to found the National Council of Negro Women and worked with Franklin Delano Roosevelt on minority issues and youth policies. In her last will and testament, she wrote: “Faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service. Without it, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.” wi Lyndia Grant is a radio talk show host on a Radio One station, WYCB, 1340 A.M.; tune in Fridays at 6 p.m. Contact Lyndia Grant by calling 202- 5183192, send emails to lyndiagrant@gmail. com.

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The Washington Informer

“Praise In The City”

The New Public Affairs Talk Show Hosted by Praise 104.1’s Sheila Stewart Saturday 5:30am-6:30am on Praise 104.1 For more info visit www.praise1041.com

Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

47

religion BAPTIST

african methodist episcopal

Pilgrim Baptist Church

Historic St. Mary’s Episcopal Church Rev. James Manion Supply Priest Foggy Bottom • Founded in 1867 728 23rd Street, NW • Washington, DC 20037 Church office: 202-333-3985 • Fax : 202-338-4958 Worship Services Sundays: 10 a.m. Holy Eucharist with Music and Hymns Wednesdays: 12:10 p.m. - Holy Eucharist www.stmarysfoggybottom.org Email: stmarysoffice@stmarysfoggybottom.org All are welcome to St. Mary’s to Learn, Worship, and Grow.

Blessed Word of Life Church Dr. Dekontee L. & Dr. Ayele A. Johnson Pastors 4001 14th Street, NW Washington, DC 20011 (202) 265-6147 Office 1-800 576-1047 Voicemail/Fax Schedule of Services: Sunday School – 9:30 AM Sunday Morning Worship Service – 11:00 AM Communion Service – First Sunday Prayer Service/Bible Study – Tuesday, 6:30 PM www.blessedwordoflifechurch.org e-mail: church@blessedwordoflifechurch.org

Campbell AME Church Reverend Daryl K. Kearney, Pastor 2562 MLK Jr. Ave., S E Washington, DC 20020 Adm. Office 202-678-2263 Email:Campbell@mycame.org Sunday Worship Service 10: am Sunday Church School 8: 45 am Bible Study Wednesday 12:00 Noon Wednesday 7:00 pm Thursday 7: pm “Reaching Up To Reach Out” Mailing Address Campbell AME Church 2502 Stanton Road SE Washington, DC 20020

Mt. Zion Baptist Church Rev. John W. Davis, Pastor 5101 14th Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20011 202-726-2220/ 202-726-9089 Sunday Worship Service 8:00am and 11:00am Sunday School 9:15am Holy Communion 4th Sunday 10:00am Prayer and Bible Study Wednesday 7;00pm TV Ministry –Channel 6 Wednesday 10:00pm gsccm.administration@verizon.net

700 I. Street, NE Washington, D.C. 20002 Pastor Louis B. Jones, II and Pilgrim invite you to join us during our July and August Summer schedule! Attire is Christian casual.

Worship: Sundays@ 7:30 A.M. & 10:00 A.M. 3rd Sunday Holy Communion/Baptism/Consecration Prayer & Praise: Wednesdays @12:00 Noon @ 6:30 P.M. – One Hour of Power!

(202) 547-8849 www.pilgrimbaptistdc.org

Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ Drs. Dennis W. and Christine Y. Wiley, Pastors 3845 South Capitol Street Washington, DC 20032 (202) 562-5576 (Office) (202) 562-4219 (Fax) SERVICES AND TIMES: SUNDAYS: 8:00 AM and 10:45 AM Worship Services BIBLE STUDY: Wonderful Wednesdays in Worship and the Word Bible Study Wednesdays 12:00 Noon; 6:30 PM (dinner @ 5:30 PM) SUNDAY SCHOOL: 9:45 AM – Hour of Power “An inclusive ministry where all are welcomed and affirmed.” www.covenantbaptistdc.org

Morning Star Baptist Church Pastor Gerald L Martin Senior Minister 3204 Brothers Place S.E. Washington, D.C. 20032 202-373-5566 or 202-373-5567

Church of Living Waters

Rev. Paul Carrette Senior Pastor Harold Andrew, Assistant Pastor 4915 Wheeler Road Oxon Hill, MD 20745 301-894-6464 Schedule of Service Sunday Service: 8:30 AM & 11:00 AM Bible Study: Wednesday 7:30 PM Communion Service: First Sunday www.livingwatersmd.org

St. Stephen Baptist Church Lanier C. Twyman, Sr. State Overseer 5757 Temple Hill Road, Temple Hills, MD 20748 Office 301-899-8885 – fax 301-899-2555 Sunday Early Morning Worship - 7:45 a.m.

Church School - 9:30 a.m.

Sunday Morning Worship – 10:45 a.m.

Tuesday – Thursday - Kingdom Building Bible Institute – 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday – Prayer/Praise/Bible Study – 7:30 p.m.

Baptism & Communion Service- 4th Sunday – 10:30am Radio Broadcast WYCB -1340 AM-Sunday -6:00pm T.V. Broadcast - Channel 190 – Sunday -4:00pm/Tuesday 7:00am

“We are one in the Spirit” www.ssbc5757.org e-mail: ssbc5757@verizon.net

Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church Rev. Dr. Michael E. Bell, Sr., • Pastor 2498 Alabama Ave., SE • Washington D.C. 20020 Office: (202) 889-7296 Fax: (202) 889-2198 • www.acamec.org 2008: The Year of New Beginnings “Expect the Extraordinary”

Crusader Baptist Church

Isle of Patmos Baptist Church Reverend Dr. Calvin L. Matthews • Senior Pastor 1200 Isle of Patmos Plaza, Northeast Washington, DC 20018 Office: (202) 529-6767 Fax: (202) 526-1661

Rev. Dr. Alton W. Jordan, Pastor 800 I Street, NE Washington, DC 20002 202-548-0707 Fax No. 202-548-0703

Sunday Worship Services: 8:00a.m. and 11:00a.m.

Sunday Church School - 9:15a.m. & Sunday Adult Forum Bible Study - 10:30a.m.

2nd & 4th Monday Women’s Bible Study - 6:30p.m.

Tuesday Jr./Sr. Bible Study - 10:00a.m.

Tuesday Topical Bible Study - 6:30p.m.

Tuesday New Beginnings Bible Study - 6:30p.m.

Wednesday Pastoral Bible Study - 6:30p.m.

Wednesday Children’s Bible Study - 6:30p.m.

Thursday Men’s Bible Study - 6:30p.m.

Friday before 1st Sunday Praise & Worship Service - 6:30p.m.

Saturday Adult Bible Study - 10:00a.m.

Sunday Morning Worship 11:00am Holy Communion – 1st Sunday Sunday School-9:45am Men’s Monday Bible Study – 7:00pm Wednesday Night Bible Study – 7:00pm Women’s Ministry Bible Study 3rd Friday -7:00pm Computer Classes- Announced Family and Marital Counseling by appointment E-mail: Crusadersbaptistchurch@verizon.net www.CrusadersBaptistChurch.org

“The Amazing, Awesome, Audacious Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church”

“God is Love”

Third Street Church of God Rev. Cheryl J. Sanders, Th.D. Senior Pastor 1204 Third Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 202.347.5889 office 202.638.1803 fax Sunday School: 9:30 a.m.

Sunday Worship: 11:00 a.m.

Prayer Meeting and Bible Study: Wed. 7:30 p.m.

“Ambassadors for Christ to the Nation’s Capital” www.thirdstreet.org

Sunday Worship Services: 7:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

Holy Communion: 2nd Sunday at 7:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

Sunday Church School: 9:20 a.m.

Seniors Bible Study: Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m.

Noon Day Prayer Service: Tuesdays at Noon Bible Study: Tuesdays at 7 p.m.

Motto: “A Ministry of Reconciliation Where Everybody is Somebody!”

Website: http://isleofpatmosbc.org Church Email: ipbcsecretary@verizon.net

Greater Mt. Calvary Holy Church Bishop Alfred A. Owens, Jr.; Senior Bishop & Evangelist Susie C. Owens – Co-Pastor 610 Rhode Island Avenue, NE Washington, DC 20002 (202) 529-4547 office • (202) 529-4495 fax Sunday Worship Service: 8 AM and 10:45 AM Sunday Youth Worship Services: 1st & 4th 10:45 AM; 804 R.I. Ave., NE 5th 8 AM & 10:45 AM; Main Church Prayer Services Tuesday – Noon, Wednesday 6 AM & 6:30 PM Calvary Bible Institute: Year-Round Contact Church Communion Every 3rd Sunday The Church in The Hood that will do you Good! www.gmchc.org emailus@gmchc.org

ST Marks Baptist Come Worship with us...

St. Mark's Baptist Church 624 Underwood Street, NW Washington, dc 20011 Dr. Raymond T. Matthews, Pastor and First Lady Marcia Matthews Sunday School 9:am Worship Service 10:am Wed. Noon Day prayer service Thur. Prayer service 6:45 pm Thur. Bible Study 7:15 pm

We are proud to provide the trophies for the Washington Informer Spelling Bee

Service & Time Sunday Worship 7:45A.M & 11A.M Communion Service 2nd Sunday 11A.M Prayer Service Tuesday 7:00 P.M Bible Study Tuesday 8:00 P.M Sunday Church School 10:00 A.M Sunday “A church reaching and winning our community for Christ” morningstarbaptistchurch@verizon.net www.morningstarchurch-dc.org

Mount Carmel Baptist Church

52 Years of Expert Engraving Services

Joseph N. Evans, Ph.D Senior Pastor 901 Third Street N.W. Washington, DC. 20001 Phone (202) 842-3411 Fax (202) 682-9423 Sunday Church School : 9: 30am Sunday Morning Worship: 10: 45am Bible Study Tuesday: 6: 00pm Prayer Service Tuesday: 7:00pm Holy Communion: 3rd Sunday 10: 45am themcbc.org

48 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

The Washington Informer

www.washingtoninformer.com

religion Baptist

All Nations Baptist Church

Friendship Baptist Church 900 Delaware Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20020 (202) 488-7417 (202) 484-2242 Rev. Dr. J. Michael Little Pastor Sunrise Prayer: 6:00 AM Sunday School: 9:30 AM Morning Worship 11:00 AM Holy Communion: 3rd Sunday-11:00AM www.friendshipbaptistdc.org Email: frienshipde1900@verizon.net

Rev. Dr. James Coleman Pastor 2001 North Capitol St, N.E. • Washington, DC 20002 Phone (202) 832-9591

King Emmanuel Baptist Church Rev. Daryl F. Bell Pastor 2324 Ontario Road, NW Washington, DC 20009 (202) 232-1730

Sunday Church School – 9:30 AM Sunday Worship Service – 11:00 AM Holy Communion – 1st Sunday at 11:00 AM Prayer – Wednesdays, 6:00 PM Bible Study – Wednesdays, 7:00 PM Christian Education School of Biblical Knowledge Saturdays, 9:30 AM – 11:00 AM, Call for Registration

Sunday School – 9:30 am Sunday Worship Service – 11:00 am Baptismal Service – 1st Sunday – 9:30 am Holy Communion – 1st Sunday – 11:00 am Prayer Meeting & Bible Study – Wednesday -7:30 pm

Website: www.allnationsbaptistchurch.com All Nations Baptist Church – A Church of Standards

“Where Jesus is the King”

Zion Baptist Church

Israel Baptist Church

Emmanuel Baptist Church Rev. Dr. Clinton W. Austin Pastor 2409 Ainger Pl.,SE – WDC 20020 (202) 678-0884 – Office (202) 678-0885 – Fax “Come Grow With Us and Establish a Blessed Family” Sunday Worship 7:30am & 10:45am Baptism/Holy Communion 3rd Sunday Family Bible Study Tuesdays – 6:30pm Prayer Service Tuesdays – 8:00pm www.emmanuelbaptistchurchdc.org

Sermon On The Mount Temple Of Joy Apostolic Faith

Florida Avenue Baptist Church Dr. Earl D. Trent Senior Pastor

Rev. Dr. George C. Gilbert SR. Pastor

623 Florida Ave.. NW • WDC. 20001 Church (202) 667-3409 • Study (202) 265-0836 Home Study (301) 464-8211 • Fax (202) 483-4009

4504 Gault Place, N.E. Washington, D.C 20019 202-397-7775 – 7184

Sunday Worship Services: 10:00 a.m.

Sunday Church School: 8:45 – 9:45 a.m.

Holy Communion: Every First Sunday Intercessory Prayer: Monday – 7:00-8:00 p.m.

Pastor’s Bible Study: Wednesday –7:45 p.m.

Midweek Prayer: Wednesday – 7:00 p.m.

Noonday Prayer Every Thursday

9:30AM. Sunday Church School 11:00 Am. Sunday Worship Service The Lord’s Supper 1st Sunday Wednesday 7:00pm Prayer & Praise Services 7:30pm. Bible Study Saturday before 4th Sunday Men, Women, Youth Discipleship Ministries 10:30am A Christ Centered Church htubc@comcast.net

Matthews Memorial Baptist Church

Rev. Keith W. Byrd, Sr. Pastor

Rev. Dr. Morris L Shearin, Sr. Pastor

Rev. Charles Y. Davis, Jr. Sr. Pastor

5606 Marlboro Pike District Heights, MD 20747 301-735-6005

Dr. C. Matthew Hudson, Jr, Pastor

4850 Blagdon Ave, NW • Washington D.C 20011 Phone (202) 722-4940 • Fax (202) 291-3773

1251 Saratoga Ave., NE Washington, DC 20018 (202) 269-0288

14350 Frederick Rd. Cooksville, MD 21723 (410) 489-5069

Elder Herman L. Simms, Pastor

2616 MLK Ave., SE • Washington, DC 20020 Office 202-889-3709 • Fax 202-678-3304

Sunday Worship Service: 10:00 A.M. Sunday School: 8:30 A.M. Holy Communion1st Sunday: 10:00 A.M.

Sunday Worship Service: 11:00 am Sunday School: 9:30 am Wed. Bible Study/Prayer: 6:30-8:00 pm Holy Communion 2nd Sunday Pre-Marital Counseling/Venue for Weddings Prison Ministry Knowledge Base

Prayer Service: Wednesday at 6:30 P.M. Bible Study: Wednesday at 7:00 P.M.

Web: www.FullGospelBC.org Email: fullgospelbc1946@verizon.net “IF YOU NEED REST, THIS HOUSE IS OPEN”

Sunday Worship Service 10:15AM- Praise and Worship Services Sunday School 9:00am Monday: Noon Bible School Wednesday: Noon & 7PM: Pastor’s Bible Study Ordinance of Baptism 2nd Holy Communion 4th Sunday Mission Zion Baptist Church Shall; Enlist Sinners, Educate Students, Empower the Suffering, Encourage the Saints, and Exalt Our Savior. (Acts 2:41-47) www.zionbaptistchurchdc.org

Mount Moriah Baptist Church

St. Luke Baptist Church Rev. Aubrey C. Lewis Pastor 1415 Gallatin Street, NW Washington, DC 20011-3851 P: (202) 726-5940 Sunday Worship: 11:00 a.m.

Sunday School: 9:15 a.m.

Holy Communion: 11:00 a.m., 3rd Sun. Bible Study: Monday - 7:00 p.m.

Prayer Meeting: Thursday - 7:00 p.m.

Dr. Lucius M. Dalton, Senior Pastor 1636 East Capitol Street, NE Washington, DC 20003 Telephone: 202-544-5588 Fax: 202-544-2964 Sunday Worship Services: 7:45 am and 10:45 am Holy Communion: 1st Sundays at 7:45 am and 10:45 am Sunday School: 9:30 am Prayer & Praise Service: Tuesdays at 12 noon and 6:30 pm Bible Study: Tuesdays at 1 pm and 7 pm Youth Bible Study: Fridays at 7 pm Web: www.mountmoriahchurch.org Email: mtmoriah@mountmoriahchurch.org

Rehoboth Baptist Church

St. Matthews Baptist Church Rev. Dr. Maxwell M. Washington Pastor 1105 New Jersey Ave, S.E • Washington, DC 20003 202 488-7298 Order of Services Sunday Worship Services: 9:05 A.M. Sunday School: 8:00 A.M. Holy Communion 3rd Sunday Morning Prayer Meeting: 7:00 P.M. (Tuesday) Bible Study: 7:30 P.M. (Tuesday) Theme: “Striving to be more like Jesus “Stewardship”.

Philippians 3:12-14; Malachi 3:8-10 and 2 Corinthians 9:7 Email: stmatthewbaptist@msn.com Website: www.stmatthewsbaptist.com

Mount Pleasant Baptist Church

Sunday Apostolic Worship Services 11:00 A.M and 5:00 P.M Communion and Feet Wash 4th Sunday at 5:00 P.M Prayer/Seeking Wednesday at 8:00 P.M. Apostolic in Doctrine, Pentecostal in Experience, Holiness in Living, Uncompromised and Unchanged.

The Apostolic Faith is still alive –Acts 2:42

New Commandment Baptist Church

Rev. Terry D. Streeter Pastor

Rev. Stephen E. Tucker Pastor and Overseer

215 Rhode Island Ave. N.W. • WD.C. 20001 (202) 332-5748

625 Park Rd, NW • WDC 20010 P: 202 291-5711 • F: 202 291-5666

Early Morning Worship: 7:45 a.m.

Sunday School: 9:15 a.m.

Morning Worship: 10:45 a.m.

Holy Communion: 4th Sunday 7:45 a.m. & 10:45 a.m.

C.T.U. Sunday: 2:45 p.m.

Bible Study: Wednesday 11:00 a.m. & 7:00 p.m.

Prayer Service: Wednesday 8:00 p.m.

Noon Day Prayer Service: Mondays 12 p.m.

Sunday Worship Service - 11 am Sunday School - 9:45 am Bible Study & Prayer Wed. - 7 pm Substance Abuse Counseling 7 pm (Mon & Fri) Jobs Partnership - 7 pm (Mon & Wed) Sat. Enrichment Experience - 9:30 am

Salem Baptist Church

“A Church Where Love Is Essential and Praise is Intentional”

Shiloh Baptist Church

Rev. R. Vincent Palmer Pastor

Rev. Alonzo Hart Pastor

Rev. Dr. Wallace Charles Smith Pastor

621 Alabama Avenue, S.E. • Washington, D.C. 20032 P: (202) 561-1111 F: (202) 561-1112

917 N St. NW • Washington, DC 20001 (202) 232-4294

9th & P Street, N.W. • W. D.C. 20001 (202) 232-4200

The Church Where GOD Is Working....

And We Are Working With GOD

Sunrise Prayer Services - Sunday 7:00 a.m.

Sunday Morning Prayer Service: 8:00 a.m.

Sunday Church School: 9:15 a.m.

Sunday Morning Worship: 10:40 a.m.

Third Sunday Baptismal & Holy Communion:10:30 a.m.

Tuesday Church At Study Prayer & Praise: 6:30 p.m.

Morning Worship: 8:00 a.m Church School : 9:30 a.m.

Morning Worship: 10:55 a.m.

Bible Study, Thursday: 6:30 p.m.

Prayer Meeting,Thursday : 7:30 p.m.

Sunday Service: 10 am Sunday School for all ages: 8:30 am 1st Sunday Baptism: 10: am 2nd Sunday Holy Communion: 10 am Tuesday: Bible Study: 6:30 pm Prayer Meeting: 7:45 pm

www.washingtoninformer.com

Motto: God First

The Washington Informer

Holy Trinity United Baptist Church

Early Worship Service 7:30a.m Worship Service 10:45a.m.

New Members Class 9:30a.m.

Holy Communion : 1st Sunday -10:45a.m Church School 9:30a.m.

Prayer, Praise and Bible Study: Wednesday 7p.m Bible Study : Saturday: 11a.m.

Baptism: 4th Sunday – 10:45a.m “Empowered to love and Challenged to Lead a Multitude of Souls to Christ”

Peace Baptist Church

Rev. Dr. Michael T. Bell 712 18th Street, NE Washington, DC 20002 Phone 202-399-3450/ Fax 202-398-8836 Sunday Morning Worship Service 7:15 am & 10:50 am Sunday School 9:30am Sunday Morning Worship Service 10:50am Wednesday Prayer & Testimonies Service 7:30pm Wednesday School of the Bible 8:00pm Wednesday - Midweek Prayer Service 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm “The Loving Church of the living lord “ Email Address pbcexec@verizon.net

First Rising Mt. Zion Baptist Church 602 N Street NW • Washington, D.C. 20001 Office:(202) 289-4480 Fax: (202) 289-4595 Sunday Worship Services: 7:45am & 11:00am Sunday school For All Ages 9:30am Prayer Services Wednesday 11:30am & 6:45pm Bible Institute Wednesday at Noon & 7:45pm “Changing Lives On Purpose “ Email: Froffice@firstrising.org Website: www.firstrising.org

Mt. Bethel Baptist Church Rev. Dr. Bobby L. Livingston, Sr. Pastor 75 Rhode Island Ave. NW • Washington, DC 20001 (202) 667-4448

Sunrise Prayer Service 6:00 A.M. Sunday Church School 8:30 A.M. Pre-Worship Devotionals 9:45 A.M. Morning Worship Services 10:00 A.M. Holy Communion 1st Sunday Worship Services Bible Study Tuesdays, 6:00 P.M. Thursdays, 1:00 P.M. Prayer Meetings Tuesdays, 7:00 P.M. Thursdays, 12:00 P.M.

Pennsylvania Ave. Baptist Church Rev. Dr. Kendrick E. Curry Pastor 3000 Pennsylvania Ave.. S.E Washington, DC 20020 202 581-1500 Sunday Church School: 9:30 A.M. Sunday Worship Service: 11:00 A.M. Monday Adult Bible Study: 7:00 P.M. Wednesday Youth & Adult Activities: 6:30 P.M. Prayer Service Bible Study

Mt. Horeb Baptist Church Rev. Dr. H. B. Sampson, III Pastor 2914 Bladensburg Road, NE Wash., DC 20018 Office: (202) 529-3180 Fax: (202) 529-7738 Order of Services Worship Service: 7:30 a.m.

Sunday School: 9:00 a.m.

Worship Service: 10:30 a.m.

Holy Communion: 4th Sunday 7:30 a.m. & 10:30a.m.

Prayer Services: Tuesday 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday 12 Noon Email:mthoreb@mthoreb.org Website:www.mthoreb.org For further information, please contact me at (202) 529-3180.

Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

49

CLASSIFIEDS legal notice SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Probate Division Washington, D.C. 20001-2131 Administration No. 2013 ADM 000047 Mary L. Gardner aka Mary Louise Gardner Decedent NOTICE OF APPOINTMENT, NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND NOTICE TO UNKNOWN HEIRS Barbara Ann Williams, whose address is 4 Latimer Lane, Bloomfield, CT 06002, was appointed personal representative of the estate of Mary L. Gardner aka Mary Louise Gardner, who died on August 16, 2012 with a Will, and will serve without Court supervision. All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment (or to the probate of decedent’s Will) shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W. Third Floor Washington, D.C. 20001, on or before August 7, 2013. Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or filed with the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before August 7, 2013, or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its first publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of first publication: February 7, 2013 Barbara Ann Williams Personal Representative TRUE TEST COPY

legal notice SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Probate Division Washington, D.C. 20001-2131 Administration No. 2012 ADM 255 Leon Wilbert Hill Decedent Deborah D. Boddie, Esq. 1308 Ninth Street, NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20001 Attorney NOTICE OF APPOINTMENT, NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND NOTICE TO UNKNOWN HEIRS Deborah D. Boddie, Esq., whose address is 1308 Ninth Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20001, was appointed personal representative of the estate of Leon Wilbert Hill, who died on April 9, 2011 with a Will, and will serve without Court supervision. All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment (or to the probate of decedent’s will) shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W. Third Floor Washington, D.C. 20001, on or before August 7, 2013. Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or filed with the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before August 7, 2013, or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its first publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of first publication: February 7, 2013 Deborah D. Boddie, Esq. Personal Representative TRUE TEST COPY

legal notice SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Probate Division Washington, D.C. 20001-2131 Administration No. 2012 ADM 1059 Mary Catherine Willoby Decedent NOTICE OF APPOINTMENT, NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND NOTICE TO UNKNOWN HEIRS Mary Bennett, whose address is 819 Yuma Street, SE, Washington, DC 20032, was appointed personal representative of the estate of Mary Catherine Willoby, who died on March 28, 1989 without a Will. All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding.

Objections to such appointment shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W. Third Floor Washington, D.C. 20001, on or before August 7, 2013. Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or filed with the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before August 7, 2013, or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its first publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of first publication: February 7, 2013 Mary Bennett Personal Representative TRUE TEST COPY

Anne Meister Register of Wills Washington Informer

Anne Meister Register of Wills Washington Informer

Anne Meister Register of Wills Washington Informer

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Probate Division Washington, D.C. 20001-2131

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Civil Division

Administration No. 2013 ADM 54

Administration No. 2012 SEB 313

Carolyn C. Gray Decedent

George Tisdale, Sr. Decedent

Applicant’s Full Name: Muhsin Muhammad Abdulhalim

NOTICE OF APPOINTMENT, NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND NOTICE TO UNKNOWN HEIRS

NOTICE OF APPOINTMENT, NOTICE TO

Civil Action No. 0000671-13

Johnnie P. Gray, whose address is 4203 Hayes Street, NE, Washington, DC 20019, was appointed personal representative of the estate of Carolyn C. Gray, who died on December 22, 2012 with a Will, and will serve without Court supervision. All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment (or to the probate of decedent’s will) shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W. Third Floor Washington, D.C. 20001, on or before August 7, 2013. Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or filed with the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before August 7, 2013, or be forever barred.

Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its first publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Gwendolyn W. Tisdale, whose address is 3201

Date of first publication: February 7, 2013

Date of first publication:

Johnnie P. Gray Personal Representative

Gwendolyn W. Tisdale

TRUE TEST COPY

TRUE TEST COPY

Anne Meister Register of Wills Washington Informer

Anne Meister

COLUMBIA Probate Division Washington, D.C. 20001-2131

CREDITORS AND NOTICE TO UNKNOWN HEIRS

Park Drive, SE, Washington, DC 20020, was appointed personal representative of the estate of George Tisdale, Sr., who died on January 27, 2012 with a Will. All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment (or to the probate of decedent’s Will) shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W. Third Floor Washington, D.C. 20001, on or before March 9, 2013. Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or filed with the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before March 9, 2013, or be forever barred.

Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its first publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

February 7, 2013

Personal Representative

Register of Wills Washington Informer

50 Feb. 7, 2013 - Feb. 13, 2013

ORDER OF PUBLICATION-CHANGE OF NAME IN RE:

Muhsin Muhammad Abdulhalim, having filed a application for judgment changing the name from Muhsin Muhammad Abdulhalim to Anthony Muhsin Abdulhalim Driver and having applied to the Court for an order of publication of the notice required by law in such cases, it is by the Court, this 29th day of January 2013, hereby ORDERED, that a copy of this Order be published once a week for three (3) consecutive weeks, in The Washington Informer, a newspaper of general circulation of the District of Columbia; and it is further ORDERED, that publication must begin no later than 12 days after the filling of the application; and it is further ORDERED, that the FINAL HEARING on this application to change name will be held in Judgein-Chambers, Rm 4220 in the District of Columbia at 500 Indiana Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20001, on the 22nd day of March, 2013 at 3:15 pm. If any person desires to oppose this application, that person or his or her attorney must be present at the hearing or file written detailed objections five (5) business days in advance of the hearing with Judge-in-Chambers and mail a copy to the applicant or applicant’s counsel; and it is further the applicant must send the application for change of name and notice of final hearing to the applicant’s creditors personally or by registered or certified mail and show proof of service by filing the affidavit/ declaration of service.

R. Wertheim Judge First Date of Publication: February 7, 2013

The Washington Informer

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Obama used both a Bible of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and that of President Abraham Lincoln, connecting the 150-year-old dots. President Obama’s choice in using both Bibles in this anniversary year is a testament to his sensitivity and ability to juggle the tightrope he must manage as both president of the United States and the first African American president of our nation.

Most folks 50 and older get it.

What about those who are both younger than our nation’s median age and unschooled in the nuances of history? Is our conversation about race in America stuck in some kind of time warp, where we are unable to speak cross generationally because we have extremely different mem-

MALVEAUX continued from Page 32 twice that of the White rate. If they had read some Dr. Martin Luther King, who spoke of racial disparities in much of his work, they would understand the many ways the struggle continues. But popular culture suggests that when Black folks and White folks can both act extreme fools on reality shows (I think I blanked out after about a minute of “Bad Girls Club”); there is some measure of equality.

There has been a rich history and legacy of struggle and protest that has been swallowed by the notion of post-racialism in the first decades of this century. It is laudable that President

ories, recollections, and knowledge about that which happened 50 years ago?

We do our nation a disservice when we duck and dodge our racially tinged history. We have to grace and embrace the past in order to move forward with our future.

Somehow this is a message that needs to be transmitted to young people, especially in this 150th year after emancipation, this 50th year after the March on Washington, this season of embracing and celebrating our history. wi Julianne Malveaux is a Washington, D.C.-based economist and writer.

She is President Emerita of Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, N.C.

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Daniels continued from Page 32 Black Americans of that era were fully capable of fighting back against the brutal hypocrisy of “the land of the free” that had marooned them in a vast sea of cruelty; and that they had been equally relentless in trying to hew a place of comfort and opportunity out of their difficult predicament.

Willis, chair and professor of photography and imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and Krauthamer, an assistant professor of history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, help us to understand that assertiveness in many of the photographs they present here and that it was widespread among Southern as well as Northern Blacks of all classes.

One of my favorite examples comes from the 1857 correspondence between Sojourner Truth, and Josephine Franklin, a young Black Brooklyn, N.Y. resident.

Franklin had bought several

photographs of Truth for herself and the women in her family and had written to say she was proud to have done so.

Truth’s reply to Franklin brought this response: “You asked me if I was of your race, I am proud to say I am of the same race that you are, I am colored thank God for that.”

The Truth-Franklin correspondence, of course, came in the very year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott that Black Americans – not just slaves, which is what the case was specifically concerned with, but by implication, so-called free Blacks as well – had no rights the American legal system need respect. And, as Willis and Krauthamer point out, the “black-friendly” photographs of these 80 years ran counter to and were meant to counter the floodtide of racist images of Blacks in White literature and art, scholarship, American commerce, and, eventually, the film industry, too.

Black Americans never surrendered. They understood their own worth, and the power of

morial continued from Page 32 ity of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states and counties with a history of discriminatory voting practices to undergo Justice Department review of any change to their voting rules. This is especially important in light of the unprecedented voter suppression campaign leading up to the 2012 presidential election.

Finally, we call for reforms of www.washingtoninformer.com

the nation’s dysfunctional and discriminatory criminal justice system. As NAACP President Ben Jealous noted, “Study after study has shown that students of color face harsher punishments in school than their White peers, African-American students are arrested far more often than their White classmates, and African-American youth have higher rates of juvenile incarceration and are more likely to be sentenced to adult prison. One in 13 African Americans of voting age

the visual proof of their own worth, their own past and their ties to one another that photographs offered.

“These images testify,” the authors write, “to black Americans’ survival and resiliency in the wake of slavery and in the face of late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century segregation and violence. They offer powerful evidence of how black women, men and children saw themselves and each other: as dignified, beautiful, creative, intellectual, energetic, diligent, steadfast, powerful and free.”

One question Envisioning Emancipation demands that the Black Americans living today contemplate: In this era of great symbolic and substantive progress, and yet, simultaneously, daunting challenges that both reflect the present and echo the past, do we understand that we, too, have to strive for our own emancipation? What is it we’re envisioning? wi Lee A. Daniels is a longtime journalist. His book, Last Chance: The Political Threat to Black America was published in 2008 is disenfranchised because of a prior criminal conviction. That’s a staggering statistic that reveals the desperate need for reform.”

We urge the president to address the urban jobs crisis in his upcoming State of the Union address and we call on the leaders in Washington to make economic and educational parity a top priority this year.wi Marc H. Morial, former mayor of New Orleans, is president and CEO of the National Urban League.

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In both Australia and Great Britain extraordinary tragedies pushed a groundswell of citizens to stand up and say no more and elected officials to follow through with significant action.

If Americans had said no more after Columbine, there may never have been a Virginia Tech. If we had said no more after Virginia Tech, there may never have been a Tucson. If we had said no more after Tucson, there may never have been an Aurora. If we had said no more after Aurora, there may never have been a Newtown, and maybe some of the more than 31,000 other American gun deaths that occur each year could have been prevented.

President Obama was correct when he said at the interfaith prayer vigil at Newtown High School that “no single law—no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.

But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this. If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that—then surely we have an obligation to try.”

Let’s heed Gabby Giffords’ moving testimony to be bold, to be courageous, and to act now for our children’s sake.wi Marian Wright Edelman is president of the Children’s Defense Fund whose Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. For more information go to www.childrensdefense.org.

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them who work in the District would be subjected to reciprocal state withholding taxes, which they do not now have to pay.

That’s after they reconcile the image in their minds of D.C. being “too Black,” of course.

The District of Columbia was formed as a federal zone under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress in 1791 from land ceded by the states of Maryland and Virginia. In 1846, Virginia took its land back. In 1783, unpaid soldiers besieged Independence Hall and Congress Hall in Philadelphia where the federal government met, demanding overdue benefits, but the state

government was slow to defend the Congress because state officials sympathized with the soldiers. The Congress fled to New York, Princeton, N.J., and to Annapolis, Md., deciding that a permanent federally controlled district was needed to ensure the government’s protection. That’s why there is a federal district in the first place.

The population of that 100-square-mile enclave in 1800 was only around 8,000. Today, more than 630,000 people reside in the District, making D.C. – if it were a state – the 25th largest state in the Union. District residents are treated the same in

terms of congressional representation as Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. The only thing is residents of those places don’t pay federal taxes like D.C. residents pay.

So, don’t believe the hype. The District of Columbia deserves to become the state of New Columbia, the 51st state in the American Union now! Period.

D.C. will probably never become a state because of its “Three Toos”: Too Black. Too Democratic and Too Liberal.

Did I mention that D.C. is “too Black?”wi

ban semi-automatic and pump action rifles and shotguns. This time, 11 months after the Dunblane murders, Great Britain passed the Firearm (Amendment) Act of 1997 instituting tighter controls over handguns. Soon after, the country went a step further and prohibited all handguns in civilian hands. The government also instituted firearm amnesties across the country resulting in the surrender of thousands of firearms and rounds of ammunition.

After Great Britain acted, gun-related crimes continued to rise for a while, following a trend that began earlier in the decade.

Experts said it was inevitable that criminals were not going to surrender their illegal handguns and it took time to reduce the pool of illegal handguns after the ban and see declines in gun-related crimes.

CLINGMAN continued from Page 33

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Muhammad continued from Page 33 tained by each and every White household which must have an assault weapon to protect American “freedoms” when the federal, state, and local military and law enforcement establishments are unwilling or unable to do the job. That’s what it means for D.C. to be seen as being “too

Black.”

All the other fancy arguments can be reduced to one: “D.C. is too Black, and Black people don’t deserve to live in a state that might elect one or two Black senators and a Black member of the House.” The residents of Maryland and Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania don’t want D.C. to become a state because as many as 100,000 of

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This could be history in the making Black History Month gives us an opportunity to celebrate the extraordinary contributions and events made possible by African Americans.

This history is our history, and part of the fabric of America.

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