Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. –James Baldwin Askia Muhammad Discusses Playing the Race Card See Page 23 •
C e l e b r a t i n g 4 7 Ye a r s o f S e r v i c e
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Serving More Than 50,000 African American Readers Throughout The Metropolitan Area / Vol. 47, No. 45 Aug. 23 - Aug. 29, 2012
Ward 6 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Keith Silver held a press conference with supporters of The Washington Informer Newspaper on Monday, August 20 in front of the Judiciary Square Building in Northwest. /Photo by Roy Lewis.
Informer Fights City Agency’s Contract Decision By James Wright WI Staff Writer A group of community activists and leaders staged a rally Monday to protest the denial of a city contract to the largest District-based African-American newspaper solely on the basis of it not being a “newspaper of
general circulation.” Keith Silver, a Ward 6 advisory neighborhood commissioner and civil rights activist, and noted attorney Johnny Barnes, held a press conference on August 20 in front of the Judiciary Square Building in Northwest to protest a recent ruling by the director of the D.C. Office of Contracts
to award an unclaimed property advertising contract worth more than $30,000 to The Washington Times instead of The Washington Informer. Silver demanded that the board “review and reverse its procurement decision.” “I challenge the assertion that The Washington Informer
serves a specific ethnic group,” said Silver, quoting a part of an e-mail that Informer Publisher Denise Rolark Barnes received on July 30 from Joseph A. Giddis, director of the contracts office, as to why her newspaper did not receive the contract. However, shortly after the demonstration and after Barnes
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filed legal documents requesting that a stay or a delay be granted by the District of Columbia Contract Appeals Board on the contract agreement, The Washington Informer received a response from the contract appeals board that said the matter is “moot”
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