VCU ready for 7th consecutive bid to NCAAs
Barring an unlikely late season collapse, the Virginia Commonwealth University Rams are primed for a seventh straight trip to the NCAA playoffs.
George Wythe, John Marshall will enjoy hometown advantage in state tournament
Richmond’s George Wythe and John Marshall high schools will need no GPS to guide them to the State 3A basketball tournament.
Border agents ask Muhammad Ali’s son: Are you Muslim?
Muhammad Ali’s son, who bears the boxing great’s name, was detained by immigration officials at a Florida airport and questioned about his ancestry and religion in what amounted to unconstitutional profiling, a family friend said last week. Returning from a Black History Month event in Jamaica, Muhammad Ali Jr. and his mother, Khalilah Camacho Ali, were pulled aside and separated from each other on Feb. 7 at the immigration checkpoint at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, said Chris Mancini, a family friend and attorney.
Pentecostal Bishop Robert L. Tapper, 96, dies
Pentecostal Bishop Robert Lancelot Tapper developed churches in Richmond and six other Virginia communities during a ministry career that spanned 65 years.
Personality: Amy E. Robins
Spotlight on co-founder, volunteer coordinator of RVA Clean Sweep
Keeping Richmond’s neighborhoods clean and litter free is about more than just aesthetics for Amy Elisabeth Robins. “If you live in a community where residents and children are walking through trash, that has a negative impact on quality of life,” she says.
Owners seek return of Maggie Walker papers
Eight years ago, curious students from the College of William & Mary stumbled across a treasure trove of documents hidden in the attic of a vacant building in Gilpin Court.
City observes Black Restaurant Week March 6-12
Twenty area restaurants will be the focus next week during a promotion called Richmond Black Restaurant Week. Between Monday, March 6, and Sunday, March 12, each of the black-owned and operated restaurants will offer special, fixed-price meals for lunch and dinner in a bid to attract new customers and to showcase their offerings.
Black History Museum executive director resigns; interim head named
When Tasha Chambers took on the role of executive director of the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia in Richmond’s Jackson Ward, the position had been vacant for eight months.
Va. Legislative Black Caucus touts wins in 2017 General Assembly session
Members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus said they’re proud of what they managed to accomplish in the 2017 General Assembly session, despite being a small contingent of Democrats within a Republican-controlled legislature. “We have worked together to support and vote for legislation that will make a difference in people’s lives,” said caucus Chair Roslyn C. Tyler of Sussex.
Controversies rattle HBCU presidents’ meetings with Trump, White House officials
President Trump made historic and symbolic embraces of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities this week, welcoming university chiefs to the White House and issuing an executive order continuing the White House Initiative on HBCUs and moving its office to the White House to facilitate more direct contact with Trump senior staff.
Trump lays out tough agenda in address before Congress
Heralding a “new chapter of American greatness,” President Trump issued a broad call for America first, investing in the nation’s infrastructure, slashing taxes and revamping health insurance in his first address to Congress.
Power of one / Salon owner runs free food bank in her North Side shop
16-year-old has state building named in her honor
Nearly 66 years after Barbara Johns, a 16-year-old student at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, led hundreds of her classmates on a walkout to protest substandard conditions in her segregated school that were separate but not equal, her sister tearfully thanked Gov. Terry McAuliffe for naming a newly renovated state building in Downtown in Ms. Johns’ honor.
Thank you to the Free Press
Re: “We are all refugees: Richmond faith community calls for unity, action in face of Trump ban,” Feb. 9-11 edition:
Trump and control
President Trump has been addressing the people for the last year and a half. Most of what he has said has been in terms of blame, shame and justification. These are not the terms of someone speaking from a position of power. They are the terms used by someone speaking from a victim mentality, someone seeking to control through guilt or shame.
Black history should be taught every day
It’s another February and another Black History Month. Why is it that for black history we get only 28 days? Isn’t black history American history?
School Board approves $301.6M budget request
After weeks of public input and discussion about the needs of the city’s schools, the Richmond School Board approved a $301.6 million operating budget for 2017-18 Tuesday night that would include $172.7 million from the city.
Righting grave wrongs
Virginia General Assembly approves funds for 2 area historic African-American cemeteries; state has been paying for upkeep of Confederate graves for 100 years
Two historic, but largely abandoned and bedraggled African-American cemeteries on Richmond’s eastern border with Henrico County are about to get state support.
Sentiments of black press 190 years later
In the February 1981 issue of Ebony magazine, brilliant journalist and historian Lerone Bennett Jr. provided the best reason for studying and learning from history that I have ever heard or read. In an article, “Why Black History Is Important to You,” he wrote, “The past is a bet that your father placed that you must now cover.”
Black newspapers needed more than ever
In 1960, black people in Virginia watched as the state changed the laws against trespassing to make it a more serious crime, with the penalty raised from a $100 fine to $1,000. This action was taken by the then all-white legislature in an attempt to combat the Civil Rights Movement and to more severely punish the activists engaging in sit-ins.
Unvarnished truth
There’s a tendency when people retire or die for their good deeds to be overinflated, covering up the flaws, missteps or poor choices in their lives or careers.
