7 to be introduced at PROC Beautillion
Seven young men will be introduced to society at the 21st Annual PROC Beautillion on Saturday, Nov. 21, at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.
Personality: Elijah Coles-Brown
Spotlight on youth orator, winner of NAACP Great Expectations Youth Award
Elijah Coles-Brown is a young man who has something to say and when he opens his mouth, he says it well.
Va. pioneer to receive Medal of Freedom
97-year-old NASA mathematician headed to White House for highest civilian honor
Former NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson could not have calculated her trajectory to the White House. The 97-year-old Newport News resident will be among 17 Americans receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation’s highest civilian honor — at the White House on Tuesday, Nov. 24.
RVA Reads gives a book a month to pre-schoolers
A city program is helping to put books into the hands of hundreds of Richmond’s youngest schoolchildren with the goal of exciting them about reading. Called RVA Reads, the program distributes a new book each month to 3- and 4-year-olds, according to Michael Wallace of the city’s press office.
Henrico School Board candidate seeks recount
Tara Adams has requested a recount in the Henrico County School Board race the PTA volunteer and financial services specialist appears to have lost by just 43 votes.
Voting opens Thursday for Brown Middle School to win STEM lab
Help Lucille Brown Middle School win a state-of the-art lab for STEM subjects, science, technology, engineering and math. That’s the appeal the Richmond school and its supporters are issuing to the community as the school competes for a $100,000 grant from the Northrop Grumman Foundation to install a lab that would give Brown Middle students access to the latest learning tools and technologies.
Leonard W. Lambert, longtime Richmond lawyer, dies at 77
“My mother said it was important to be educated and give something back to the church and to the community.” Leonard W. Lambert Sr. told the Free Press those were the life lessons his mother, Mary Frances Warden Lambert, taught him and his six siblings long before her death in August 2014.
Locked out
Report: Fewer mortgages approved in predominately African-American, Latino areas
The greater the number of African-Americans and Latinos living in a Richmond neighborhood, the tougher it is for home buyers in the neighborhood to get a mortgage approved or for existing owners to get their home loans refinanced. That’s the rule of thumb that prevails among banks and online mortgage lenders, according to a new report from the Richmond-based fair housing watchdog group, Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia.
Coalition to City Council: Slow your roll on rapid transit
Slow down the rush to install bus rapid transit (BRT) in Richmond and take the time to ensure that the service will not become an expensive boondoggle.
Budget deal better than default
The House and Senate passed a bipartisan budget deal recently that addresses spending caps, the debt limit, Medicare premiums, Social Security Disability Insurance and many other items important to Virginians. This budget addressed issues that Congress desperately needed to tackle, and I’m happy to have voted in favor of the deal.
Study all the candidates
Not too far off from these so-called presidential debates will be the Republican and Democratic parties’ nominating conventions.
Testing failing our students
Across the country, parents have been in revolt against high-stakes standardized testing, with kids tested over and over again while creativ ity is cut out of classroom curricula. Parents — particularly in targeted urban schools from Chicago to Boston — also are marching against the forced closing of neighborhood schools, displacing kids and shutting down needed neighborhood centers. Now there is more and more evidence that the parents have it right — and the deep-pocket “reformers” are simply wrong.
Racial bias in jury selection
Illegal and unconstitutional jury selection procedures cast doubt on the integrity of the whole judicial process. They create the appearance of bias in the decision of individual cases, and they increase the risk of actual bias as well. – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Peters v. Kiff (1972)
On their shoulders
From the black soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War to the University of Missouri students and football players of color who learned this week the power of unity and strategic action, the fight by African-Americans for respect and equal treatment in this country has been a long one.
N.C. Moral Monday leader urges local NAACP to mobilize
“This is no time for foolishness,” said the Rev. William J. Barber II in an energizing message at the Richmond Branch NAACP’s Freedom Fund Awards Gala last Saturday.
Richmond Christian Center sending up a prayer for $
Thursday, Dec. 17. That’s the deadline for the bankrupt Richmond Christian Center to pay $200,000 in back taxes and overdue legal and accounting bills.
Student protests bring down Mizzou president, chancellor
The University of Missouri’s president stepped down Monday, and its chancellor moved aside, after protests by the school’s students and football team over alleged inaction against racial abuse on campus.
Panthers win 28-27 over Trojans; now looking for NCAA bid
Virginia Union University has rested its case — a powerful case for sure — in its effort to win a NCAA football playoff invitation.
Hoops season starts this weekend for VUU, VSU
Basketball season is about to start for Virginia Union University and Virginia State University. Both CIAA schools open this weekend with a pair of games against non-conference opponents. For VUU, the first test for new Coach Jay Butler will be 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, against Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va.
