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Giles hopes to boost services to troubled teens
Shunda T. Giles has been preparing for her transition from lawyer for the Richmond Department of Social Services to its top manager. On Monday, the 41-year-old attorney took over the leadership role of the department of more than 400 staffers and a $74.5 million annual budget, all aimed at strengthening families and providing services to meet essential human needs.
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New breed of bigots
Among the many windswept cliffs that stand guard on the shores of the island of Okinawa, one is known for its particularly gruesome history.
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Tall men help John Marshall open season with wins
Surprisingly, the Richmond area’s tallest basketball team might represent a high school rather than a college. John Marshall High School’s front line just may have an inch or two over the likes of Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Richmond and Virginia Union University.
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Obamacare: Six years later
Today, after almost a century of trying; today, after over a year of debate; today, after all the votes have been tallied, health insurance reform becomes law in the United States of America. Today. It is fitting that Congress passed this historic legislation this week. For as we mark the turning of spring, we also mark a new season in America. In a few moments, when I sign this bill, all of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform.” — President Obama at signing of Health Insurance Reform Bill, March 2010
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Economic justice and fair housing
“The housing problem is particularly acute in the minority ghettos. Nearly two-thirds of all non-white families living in the central cities today live in neighborhoods marked with substandard housing and general urban blight. Two major factors are responsible. First: Many ghetto residents simply cannot pay the rent necessary to support decent housing. In Detroit, for example, over 40 percent of the non-white occupied units in 1960 required rent of over 35 percent of the tenants’ income. Second: Discrimination prevents access to many non-slum areas, particularly the suburbs, where good housing exists. In addition, by creating a ‘back pressure’ in the racial ghettos, it makes it possible for landlords to break up apartments for denser occupancy, and keeps prices and rents of deteriorated ghetto housing higher than they would be in a truly free market.” – Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Commission), 1968 Former Vice President Walter Mondale, who co-sponsored the Fair Housing Act along with U.S. Sen. Edward Brooke, the first popularly elected African-American in the U.S. Senate, was interviewed recently on the occasion of the Fair Housing Act’s 50th anniversary.
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Powerless over statues?
Who really can remove the Confederate traitors from Monument Avenue? According to the City Charter, it may not be the mayor or City Council
When it comes to the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue, Mayor Levar M. Stoney has been in the spotlight, along with members of Richmond City Council.
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Va. NAACP to be run by Tenn. official
The longtime president of the Tennessee NAACP has been handed control of the Virginia State Conference NAACP. Gloria Jean Sweet-Love, who has earned credit for turning around NAACP operations in her state during her 24-year tenure at the helm, was named administrator for the Virginia operations and given sweeping powers over state NAACP policies, programs and expenditures.
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4th Circuit renders decision in battle over Md. cross
For 92 years, a four-story-tall cross has stood at a major intersection in Prince George’s County, Md., paying silent tribute to members of the American military who died fighting in World War I. Now, in the latest church-state battle over public memorials, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond has ruled that the massive memorial violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on the government imposition of a religious faith.
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Black church tradition survives Georgia’s voting changes
Black church leaders and activists in Georgia rallied Sunday in a push to get congregants to vote — a long-standing tradition known as “souls to the polls” that is taking on greater meaning this year amid new obstacles to casting a ballot in the midterm elections.
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Where is the love?
“Reopen With Love 2.0” was the mantra being espoused by Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras as thousands of students returned to the classroom last week for in-person learning for the first time since March 2020 and the onset of the pandemic.
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JM now has ‘Moore’ to cheer for
A year ago, Ashaun Moore could do nothing but watch as John Marshall High rolled to the State Class 2 basketball title.
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Stormwater trouble
Stormwater trouble A year ago, Mayor Dwight C. Jones told the Free Press he would work with Richmond Public Schools to resolve its then unpaid $1.1 million bill for stormwater control.
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At-risk mothers
Remember Shanesha Taylor? She’s the Arizona mother who was arrested for leaving her children in the car while she went to a job interview.
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Gov. McAuliffe announces criminal justice reform
Gov. Terry McAuliffe is proposing changes in state laws that could help reduce the number of people who end up becoming unemployed or who are sent to prison.
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16 to graduate from police academy
The Richmond Police Department is gaining some badly needed reinforcements. Sixteen recruits are to graduate from the training academy this week and immediately join the ranks of the department. They are the first of more than 70 new officers who are expected to join the city police force in the next nine months. “When these recruits entered training July 1, I said that graduation day couldn’t come fast enough. Well, that day has finally arrived, ” Chief Alfred Durham told the Free Press.
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Battery Park art project on tennis great Arthur Ashe to educate, elevate
Sir James Thornhill has spent the past 11 years enlivening buildings, mostly in Jackson Ward, with murals depicting often forgotten African-American heroes.
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Family medical history prompts man to enter ‘Man of the Year’ campaign
Dwight Taylor knows the pain of losing a loved one to cancer and the triumph of celebrating a loved one beating the disease.
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RPS to pay consultants $1,692 for each temporary teacher hired
Richmond Public Schools has an emergency shortage of 119 teachers, and the administration hopes a Staunton consult- ing firm will help fill the void by placing temporary teachers in classrooms. Although the school district continues to offer contracts to new hires daily, teachers continue to resign less than two weeks before the start of the new school year, Tamica Epps, executive director of human resources for RPS, told the Richmond School Board during its Aug. 15 meeting.
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City’s projected deficit now reported as expected surplus
City Hall has wiped out the red ink. Instead of a deficit, Richmond is projected to finish its most recent fiscal year with a $4.5 million surplus, according to the administration of Mayor Dwight C. Jones.
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Creighton Court area transformation moving forward
Gov. Terry McAuliffe is pitching in $2.5 million to assist Richmond in transforming the impoverished Creighton Court area of the East End into a model, mixed-income community. The governor went to the East End on Wednesday to announce Richmond as a winner of a Vibrant Community Initiative grant.
