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Black artists alliance to hold benefit online auction for COVID-19 relief
Members of the Black American Artists Alliance of Richmond are holding an online art auction from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, June 6, to benefit CultureWorks’ COVID-19 Arts & Culture Relief Fund.
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Crusade for Voters to celebrate 65th anniversary with banquet Oct. 14
The Richmond Crusade for Voters, the area’s oldest Black political group, will mark its 65th anniversary with a scholarship banquet 6 p.m. next Thursday, Oct. 14, it has been announced.
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Case against VUU president in Florida appears stalled
Bethune-Cookman University in Florida appears to have halted its legal effort to hold former top officials accountable for their alleged role in saddling the Daytona Beach school with an overly expensive dormitory.
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One more reason to vote, by Dr. E. Faye Williams
By the time you read this, it no longer will be breaking news that one of the cancers that has plagued U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has returned.
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COVID-19 trials need minorities, by Dr. Asefa Mekonnen
The minority community’s relationship with the medical and scientific world has not been built upon trust. This is particularly true with African-Americans.
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Changes at 2 North Side funeral homes
They may deal with death, but two venerable, African-American-owned funeral homes in North Side are getting new life. The former W.S. Watkins & Son Funeral Home at 2700 North Ave. has new owners who vow to rebuild the 84-year-old business.
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Utility giants abandon natural gas pipeline plans
The rural tranquility of Union Hill — a community that newly freed slaves built in Buckingham County after the Civil War — is no longer facing disturbance from a giant, noisy natural gas compressor.
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Gun tragedies and inaction
We woke up the morning after the Florida high school tragedy hearing that 95 percent of the American people support stronger background checks before someone can buy a gun. That sounds like a no-brainer because only 4 percent of the people oppose these checks
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Natural gas price down again in city
Natural gas customers in Richmond are enjoying another plunge in the price of the fuel they use to heat their homes, cook and generate hot water. For the third time in eight months, the city is passing along savings to residents for the price it is paying to buy and bring the fuel to Richmond.
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ROUNDUP
The search for Richmond’s next poet laureate is on. City officials recently launched the search for an artist who can bridge division in the city’s community through art.
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Visit museums, gardens and historical sites in Richmond and the world online
Richmond area museums are offering on- line activities, virtual tours and resources to youngsters and families as schools are out for the rest of the academic year and museums and other public venues have been closed during the coronavirus pandemic.
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End of an era
Hampton University President William R. ‘Bill’ Harvey is stepping down June 30 after 44 years at the helm
Hampton University, one of the nation’s first historically black institutions, was a small struggling four-year college on the banks of the Hampton River near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay when an ambitious, young Dr. William R. “Bill” Harvey Jr. from Tuskegee Institute in Alabama was chosen as president of the institution.
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Justice movement will not be deterred, by Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
The right wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has undercut the federal Voting Rights Act again. Having gutted the section that required pre-approval of state voting laws to protect the rights of minorities to vote in Shelby v. Holder, Republican-appointed justices now have castrated the backup clause, Section 2, that bans racial discrimination in election practices in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee.
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Young, gifted, black and abused
In the course of one week, we witnessed the burden of being young, gifted and black. First, the Little League baseball phenom Mo’ne Davis was insulted by a white college baseball player who called the abundantly talented young girl a ‘slut’ in a tweet in response to news that Disney was planning to make a movie about her incredible rise to fame. The player, Joey Casselberry, quickly retracted the tweet in the face of a wave of criticism in cyberspace and was promptly dismissed by the Bloomsburg University team.
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Gov. Northam issues temporary weapons ban
Fearing a repeat of the deadly violence that engulfed Charlottesville more than two years ago, Gov. Ralph S. Northam declared a temporary state of emergency Wednesday that would ban all weapons, including guns, knives, sticks, bats, chains and projectiles, from Capitol Square through the weekend and until Tuesday.
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NCAA bound: VSU men’s team plays Notre Dame College Saturday
If the Virginia State University men’s basketball team is to advance in the NCAA Division II playoffs, it will have to avoid a roadblock standing 6-foot-8 and weighing 240 pounds.
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Alphonso H. ‘Al’ Bowers Jr., who fought for construction diversity, dies
Alphonso Hugo “Al” Bowers Jr., a veteran Richmond contractor who was outspoken in promoting Black inclusion in government building projects and promoted construction trades training program for unemployed adults, has died.
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Residents of Garden City neighborhood get more clarity on Henrico project’s impact
A Henrico County official told residents of the Garden City neighborhood that the county isn’t planning on buying them out of their homes for the proposed $2.3 billion GreenCity arena and mixed-used development.
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Lawyer who successfully argued Loving case legalizing interracial marriage dies
Bernard S. Cohen, who won a landmark case that led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of laws forbidding interracial marriage and later went on to a successful political career as a state legislator, has died. He was 86.
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Friends throw fundraiser for singer Carlton Blount
Carlton V. Blount’s voice has taken him to New York, Los Angeles and a host of other places he could only dream about when he was growing up in Richmond.