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Supporting Serena
Two very talented African-American women — Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka — went out to play a game of tennis in the recent U.S. Open final. I’m sure each of them looked forward to a great game.
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Suicide takes Miss USA 2019
Cheslie Kryst, who won the 2019 Miss USA pageant and worked as a correspondent for the entertainment news television show “Extra,” reportedly committed suicide Jan. 30.
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‘I’m tired of fighting people who look like me’
Lt. Gov.-elect Winsome Sears rails against criticism she said is leveled against her by the Black community
Just days before Winsome Sears’ historic swearing in Saturday, Jan. 15, as Virginia’s first female lieutenant governor and the first African-American woman elected to statewide office in the Commonwealth, she sounds more like a woman under siege than someone poised to enter the history books.
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Richmond gets Sassy
Richmond’s global connections: Blending culture and fashion to fight famine, menstrual poverty
When Sassy Jones opened a flagship location in Short Pump Town Center last October, it gave the brand’s loyal online community a home they could come to and enjoy shopping the products they loved in a new way — in person.
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Black women rising despite decades of bias, by Julianne Malveaux
Women won the right to vote a century ago. On Aug. 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment passed. The white women’s equal rights struggle began in 1776, though, when Abigail Adams, the wife of our second president and member of the Constitution-drafting Continental Congress, sent her husband a letter. She urged him to “remember the ladies.” She further wrote, “All men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
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Hammond to VSU: Bye
Interim president out of consideration for top job
Virginia State University soon may have a new president, but it won’t be Dr. Pamela V. Hammond, VSU’s interim president. Dr. Hammond unexpectedly has pulled her name from consideration for the university’s top job — notifying the head of VSU’s board of visitors that she no longer is interested and would be leaving when her current contract expires Dec. 31. In a four-page letter to VSU Rector Harry Black dated Oct. 14, Dr. Hammond provided the required 60-day notice that she did not want the board to “renew my current contract” and was “formally withdrawing my name for further consideration as a candidate for the presidency.”
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Juneteenth and confronting hard history by Marc H. Morial
“Slavery is hard history. It is hard to comprehend the inhumanity that defined it. It is hard to discuss the violence that sustained it. It is hard to teach the ideology of white supremacy that justified it. And it is hard to learn about those who abided it.
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Arlington R. Banks, owner of Banks Coin Laundry in Jackson Ward, dies at 81
Arlington Raymond Banks spent much of his life clean- ing the dirt from people’s clothes, towels, sheets and other fabrics. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather and father, Mr. Banks operated a coin laundry and dry cleaners in Jackson Ward.
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Breonna Taylor supporters relieved by charges against police
Ahmaud Arbery’s assailants receive second life prison sentence while a street is named in his honor
Louisville activists put in long hours on phones and in the streets, working tirelessly to call for arrests in the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor — but it was mostly two years filled with frustration. They saw their fortunes suddenly change when the federal government filed civil rights charges on Aug. 4 against four Louisville police officers over the “drug raid” that led to the death of Ms. Taylor.
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Teaching while black
We have read with disgust report after report from around the nation of incidents of white people calling the cops on African-Americans who are engaged in nothing more than the normal activities of daily living — barbecuing while black, going to the pool while black, waiting at Starbucks while black, going into your apartment building while black, vacationing at an airbnb while black, selling Girl Scout cookies while black and campaigning for public office while black.
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Jimmy Carter still drawing devotees to church
The pilgrims arrive early and from all over, gathering hours before daybreak in an old pecan grove that surrounds a country church. They come, they say, for a dose of simple decency and devotion wrapped up in a Bible lesson. The teacher is the 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter.
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Widow of Mother Emanuel pastor: ‘Much prayer is needed’ four years after attack
Jennifer Pinckney had hoped to be in Bible study on the evening of June 17, 2015. But her 6-year-old daughter had other plans.
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Impassioned calls for police reform at Tyre Nichols’ funeral
Tyre Nichols ’ family and friends gathered Wednesday for a funeral that blended a celebration of his life with outrage over the brutal beating he endured at the hands of Memphis Police and heated calls for police reform.
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Mother, daughter reunited 50 years after adoption
Bonnie L. Davis grew up in an adoptive family, but always longed to find her biological mother. But the Richmond middle school English teacher, church musician and creative writer, found it nearly impossible, despite spending years seeking records in Louisville, Ky., where she was born.
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St. Catherine’s student awarded almost $2M in scholarships
After applying to over 30 colleges and universities, 17-year-old St. Catherine’s School student Ava Holloway was awarded over $1.98 million in scholarships.
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Personality: Julie Anderson
Spotlight on 2017 Star of Life Award winner
Growing up as the child of a paramedic and a firefighter, Julie Anderson says she never worried about her parents’ safety, even after her father was burned and hurt his back in two separate incidents
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Personality: DaNika Neblett Robinson
Spotlight on the board chair of the James River Writers
In 2015, DaNika Neblett Robinson found a new path to literary success. At the suggestion of her writing mentor, Stacy Hawkins Adams, she attended the annual James River Writers conference, in hopes of finding the inspiration she needed for her work.
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Super Tuesday: Just how super?
Super Tuesday is over. And for fans of Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, it was a great night, with multistate victories for both candidates ranging from Massachusetts to Georgia to Arkansas.
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Jenner’s confession stirs up memories of tennis star Renée Richards
In a highly anticipated TV interview last week, Olympic decathlon champion Bruce Jenner told ABC’s Diane Sawyer that “for all intents and purposes, I am a woman.” Jenner’s revelation he is transitioning from male to female stirs recollections of another sports-related, transgender shocker — the case of Dr. Richard Raskind becoming Renée Richards.
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First grader’s art shows natural talent
Ava Johnson, a first-grader at Miles J. Jones Elementary School, has won an award for the school division in the VCU Metro Arts show. Her work also has been part of an exhibit at Artworks Gallery on Southside.
