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What dreams come true
City’s ownership of Mayo Island appears within reach
City Hall is jumping to buy a major James River island that the city has dreamed of owning for 40 years to expand parkland.
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Free community testing for COVID-19 continues
The Richmond and Henrico County health districts are offering testing at the following locations:
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Another lynching in Tennessee, by Julianne Malveaux
The abolitionist journalist Ida B. Wells’ quest to document lynchings began when three of her friends, Tommy Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Will Stewart, were lynched because white people were envious of their economic success.
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Curbing gun violence demands focus on stronger laws, helping those who’ve been hurt, by Thomas P. Kapsidelis
When Republicans in the Tennessee House were challenged on gun control after three 9-year-old children and three adults were slain at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tenn., they responded by expelling two Black representatives who led a protest on the chamber’s floor. A white legislator survived the outrageous ouster.
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Squirrels feast on ‘M&Ms’
The Richmond Flying Squirrels opened their season with “M&Ms” at the top of the batting menu. Not the candy kind; this is about leadoff hitter Ismael Munguia and second-in-order Luis Matos.
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PLACES TO GO, PEOPLE TO SEE
Whether it’s art and poetry or films and music, Richmond and surrounding communities offer a lot to everyone in the coming weeks.
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First African Baptist grew out of First Baptist, which was established in 1780 and included African-Americans among its members. In 1841, white members built a …
Published on April 6, 2023
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Hope for healing
7 months after New York Times exposé, healthy equity advocates, Bon Secours report progress
Bon Secours Richmond is starting to receive positive feedback from advocates who had harshly criticized the hospital system for allegedly failing to re-invest income from a federal discount pricing program into low-income communities, most notably Richmond Community Hospital and low-income residents living nearby.
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Affordable housing for whom?
Next week, City Council plans to declare an affordable housing crisis in Richmond as rents and house prices soar, leaving many with below average incomes unable to afford housing. However, neither the council nor Mayor Levar M. Stoney who has pushed the resolution to be voted on Monday, April 10, plan to mention the ways he and the governing body have quietly reduced funding to support development of housing for families with incomes of $40,000 or less a year.
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Maymont’s spring break includes baby goats and three little chicks
April in Maymont means loads of activities for Richmonders to enjoy. On Friday, April 7, the Maymont Mansion and The Robins Nature Center will be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., to take in the arrival of five baby goats and three Brahma chicks to the Maymont Farm.
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Equal justice, even for Trump, by Clarence Page
Yusef Salaam, whom you may remember as one of the exonerated Central Park Five, had only one word to tweet to those who wanted to know his feelings about the indictment of Donald Trump: “Karma,” he offered. Karma? I’ve heard about it. Drawn from concepts of re- birth in Indian religions, I’ve been advised to think of kar- maasaformof cosmic justice: Good deeds and intent lead to good karma and happier re- births while bad karma may lead to times that are not so jolly. Mr. Salaam was one of five Black and Hispanic teenagers wrongfully imprisoned for the 1989 rape of a white woman in New York’s Central Park, a case that later was explored in a 2019 Netflix series “When They See Us” and a PBS documentary “The Central Park Five.” In 1989, before any of the five teens had been tried, Mr. Trump, then a major Manhat- tan real estate developer with a bottomless appetite for self- promotion, took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the death penalty to be reinstated in New York. Adding kerosene to public anger at the time, the ads were reported to have played a major role in securing a conviction. So did false confessions, it turned out, since no DNA linked them to the crime scene and their descriptions of the victim didn’t match. Mr. Salaam served nearly seven years in prison before he and the other wrongfully accused teens—Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise—were Clarence Page exonerated in 2002. Serial rapist Matias Reyes, already in prison, confessed to the assault and DNA confirmed his admission. Ah, how the mighty have fallen. The presumption of inno- cence until proved guilty seemed almost nowhere to be seen in Mr. Trump’s world when the Central Park Five case raged across the headlines and boiled over into a national media frenzy. Yet, as Mr. Salaam mentions in his tweet, Mr. Trump—for whom “apologetic” is not part of his brand—never has apologized. Still, he seeks the presumption of innocence he has denied to others. So be it. Let’s see how well his innocence claims hold up. For now, Mr. Trump’s chants of “Lock her up” in his 2016 race against Hillary Clinton come to mind. Now that it is he who faces what has been reported to be more than 30 counts related to business fraud in a sealed indictment from a Manhattan grand jury, I wonder: Can chants of “Lock HIM up” be far behind? Still, the stress test to which the former president has put our crimi- nal justice system offers a valuable opportunity to view fairness in our system with new eyes. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the ultraconservative Repub- lican from Georgia, suddenly has become a major advocate for inmates of the District of Columbia jail, now that their ranks were joined by detainees from the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Interesting, I said to myself. Since the alleged insurrectionists are mostly white and the D.C. jail’s traditional population is overwhelmingly Black, maybe now they can see how the other half lives. Unsurprisingly, they were shocked. The jail’s conditions, were so bad that 34 of them sug- gested in a letter to federal court last fall that they would rather be moved to Guantanamo Bay. Detainees, through their lawyers, raised concerns that included threats from guards, standing sewage, and skimpy food and water. A federal judge held top jail officials in contempt after they delayed prompt medi- cal care for a Capitol defendant in their custody. Things have gotten better, spurred partly by Rep. Greene and other congressional visitors. But the irony of how it took 40 or so Capitol rioters to get more attention and action than the jail’s roughly 1,400 total inmates is not lost, especially on the inmates of color. Rep. Greene, seldom known for understatement, visited the jail and likened the rioters inside to “prisoners of war,” implying that they were being punished for their politics. Actually they’re being held for a lot more than that. Don’t forget the physical assaults on Capitol Police with pepper spray, bear spray and riot shields, just for starters. Equal justice for all is a cherished ideal in the American system, a system they tried to disrupt. We must do all that we can to preserve that ideal, even for those who try to destroy it. The writer is a syndicated columnist and senior member of the Chicago Tribune edito- rial board.
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When making exceptions for Ramadan is no longer the exception, by Dilshad D. Ali
Scrolling Twitter on the first evening of Ramadan 2023, I was greeted (well, as all Muslims were) by Elmo. “Ramadan Mubarak to all of Elmo’s friends!” the red toddler Muppet said. “Elmo loves you!”
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Game changer: Attendance, ticket sales surge since Squirrels arrival
The Richmond Flying Squirrels had a good season on the field in 2022 and a great season at the ticket booth.
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Richmond’s Randall Robinson reshaped American’s foreign policy, forced change in South Africa
Seared by the segregation he grew up with in Richmond, Randall Maurice Robinson championed change in American policies toward African and the Caribbean nations that he considered unjust and undergirded by racial bias.
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Richmonders want funding for schools, housing, less gas
Fund the full request for Richmond Public Schools. Improve our parks. Fully fund the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and fund repairs for decaying mobile homes. Protect the environment by planning for elimination of the city’s gas utility. Those were among the ways that least 20 speakers urged City Council to amend the 2023-24 budget plan at a public hearing Monday night.
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Free community testing for COVID-19 continues
The Richmond and Henrico County health districts are offering testing at the following locations:
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5 student honorees at VUU gala
Virginia Union University students will take center stage and five honorees will be recognized for their contributions during the upcoming Legacy Awards and Scholarship gala on Friday, March 31.
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Upcoming exhibits seeks Vietnam War stories
March 29 was National Vietnam War Veterans Day, and this year the day marked the 50th anniversary of the withdrawal of the last American troops from South Vietnam. As Americans reflect on the service and sacrifices of Vietnam War veterans, the Virginia Museum of History & Culture (VMHC) is asking Virginians with personal connections to the Vietnam War to share their stories for a new exhibition.
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The battle for parental rights and government oversight remains alive
Huguenot High School’s library functions as a type of escape from the pressures of student life, a place where students can come and “chill out,” as librarian Kevin Murray puts it. He doesn’t give out grades or assign homework, so it makes sense why so many students like spending their time there, a serene space away from the bustling halls of high school.
