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Tightening the reins
Richmond School Board votes 5-4 to issues its own design request for a new George Wythe High School and empanel new evaluation team after 3-hour debate
After four months of heated debate, the Richmond School Board on Monday night pushed ahead with its own plan to build a new George wythe High School and two other schools in hewing to its mantra that “schools build schools.”
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Personality: Darrick Hanks-Harris
Spotlight on founder of The Black Village of RVA
In early December, Darrick Hanks-Harris began a new initiative to aid Black-owned businesses struggling in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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License plate campaign pays homage to Richmond Planet
Reginald L. Carter is within striking distance of scoring another victory for his campaign for Black history and racial justice.
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Harry Hughes, chief schools officer for RPS, is leaving
Harry Hughes, the chief schools officer for Richmond Public Schools, is leaving at the end of July.
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Hip-hop classic Biz Markie succumbs at 57
Biz Markie, a hip-hop staple known for his beatboxing prowess, turntable mastery and the 1989 classic “Just a Friend,” died Friday, July 16, 2021, with his wife by his side.
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‘Please run for School Board’, by Julianne Malveaux
Critical race theory, or CRT, asserts that racism is woven into the very fabric of our nation’s institutions.
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VEC brings suffering to thousands of unemployed
After seven and one-half months waiting for unemployment insurance or pandemic unemployment assistance benefits, I am in dire straits: I am driving dirty, i.e., with no car insurance and an expired inspection sticker, because I have no income.
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Charlottesville removes Confederate statues that sparked bloodshed
Cheers erupted last Saturday as a Confederate statue that towered for nearly a century over downtown Charlottesville was carted away by truck from the place where it had become a flashpoint for racist protests and deadly violence.
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Personality: Julian M. Day
Spotlight on 2021 Henrico County Firefighter of the Year
After nearly a decade of service in multiple localities, Julian M. Day received a new kind of spotlight last month.
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Court ruling allows handgun sales to 18- to 20-year-olds
If you are old enough to vote, you are old enough to own a handgun, a panel of the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided Tuesday.
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Stanley Cup champs Tampa Bay Lightning made history with all-Black forward line
The Tampa Bay Lightning made headlines July 8 by capturing their second straight National Hockey League Stanley Cup.
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Use stimulus aid for summer jobs for youths, by Marc H. Morial
“The Harlem Youth Action Project was a city-funded attempt to keep some of the smarter kids off the street ... the next time I saw JET magazine there I was, all the way in the top left-hand corner of a news photo, leaning over Dr. King with my trusty tape recorder in my hand, looking for the last word. I was anything but a Power Memorial junior; I was starting to feel like what I thought of as a man.” — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
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‘Telling the whole story’
Statue of Virginia segregationist Harry F. Byrd Sr., architect of ‘Massive Resistance,’ removed from Capitol Square
After 45 years in Capitol Square in Downtown, the statue commemorating arch-segregationist Harry F. Byrd Sr. was removed Wednesday morning, marking the latest undertaking in Virginia’s long reassessment of and reckoning with its history of oppressing Black people and other people of color.
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11 U.S. mayors commit to reparations as national example
Eleven U.S. mayors — from Los Angeles to tiny Tullahassee, Okla., — have pledged to pay reparations for slavery to a small group of Black residents in their cities, saying their aim is to set an example for the federal government on how a nationwide program could work.
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Personality: John S. ‘Johnny’ Newman Jr.
Spotlight on recipient of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity’s Elder Watson Diggs Award
A storied pro basketball career, educational and entrepreneurial success and helping to better the lives of African-American youths.
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Pulitzer-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones chooses Howard University after tenure tug-of-war with UNC
Acclaimed journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize last year for her groundbreaking work on the legacy of slavery in the “1619 Project” that she spearheaded for the New York Times Magazine, announced Tuesday that she will not join the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill following an extended tenure fight marked by allegations of racism and conservative backlash about her work.
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Damon Hewitt named new executive director of Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
The executive committee of the Washington, D.C.-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has announced that veteran civil rights attorney and policy expert Damon Hewitt will serve as the organization’s next president and executive director.
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Union vows to defend teachers in CRT fights
One of the nation’s largest teachers unions on Tuesday vowed to defend members who are punished for teaching an “honest history” of the United States, a measure that’s intended to counter the wave of states seeking to limit classroom discussion on race and discrimination.
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D.C. statehood must be achieved, by Marc H. Morial
“Congress has both the moral obligation and the constitutional authority to pass the D.C. state- hood bill. This country was founded on the principles of no taxation without representation and consent of the governed, but D.C. residents are taxed without representation and cannot con- sent to the laws under which they, as American citizens, must live.” — Eleanor Holmes Norton, delegate to U.S. House of Representatives representing the District of Columbia
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Mayor and School Board must work out differences for sake of the city
Re “Community members call for School Board to work with city on new George Wythe,” Free Press June 24 edition:
