Story
Bishop Gerald O. Glenn and wife hospitalized with the coronavirus
A prominent Chesterfield County minister and his wife are both being treated at the hospital for the coronavirus.
Story
A new generation of readers embraces bell hooks’ ‘All About Love’
In the summer of 2022, Emma Goodwin was getting over a breakup and thinking hard about her life and how to better herself. She decided to try a book she had heard about often, bell hooks’ “All About Love: New Visions.”
Story
Invisible men, women and children
Slavery out in tours of Gov. Mansion
One topic is conspicuously absent from the current tour of Virginia’s historic governor’s mansion — slavery.
Story
The only plan on the table
Mayor Levar M. Stoney has presented what he calls a “bold” new budget to Richmond City Council that goes all in for greater investment in public schools and road and street improvements.
Story
Muslims must relearn faith to counter Islam’s critics, imam says
In the bustling conservative Fatih district, Imam Fadel Solimon looks at the floor and nods as a young woman asks him for advice on how to respond to criticism of Islam on Twitter.
Story
Mayor’s challengers go on the offense during candidates forum
Richmond Mayor Levar M. Stoney was roundly criticized during a forum last week by four challengers seeking to unseat him for what they said is his administration’s lack of transparency.
Story
State officials: Va. ready to handle coronavirus
Virginia officials stressed the state’s readiness to confront any cases of COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus, during a news conference Wednesday morning at a state office building in Downtown.
Story
Retiring HU president offers advice to graduates
Hampton University’s 152nd annual commencement celebrated graduates as well as the 44-year tenure of HU President William R. “Bill” Harvey, who is retiring on June 30. Dr. Harvey, 81, served as the keynote speaker for the commencement, which was held on Mother’s Day at the Hampton University Convocation Center on campus. Dr. Harvey highlighted a long list of accomplishments made by the university under his stewardship, such as the creation of the Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute to treat cancer and increasing the university’s endowment from $29 million to more than $400 million today. Dr. Harvey told the graduates, “Don’t settle with being the employee; I want you to be the employer. Don’t settle with representing the firm or corporation; I want you to own the firm or corporation. See the horizon as not a limit, but an invitation….” He offered grandfatherly advice to graduates, ranging from the financial -- “Pay yourself first. Save something from every single paycheck. Buy some property”– to the social – “Stay away from drugs and drug dealers. They will destroy your life or make it miserable.” Dr. Harvey went on to tell graduates to “fight racism every time it arises” and to “be positive role models. Be somebody.” He closed out his address by telling graduates to support Hampton University with their money. During the ceremony, Rashida Jones, who became the first Black woman to lead a cable news network when she was named president of MSNBC in February 2021, received the Outstanding 20-Year Alumna Award. The Henrico High School graduate earned a bachelor’s degree in mass media arts from Hampton University in 2002. Earlier this year, she launched the Rashida Jones Scholarship Fund for journalism students at the university. Thomas Hasty III, senior executive vice president and chief regulatory risk officer of TowneBank, received the Outstanding Alumnus-at-Large Award. He graduated from HU in 1977 with a degree in business. Honorary degrees were awarded to former Virginia Supreme Court Justice John Charles Thomas, who was the first Black named to the state’s highest court in 1983, and Christopher Newport University President Paul S. Trible Jr., who represented Virginia in the U.S. Senate from 1983 to 1989.
Story
Our dollars as a form of resistance, by Julianne Malveaux
Our nation’s gross domestic product, or GDP, is a function of consumer spending. We are prodded, cajoled, enticed and engaged in the spending exercise, and all that happens because money makes the world go round.
Story
Young people and vaping
Nearly half a million people die every year from complications from smoking. About a tenth of them never put a cigarette to their lips; they die from exposure to second-hand smoke.
Story
Each generation offers something
Whether it is in an inner-city neighborhood across America, the Caribbean, in Europe or in a sprawling mass of people in an African or Brazilian urban area, millions of black youths throughout the world are crying out for a better quality of life. They should always have a better life than their parents. I always try to keep my eyes and ears open to see and hear what our youths are saying and doing. The axiom that the future is in the hands of the young is certainly true today. I admire and support young people who stand up and speak out for freedom and equal justice.
Story
A cue from Frederick Douglass
As our nation prepares for its annual celebration of Independence Day, I re-read Frederick Douglass’ Fourth of July speech delivered 163 years ago in Rochester, N.Y. I look at it with a specific eye toward what we can learn from it in the wake of the recent tragedies of Charleston and North Charleston, S.C.; Cleveland; New York City; Ferguson, Mo; and Sanford, Fla. Frederick Douglass observed, “Oppression makes a wise man mad. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression…The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation’s history—the very ringbolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny…Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance.
Story
VCU professor files suit alleging ‘pattern and practice’ of sexual harassment by colleague
Virginia Commonwealth University is being accused of turning a blind eye for decades to complaints of sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation involving a top clinical psychologist in its medical school, Dr. Jeffrey S. Kreutzer.
Story
Death penalty too good for Roof
Dylann Roof, the unrepentant racist who killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., is — no question — a monster. He prayed with people before reciting racist cants and annihilating people. After his heinous acts, it was discovered that he was a rabid racist who had wrapped himself in the Confederate flag. Does he deserve the death penalty? No.
Story
Bad seed, bad fruit
We hope that Tuesday’s courtroom dramas in New York and Northern Virginia opened the eyes of those who blindly back President Trump and will push Republicans in Congress out of their tacit support for a fascist who is destroying our country.
Story
Dr. Patricia Bath, whose patents advanced cataract treatment, dies at 76
Dr. Patricia Bath, a pioneering ophthalmologist who became the first African-American female doctor to receive a medical patent after she invented a more precise treatment of cataracts, has died. She was 76.
Story
No blind eye
The 2016 film “Birth of a Nation” was released in a storm of controversy unrelated to the film itself. Whatever your opinion of the film or its maker, one cannot deny the relevance of the film as a medium of historical instruction and a study of human behavior.
Story
Dr. Edith Irby Jones, first female president of the National Medical Association, dies at 91
Dr. Edith Irby Jones, one of the first African-American students to enroll at an all-white medical school in the South and later the first female president of the National Medical Association, has died.
Story
Personality: Rita H. Willis
Spotlight on founder of New Shoes For Back To School
Rita Hayes Willis reflects back to when she was a child eagerly leaving for her first day of school each year. She was properly outfitted from head to toe. “There is something about a new pair of shoes for the first day of school,” she recalls.
Story
The latest stunt
We are living in dangerous times. The bigots in the White House have launched a federal Justice Department study of anti-white bias in college admissions. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Trump administration plans to redirect the civil rights division’s efforts toward investigating and suing universities over admission policies believed to discriminate against white people. What????
