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Rally-goers call for reinstatement of parole in Virginia
“He was incarcerated when I was young, and I can’t remember a day with him not behind bars.”
With tears, megachurch pastor defends $200K Lamborghini gift to wife
The new pastor of a South Carolina megachurch gave his wife a $200,000 Lamborghini SUV for their eighth anniversary earlier this month, and he’s been getting heat on social media for it ever since.
Personality: Enjoli Moon
Spotlight on founder of Richmond’s Afrikana Independent Film Festival
Enjoli Moon first contemplated the idea of starting the Afrikana Independent Film Festival in 2014. “I was planning to attend black film festivals in other areas and began to wonder why Richmond didn’t have one,” the Richmond native recalls.
Personality: Joseph P. Costello
Spotlight on founder of the nonprofit Friends of Pump House
Joseph P. Costello first discovered the Pump House in Byrd Park in the summer of 2013. He was with friends when he visited the Gothic Revival structure situated just north of the James River and Kanawha Canal off Pump House Drive. It was constructed of local granite in 1883, with annex buildings added in 1905. “I was blown away by the beauty of the building,” Mr. Costello says.
Personality: Mollie S. Reinhart
Spotlight on founder of Befriend
With COVID-19 still a clear and present danger, building and maintaining human connection can be difficult. It’s a need that Mollie S. Reinhart and the orga- nization she founded, Befriend, seek to address.
Personality: Amy E. Robins
Spotlight on co-founder, volunteer coordinator of RVA Clean Sweep
Keeping Richmond’s neighborhoods clean and litter free is about more than just aesthetics for Amy Elisabeth Robins. “If you live in a community where residents and children are walking through trash, that has a negative impact on quality of life,” she says.
Highland Park dry cleaners to reopen under new ownership
Good news for Lonnie McLaurin and up to 30 other people. They will soon be able to get their clothes back from a closed dry cleaners in Highland Park. As the Free Press described in the June 9-11 edition, Mr. McLaurin has been trying to get his clothes since the business at 1311 E. Brookland Park Blvd. shut down in late April. He, like others, had been required to pay in advance for the dry cleaning service.
Finding one’s self abroad
Born in Norfolk, and raised by a single mother, I felt a special responsibility to go to college but, at first, I failed at it — quite literally. But I turned my life around and see a pathway to success. Studying in London as a Frederick Douglass Global Fellow was instrumental in healing my wounds and making me whole again.
‘Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner’ is coming to Richmond Ballet
As a 14-year-old in Toronto, Canada, Jennifer Archibald was determined to get the autograph of Alvin Ailey Artistic Director Judith Jamison after seeing her with the world-famous troupe.
LaVerne Byrd Smith, 89, longtime educator, church historian, dies
Dr. LaVerne Charmayne Byrd Smith had a passion for education and writing. On the education front, she touched thousands of students and educators as a schoolteacher, university professor and reading specialist for the state Department of Education in a career that spanned 47 years.
Author reaches back to family roots for children’s book
The Great Migration was an exodus of 6 million African-Americans from the rural South to the North and the West between 1910 and 1970. Desiree Cooper’s parents were children of the Great Depression, and her family was among those who relocated to leave the trauma of the Jim Crow South.
Personality: David Mickens
Spotlight on president of local chapter of Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club
Richmond’s Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club rides for a reason and a cause — to make a difference in Richmond and across the country. David Mickens, the club’s president until 2019, says “their mission is to carry on the legacy and honor of two United States African American regiments known as the Buffalo Soldiers.”
’We need this to get back to normal’
It has been months since Annette Johnson has seen her grandmother in person.
Personality: Dr. Karen A. Faison
Spotlight on Virginia Nurses Association Nancy Vance Award winner
Dr. Karen Faison says she gains deep satisfaction as a professor in the Virginia State University Department of Nursing when “the light comes on” for her students “when information is mastered for patient-centered care.”
Dauntless
U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson deflects Republican attacks
Republicans on Wednesday pressed their attacks on a range of issues against Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s nominee to become the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, as she inched closer to the end of an intense two days of questioning with Democrats coming to her defense.
Bishop Tutu’s daughter quits priesthood after gay marriage
The daughter of Nobel laureate Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa has given up her clergy credentials after marrying a Dutch woman. Mpho Tutu told South African media that because her church did not recognize her wedding, she could no longer serve in the country.
Jeffrey Osborne keeps holding on, flying high
Blessed with one of the most distinctive voices in modern R&B, it didn’t take Jeffrey Osborne long to establish a solo career after departing the funk band L.T.D. (Love, Togetherness and Devotion) in the early 1980s. After years of playing drums in the group known for the hits “Holding On (When Love Is Gone)” and “(Every Time I Turn Around) Back in Love Again, he stepped out front with his self-titled debut in 1982, produced by George Duke.
Black parents seek schools affirming their history amid bans
Every decision Assata Salim makes for her young son is important. Amid a spike in mass killings, questions of safety were at the top of her mind when choosing a school. Next on her checklist was the school’s culture.
Personality: Timika Cousins
Spotlight on founder of The Faces Behind The Purpose For You
Personal tragedy led Timika Cousins to become an advocate against domestic violence after her beloved cousin was murdered by an abusive husband in 2014.

