by | Mar 26, 2021 9:32 am | Comments (0)
On Thursday night, a filmmaker and two professors screened a new documentary about Soul! — the pioneering PBS show focusing on Black culture that ran from 1968 to 1973 — and found, in its celebration of Black artists and message of revolutionary uplift, serious parallels with our current moment. The screening and discussion were sponsored by the Schwarzman Center and the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale.
by | Mar 15, 2021 12:41 pm | Comments (0)
CTNJ Photo
State Rep. Robyn Porter at the state Capitol.
More than hairstyles were at stake when Connecticut passed a law to bar discrimination against Black women for wearing afros, braids, or corn rows.
by | Mar 4, 2021 4:15 pm | Comments (1)
Courtney Luciana photo
Rev. Keith King at Thursday’s pop-up.
Keith King, pastor of the Christian Tabernacle Baptist Church on Newhall Street, thanked the Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS) on Thursday for providing 54 Covid-19 vaccine doses at a pop-up clinic.
The sign-up list at the one-day clinic for the Pfizer vaccine was made up equally of parishioners of the predominately African American church and local residents.
Continue reading ‘Church Pop-Up Clinic Brings Vaccines To Newhall Street’
by | Feb 19, 2021 10:22 am | Comments (0)
Leigh Busby Photos
The figures in the gallery space at Creative Arts Workshop on Audubon Street stand tall and proud, majestic and welcoming. They draw you toward the gallery window. Once there, though, there is more to see. There is the way the figures hearken back to Africa. A line of bricks, each embossed with the word “freedom.”
Continue reading ‘Exhibit Finds The Gold Within The Struggle’
by | Feb 13, 2021 7:21 pm | Comments (15)
Laura Glesby Photo
Angel Hubbard: “DJ’s life mattered.”
As the city mobilized to investigate the murder of another military veteran killed by gunfire in New Haven, Angel Hubbard couldn’t stop thinking of her cousin DJ — and of the silence she felt in the aftermath of his shooting five months ago.
Continue reading ‘Homicide Victim Families: Don’t Forget Us’
by | Feb 10, 2021 10:33 am | Comments (16)
Thomas Breen File Photo
Construction on the new Q House.
Reward construction firms with a history of hiring women and Black and Latinx workers. Hold companies that fail to meet those goals accountable. And create more of an apprenticeship “pipeline.”
Those and other ideas emerged Tuesday night at the latest task force session on improving city affirmative action laws for contractors and construction workers.
Continue reading ‘Pipeline Proposed For Minority Contracting’
by | Jan 21, 2021 10:18 pm | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen Photos
Some students demanded police-free schools in last summer’s protests.
Police officers should stay in New Haven schools that want them. Those schools should also get more psychologists and social workers.
New Haven Public Schools’ School Security Design Committee settled on this recommendation Thursday evening. Committee members plan to write up the recommendation for the Board of Education to review at its Feb. 8 meeting.
by | Jan 18, 2021 1:47 pm | Comments (0)
Maya McFadden Photo
Sharon Jones McCann, Malcolm Welfare, Jorge Lopez, Theodore Brooks, James Flaherty, and James Rawlings at Sunday’s event.
The corner of Chapel and Orchard streets is now furnished with a community reminder of the fight for awareness of sickle cell disease.
Continue reading ‘Sign Signals Sickle Cell Commitment At “Michelle’s House”’
by | Jan 14, 2021 2:21 pm | Comments (6)
When a new pot of $26 million pours into New Haven to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic and racial inequities, much of it will flow to grassroots emerging leaders of color who too often miss out on philanthropy.
So promised Community Foundation For Greater New Haven President Will Ginsberg.
Ginsberg made that promise Thursday morning during a joint appearance with board Chair Flemming Norcott Jr. on WNHH FM’s “Love Babz Love Talk” program.
Continue reading ‘$26M “Step Forward” Targets Covid, Equity’
by | Jan 3, 2021 6:21 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen File Photo
Black Lives Matters protest (pictured) sought school-cop abolition.
A committee formed in the wake of this summer’s Black Lives Matter protests seems to have reached a consensus: Police officers should stay in public schools, with changes to how they operate.
by | Dec 3, 2020 10:41 am | Comments (2)
Host Babz Rawls-Ivy beamed from the offices of the Arts Council at the over 100 people gathered virtually Wednesday evening to celebrate the Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s 40th annual arts awards. She noted that it was an historic occasion — but not because pandemic restrictions had prevented the audience from gathering in person at the New Haven Lawn Club, as they have in years past.
“Forty years,” she said, “and all the awardees are Black. I love to see it.”
by | Dec 1, 2020 2:24 pm | Comments (2)
Chris Randall Photo
Dest and Green.
There’s a moment in Stephen Dest‘s film I Am Shakespeare that sums up the inspiration for a book about film that Dest is — as of last week — under contract to write. It’s partly about social justice and partly about digital filmmaking, and all about moving into the future.
In the scene, Henry Green, the subject of the film, is “talking to a doctor about how he once looked,” before he was wounded by a gunshot in 2009. “He does this physical gesture, and I remember when I was editing, I wasn’t picking up on it.” Dest said. When he screened the film, “audiences under 30 would react to it and no one else did.”
The gesture was a quick, repetitive flick of the thumb. Green, Dest said, was “scrolling through his mental phone,” bringing back images from the past, “even though he doesn’t have his phone with him.”
“I’m so glad I was stupid enough not to cut it out,” Dest added. “It really was telling, in how people reacted to it.”
by | Nov 25, 2020 11:11 am | Comments (14)
Ko Lyn Cheang Photo
Mellody Massaquoi at summer demo: SROs make school feel like jail.
New Haven student Jhoaell Ruiz wants police officers out of school buildings. Ruiz’s mother, Sonya-Marie Atkinson, wants them in there.
Both student and parent argued their perspectives not just at home, but at a Tuesday evening forum on the subject held by the New Haven Board of Education’s School Security Taskforce.
by | Nov 11, 2020 11:16 am | Comments (2)
RABHYA MEHROTRA PHOTO
Miller-Pratt speaking at Tuesday’s event.
Marlene Miller-Pratt is asking New Haveners for help in finding the families of victims of fatal gun violence.
Standing in the shadow of West Rock on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, Miller-Pratt spoke at a press conference with Mayor Justin Elicker, announcing the near completion of the New Haven Botanical Garden of Healing she created and led to construction.
“Our goal is to get out the word to moms,” she said.
Continue reading ‘Call Goes Out To Families Of Victims As Homicide Memorial Opening Nears’
by | Oct 26, 2020 11:42 pm | Comments (18)
Thomas Breen photo
Police, protester confrontation on May 31.
After a five-month internal review, the police chief announced that local officers who pepper sprayed a crowd of anti-police brutality protesters amidst a tense, 12-hour standoff this summer “acted within the color of the law,” “were professional,” and will not be disciplined.
He also said the incident convinced the department to adopt different tactics in subsequent protests.
by | Oct 26, 2020 9:58 am | Comments (16)
Thomas Breen Photo
Activists raise the school-cop issue at a Black Lives Matter rally.
Police top brass and an activist youth mentor looked at the same data and saw two different stories.
Citywide Youth Coalition Executive Director Addys M. Castillo saw school administrators calling police officers on students instead of using other solutions. Assistant Police Chief Karl Jacobson saw officers successfully deescalating situations and avoiding arrests.
Continue reading ‘School Cops: Few Arrests? Too Many Calls?’
by | Oct 23, 2020 10:25 am | Comments (0)
On Thursday night artist Margaret Roleke smiled from her home in her garage studio, at an audience of 20 who had gathered virtually to hear her talk about her art practice and her show at Creative Arts Workshop — the first installment of CAW’s “Made Visible” series.
“I didn’t set out to be an activist artist,” she said. “I was creating work just to make people think.”
by | Oct 14, 2020 11:52 am | Comments (4)
Laura Glesby Photo
Angel Hubbard with memorial shirt.
Contributed Photo
Divonne Jaquel Coward.
Divonne “DJ” Coward was the one his family members called for a ride when they were stranded. When someone didn’t have a way of getting home late at night, he’d promise from other end of the line, “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Coward would rouse his niece to wake up at 5 for early-morning runs. He could be counted on to dispense advice on vitamins to take, herbal teas to drink. He loved to stop by a neighbor’s house to argue about Donald Trump. At family gatherings he played sports with the kids, who adored him.
Continue reading ‘Post-Homicide, DJ’s Family Demands Dignity’
by | Oct 12, 2020 9:35 am | Comments (1)
Melanie Crean
If Justice Is A Woman.
The group stands on the steps of the courtyard. It means something that the women are occupying that space. It also means something that they’re not inside. Each of them exudes strength and resilience on her own. Bound together, their power seems to multiply. Melanie Crean’s If Justice Is A Woman is the final commission for Artspace’s “Revolution On Trial,” an exhibit running until Oct. 17 examining the Black Panther trials and May Day protests in 1970. Crean’s photograph received an unveiling on Friday at Artspace on Orange and Crown. That reception was another chance to revisit the legacy of the trials and protests, which continues to shape the city to this day.
by | Oct 9, 2020 12:26 pm | Comments (2)
Jeffries at gala: “Progress.. is inevitably followed by backlash.”
U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York addressed America’s ongoing march towards equity Thursday night with a note of optimism in a keynote address to the Greater New Haven Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 103rd Freedom Fund event.
Continue reading ‘Hakeem Jeffries To NAACP Gala: “We Are Resilient”’
by | Oct 4, 2020 8:17 pm | Comments (4)
Contributed Photo
A second Black Lives Matter street mural drew in yet another large crowd of New Haveners from all over to help bring the message to life, this time on Temple Street.
Continue reading ‘Temple Street Painted “Black Lives Matter”’
by | Oct 1, 2020 10:34 am | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photos
Hundreds of Southern Connecticut State University students marched to demand that their school live up to its “social justice” mission — as the campus president joined them and vowed to help make that happen.
Continue reading ‘Hundreds March To Press SCSU To Carry Out “Social Justice” Mission’
by | Sep 25, 2020 2:36 am | Comments (35)
Thomas Breen photos
Protest dance party breaks out at Whalley and Sherman.
Marching on Chapel Street near Park Street.
Two dozen young Black women jumped and danced and sang in the middle of the intersection of Whalley Avenue and Sherman Avenue as several hundred fellow protesters sat in the street and blocked traffic on all sides.
“Black women matter!” the group cheered, a portrait of Breonna Taylor held aloft nearby. “Black women matter!”
by | Sep 24, 2020 4:34 pm | Comments (9)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Jose Paez and Darin Latimore.
Jose Paez has been a child psychiatry fellow at the Yale School of Medicine for only three months, and he’s already been singled out as a person of color.
Continue reading ‘Docs, Nurses, Aides Mourn Breonna Taylor Decision’
by | Sep 22, 2020 10:34 am | Comments (1)
Puma Simone locked eyes with the camera Monday night, and by extension, the audience of two dozen looking back at them through Zoom. “I’ve always been on my own timeline,” said the New Haven-based artist. They were “trying to remember that there’s a greater plan to this journey,” and that things might “take longer than I want.”
But “I’m here,” they said.
Continue reading ‘Puma Simone Digs Deep On “Black and Blue” Sequel’