Archive for the ‘Black Lives Matter’ Category
A 2020 Black Lives Matter protest is revived as a neighborhood celebration in Mantua – WHYY
As a teenager he was surprised to discover that he was unwittingly following in the footsteps of Judith Jamison, a towering figure in Black dance who danced with and later ran Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She grew up in Mantua decades before Shaheed, on the same block.
There is a rich legacy of arts in Mantua but we dont hear those stories often, if at all, Shaheed said. Its my organizations mission and reason for being to make sure that we know that and celebrate that.
One of the groups participanting in Celebrate Mantua is the West Powelton Steppers and Drum Squad, one of the most prominent and oldest continually operating drumline and drill teams in the city. Formed in the neighborhood adjacent to Mantua, the 33 year-old percussion performance troupe was part of Iquails original Black Lives rally in the heat of the 2020 summer.
It was a humbling experience., said director Antoine Mapp. We got to see that we can come together. We can work together. We uplifted. You should have seen how many people was giving out water to each other. There were kids looking like they were about to pass out and everybody came to each others aid. Everybody was there to spread a message. It was a beautiful thing.
Four years later the event has changed its name, but to Mapp the message remains the same: to protect the fabric of the neighborhood, particularly from gentrification.
Were thankful that people are taking an interest in our community but we know what it really is: Its become a gold mine and everybody want a part of it, Mapp said. Im gonna appreciate it as its coming along, but a whole lot more work to be done. We are being taken away from our neighborhood. Yay! Its getting beautified, but theyre moving us out.
Shaheed invited performance companies from around the city, including hip hop, jazz, and modern dance troupes. His Dance Iquail! company will be offering ballet and modern classes during the event, as well as yoga and Pilates sessions.
Miles Mack playground has a football field, a basketball court, a playground with a water hose, he said. We are envisioning kids running around in the water while adults and maybe teenagers are taking classes and watching performances. Will also have bouncy castles and face painting, some cartoon avatars for the kids to engage with. Really a full-scale community arts festival.
What began four years ago as a protest directed, in part, at the depleted Philadelphia Cultural Fund budget, is now supported by that same fund as well as with state funding from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
With the help of community partners, Shaheed hopes Celebrate Mantua will become an annual summer event.
That is the goal, to keep it going, Shaheed said. And even figuring out ways it continues as I step away, so that it really is a community-lead event.
Celebrate Mantua happens from 11 a.m. p.m. on Saturday July 13, at the Miles Mack Playground at 36th and Aspen Street, near the Philadelphia Zoo.
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A 2020 Black Lives Matter protest is revived as a neighborhood celebration in Mantua - WHYY
Plymouth man accused of causing tens of thousands in damage to church, Pride and Black Lives Matter flags – Fall River Reporter
A Massachusetts man is facing charges after damage to a church and flags on Thursday morning.
According to Detective Lieutenant Michael Skowyra, during the early morning hours, the Kingston Police Department responded to reports of malicious damage to the First Parish Unitarian Church (223 Main St). An investigation ensued.
It is alleged that an individual illegally entered the First Parish Unitarian Church overnight as well as did significant damage to the building, ripping off and destroying handmade 200-year-old shutters, smashing antique glass, spraying a fire extinguisher throughout the building, etc. Additionally, the individual is believed to have set fire to flags which were outside the building and charred pieces of the building in the process as well. The flags which were ripped and destroyed were Pride and Black Lives Matter flags.
Overall damage estimates have not been tallied at this point, but initial estimates are in the tens of thousands.
During the investigation, a suspect was developed and as the scene was processed, police began to look into additional information about the suspect. Around that time, 43-year-old Jonathan White of Plymouth was found to return to the scene and appearing to be watching officers process the scene (common for arsonists).
A Kingston PD Detective noticed White to be the suspect and attempted to stop him. He yelled at the detective, took off in his vehicle, turned around, struck a sign, and fled. A Kingston PD Patrolman was able to find the suspect vehicle as he fled and stop him shortly down the road.
The investigation revealed various connections to White and his alleged presence at the scene overnight.
Multiple pieces of evidence were gathered and are being processed.
White was arrested and is facing several felony charges relative to the damage and burning of the church. He will be arraigned at Plymouth District Court.
Police are asking those in the 200-250 block of Main Street, or the side streets that connect to this area, review their home surveillance cameras from approximately midnight until 6:30AM this morning. Residents are asked to look for footage consistent with a white 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe which has a spotlight outside of the drivers door (similar to a police cruiser light). Additionally, any other suspicious activity would be of interest.
Kingston Fire, Plymouth County BCI, State Fire Marshals Office, MSP Crime Scene Services, MSP Bomb Squad, MSP Hate Crimes Unit and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) assisted in the investigation and is still ongoing.
The potential for hate crime charges is being reviewed.
Contact Detective Lieutenant Michael Skowyra with any information at mskowyra@kpdmass.org or 781-585-0523 ext. 6662
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Plymouth man accused of causing tens of thousands in damage to church, Pride and Black Lives Matter flags - Fall River Reporter
Florida Republicans terrorized a teacher for her Black Lives Matter flag but now she’s prevailed – Salon
"Jesus himself never condemned slavery,"one Florida mansaid to defend the honor of Confederate leader Robert E. Lee during a March 2021 school board meeting in Jacksonville. "In fact, he said, slaves have an obligation to obey their master," the outraged white maninsisted.
A crowd had pounced to keep the students of Robert E. Lee High School, 70% of whom are Black, from changing the name to something less Confederacy-honoring.
"I was taught that the chiefs of the tribes in Africa sold their people into slavery," an angry white woman said as the white people behind her nodded vigorously. "So don't blame Robert E. Lee. Maybe you should be after your ancestors."
Alarmed by what she was hearing,Amy Donofrio decided to do something.She was a teacher at the school, located in Duval County, which has since been renamed Riverside High School. She knew how sentiments like the ones shared at the school board meeting made her students feel. "Students made it clear that they were dealing with a lot," Donofrio told Salon. "They were walking into our schools facing racism, frankly, from every corner."
Years before, Donofrio had helped her students start a group called EVACMovement. Once invited to speak at the White House with then-President Barack Obama, by 2021, students in the group were eager to strip their school of a name honoring a Confederate general who personally held over 200 people in slavery.
Jacksonville, Florida protest against changing the name of Robert E. Lee High School (Photo courtesy of Amy Donofrio)So Donofrio took photos and videos from the school board meeting, including another one of a man asking, "If this high school is having problems, how long has it been predominantly African-American?" And she expressed concerns to the administration that such comments hurt her students. She would soon be removed from her classroom, publicly targeted by the Republican state government under Gov. Ron DeSantis, eventually fired, and threatened with having her teaching license stripped entirely.
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But while Donofrio's life has been chaos in the years since the DeSantis administration made her a target in their "war on woke," she eventually prevailed. A Florida administrative judge just ruled in Donofrio's favor regarding the dispute that created the pretext to harass her: a Black Lives Matter flag she hung in her classroom.
Donofrio had been hanging the flag for some time before the school board meeting. "Especially as a white woman," she told Salon, it was important to let students "know that they're cared about." The flag, she said, was a simple way to make them "feel safe" so they could "get an education." Administrators had been complaining to her about it but had no policy to point to in order to justify taking it down. However, after the school board meeting, the pressure on Donofrio intensified. Pointing to a new policy barring teachers from trying "to influence students to support or oppose any candidate, party or issue," the administration ordered the flag removed. When she refused, they took it down for her and pulled her out of the classroom, while they investigated whether she had violated school rules.
The situation quickly escalated. A petition in support of Donofrio circulated by students quickly amassed thousands of signatures and the Southern Poverty Law Center sued the district on her behalf. But the DeSantis administration was determined to make Donofrio the face of "woke" teachers their administration was stirring up fear and hatred towards. In May of 2021,Florida Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran singled out Donofrio during a speech at Hillsdale College, which, as Kathryn Joyce has reported for Salon, is the epicenter of the Christian right's assault on public education.Complaining about "an entire classroom memorialized to Black Lives Matter," Corcoran falsely declared, "We made sure she was terminated." In truth, Donofrio still had her job but was "assigned to paid, non-teaching duties," according to the school district's official statement. Before the summer was over, however, the school board filled Corcoran's wish, firing Donofrio and settling her lawsuit out of court. Still that was not the end of her woes. Within days of her firing, the state opened another investigation, this time into whether Donofrio's teacher's license should be revoked entirely.
Donofrio feels she was targeted in order to create "an environment of fear" for teachers across Florida. DeSantis was soon promoting a series of policies, such as the "don't say gay" lawand the "stop woke" act aimedat prohibiting discussions of racism and sexual diversity that Republicans claimed was inappropriate for public school students. Critics of these bills pointed out that the language about what is and isn't allowed was vague, which Donofrio argues was on purpose. "If somebody high up doesn't like you or disagrees with, you watch out," she said. "The repercussions can stretch into a lot of different parts of your life."
DeSantis, for his part, denied that the bills were meant to lead to widespread book banning, harassment of LGBTQ teachers or students, or the end of teaching about segregation or slavery in history classes. But that is exactly what happened in much of the state. Educational programs about the civil rights movement were canceled. Teachers were forced to lock up their entire classroom library. Books about slavery, the Holocaust, and even 9/11 were banned. Even the dictionary was banned in one school district. The bans and harassment spread to other states. A 2022 analysis from the Washington Post found that Donofrio was not alone: Over 160 teachers were driven out of their jobs by Republican-led attacks on public education.
All of these machinations helped DeSantis raise his national profile as a right-wing culture warrior but did not help him win the Republican presidential nomination. Despite spending $160 million to defeat Donald Trump, the Florida governor only got 21% of the Iowa caucus votes, and quit the race shortly thereafter. His "war on woke" turned out to be so impractical that he ended up signing another bill in Aprillimiting non-parents to one challenge per month.
Donofrio, meanwhile, was still fighting to keep her teaching license. Finally, she got a hearing before an administration judge in February and a decision in April. The judge ruled for Donofrio on the issue of the Black Lives Matter flag. Donofrio's "intent to affirm and support her students was clear, and she had a successful history of promoting the physical and emotional well-being of her minority students," the judge wrote. Instead, the judge noted "the School environment became hostile after administration removed the flag," because the principal "had to work hard, meeting with students and making extra efforts to assure students that he supported them and that their lives did indeed matter to him." In June, the final hearing was held, and the DeSantis government lost again: Donofrio's teaching license remains intact.
"I feel vindicated, but I also feel sad," Donofrio told Salon. Sad, she explained, because "a lot of teachers have been leaving Florida and quitting schools in Florida because of all of this."
"I think our kids here are worth fighting for," she added, noting that ultimately, teachers alone cannot solve this problem. "We can't just encourage teachers to stand up and stand with our kids without giving them the resources to do it and survive."
Donofrio isn't sure what's next for her. She hasn't gotten her job back at the now-Riverside High School. Still, she said, she's feeling "hopeful" after this legal victory. "I also want teachers to look at the case," she said, "and realize if you stand up for what's right, you can win too. It is possible."
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Florida Republicans terrorized a teacher for her Black Lives Matter flag but now she's prevailed - Salon