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A Florida board of commissioners voted in favor of renaming a street outside of a Miami high school after the late Trayvon Martin.

The Miami-Dade County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution to rename a portion of Northeast 16th Avenue on Tuesday, Oct. 13, according to The Miami Herald. The road passes Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High, where Martin attended school at the time of his death.

Although Trayvon Martins life was tragically cut short, his death elicited national conversations about race relations, racial profiling, gun rights, and stand your ground laws and was a catalyst that set nationwide demands for social justice reforms in motion, the board wrote in the resolution.

Martin died in 2012 at 17 after he was gunned down by neighborhood watch vigilante George Zimmerman following an altercation. Martins death helped inspire the Black Lives Matter movement and prompted his parents to engage in community work. Sybrina Fulton, Martins mother, and his father, Tracey Martin, joined forces to create the Trayvon Martin Foundation.

The resolution stated the board appreciates the social justice reforms spurred by his death.

The document also shared little-known aspects of the teens life and personality.

He was beloved by his family, friends, and other members of his community and has been described as a peaceful, respectful, laid back, and positive person, the resolution read. The document added he wanted to enter the aviation industry after he graduated from college. Martin wanted to attend the University of Miami or Florida A&M University, the resolution pointed out.

In some ways, Trayvon Martin was a typical teenager who enjoyed playing video games, listening to music, watching movies, and talking and texting on the phone, the resolution also noted.

The name change is expected to be official this week and signs bearing Martins name will be erected in a few weeks, according to CNN.

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Miami Road In Front of Trayvon Martin's High School Will be Renamed to Honor the Slain Teen - Atlanta Black Star

In this file photo from Oct. 16, 1995, the view from the Washington Monument toward the Capitol shows the participants in the Million Man March in Washington.Steve Helber, AP

After the long ride from Jackson, Mississippi, Kenneth Stokes stepped off the bus wearing his favorite brown cowboy boots and a two-piece suit,much like the civil rights activists of the 1960s dressedin their Sunday best.

Kenneth StokesJOE ELLIS/THE CLARION-LEDGER

He shivered in the chilly autumn morning, wishing hed brought a coat as he joined thousands of men heading down the streets of Washington, D.C.This trek turned out to behismarchtwo miles through low-income housing and million-dollar row houses until, up ahead, a majestic view: theU.S.Capitol,seat of American power, largely built by slaveswhen the nation was a few decades old.

Stokes looked out over the National Mall, amazed at this ocean ofBlack men. Most were elbow to elbow.Some perched on monuments or in trees. Kids sat on dadsshoulders. All there for an event called the Million Man March.

It was packed, packed,packed, Stokes recalls. There were people everywherefrom everywhere.

Charles HicksDEBORAH BERRY, USA TODAY

Charles Hicks reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a folded paper scrawled with his handwriting. A union leader in Washington nicknamed the Chocolate Citybecause it was mostly African American Hicks studied the speech hed written the night before.

From his vantage on stage at the west front of the Capitol, Hicks took in the audience he was about to address, Black faces stretching a mile to the Washington Monument. This was the heart of America, home of the brave, land of the free. And they were repeating his chant: We are here!

Hicks watched as moreand moremen pouredonto the Mall.He told themnot to believe the myth thatAfricanAmericanmen are lazy.All my life I have seen Black men work and take care of their family,Hicks declared.All my life I have seen men in unions fighting for better jobs.

Anthony RuffProvided by Anthony Ruff

Anthony Ruff, then anArmy reservist in New York City, remembers speeches that day about Black families and kids without dads.

The message resonated with the 34-year-old, who was raised in a home with foster siblings. Especially when Maya Angelou stood up and read her Million Man March Poem, witha verse that says, I look through the posture and past your disguise and see your love for family in your big brown eyes.

Back in the crowd, Ruff vowed to one day adopt a child.

Virgil KillebrewKERRI PANG FOR USA TODAY

Virgil Killebrew, a street poet from Chicago, arrived early enough to stand directly in front of the stage. But the amplifiers were so loud, and the crowd so suffocating, he retreated to the fringes.

There were signs and flags. Music blared between speeches.Black hands clenched together in prayer against a blue sky, clouds scudding overhead.

I lost my mind, recalls Killebrew, now71. It wasnt the speeches. It was the excitement. ...You felt the truth of all these people saying,Black Power.

Herealized,This is bigger than us.

KokayiNosakherePHOTO PROVIDED BY KOKAYI NOSAKHERE

A chantarose with theintroductionof Rosa Parks,a diminutiveBlack woman who in1955refusedto sit atthe back of an Alabamabus.

Rosa!Rosa!echoed froma corner of thesprawlingcrowd.Asshestepped tothemicrophone,hundreds of thousands more voiceschimed in. Rosa! Rosa! Rosa!

ForKokayiNosakhere, then a 21-year-old college student from Anchorage, it wasthe apexofa sublime experience.He and 15other Alaskans had traveledmore than4,000 milesto join the Million Man March, which occurred 25 years ago Friday.

I didnt hear a word of her speech,Nosakhere says. We were doing the wave. ... Rosa! Rosa!I had to come back home and watch C-SPAN to get the outside perspective.

Now a community organizer for social justice, Nosakhere's online bio sayshis attendance at the Million Man Marchset the course of his life.

An activist. Asoldier.A union leader.A city councilman. Apoet.

That day in October 1995 has stayed with these fivemen, though not necessarily as an inflectionpoint. Life is more complicated than that.

To celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. this year, Nosakhere cut up a cardboard box and used markers to createa message he hoped would resonate with people no matter their skin color: If justice means revenge, there will never be peace.

He started walking through downtown Medford, Oregon, waving the sign a one-man parade in a city that is 89 percent white. There were no haters, he says, just lots of positive honks.

The Million Man March was Nosakheresfirst political demonstration. Twenty-five years later, hes still at it.

KokayiNosakhere holds a sign he made for the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. He said he hoped his message would resonate with people no matter their skin color.Photo courtesy of KokayiNosakhere

After returning to Alaska, he became a community worker for the NAACP, staged a hunger strike for school nutrition funding and played politics to achieve social justice.

A few years ago, he started a campaign to put anonymous love letters on car windshields handwritten messages meantto encourage positive feelings.

After George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder in the slaying of Black teenager Trayvon Martin, Nosakhere helped organize a demonstration. When Black Lives Matter marched through Eugene, Oregon, this summer to protest police brutality, he was there.

Those who think the Million Man March was supposed to change America got it wrong, Nosakhere says: The goal was to change us. I raised my hand on Oct. 16, 1995, and I have not taken it down. Ive fulfilled my oath to go back to my community and make it a better place.

Im still here,he says. I dont back down from white supremacy.

In overhead photos, they were five pixels in a panoply of AfricanAmerican men. Fivevantage points on a single day, andonthe quarter-century since.

There were 837,000 in all, or 400,000,or 1.9 million.Even the number of attendeesremains in dispute, like so many things about one of the largest demonstrations ever to hit Americas capital.

They chanted,laughed, danced,listened tospeeches, sang, cried and made vows. Despitestereotypes and predictions, there wasnoviolence, looting or arrests.Just an outpouring ofheartand an intaking of hope.

The crowd at the Million Man March has been portrayedas a singular organism. By all accounts, there was anaura ofunity, an abiding bond of pigmentation and gender.

But the event, as recorded by history andpetrifiedin the minds of those whoattended,always held distinct and subjective meanings.

The goals and leadership were controversial and divisivenot just to white Americans, but to AfricanAmericans watchingontelevision andeven there.

Some did not want to be affiliated with theNation of Islamor itsleader, Louis Farrakhan, whose preaching includes Black nationalism and anti-Semitism.

Some saw the stated purposeADayof Atonementas an acceptance of guilt by Black men for conditions that are a legacy of slavery, discrimination and white supremacy.

Some believed it was an affront, or politically shortsighted,not to invite women and non-Black sympathizers.

And yetthe idea ofuniting inadeclaration of African American pain, power andhumanitycaught fire, spreading from churches to Black businesses to union halls. After a year of planning and scraping together dollars, folks from sea to shining sea boarded trains, bought airline tickets, crowded into church vans and chartered buses to spend one day, together, making a statementforthemselves and to America.

Therewere manydeclarationsthat day,and perhaps a million takeaways.And then, after a long speechby Farrakhan, it was over.

Themall emptied.Menwent home, full of energy and ideas.

In the 25 years since, America haselectedan AfricanAmerican president, seendiversity become a workplace buzzword andwatchedNBA players wear jerseys emblazoned with Black Lives Matter.

Wevealsowitnessedvideos ofpolice killing unarmedBlack men, demonstrationsveering into riotingand a president whourgedwhite supremacists to standbackand stand by.

Hicks,75,whohas fought injusticemost of hislife,saysnationwideprotests againstpolice abusesare a new birth of the spirit of the Million Man March and the civil rights movement.

If I was 30 years younger, Id be out there, hesays.Im not young enough to run and to dodge tear gas.

Killebrewstarted writing poetry long after thedrugs, lost jobs andprison terms.He wasin Chicago,asking for a bed in a Salvation Army shelter. The gatekeeperwanted him to fill out a form explaininghis circumstances.

Killebrew couldhave written about his dad, whodividedtime between a wife and kids in Illinois and a second family in Tennessee.

Hecouldhave mentionedgoing to a nearly all-whitehigh school where fighting the Black kids was a way to prove something. Fights every day,he says. I began to feel myBlackage.

Street poet Virgil Killebrew looks back on the Million Man March 25 years later

Street poet Virgil Killebrew talks about his poetry and experience at the Million Man March on it's 25th anniversary.

USA TODAY

Hecouldhavedescribedplaying hoops at a neighborhood school when somebody broke into it.I didnt know you were supposed to run when the police came, Killebrew recalls. Helandedin juvenile hall, so embittered bytheinjustice that hewent backtwice for real crimes.

He couldhavetold aboutthe time hegotfired from a good job after a fightwith a whitedudeoverwhetherthe radioshould be tuned tocountry or blues.

Instead, when Killebrew filled out the Salvation Army form,he impulsivelywrotea poemthe first of his life.He titled it,Powerlessand Insane,the wayhefelt after a woman introduced him to heroin.

The shelter folks likedhisrhymessomuch they made copiesfor their guests. Killebrewbelieved they had no right to do that it washispoem so he raised a stink and lost his bed because of it.

But he foundavocation.He wrote moreverses,made copiesat Kinkos,and started selling them on the street for whatever peoplewanted to pay.One poem, Shopping Spree, urged African Americans to buy from Black businesses: If youre shopping with others who are not Sistahs or Brothas, Black people will never be free.

Killebrew was living in atransient hotelin 1995whenalocal radio host heard about hispoetryand invited him on the show.LuPalmer, considered the godfather of Black activismin Chicago, askedtheguestto recitea poem titled,True Black Man.

Call-in lines wereringingand lights were blinking, Killebrew recalls. Palmer acted like his guest had won a prize, declaring, Youre going to the Million Man March! Killebrew chuckles at the memory: I said, I dont have any money....My head was spinning like someone who has drank a pint of Richards (Wild Irish Rose).

When Ruff learned about the march, he started calling homeboys in Long Island,guys hed known since he was 13. Farrakhans role wasnt a spoiler; their agenda was more personal than political. This day was about them and people who looked like them, restoring dignity and pride.

The fact that it was on a weekday, when they had to take off work and maybe lose pay or get in trouble with the boss, made it even more valuable. People were willing to sacrifice something of themselves, Ruff recalls. We really felt it would be a historic event.

Nosakheresdad, an NAACP leader in Alaska, presided overKwanzaa and Juneteenth celebrations and had brought Farrakhanto Anchorage.So the young manwas steeped inBlackpoliticsandculture.

I grew upBlackety-Black-Black,Nosakheresays.

Still,it is one thing for a boy to inherit views, another toadoptthem.During hissenior yearinhigh school,Nosakherespent $5.99 at Waldenbooksfor a copy ofTheAutobiography of Malcolm X.

Herewas a civil rights leadertelling Blackstofight back against white supremacy.Thinking of the message,Nosakhere paraphrasesapassage that hit home:You have a right to kill a four-legged dog,or a two-legged dog who is threatening you.

Nosakherefoundsimilarmessagesin theRastafarian-inspiredmusicof Bob Marley. Thehit,I Shot the Sheriff, was about standing up to police brutality.Another song, No Woman, No Cry,gave himthepsychological armor nottofear white supremacy.

Nosakhereabandoned his birthnameand adoptedaSwahilimonikerthat he says means,Summon the people,old messenger, becauseGod is on his way. Whenhelearned aboutFarrakhans call forBlack males to convergeon the nations capital, he was all in.

Stokes, now 65, wason the JacksonCity Councilthen, asnow,and felt a duty to join the march. He and Charles Tisdale, publisher of theJackson Advocate, aBlack newspaper, started scroungingfor money to charter buses.

They went to funeral homes and other Black businesses.Wegot out there and started begging, he recalls. We had to represent.

Hicks, the union leader in Washington,had a legacy to considerwhen hewas asked to join a news conferenceaboutthe march.He hailed from Bogalusa, Louisiana, wherehisfather, Robert,foundedachapter of Deacons for Defense and Justice,an armed group of Black men who defended themselves and civil rights workers against attacks by the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s.

Charles Hicks (third from left) and his late father, Robert Hicks (third from right), gather with fellow union members during the Million Man March in 1995. Charles Hicks spoke at the march.Photo courtesy of Charles Hicks

Hicks remembersone night in 1965, when friendsshowed up to protect his family after the sheriff warned that alynch mobplanned to burn down their home.Police wouldnthelp,Hicksrecalls.If we didnt protect ourselves, we were sitting ducks.

Ben Chavis, one of the march organizers, attended that news conference. ChavisaskedHickswho his father was and, inanod to the legendary civil rights activist, invited Hicks to speak on the big day.

Monthsbefore themarch,Killebrewstartedgoing toMonday night meetings in Chicago churches.

At first they were small meetings, not exciting. Folks talked about fundraising, the speakers list anda manifesto.

As the date neared,themeetings got bigger and livelier. Killebrew attended one at a Chicago mosque with Farrakhan, Chavis and Jesse Jackson. Itturned into apeprally, and Killebrewcaughtthe spirit.There was asense of history in the making, he recalls.

Days later,buses outside a church were loaded in the pre-dawn darkness.The Rev. Al Sampson,a march organizer,boarded with Killebrew and used the 20-hour ride toreviewa speech he would deliver titled, A Declaration of Purpose.

The buses formed a convoy and, with horns honking, paraded through the sleepingSouthSide of Chicago.

Most passengers brought pillows, blankets, food and drink. Not Killebrew. His stomach started grumbling as the bus filled with smells of homemade meals. He accepted some food from his seatmate,E-Rod, who spent much of the tripdistractinga 12-year-old boy whodidnt seem to get along with his dad.

Stokes saysfear was palpable as they boarded the bus inJackson. There was talk of possible violence.You didnt know if youd make it back home,he says. Thats one reason people didnt bring their wives.

They prayedwhen the bus took off,when it stoppedin Atlanta, andatevery otherstop along thenearly 1,000-mile ride.The only way these trips are going to be successful,Stokes says, is youve got to put God first.

Nosakheresflight from Anchorage landed in Boston, where he spent a few days at the home of a family friend,Brother Ray, before driving to Washington.

Church vans and buses were literally rocking down the interstate, Nosakhere recalls, full of brotherscharged with anticipation andwithfearofan attack by law enforcement orhaters.All of emwere singing, he says.We were fortifying ourselves. We thought we were going to die that day.

Farrakhans original idea was essentially religious.Black men of all faiths wouldgatherfor preaching, prayers and promises.Butamid the publicity of ayearlong run-up,politics elbowed itswayonto the agendaand the Million Man March morphed into different things for different people.

Even the title was a misnomer; there was nomarch, just agathering.And becauseofthename,counting heads provedcontroversial.

The Million Man March of 1995 carried a multitude of message and missions, some of them reflected in a handmade sign displayed by one of the participants.Photo courtesy of Rod Terry

Organizersput thecrowd sizebetween1.5 millionand1.9million.The National Park Service came up with 400,000, prompting the Nation of Islam to sue.That was the last time the Park Service estimated attendance at a demonstration in Washington.

A Boston University researchereventually usedphotos and computers tocalculate there werebetween 655,000 and1.1million people there.

For the men who showed, those were just numbers.

Ata unionhall in downtown Washington,Hicks and others munched on doughnutsand sipped juice provided by wives and mothers. The men wore black and whiteunionball caps;the women,who stayed behind, wore gold ones.

As Hicks and his family members got within blocks of the National Mall, he didn't see a swelling crowd at first. Its okay,his fathersoothed.If itaintnobody there but me, Charles and Farrakhan,weregoing to be there.

Nosakheresawpoliceon horsebackwith nothing to do. We toldthem, You arent needed today, homey.There was not one fight, no weed being smoked, no liquor. … It was one of the few times in my lifeI actually felt safe.

There were foodtents,first-aid centers andvoter registrationbooths. Eight hours of speechifyingand preachingwithmusical interludes.

On stage, thecomedian-activist Dick Gregory kept shouting into the microphone, I love you!Justabout everyonesangLiftEvery Voice and Sing, known as theBlacknationalanthem.

Read more:
25 years ago, Black men united in their pain and power. This is what the Million Man March meant to participants. - USA TODAY

Supreme drama

To nobody's shock, the first day of Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court became an echo chamber for the national election races. Her path to approval looks clear in the Republican-controlled Senate as predetermined as President Donald Trump's impeachment acquittal proved to be eight months ago. Partisan theatrics on both sides Monday sounded just as scripted.

Trump, who nominated Barrett, did a bit of overwrought heckling from the sidelines, tweeting this gripe about the process that was broadly ignored by Republicans and Democrats: "The Republicans are giving the Democrats a great deal of time, which is not mandated, to make their self serving statements."

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, took part in the first of four Judiciary Committee hearings on Barrett by remote hookup from Capitol Hill. She echoed running mate Joe Biden's warning that quickly adding another Republican on the court could help kill the Affordable Care Act without any alternative. The constitutionality of Obamacare comes before the high court on Nov. 10, a week after Election Day.

Fifty-two percent of registered voters told a Washington Post-ABC poll they'd rather see the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg filled by the winner of the presidential race, as handled in 2016. But that number is down from the 57% first reported last month before Barrett, a 7th Circuit Court of Appeals judge who lives in Indiana, was nominated.

Naturally there was side drama involving COVID-19, from which nearly 215,000 in the U.S. have now died. Harris said, "This hearing has brought together more than 50 people to sit inside of a closed-door room for hours while our nation is facing a deadly airborne virus." She and other Democrats said the Senate's focus at the moment should be on approving a new coronavirus stimulus package.

Committee member Mike Lee (R-Utah) spoke without a mask at times in the Monday event, less than two weeks after testing positive for the virus. Panel Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) insisted the hearing was safe after reportedly declining to take a COVID-19 test or to require one beforehand. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who also attended the hearing, put on a sideshow of his own by refusing to address journalists after one of them insisted he keep his mask on in a hallway at the Capitol.

With Republicans looking to portray Democrats as hostile to Barrett's Catholic faith, Biden said Monday that religion should not be a factor in her consideration. Biden has dodged the question of whether he'd support expanding the Supreme Court so he could add judges to offset what's about to be a 6-3 conservative majority. Newsday's Tom Brune provides a broader picture of the hearing. Barrett's opening statement is available in video here and in a transcript here.

Get our inside look at the White House and goings on in the Donald Trump administration.

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Perhaps the biggest news about Biden's visit to Ohio on Monday was that he would sweep through at all with three weeks left in the campaign. Trump beat Hillary Clinton there four years ago by a whopping 52% to 44%. So Democrats might have been inclined earlier to write off the Buckeye State, but recent polls showed Trump with only a slight edge there.

"The longer Donald Trump is president, the more reckless he seems to get," Biden told a horn-honking drive-in rally outside a United Auto Workers hall in Toledo. "Trump panicked. His reckless personal conduct since his diagnosis has been unconscionable."

In Cincinnati, which he called the "starting gate" to winning the state, Biden gave a 35-minute stump speech filled with populist talk, a critique of Trump's coronavirus response, and calls for a return to bipartisan cooperation on big issues. Vice President Mike Pence also campaigned in Ohio on Monday.

The White House physician on Monday confirmed for the first time since the president's COVID-19 diagnosis that Trump has received consecutive negative tests, though Dr. Sean Conley didn't specify when. So Trump went off to a rally in Sanford, Florida, the first as he returns to the campaign trail. This week, he's also slated to appear in Pennsylvania, Iowa, North Carolina and Wisconsin, all states where polls show him in danger of losing electoral votes he won four years ago.

Before the audience, Trump repeated falsehoods about what he said were Biden's positions on various issues, including that the Democrat would move to outlaw private health insurance and allow "open borders." Trump again claimed to be "immune" now from COVID-19.

"I feel so powerful," Trump told the shoulder-to-shoulder, mostly unmasked crowd. "Ill walk into that audience. Ill walk in there, Ill kiss everyone in that audience. Ill kiss the guys and the beautiful women ... everybody. Ill just give ya a big fat kiss." Thousands greeted Trump at the airport rally in Sanford, which is best known for the 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by "neighborhood watch" captain George Zimmerman.

People waited for hours to cast ballots in Georgia on Monday as early in-person voting began. Eager voters endured waits of six hours or more in Cobb County, which once was solidly Republican but has voted for Democrats in recent elections, The Associated Press reported. Trump lost the county in 2016 but won in the state.

Cobb County Elections and Registration Director Janine Eveler told the AP that the county had prepared as much as much as it could, "but theres only so much space in the rooms and parking in the parking lot. Were maxing out both of those."

There also were big turnouts in Trump strongholds in the Peach State.

Californias Republican Party acknowledged owning unofficial ballot drop boxes that state election officials say are illegal. The officials received reports over the weekend about the boxes in Fresno, Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Apparently steamed by the practice, the state's secretary of state issued a memo telling county registrars that ballots must be mailed or brought to official voting locations.

"In short, providing unauthorized, non-official vote-by-mail ballot drop boxes is prohibited by state law," the memo from Alex Padilla said. Padilla also sent a letter to state and county Republicans, ordering them to remove the unofficial drop boxes by Thursday.

Senate races in some reliably red states, including South Carolina and Kansas, are competitive. There are surges in Democratic fundraising that has put the Republican Party and Trumps campaign at a surprise financial disadvantage.

"Its not good for my side," veteran GOP pollster Whit Ayres told the AP. "Pretty obviously, in many ways, down-ballot Republicans are in the boat with Donald Trump. Thats good for Republicans in deep-red states, but more problematic for those in swing states."

See a roundup of the latest regional pandemic developments from Long Island and beyond, reported by Newsday's staff and written by Bart Jones. For a full list of Newsday's coronavirus stories, click here.

Originally posted here:
Barrett confirmation hearing becomes national echo chamber - Newsday

The days are getting shorter, the leaves are changing color, and the average number of new Covid-19 cases being reported across the United States is now double what it was in June, the latest figures showed Friday.

The U.S. is logging an average of more than 45,000 new infections per day and its trending upward, according to statistics compiled by NBC News.

The worrisome development comes a month after Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations leading expert on infectious diseases, urged the nation to hunker down because the number of new coronavirus cases was likely to rise as summer gave way to fall and the flu season started.

And this week, Fauci said he will be celebrating Thanksgiving via Zoom with his three daughters to avoid infection.

We would love for them to come home for Thanksgiving, Fauci, who lives in Washington, D.C., said during a webinar. They have said themselves, Dad, you know youre a young, vigorous guy, but youre 79 years old.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump declared himself "healed" during a radio interview with Rush Limbaugh, and later the White House announced he would be doing an in-person event Saturdayfrom the Truman balcony, even though it's been just a week since the president was diagnosed with Covid-19.

Earlier, a White House spokesman hedged on whether Trump would attend a Saturday campaign rally in Florida.

Trump won't go unless hes medically cleared that he will not be able to transmit the virus, deputy press secretary Brian Morgenstern said Friday on MSNBC.

But later Friday, the Trump campaign announced the president would be heading to Sanford, Florida, on Monday for a campaign rally.

Sanford is where 17-year-old Black teenager Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012 by a neighborhood watchman named George Zimmerman, whose acquittal on murder charges sparked nationwide protests.

More than a dozen other Trump aides and allies have also come down with infections, along with four White House residence staffers. And many of these infections have been tied to a Sept. 26 event Trump held in the Rose Garden to introduce Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

"We had a super spreader event in the White House and it was in a situation where people were crowded together and were not wearing masks," Fauci said Friday in a CBS Radio interview.

Dr. David Shulkin, Trumps former secretary of Veterans Affairs, said nobody really knows how infectious Trump is because there hasnt been enough information out there.

The recommendations are that it should be 10 days from the onset of the infection, but you have to know whether someones on symptom-relieving medication and whether they have symptoms when theyre off those medications, Shulkin told MSNBCs Stephanie Ruhle on Friday. But Stephanie, Im more worried, not about the president, but more worried about him putting people at risk at these rallies. We know that these rallies consist of people who dont social distance, who dont wear masks.

Since being sprung from the hospital, Trump has resumed downplaying the dangers of the virus that has killed 213,830 people and infected more than 7.6 million just in the U.S., and sowing doubt on the effectiveness of wearing masks and social distancing to slow the spread of the disease.

Trump also offended the loved ones of many Covid-19 victims by cavalierly declaring upon his release from Walter Read Medical Center "Don't be afraid of Covid" and quickly removing his mask when he returned to the White House.

Wary of antagonizing the president, Fauci has been pushing back carefully.

The examples of people not wanting to wear masks, or not believing that if you just go in a crowd you're not going to get infected or if you do get infected it's going to be meaningless because it's a trivial outbreak, Fauci said Thursday at a virtual University of California, Berkeley, forum. Well, how could it be a trivial outbreak if it's already killed 210,000 people in the United States and a million people worldwide?

This was two days after Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, contradicted Trumps resurrected false claim that the coronavirus was as deadly as the flu.

"You don't get a pandemic that kills a million people and it isn't even over yet with influenza," Fauci told NBC News Kate Snow.

Fauci over the summer survived a White House attempt to discredit him after he publicly countered Trumps false claims about the progress of the pandemic.

Corky Siemaszko is a senior writer for NBC News Digital.

Continued here:
Coronavirus cases on the rise again in the U.S. now that summer has given way to fall - NBC News

Three local artists explain how the Black Lives Matter movement has inspired their work. Salisbury Daily Times

In June, Mural Arts Philadelphia established the Philadelphia Fellowship for Black Artists to help fund, foster and elevate the important work of local Black artists.

Taj Posc, 25, one of 20 fellows in the program, describes his work as optimistic and reflecting the idioms every cloud has a silver lining and being on cloud nine.

But on his Instagram account, youll also spot artwork that reflects our troubled times.

He painted Misunderstood: Black Angel, a week before Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man was shot and seriously injured by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August. Posc's painting included the same number of bullet wounds seven as Blake suffered.

It is strange to me that it amounted to the same number of bullets in his body, Posc said of his painting. It almost feels like being a Black male, it doesnt matter how good or excellent you are or how good of a person you are. These kinds of things can happen to you at any moment of time.''

Traffic stops, walking home from the store, going for ajog and many other things people do every day have ended with the fatal shootings of unarmed Black people all across the country.

Such incidents birthed the Black Lives Matter movement and inspire not just protests, riots and counter-demonstrations, but some of the most urgent art being made today.

George Floyd died in May after a Minneapolis police officer kept his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes after detaining him, sparkingworldwide protests.

More protests came in September when news broke thattwo of the three Louisville police officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, 26,would not be charged and the third was indicted for shooting into neighboring apartments, but not Taylors death.

Like Posc, artists across the country responded the way knowbest, not with signs and slogans, but with paintbrushes and acrylics, cameras and film, ink and paper.

A portrait of Trayvon Martin, made using Skittles by local Collingswood artist Courtney Newman.(Photo: Photo courtesy of Courtney Newman)

In this time of reckoning over racial injustice, we asked artists actors, musicians, poets and others from throughout the Mid-Atlantic regionto reflect on how the Black Lives Matter movement has inspired their work and how they use art to pay homage to those whose lives have been cut short.

A Black mother cradles her dead son on her lapas she stares sadly and blankly ahead. They are on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, a busy, beautiful place, seated near a bed of flowers. His shirtless body appearslifeless and his long legs hang down over hers.

Brooklyn, New York, resident Jon Henry, a visual artist working with photography and text, had his work Stranger Fruit,depicting contemporary Black mothers and their sons in poses reminiscent ofMichelangelo's "The Pieta, in an exhibit last month at Big Day Film Collectivein Collingswood.

Visual artist Jon Henry is shown at his "Stranger Fruit" exhibition which ran from Sept. 1-30 at Big Day Film Collective, a new gallery art space in Collingswood. His project depicts the modern day African American mother and child echoing the form of The Pieta and was created in response to the killing of unarmed Black men by police.(Photo: 2020 Jackie Neale @jackiephotog)

Begun in 2014, Henry'sproject was created in response to the senseless murders of Black men across the nation by police violence, Henry says. Even with smart phones and dash cams recording the actions, more lives get cut short due to unnecessary and excessive violence. Who is next? Me? My brother? My friends? How do we protect these men? Lost in the furor of media coverage, lawsuits and protests is the plight of the mother. Who, regardless of the legal outcome, must carry on without her child.

The spark that ignited the project was lit much earlier.

I was very affected by this as it was happening throughout the years, but really in 2008, was the verdict with the Sean Bell murder. Sean Bell was the young man who was murdered at his bachelor party in Jamaica Queens (in 2006).

All three police officers indicted in the Bell killing were acquitted on all counts.

Henry photographed mothers with their sons, some of them young men, in their own environment, reenacting what it must feel like to endure this pain. The mothers in the photographs have not lost their sons, but understand the reality, that this could happen to their family.

Jackie Neale, who is White, is director and lead photographer at Big Day Film Collective, a new gallery art space she opened in Collingswood, after moving back to New Jersey from Brooklyn in December.

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A Cherry Hill native, Neale speaks to the emotional power of Henry's referencing of Michelangelo's iconic work, which depicts the body of Jesus on the lap of Mary after the Crucifixion. This is very familiar imagery and hes using this as a device to connect with people and how people revere the iconic graphic nature of that positioning, said Neale, who will host more exhibits and other events inher gallery.

Photographer Jon Henry is shown at his "Stranger Fruit" exhibit at Big Day Film Collective, a new gallery art space in Collingswood. His work was created in response to the senseless murders of black men across the nation by police violence, he says.(Photo: 2020 Jackie Neale @jackiephotog)

Henry said after these tragedies, protests, sometimestrials, what comes next for the families? Thats where the project really gets its legs from and really focuses on the mothers," he said.

Theres this big message and that is that law enforcement is saying you dont have any rights to fight back when youre being confronted,'' reflected Neale. "Theres an impotence there. If our work can be that vehicle that can cross that impotence, then that has to be available and its very powerful.

Keisha Finnie was roughly 30 miles east of York, Pennsylvania, and immersed in a protest after Floyds death.

The self-taught artist in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was bouncing around ideas with other creatives and the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design about what they could do to shed light on the situation.

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When words cant be spoken, art is there to create a visual, Finnie said.

A collaborative effort produced the Say Their Names piece, a collage that features cutouts of the faces and names of Black people whose lives were taken at the hands of law enforcement. The artwork is a mobile workFinnie says will migrate to different Lancaster businesses like a silent protest.

George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland and more photos make up the "Say Their Names" art piece.A collaborative effort, the collage features cutouts of the faces and names of Black people whose lives were taken at the hands of law enforcement. The mobile artwork will migrate to different Lancaster, Pa., businesses like a silent protest.(Photo: Michelle Johnsen)

Finnie didnt stop there, though. Her latest projects surrounding the Black Lives Matter Movement have helped her grow as an artist, she said.

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She also asked local photographers to donate their imagesof protesters, and those faces, signsand people make up Ampersand. The life-sized symbol is in PCAD Park,only steps away from the Lancaster City Bureau of Police Department.

Diversity.

Resilience.

Las Vidas.

These words are plastered on the sculpture and are surrounded by cropped photos of chanters, demonstrators and activists who have dedicated their time rallying for Black lives.

The "Ampersand" sculpture is not only a tribute to protesters, but it also on steps away from the Lancaster City Bureau of Police Department.(Photo: Jasmine Vaughn-Hall)

[The movement] has made me more conscious of the work that Im putting out and [Im] creating work that means something to me or that I know other people will resonate with, Finnie said.

Eileen Berger, 67, owner and director of Just Lookin Gallery in Hagerstown, Maryland, opened her business specializing in original art by Black American artists 25 years ago. Through Nov. 3, she is presentingThe Challenge of Change: Civil Rights in America,featuring25 artists and roughly 70 works.

Preston Sampsons Losing My Religion, a piece made of shell casings, is gaining attention at Just Lookin' Gallery's exhibit, "The Challenge of Change: Civil Rights in America." Tje exhibit opened Aug. 22 at the Hagerstown, Maryland gallery and runs through election day on Tuesday, Nov. 3.(Photo: Photo provided)

Berger said the exhibit is a history lesson and political statement.

I think now is the right time to get people to understand a little bit more. I like political statements; I wont pretend I dont, Berger said. This is probably my 12th or 13th Civil Rights show.

Berger said the show, which includes pieces by Charly Palmer, Preston Sampson, Eli Kince, Wesley Clark and Evita Tezeno, was planned to open in November. That was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and beforeFloyds death. I moved it up because sometimes you have to be topical about whats going on in the world, Berger said. The show is historical, but it is also right now.

Berger, who is white, grew up in Washington, D.C., in a neighborhood full of people with different colors, races, nationalities than me. That was my whole life. I was part of the Civil Rights Movement in the late 60s, she said.

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Response to the exhibit has been encouraging.To people who already have an affinity for art, they have more time to explore, she said of the pandemic-restricted times we are living through.

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But Berger believes the greatest support for the exhibit has nothing to do with a virus.

Just Lookin' Gallery's exhibit, "The Challenge of Change: Civil Rights in America", opened on August 22 at the Hagerstown, Maryland gallery and runs through election day on Tuesday, Nov. 3. This piece is called "Vote Any Way."(Photo: Eileen Berger)

There is a huge increase in awareness of disparity between Black and white right now, she said. Art is a way of hopefully opening up more peoples eyes. I always say, Lets start a dialogue.

"We have a really ugly history in this country,'' she said."At this age, I am not so disillusioned that I dont think we cant have a more beautiful future. Let me do what I can do.

Philadelphia native Courtney Newman, 31, has been creating art since he was in elementary school.

The Collingswood artist uses interesting objects to create his art, which he lets speak for him.

Newman incorporated about 3,600 Skittles to create a piece of art of Trayvon Martin, the teen killed in Florida by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in 2012. Martin had had an iced tea and a pack of Skittles on him when he was fatally shotafter a scuffle with Zimmerman.

That was just a three-dimensional thing, Newman said. I used Skittles because of that situation. Then I did Malcolm X and Martin Luther King with bullet casings.

Courtney Newman poses with two of his art pieces depicting Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. in Pennsauken, N.J. on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2020. Newman used bullet shell casings as a medium for the pieces.(Photo: JOE LAMBERTI/COURIER POST-USA TODAY NETWORK NJ)

I do art, thats what I do,'' said Newman, who also has done more straight-forward work to honor George Floyd. "I have epilepsy, so the working thing is a little slow. Art was my thing since when I was little.I do it for me and still try to make money off of it.

Rochester, New York,nativeShawn Dunwoodystarted his career in fine art, creating assemblage pieces thatdepicted the struggles of theAfrican American community.

But heset a new course.Hemoved backtothe citysNortheastside, which has a high concentration of poverty, and began creating colorful murals with positive messages. Hisgoalwas to bea role modelforBlack youth.

"I think it's important," he said. "The intent and the heartiscoming from aBlack man in America."

The City of Rochester often seeks outDunwoodywhen itneedsan artist.After Washington, D.C., painted a street with Black Lives Matter,Rochester officialsapproached Dunwoody about doingsomething similar . He agreed to take on theproject, butproposed takingit a step further. Thecity agreed with his vision.

Local Rochester, N.Y. artist Shawn Dunwoody and volunteers, paint the amphitheater at Martin Luther king Jr. Park, to allow visitors to write messages as part of the Black Lives Matter movement.(Photo: JAMIE GERMANO/ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE)

His canvas was Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.MemorialParkat Manhattan Squaredowntown, the focal point of many Black Lives Matter events. During two summer days he, along with some volunteers,paintednearlyeverysurface of the sunken concrete amphitheater withmatte black paint. In the middle he painted the Black Lives Matterfist symbol.

It was the largest art installation inacitythathas a thriving public art scene.Dunwoody called it, The Empire StrikesBlack.

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He placed bucketsofchalk for people to express themselves. Peopledrawpictures,write messages andpoetry. Theypost their creationson social media.Music videos have been shot in the space.

Local artist Shawn Dunwoody directs some volunteers who are helping him paint the amphitheater at Martin Luther king Jr. Park, black, to allow visitors to write messages as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. (Photo: JAMIE GERMANO/ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE)

Its almost like looking at theworld itself, Dunwoody said. It may look chaotic andcrazy but ifyou take your time andindividuallylook at each one, you can find deep meaning and connections to people.

The space is anamphitheater, he explained. Itismeanttoamplify voices.

Posc, who has family in law enforcement and the military, was raised with the notion to look after his siblings, which he still does, including a younger brother who is a postal worker and one who is incarcerated.

Taj Posc is among 20 artists in the Philadelphia Fellowship for Black Artists, a program established by Mural Arts Philadelphia.(Photo: Photo provided)

"I talk to them the same, whether its in a letter or on the phone, he said. I think I have a pretty good head on my shoulders as a young man, but my parents still have the same conversations with me. They constantly check on me, ask me, Did you get in the house?' "

One of his most recent works features a Black baby dressed as an angel soaring in the clouds. Its something he was inspired to paint while reflecting on a trip studying abroad in Rome.

I saw a lot of supernatural afterlife and these ideas of life after and what we experience. But all the pictures that I saw were pictures of white cherubs or Caucasian people, he said.

He sees progress within the arts in regards to the Black Lives Matter movement, but believes more can be done.

There has been a lot of growth in the last few years in terms of Black artists and representation and what is exposed and whats not. But I think it is up to the artists of the time just to continue to create truthfully, he said.

Shanel Edwards, 25, is a queer, non-binary, dancer, photographer, directorand poet.

Edwards, whose work centers on Black Queer Femme-hood,learnedabout the history of the Black Lives Matter Movement while at Temple University.

Artist Shanel Edwards is among 20 fellows in the Philadelphia Fellowship for Black Artists, a program established by Mural Arts Philadelphia.(Photo: Photo provided)

There was a lot that I was learning about myself and the world. It was really painful, it was really disgusting, but also beautiful and life changing. So I think in that way the more visible Black experience isBlack pain, Black joy, all of those thingsthe more its changing Black people in particular. I think with that, my artwork became more centered in who I was and who I am and who I am becoming and evolving into every day.

"Black folks have lived through incredible trauma and upheaval. Thismay be the wildest time of our lives. Our lineage and our ancestors have experienced things that we can never imagine....And all of our Black artists are doing what we can to survive and that shows in our work.

In Asbury Park, New Jersey, Alexander Simone, grandson of music legend Nina Simone, released the song Fight the Fight, and helped lead a Floyd protest in the city in June.

The track was originally written four years ago with things going on in Baltimore, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, that's when the track originated but its like a timeless track, Simone said. When all this started happening again, it resurrected the lyrics. I felt it was time.

Alexander Simone in Asbury Park on June 1, 2020.(Photo: Leon Fields)

Nina Simone's Civil Rights songs, including Mississippi Goddam and To Be Young, Gifted and Black, are classics.

So PROUD of my son, said mom Lisa Simone on Instagram. His grandmother is nodding in approval, too!! The family legacy continues.

Also at the Jersey Shore, hip-hop musician Chill Smith re-released his track Reverse Racism, and shot a new video for it, too.

I think what's happening is people are tired, everybody's tired of this, said Smith in June. I think a lot of allies have reached out to people in the community they know to try to uplift their voices. That's why the song has resurfaced, which makes sense.

National acts in the region are speaking up, too. Bronx rhymer Kemba laid out the conflicting nature of today's world, specifically when it comes to policing, on his Kill Your Idols, released three days after the Floyd death. Philly's Meek Mill reported from the Otherside of America in a powerful track that includes a sample of a Trump speech.

Cisco Soto and Miles Murdaugh were at a crossroads following George Floyds death. The Washington Winnona Images partners were uncertain about attending and photographing a protest forming in downtown York, Pennsylvania.

Murdaugh saw fire trucks along the streets and unraveled fire hoses spread along the sidewalks earlier in the day.

He thought, "Have we learned nothing?''

Cisco Soto and Miles Murdaugh are happy they captured an iconic event in York, but they know more can be done to put the narratives of minority communities at the forefront.(Photo: Washington Winnona Images)

The thoughtreferencedthe racial turmoil that boiled over in York in the late 60s, claiming two lives.

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Black Lives Matter movement has impact on artists - and they have our attention - Courier Post