Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

Phylicia Rashad distinguished herself at the 58th Annual Tony Awards on June 6, 2004, at Radio City Music Hall, by being the first African-American woman to win the coveted award for Best Lead Actress in a Play. This lovely, veteran actress of the screen, TV and theater won for her mesmerizing performance as Lena Younger, in the late Lorraine Hansberry’s powerful drama, A Raisin in the Sun” playing at the Royale Theater, only through July 11.
This accolade was well- deserved by Rashad who completely embodies the character. Whenever she is onstage her performance is absolutely breathtaking. She makes the audience feel all the emotions of the character-the sadness of missing her late husband Walter Lee, and being frustrated and challenged with the different way the generations’ think today. Her daughter Beneatha (beautifully performed by Sanaa Lathan in her Broadway debut) declares that she does not believe in God. Those words cause a very quiet, but upset Lena to slowly come upon her and deliver a powerful slap to her face. With her voice insistent, Lena makes her daughter repeat, “In my mother’s house there is a God.” When Lena is not dealing with Beneatha she has to handle her son, Walter Lee, Jr. (played by Sean Combs, making his Broadway debut). Walter Lee, Jr. wants to make plans for life insurance money his mother will be receiving for his father’s death. His plans include buying a liquor store with some of his friends. Lena is uncomfortable with the idea. She wants to buy a home for the family so they can have a nice place to live. This character goes on an emotional rollercoaster ride throughout the play. The only member of the family who thinks as she does and wants to use the money to buy a home is Walter Lee’s wife Ruth (brilliantly played by Audra McDonald). McDonald picked up her fourth Tony, walking away with Supporting Actress in a play.
This production is a revival of “A Raisin in the Sun”, which was last seen on Broadway almost 50 years ago. I must say that the casting director did a marvelous job. As Rashad speaks, her voice often trembles with emotion. She has the audience feeling her pain and can easily bring tears to their’ eyes.
Experiencing her performance and then witnessing the Tony committee’s acknowledgment of her work, really warms the heart and says that there are some right things going on in the world.
When Rashad received this amazing recognition at the Tony Awards she was very humble. She simply said she did not realize that she was the first, but did not dwell on it. In a one-on-one interview, Rashad said that she did not think of herself in terms of being  in a box, as an African-American actress. She felt that people need to stop separating themselves and seeing the beauty in each other in order to stop the confusion in the world.
If you want to see a magnificent production, with an all-star cast that will knock your socks off, you must make plans to see this play. If you have  already seen it, go back. Rashad’s Tony Award winning performance, along with McDonald’s, are complimented by an able cast, an incredible director, Kenny Leon and a tremendous story line that focuses on the power of black family to struggle through  impossible odds, but still survive. This play and the performances you see will leave you inspired. Although the play is set on Chicago’s Southside in the 1950s, its message is still quite relevant today.
Always soft-spoken and gracious, Rashad gave credit to her parents and grandparents for the strong, loving examples they set for her. Rashad was joined at the Tony Awards by her sister, actress/choreographer/director Debbie Allen, their mother Vivian Ayers and Rashad’s daughter Phyleia. All the family members were very proud of Rashad’s accomplishment. Allen summed it up as she said, “Today is a great day for the Allen family and for our people.”
Rashad will grace the Broadway stage next fall as she stars in August Wilson, Gem Of The Ocean. I’m looking forward to that. Anytime I have seen Rashad onstage, whether she is playing Zora Neale Hurston in  Everybody’s Ruby or a tough newspaper editor in The Story she has proven her ability to own a role. Her performances are always a demonstration of her phenomenal gifts.

By Aminisha Black
Creating Family Cultures for Social Change
The family is the smallest social unit in a society.  It remains the place where principles and values can be taught that shape leaders of tomorrow.  The strength of Africa’s family structure is credited with sustaining our ancestors through slavery and the following years of oppression.  There are conspiracy theories that families were first on America’s hit list, with the intent of reducing them to poverty, thus forcing them to focus solely on surviving.   Parents, today we have a responsibility to create a sane and secure environment for future generations.  I believe the place to begin is at home.  
In A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Ruby K. Payne defines poverty as “The extent to which an individual does without resources”.  It follows then that if families are provided with needed resources, they will be empowered to become agents for social transformation.  
A major obstacle in solving problems in this culture is the equation of resources with money.    Payne, while including financial as one resource, also lists the following:motional  – the ability to choose and control emotional responses particularly in negative situations, without engaging in self-destructive behavior. (War is an example of self-destructive behavior)
To change – Hostile and/or abusive relationships between parents; violence, inappropriate behaviors, excessive medication of children to name a few.
Actions for change –  Promote family cohesiveness and develop self-esteem with activities that create pleasurable memories that last a life time, i.e. family picnics in local parks, family game nights, making scrap books, catch a few concerts –  to name a few  free and near free things available in the city.
Mental – Having the mental abilities and acquired skills (reading, writing, computing) to deal with daily life.
To change – Illiteracy, poor comprehension, measuring competency by test results, over exposure to TV, video games, separation of school, home and community, education restricted to classroom, lack of learning experiences at home and in the community.
Actions for change:  a) Visit the library regularly, make sure everyone has a library card. b) Expose your child to books about their interests. c) Play family games that involve reading and arithmetic in a fun way.  d) Teach thinking skills by encouraging your child to solve problems. e) Form a partnership with your child’s teacher(s).

Spiritual – Believing in divine purpose
and guidance.
To change – The trend of paying lip service on Sundays and tolerating/justifying immoral acts and unjust behaviors on a daily basis; reducing spirituality to religious beliefs, inadequate coverage of subject in public schools.
Actions for change:  a) Research religions and spiritual disciplines. b) Attend services at different denominations.  c) Check out non-traditional disciplines and follow your heart on this one.  Clue – you’re seeking the ability to be an instrument of Love and Peace and connection with Source for guidance.   d) Sit in silence with your children a few minutes daily or as often as you can.
Physical – Having physical health
and mobility.
To change – The typical American diet and lifestyles absent of exercise, exploitation of consumers by doctors and drug companies, shortage of information to community regarding holistic health.
Actions for change: a) If you know harmful things that you’re doing, change the habit. You can replace a bad habit with a good one in 21 days. b) Become an advocate for your health – question the need of prescribed medications c) Research alternative medicine
Support Systems – Friends, Family and backup resources available to access in times of need.
To change – Broken relationships (family, neighbors and others) and the resulting isolation. 
Actions for change:  a) Realize that healthy relationships was the basis of communal Africa b) Mend broken relationships by taking responsibility for your upsets which came from either 1) unfulfilled expectations 2) undelivered communication (yours) or 3) a thwarted intention.
It is important to see that all resources are not external.  Each of us is a resource.  Have family members tell what they can contribute to support the family. Post a Family Resource List
If we can bring the spirit of communalism into our families we can rid ourselves of the fear of scarcity which breeds the distrust and ruthless competitiveness that runs rampant in today’s society.  Remember that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Let’s begin that first step at home.  Contact parentsnotebook@yahoo.com with comments.

By Lester Kenyatta Spence

On Saturday, June 5, Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States, passed away. For the next several weeks, I would imagine that we’re going to hear a number of platitudes about how Reagan made Americans feel good about themselves again, about how he beat back the world threat of Communism, and about how he was the Great Communicator, able to use his acting skills to create a rapport with Americans the likes of which we had not seen up until that time. And to be fair, these accounts have more than a ring of truth to them. Reagan did make
 a number of Americans feel good and he was able to communicate a set of powerful principles and practices to people in a way that resonated with them.
I remember the impact his policies had on my neighborhood, my parents, and on me. But as is normal when anyone dies, the rough edges are made smooth. And with someone of Reagan’s stature, what’s left when the historical account has been paved over with good intentions is an individual with few to no flaws. Given the way African- Americans felt about and lived under Ronald Reagan, this process of historical revisionism is problematic. His presidency was anything but sunny for us.
Take the first place Reagan first announced his candidacy for the 1980 presidential run. He didn’t announce it in Iowa, nor in New Hampshire. He didn’t even announce it in California, the place he came to prominence.
He announced it in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The only event of historical note to ever happen in Philadelphia, Mississippi, up until that point, was the murder of three civil rights workers (Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Cheney) in 1964. Other candidates, including those from the Democratic side of the aisle, made it to Philadelphia, Mississippi as well. Southern voters are a powerful bloc. But in Ronald Reagan’s case, when he appeared before the citizens of Philadelphia, he spoke of one thing – his support for states’ rights. And no matter the argument, I’ve seen printed that Reagan meant the phrase in the context of the “Sagebrush Rebellion,” that focused on wresting control of western grazing lands from the federal government, we all know what “states’ rights” means in the South.
After he was elected, things didn’t get much better. Take, for instance, the COINTELPRO affair. COINTELPRO was a unit of the FBI formed to combat what was perceived to be the Communist insurgency. It was later used by J. Edgar Hoover to spy on, and commit both character assassination and literal assassination of black activists. In 1980, two COINTELPRO officials, L. Patrick Grey and Edward S. Miller, were convicted of having “”conspired to injure and oppress the citizens of the United States” while working for the project. The convictions of Grey and Miller were seen by many as a limited victory, but a victory nonetheless for those interested in the principles of practice of democracy.
But Grey and Miller never spent a day in jail. In 1981, while they were awaiting appeal, Reagan pardoned them. Oddly enough, he never pardoned political prisoners such as Geronimo Pratt, Dhoruba Bin Wahad and countless others incarcerated wrongly because of the actions of agents like Grey and Miller.
Beginning in the late 1970s, urban America was hard hit by poverty, crime and a growing drug scourge with a little name: crack. Reagan’s response was draconian. In order to drum up support for repealing welfare, Reagan began giving speeches featuring the tale of a woman on welfare who had basically made bank off of running scams. Through a number of aliases (80, according to Reagan’s account) and social security numbers (dozens) this “welfare queen” was able to buy a Cadillac. He never flat-out said this was a black woman, but the Cadillac and the reference to Chicago housing projects were as clear a code as his “states’ rights” comment in Mississippi. Naturally, the story was later debunked by the media (there’s no way in hell you can live large on AFDC), but by then the damage had been done, powerfully fusing race, class and gender to kill support for the safety net. Americans are now much less likely to support governmental solutions to poverty, particularly when images associated with the poor are black and female.
Reagan believed that the leaders of organizations like the NAACP were “race merchants” whose only livelihood was generated by focusing on a mythical racism that didn’t exist. As a result, his door was never open to them. Instead, he supported an attempt to generate an alternative black leadership network – one rooted firmly in support for neoconservative principles. The Fairmont Conference, as it came to be called, was sponsored by Thomas Sowell and included a pantheon of black conservatives who have gone on to become major figures.
Among the many attendees was one Clarence Thomas. Though black conservatives (who should be differentiated from conservative blacks) have never had a strong constituency within African American communities, they thrived in Reagan’s administration and were often called upon to make statements on behalf of a constituency that in some crucial ways they never truly represented.
Remember the Reagan Democrats? Those disaffected working- class white voters who were most responsible for Reagan’s re-election in 1984? A group of Democratic operatives interviewed a number of white working class men and women outside of  Detroit in order to see what made Reagan Democrats vote for Reagan. Every social ill America faced, every problem of the Democratic Party was blamed on one group of people: African Americans. Why did America lose its moral standing? Black laziness. Why were Americans jobless? Black racial preferences. (I’m not quite sure how black people could both steal jobs  from real Americans and be too lazy to get jobs in the first place at the same time, but that’s another story.)
So even though these Reagan supporters detested Reagan’s actual policy preferences, they gladly supported Reagan because they felt he stood up for them against the various ills they explicitly associated with black people.
Finally, the following data points, taken from Adolph Reed’s The Jesse Jackson Phenomenon, bring it home:  Between January 1981 and the summer of 1984 white long-term unemployment increased 1.5 percent; among blacks, however, the rate of increase was 72 percent.
Moreover, if all budget reductions proposed by the Reagan administration had been enacted, the following programs with disproportionately black constituencies would have been cut by the following amounts: Legal Services, 100 percent; Public Service Employment, 100 percent; Aid to Families with Dependent Children, 28 percent; Employment and Training, 43.9 percent;  Compensatory Education, 61 percent; Work Incentive Program, 100 percent; Food Stamps, 51.7 percent and Child Nutrition, 46 percent.
So let me be clear. Inasmuch as I imagine that living the last years of one’s life as an Alzheimer victim would be horrible on one’s family, much less on one’s self, I would not wish President Reagan’s fate on anyone. My condolences go to his wife, and to his immediate family.
But I became politically aware during President Reagan’s tenure. I remember the impact his policies had on my neighborhood, my parents, and on me. For many of us, Reagan didn’t bring “mourning in America.” He brought the deepest darkest night.
About the Author, Lester Spence is an Assistant Professor in Political Science and Afro-American/African Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. Visit the www.africana.com/channels/blackworld.asp for more information.

Excerpt from the Narrative
of James Curry
…When my master’s family were all gone away on the Sabbath, I used to go into the house and get down the great Bible and lie down in the piazza and read, taking care, however, to put it back before they returned. There I learned that it was contrary to the revealed will of God, that one man should hold another as a slave. I had always heard it talked among the slaves, that we ought not to be held as slaves; that our forefathers and mothers were stolen from Africa, where they were free men and free women. But in the Bible I learned that ‘God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the Earth.’
While I worked in the house and waited upon my mistress, she always treated me kindly, but to other slaves, who were as faithful as I was, she was very cruel. At one time, there was a comb found broken in a cupboard, which was worth about twenty-five or thirty-seven and a half cents. She suspected a little girl, 9 or 10 years old, who served in the house, of having broken it. She took her in the morning, before sunrise, into a room, and calling me to wait upon her, had all the doors shut. She tied her hands, and then took her frock up over her head and gathered it up in her left hand, and with her right commenced beating her naked body with bunches of willow twigs. She would beat her until her arm was tired, and then thrash her on the floor and stamp on her with her foot, and kick her and choke her to stop her screams. Oh! it was awful! And I was obliged to stand there and see it, and to go and bring her the sticks. She continued this torture until ten o’clock, the family waiting for breakfast meanwhile. She then left whipping her; and that night she herself was so lame that one of her daughters was obliged to undress her. The poor child never recovered. A white swelling came from the bruises on one of her legs, of which she died in two or three years. And my mistress was soon after called by her great Master to give her account.
Before her death, my mistress used to clothe her people with coarse, common clothing. She had been dead eleven years when I came away. She died in October, and in the following spring, my master bought about one hundred yards of coarse tow and cotton, which he distributed among the slaves. After this, he provided no clothing for any of his slaves, except that I have known him in a few instances to give a pair of thoroughly worn-out pantaloons to one.
They worked in the night upon their little patches of ground, raising tobacco and food for hogs, which they were allowed to keep, and thus obtained clothes for themselves. These patches of ground were little spots they were allowed to clear in the woods or cultivate upon the barrens and after they got them nicely cleared and under good cultivation, the master took them away, and the next year they must take other uncultivated spots for themselves.
There were on this plantation nine men and eight out of this nine were always as decently clad as any slaves in that part of the country; and each had a better suit for Sunday. The ninth was a young fellow who had not been taught by his mother to take care of himself, but he was fast improving when I came away. It was to him that my master gave the worn-out pantaloons. My step-father felled trees in the woods and built for his family a commodious log-house. With my mother’s assistance, it was furnished with two comfortable beds, chairs and some other articles of furniture. His children were always comfortably and decently clothed. I knew him, at one time, to purchase for my mother a cloak, and a gown, a frock for each of my two sisters, two coats for two brothers younger than myself, and each of them a hat, all new and good, and all with money earned in the time allowed him for sleep.
My mother was cook in the house for about twenty-two years. She cooked for from twenty-five to thirty-five, taking the family and the slaves together. The slaves ate in the kitchen. After my mistress’s death, my mother was the only woman kept in the house. She took care of my master’s children, some of whom were then quite small, and brought them up. One of the most trying scenes I ever passed through, when I would have laid down my life to protect her if I had dared, was this: after she had raised my master’s children, one of his daughters, a young girl, came into the kitchen one day, and for some trifle about the dinner, she struck my mother, who pushed her away, and she fell on the floor. Her father was not at home. When he came, which was while the slaves were eating in the kitchen, she told him about it. He came down, called my mother out, and, with a hickory rod, he beat her fifteen or twenty strokes, and then called his daughter and told her to take her satisfaction of her, and she did beat her until she was satisfied. Oh! it was dreadful, to see the girl whom my poor mother had taken care of from her childhood, thus beating her, and I must stand there, and did not dare to crook my finger in her defense. My mother’s labor was very hard. She would go to the house in the morning, take her pail upon her head and go away to the cow-pen, and milk fourteen cows. She then put on the bread for the family breakfast, and got the cream ready for churning, and set a little child to churn it, she having the care of from ten to fifteen children, whose mothers worked in the field. After clearing away the family breakfast, she got breakfast for the slaves, which consisted of warm corn bread and buttermilk, and was taken at twelve o’clock. In the meantime, she had beds to make, rooms to sweep. Then she cooked the family dinner, which was simply plain meat, vegetables, and bread. Then the slaves’ dinner was to be ready at from eight to nine o’clock in the evening. It consisted of corn bread, or potatoes, and the meat which remained of the master’s dinner, or one herring apiece. At night, she had the cows to milk again. There was little ceremony about the master’s supper, unless there was company. This was her work day by day. Then in the course of the week she had the washing and ironing to do for her master’s family (who, however, were clothed very simply), and for her husband, seven children and herself.
She would not get through to go to her log cabin until nine or ten o’clock at night. She would then be so tired that she could scarcely stand, but she would find one boy with his knee out, and another with his elbow out, a patch wanting here, and a stitch there, and she would sit down by her lightwood fire, and sew and sleep alternately, often till the light began to streak in the east; and then lying down, she would catch a nap and hasten to the toil of the day. Among the slave children were three little orphans, whose mothers, at their death, committed them to the care of my mother. One of them was a babe. She took them and treated them as her own. The master took no care about them. She always took a share of the cloth she had provided for her own children, to cover these little friendless ones. She would sometimes ask the master to procure them some clothes, but he would curse them and refuse to do it. We would sometimes tell her, that we would let the master clothe them, for she had enough to do for her own children. She replied, ‘Their master will not clothe them and I cannot see them go naked; I have children and I do not know where their lot may be cast; I may die and leave them, and I desire to do by these little orphans as I should  wish mine to be done……..
The above excerpt is Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews and Autobiographies. Edited by John  W. Blassingame, Published by Louisiana State University Press.  Available locally at Brownstone Bookstore.

Sitting in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant is a resource as full of possibilities as it is gargantuan in size.  With a building area of 231,834 square ft., the Armory for the 13th Regiment of the National Guard is the second-largest armory in the country, after the Bronx’s Kingsbridge Armory which itself is the center of a community development plan.  This armory in the middle of one of the neediest communities, is the center of an effort to restore the range of community uses such as when in 1945, Bed-Stuy resident Mary DeSaussure, now Mary Sobers, became the first African-American girl to run in a Police Athletic League track meet held regularly at the armory.   Starting on Marcus Garvey between Putnam and Jefferson, the building then proceeds about four-fifths into the block, street to street.  As large as it is, there are a couple of points to clear up about what’s inside.

Myths Corrected
The Working Asset report for the Department of the Homeless lists the building as 3 stories plus a basement.  It does not go four stories underground as rumor has had it, nor does it have stables or an olympic-sized swimming pool.  The military training pool it does have measures 84ft. x 40ft. x 13ft. with a 3,500- gallon capacity.  However, there is a bowling alley, a rifle range, parquet drill floors and a wealth of possibilities. 
A computer search shows that throughout the country, from Pell City, Alabama to Duluth, Minnesota, communities are wrestling with what to do with their armories and they come down hard on the side of what the community’s needs are.  Solutions have included community centers, art facilities, educational uses, a library/apartment complex, sports facilities, banquet hall, a luxury hotel, a different use for each community.   The impetus for the new use is usually an active community group much like the Bedford- Stuyvesant Association, and the reports include meetings like the one held at PS 35 last month.
Gift to Bed-Stuy
“The Sumner Armory is a gift to the Bedford-Stuyvesant community from the State of New York,” says Ms.   Gerri Blackshear, president of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Association, a group formed in 1982 as the Association of Block Associations, Inc.  The original purpose was for community activism to identify and rid the area of drug houses.  Now they’ve taken as their charge to bring the armory back as a full community resource.  “The armory is an under-utilized Mecca within our community. There is plenty of space for a men’s shelter and the community at large.” 

Dire Needs
The prime example Ms. Blackshear uses is the 168th Street Armory in Washington Heights where a men’s shelter co-exists with a world-class indoor track and field facility.  “A community non-profit, the Armory Foundation, runs that facility and they have been very helpful in demonstrating how these community uses are financed.  One recommendation is that we could have a removable track and the area can be converted to other uses,” she says.  “In our community there is a dire need for youth, senior and family programs; also space for athletic, recreation, weddings, dances, concerts, etc.”
“The armory was designed to mirror the  Bastille,” said Irma Robinson, an association member and a lifelong resident of Putnam Avenue, her family having lived in the same house for 92 years.  “This is a needy community.  What we need are programs for our youth.” 
“We need the community to come out from behind closed doors and take a look at this,” said Ms. Blackshear.  “The neighborhood youth have reached a level of despair, yet still some achieve.  We want to build on that.”
Robert Torrence,  director of Community Relations for Black Veterans for Social Justice, the group running Pomoja House, the men’s shelter at the armory, spoke from the audience saying that the Black Vets is all for the community development of the armory.  “We are on the same page.  We embrace empowering the community in the armory.  We are not resisting anything you are trying to do.  What we need to do is mesh our ideas.”
Recommendations
A statement was made that in the 197a community development plan for Bedford-Stuyvesant, there was a recommendation to convert the armory into condominiums.  Checking later, we saw that the recommendation to study the conversion does appear on the 2004 zoning map prepared by the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development (PICCED) as item 11c. “A Signature Building Conversion to condominium apartments and living-work spaces for young professionals and community artists and artisans.”  (Wilma Maynard, chair of the  Community Board 3, land-use committee, assured us that the final recommendation is for community use.) 
Bed-Stuy Association Proposal
Several days after the meeting we spoke with Daryl S. Moore, M.H.S., an association member who was born in the house he lives in on Jefferson Avenue and who wrote the association proposal submitted to the Department of Homeless Services.
Giving us the outline of what the group has in mind, Mr. Moore said, “We are proposing a community-based Cultural Revitalization Institute to bring about a  return to the village of Bedford- Stuyvesant by using our professionals, our seniors, community organizations, churches and other existing programs to bring about positive change with our youth and empower our youth and strengthen our community. 
“We want to place multifaceted educational programs, with a computer and technology center as well as GED, after-school, college readiness and advanced educational support programs.

We want programs from day care to college and from remedial to advanced opportunities.  
There has to be retraining for kids who are “not in the here and now.”  They are dropouts with issues not addressed by the education system. 
“We want to get  them with an extensive sports program, to bring them into the medium and then guide them toward those training programs.  We want workshops from doctors and lawyers, we want our youth to see alternatives to crime and violence.  We want to make them competitive with other youth with more resources. 
“We are proposing a Living Skills Center to teach 4 levels of skills from cooking to finance & horticulture. 
All programs are interchangeable.  Our education program would engage the seniors and the teens, each teaching the other.   We want to put in a theater to encourage the arts.  
We want to use the catering hall to provide the community with an inexpensive and local alternative to the Marriott and help the Institute to be self-sustaining.  We want it to be able to advocate for our families, our seniors and our youth.  It is meant to revitalize the community.”
To the question of where does the money come from, Ms. Blackshear said to follow the model of the Armory Foundation, the organization that runs the Fort Washington facility.  The Department of Homeless Services picks up the utilities and infrastructure maintenance costs and other income is derived from their heavy track meet schedule and sponsorships.
Take the Field, a public-private partnership that is rehabilitating athletic facilities around the city, is interested in the project, but their dollars have to be matched with public funds.  Ms. Blackshear says she’s spoken with Borough President Marty Markowitz, who was very receptive to the expanded community use of the armory. “Al Vann and I have to get together to find the money for the project,” she reports him as saying.
The next public meeting will be the second Thursday of September, 7:00pm at St. Christopher Ottilie Beacon Center (P.S. 35), MacDonough Street between Lewis and Marcus Garvey. For additional information call (718) 452-1768 or (718) 574-5570.