Black History

Organization honors four leaders for Black History Month

WAVE NEWSPAPERS — The Foundation Center LA was filled to capacity when the Vermont Slauson Economic Development Corporation honored four community leaders who have made significant contributions to the community.

Published

6 years ago

March 14, 2019

Oakland Post

By Shirley Hawkins

SOUTH LOS ANGELES — The Foundation Center LA was filled to capacity Feb. 12 when the Vermont Slauson Economic Development Corporation honored four community leaders who have made significant contributions to the community.

Honored were Leo D. Sullivan, president and CEO of Leo Sullivan Multimedia and creator of the interactive website Afrokids.com and AfroKidsTV.com; Jeanette Bolden, owner of the 27th Street Bakery and a former track and field Olympian; Ron Turner, general sales manager at 102.3 KJLH radio; and Gloria Zuurveen, founder of PACE news.

Special tributes filled the room in honor of Marva Smith Battle-Bey, the founder of the VSEDC, who died in 2016.

“You make Marva Battle-Bey proud because the legacy of entrepreneurship continues through you,” said Apryl Sims, who served as mistress of ceremonies. “All of our ancestors stood and endured so that each and every one of us could be here right now. Let’s continue to lift each other up for the future generations to come.”

The VSEDC offers a variety of business workshops, including an entrepreneurial training class and a business plan writing class.

Joseph T. Rouzan II, president and CEO of the VSEDC, thanked board chair Bill Holland and board members and as well as the event’s sponsor, Boston Private Community Investment, for their unwavering support for local entrepreneurs.

“We are honoring the achievements of remarkable African Americans who have made tremendous marks in their respective industries and beyond,” Rouzan said.

“Vermont Slauson takes pride in our nearly four-decade history of fighting for economic resources that help South Los Angeles residents thrive and celebrate the glorious contributions of black Americans,” Rouzan said. “This month and all year reminds us of how far we’ve come and inspires us to achieve so much more.”

Rouzan said that because of Battle-Bey’s sharp business acumen and foresight, she was able to negotiate the purchase of two busy shopping centers in South Los Angeles that are owned by the VSEDC.

Sims, a fourth generation entrepreneur at the health food venue Simply Wholesome, added that Simply Wholesome recycles dollars throughout the community by purchasing products from more than 100 local vendors. Sims also is the creator of Life in a Bottle, a line of cold pressed juices sold exclusively at Simply Wholesome.

Applause filled the room as Bolden, a third-generation entrepreneur, ascended to the podium and said that she was gratified to receive her award.

She said that her grandfather, Harry Patterson, started the 27th Street Bakery in 1956.

The bakery is the largest manufacturer of sweet potato pies on the West Coast and produces fruit, sweet potato, pecan, pumpkin and peach pies that are sold at Ralph’s, Smart and Final, Louisiana Fried Chicken, 7-Eleven, Albertson’s and KFC.

“My grandfather, Harry Patterson, said to never cut corners when making our pies and to always use the highest quality ingredients,” Bolden said. “He advised us to take care of the business yourself and to always work hard.”

Bolden said she is continuing his legacy by teaching her children how to operate the business.

Bolden won an Olympic gold medal in the 1984 Olympics in the women’s 4 by 400 meter relay. She spent 24 years as a collegiate women’s track and field coach, including serving as head coach at her alma mater, UCLA.

Among her numerous track and field achievements, Bolden served as the U.S Olympic Women’s head coach in 2008.

Animator Sullivan smiled as the crowd applauded and he thanked VSEDC for his award. Sullivan has produced and directed educational, training and public service films for various educational film companies, working as a producer, director, animator, layout artist, storyboard artist and writer at studios including Warner Brothers, New World, Filmnation, Hanna Barbera and Walt Disney.

He also has managed animation studios all over the world including the countries of Thailand, Spain, France, Canada and the United States.

“I’m trying to forge communication with the youth through media by building our children’s self-esteem and cultural heritage with positive images by teaching life lessons, family values, respect and responsibility,” he said.

“A lot of media outlets put trash in the young people’s minds and that’s what I want to fight against. That’s why I launched AfroKids.com and AfroKidsTV,” said the animator, who added that both outlets promote positive, uplifting stories that can currently be viewed on Roku, Amazon and YouTube.

Pausing, he added that he developed the Leo Sullivan Multimedia Foundation to offer a hands-on, introductory workshop in animation and game development to disadvantaged youth between the ages of 10 to 15.

“I focus on the kids from the next generation. If we don’t give them any direction, other folks will take over their minds,” he said.

Turner, sales manager at KJLH Radio, is instrumental in connecting businesses to the station’s listening audience. He also is credited with helping to create Southern California’s largest African-American targeted event, the Taste of Soul.

“We have served the African-American community for 54 years,” said Turner. “We not only entertain, we educate — and we have to make sure that KJLH stays viable for another 54 years.”

Pausing, Turner added, “Our ongoing fight is to secure advertising dollars from companies that feel that African Americans don’t buy Cadillacs, Tide or Mercedes Benzes,” he said.

Zuurveen, founder of PACE News, a licensed minister and a staunch supporter of education, said, “History is very critical, especially black history, because we are being wiped out.”

Zuurveen said she started the publication after hearing a teacher at her daughter’s school declare that black children were going to grow up to become “hoochie mamas” and “gang bangers.”

“Every Wednesday, I was at the school board to complain. I wrote articles about that teacher,” she recalls, adding that because of the articles, the teacher eventually resigned.

“We have to get serious about our history and legacy so that we can survive,” Zuurveen said. “Our history is too important to let slide.”

This article originally appeared in the Wave Newspapers.

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Activism

U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Speaks on Democracy at Commonwealth Club

Based on his first speech as House minority leader, “The ABCs of Democracy” by Grand Central Publishing is an illustrated children’s book for people of all ages. Each letter contrasts what democracy is and isn’t, as in: “American Values over Autocracy”, “Benevolence over Bigotry” and “The Constitution over the Cult.”

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December 22, 2024

Oakland Post

: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at the Commonwealth Club World Affairs Council on Dec. 2. Photo by Johnnie Burrell. Book cover: "The ABCs of Democracy" by Hakeem Jeffries.

By Linda Parker Pennington
Special to The Post

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries addressed an enthusiastic overflow audience on Monday at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club, launching his first book, “The ABCs of Democracy.”

Based on his first speech as House minority leader, “The ABCs of Democracy” by Grand Central Publishing is an illustrated children’s book for people of all ages.

Each letter contrasts what democracy is and isn’t, as in: “American Values over Autocracy”, “Benevolence over Bigotry” and “The Constitution over the Cult.”

Less than a month after the election that will return Donald Trump to the White House, Rep. Jeffries also gave a sobering assessment of what the Democrats learned.

“Our message just wasn’t connecting with the real struggles of the American people,” Jeffries said. “The party in power is the one that will always pay the price.”

On dealing with Trump, Jeffries warned, “We can’t fall into the trap of being outraged every day at what Trump does. That’s just part of his strategy. Remaining calm in the face of turmoil is a choice.”

He pointed out that the razor-thin margin that Republicans now hold in the House is the lowest since the Civil War.

Asked what the public can do, Jeffries spoke about the importance of being “appropriately engaged. Democracy is not on autopilot. It takes a citizenry to hold politicians accountable and a new generation of young people to come forward and serve in public office.”

With a Republican-led White House, Senate, House and Supreme Court, Democrats must “work to find bi-partisan common ground and push back against far-right extremism.”

He also described how he is shaping his own leadership style while his mentor, Speaker-Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, continues to represent San Francisco in Congress. “She says she is not hanging around to be like the mother-in-law in the kitchen, saying ‘my son likes his spaghetti sauce this way, not that way.’”

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MacArthur Fellow Dorothy Roberts’ Advocates Restructure of Child Welfare System

Roberts’s early work focused on Black women’s reproductive rights and their fight for reproductive justice. In “Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty 1997)”, she analyzes historical and contemporary policies and practices that denied agency to Black women and sought to control their childbearing—from forced procreation during slavery, to coercive sterilization and welfare reform—and advocates for an expanded understanding of reproductive freedom.

Published

7 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Oakland Post

Dorothy Roberts. Photo courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Special to The Post

When grants were announced Oct. 1, it was noted that eight of the 22 MacArthur Fellows were African American. Among the recipients of the so-called ‘genius grants’ are scholars, visual and media artists a poet/writer, historian, and dancer/choreographer who each receive $800,000 over a five-year period to spend as they see fit.

Their names are Ruha Benjamin, Jericho Brown, Tony Cokes, Jennifer L. Morgan, Ebony G. Patterson, Shamel Pitts, Jason Reynolds, and Dorothy Roberts. This is the eighth and last in the series highlighting the Black awardees. The report below on Dorothy Roberts is excerpted from the MacArthur Fellows web site.

A graduate of Yale University with a law degree from Harvard, Dorothy Roberts is a legal scholar and public policy researcher exposing racial inequities embedded within health and social service systems.

Sine 2012, she has been a professor of Law and Sociology, and on the faculty in the department of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Roberts’s work encompasses reproductive health, bioethics, and child welfare. She sheds light on systemic inequities, amplifies the voices of those directly affected, and boldly calls for wholesale transformation of existing systems.

This work prompted Roberts to examine the treatment of children of color in the U.S. child welfare system.

After nearly two decades of research and advocacy work alongside parents, social workers, family defense lawyers, and organizations, Roberts has concluded that the current child welfare system is in fact a system of family policing with alarmingly unequal practices and outcomes. Her 2001 book, “Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare,” details the outsized role that race and class play in determining who is subject to state intervention and the results of those interventions.

Through interviews with Chicago mothers who had interacted with Child Protective Services (CPS), Roberts shows that institutions regularly punish the effects of poverty as neglect.

CPS disproportionately investigates Black and Indigenous families, especially if they are low-income, and children from these families are much more likely than white children to be removed from their families after CPS referral.

In “Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World (2022),” Roberts traces the historical, cultural, and political forces driving the racial and class imbalance in child welfare interventions.

These include stereotypes about Black parents as negligent, devaluation of Black family bonds, and stigmatization of parenting practices that fall outside a narrow set of norms.

She also shows that blaming marginalized individuals for structural problems, while ignoring the historical roots of economic and social inequality, fails families and communities.

Roberts argues that the engrained oppressive features of the current system render it beyond repair. She calls for creating an entirely new approach focused on supporting families rather than punishing them.

Her support for dismantling the current child welfare system is unsettling to some. Still, her provocation inspires many to think more critically about its poor track record and harmful design.

By uncovering the complex forces underlying social systems and institutions, and uplifting the experiences of people caught up in them, Roberts creates opportunities to imagine and build more equitable and responsive ways to ensure child and family safety.