Musician Daryl Davis, who works to convert the KKK, to speak March 17
Blues mus ician Daryl Davis is coming to the Richmond area to talk about his pioneering efforts to use conversation to steer Ku Klux Klan members away from racial hatred.
John Marshall High wins state basketball championship
The best may be yet to come for the John Marshall High School basketball team. Tall, talented and boasting of having almost everything but seniors, the team strolled to the 3A state basketball championship title last Friday, routing Western Albemarle High School 63-42 before a crowd of 5,400 at the Siegel Center in Richmond.
VCU center developing master plan for historic Evergreen Cemetery
Richmond’s biggest university is taking a role in restoring the historic, but neglected Evergreen Cemetery. The Enrichmond Foundation, the new owner of the 127-year-old African-American cemetery, has hired the center for Urban and Regional Analysis in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs to create a master plan for the burial ground, which includes the graves of such notables as banker and businesswoman Maggie L. Walker and newspaper editor and banker John Mitchell Jr.
Confederate group calls for more rebel statues in Richmond
As the city of Richmond grapples with whether to remove the statues to Confederates from Monument Avenue, the Sons of Confederate Veterans is calling for more to be built — with signs putting them in context to be placed at the African Burial Ground in Shockoe Bottom.
General Assembly adjourns with special session planned on Medicaid expansion
The Virginia General Assembly’s 2018 session came to a close on Saturday but remained divided over the state budget and Medicaid expansion, forcing a special session to resolve its differences.
Proposed city budget includes $900,000 boost for GRTC
As construction is taking place on Richmond’s new bus rapid-transit system, City Hall is proposing to boost the GRTC subsidy to cover operating losses after July 1.
Walkout
City students join Wednesday’s national demonstration for tougher gun laws on one-month anniversary of Florida high school massacre
Hundreds of Richmond area students joined their peers across the country and walked out of classrooms at 10 a.m. Wednesday to demand stricter gun laws in a national show of unity and solidarity one month after the bloody massacre that killed 17 students and staff at a Florida high school.
ACLU urges no penalty for students in March 14 walkout
Students from Richmond, Va., to Richmond, Calif., are poised to take part in a 17-minute walkout from schools at 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 14.
City vehicle registration fee headed to Attorney General
Richmond’s $33 annual vehicle registration fee for cars and $38 fee for trucks are the maximum allowed by law, according to City Attorney Allen L. Jackson.
City tax relief applications due April 2
Applications are due Monday, April 2, for the city’s Tax Relief for the Elderly and Disabled Program. Qualifying elderly and disabled Richmond residents can have their annual real estate tax bill reduced, depending on their household income.
Stoney fills 3 posts at City Hall
Richmond Mayor Levar M. Stoney has filled three key posts at City Hall.
Hundreds urge support for Medicaid expansion in Va.
Under the shadow of the Bell Tower on Capitol Square, hundreds of people from across Virginia rallied on a rainy day last week in support of a state budget that would expand Medicaid to about 400,000 low-income residents.
Leadership on school modernization ‘requires hard decisions’
Re “Put Schools First offers $650M plan to modernize city schools,” Free Press March 1-3 edition: The Paul Goldman plan to modernize our schools rightfully recognizes that we spend a disproportionate share of the taxpayers’ dollars on big salaries for bureaucrats at the expense of fixing problems like crumbling schools.
Vote on Medicaid expansion will tell if black lives matter
The decision to expand Medicaid in Virginia should be a no-brainer: Accept federal dollars already allocated to the state and give affordable health care coverage to nearly 400,000 uninsured Virginians.
‘Scared Negro Disease’ remains
As another Black History Month has passed, I revisited the relevant speech given by former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson in 2002 while speaking in Portland, Ore., titled, “The Scared Negro Disease.” Mayor Jackson’s diagnosis is seemingly cancerous in black politicians in the Commonwealth of Virginia, particularly as it relates to the removal of Confederate statues.
Black immigrants’ lives matter, too
We are long overdue for a discussion about immigration as it relates to black immigrants, particularly at this moment as the current presidential administration clamors to end legal protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA recipients. Congressional leaders lurch from one proposed bipartisan solution to another in search of a permanent legislative fix.
Street sign
This week, we honor the late Raymond H. Boone Sr. from whose vision and purpose the Richmond Free Press was born.
Get out! … Jordan Peele makes history with Academy Award
Film writer and director Jordan Peele made history Sunday night when he took home the Academy Award for best original screenplay for his thought-provoking movie on race in America, “Get Out.”
John Marshall heads to Saturday’s state final
John Marshall High School has proven it’s tops in the Richmond area. Now the Justices are out to show they are No. 1 in Virginia.
Huguenot’s Deshawn Ridley snags regional Player of the Year
Deshawn Ridley’s trek to basketball stardom hasn’t always been the smoothest of rides. Twice, he was cut from his school teams — first as a seventh-grader at Elkhardt Middle School, and again as a Huguenot High School freshman.
