local news
Hive
encouraging
citizen
reporting.
Media members can
upload their local stories
to the www.SeaBeez.com
website, where readers can
access information about a
range of local communities around the Seattle
region.
Sea Beez was created in May of 2010 by director
Julie Pham, in cooperation with New America
Media, the largest nonprofit ethnic media partner-
ship organization in the United States. Pham is also
managing editor of the Northwest Vietnamese News
in Seattle.
“I work at a Vietnamese newspaper and we’re a
small business — we can’t serve our readers if we
don’t survive as small
businesses,” Pham says.
“There are organiza-
tions that aggregate
news and try to share
content, but what makes
Sea Beez different is
about capacity – training and workshops aimed at
letting ethnic media get better at their craft.”
It’s really to foster opportunities, so for those
who are truly committed to it they will succeed.
It’s not to create a welfare system, but to empow-
er people and raise the standards of our industry.
Also to gain more respect for what we do –
because with the whole 520 campaign
It’s really to foster
opportunities, so for those
who are truly committed
Bellevue
Mayor
Conrad Lee
addressed
ethnic
media at
the Sea
Beez Best
Business
Practices
Roundtable
PHotoS By Don PHam/nortHWeSt VietnameSe neWS
continued from page 1
Wilmington 10
continued from page 1
police while trying to call in a fire alarm.
And one older White man, after firing his
pistol near a barricade, was shot dead by
those defending the church and nearby
houses.
When Mike’s Grocery was firebombed,
firefighters responding were fired upon by
snipers. Fourteen months later, 10 people
who had been inside the Gregory Church
were charged and convicted with the fire-
bombing and conspiracy on the testimony
of a mentally disabled convict who recanted
upon cross-examination, another man serv-
ing a sentence for murder and a 13-year-old
who was housed in a detention facility. The
jury contained known members of the Ku
Klux Klan.
It was later revealed that other witnesses
had been intimidated by police into not tes-
tifying. Those that had testified for the pros-
ecution had been coached, given shorter
sentences for other, unrelated crimes, and
deceived by police into thinking threats had
been made against their family that were in
fact made by the police.
When Amnesty International investigated
Members of the Black Press
the case in 1977, they determined that the
Wilmington 10 “were not arrested for the
crimes for which they were charged, but
because of their political work.”
Chavis says now – 40 years later – is the
time for a full pardon. The racial and politi-
cal tension of that era has changed, allowing
for a pardon that then-North Carolina Gov.
Jim Hunt refused to grant at the time.
“I think that some of the polarization that
was very much in existence is no longer
present in the city of Wilmington or the
state of North Carolina,” Chavis said.
He said the exact plans to seek a pardon
are still being worked out. He anticipates
seeking a pardon from the North Carolina
governor’s office. If that fails, they would
likely petition the president.
As for the prosecutorial misconduct,
Chavis said he believes in
redemption
for
former
Prosecutor James ‘Jay’
Stroud.
“I think it’s an opportunity
for the prosecutor to seek
redemption where an injus-
tice was done,” he said.
He believes there is evi-
dence that Stroud was assisted by those in
the federal government at the time.
Chavis says that a pardon would also help
today’s young people discover what they
should be vocal about.
“I think it would have a benefit for com-
munities and young people to connect what
is happening today … don’t forget, this was
about young people standing up for racial
justice,” Chavis said.
In a turn of fate, Stroud is currently – as of
March 18 – incarcerated in the Gaston
County Jail in Gastonia, NC. He had been
working as an attorney in the small town,
but voluntarily gave up his license to prac-
tice law after a series of arrests that began in
2006 for assault with a deadly weapon, sim-
In a turn of fate, (Wilmington
10 prosecutor) Stroud is
currently incarcerated
ple assault, hit and run, domestic violence
and violating a domestic violence restrain-
ing order. The Gaston Gazette reported in
December 2010 that Stroud’s son blames
his father’s behavior on mental illness.
Visit http://triumphantwarriors.ning.com
for more information, photos and blogs by
and about the Wilmington 10.
Let’s Talk
continued from page 1
High School reunion, where he and Paige
were once classmates, and where Artharee
was known at that time by a different name
– Billy Hutchins.
“It was at that reunion that she was giving
out this card letting folks know about the
play she had done … I became very
intrigued when I learned her play had a
Christian-based theme to it, it was a come-
dy, it was funny and it was also a story of
inspiration that a person can have a dream
and achieve that dream,” he told The
Skanner News. “I also thought it paralleled
Liz’s personal story in some ways about
how she overcame certain challenges where
she was writing and produc-
ing her own plays.”
Although it has been over
30 years since Artharee
changed his name in an affir-
mation of his African cultural
roots, many in Compton,
Calif. still knew him as
Hutchins. So his turn on the
playbill gets both names cred-
ited, and lets his Portland friends in on his
long lost – although benign – secret.
He brought Paige up to Portland in
January to attend Highland Christian Center
and The Skanner News Martin Luther King
Jr. Breakfast to help gauge interest in the
play. Artharee says that Portland needs
more ethnic productions and could see more
if enough people turn out for support.
God’s Calling
“It was inspired by God,” Paige says. “I
started out years ago doing skits, 7-minute
and 10-minute skits. I was tired and wanted
to grow. And decided to do a one-woman
show.”
Sitting in church, she decided to ask for
help from the congregants for different
characters. With a background as a corpo-
rate trainer, being in front of an audience
was natural for her.
In November of 2009, she performed
what she thought was going to be a one-
time gig.
“And then people heard about it and said,
‘we missed it’ so we did it again and then
we moved it to the Inland Empire twice,”
she said.
‘You might see yourself and if
you see yourself, just look
straight ahead, don’t say
anything to anybody’
After that, the play was on a roll.
Paige says she created it to make com-
ments on the everyday things that go on in
the Black church, as well as the people’s
relationship with God, the “fakism” in the
church that needs to stop and how people
can always be delivered.
“You might see yourself,” she said. “and
if you see yourself, just look straight ahead,
don’t say anything to anybody. You might
see people you know, that’s like that in the
church and when you hit those people,
Paige herself had once
that’s why everybody is
been an exotic dancer.
like, ‘yeah, that’s a mem-
“People were confess-
ber in my church, that’s
ing to me that Sunday,”
my mother.’”
she said.
At heart, Paige is a
Laughing with God
people watcher. Whether
When Paige went to
she’s in the mall, the air-
make her play into a
port or a house of wor-
DVD, people in the stu-
ship, Paige is always
dios didn’t know what to
observing the characters
make of the genre. Not
around her.
only are there very few
“I sit in church and I
male gospel comedians,
make up their names,”
Artharee and Paige
Paige may be the only
she said.
woman in her line of
She says she’s con-
stantly making up new names and charac- work.
“I think a lot of things I couldn’t say over
ters to include in her shows.
Sister Sparkles, Deacon Delicious, the pulpit, but I could say over the stage.
Rejocekia are only the beginning. With lit- Now is the time for it … I do say it with
tle additional cost to add different charac- finesse and caring. I’m just saying what’s
ters to “Let’s Talk,” Paige is always chang- real. They agree with me. It’s not slander or
anything.”
ing the show.
Not that some jokes haven’t been contro-
“All I need is a sofa and chairs and we sit
versial. On the DVD, she does a joke about
and we dialogue,” she said.
In scene 4, it isn’t unheard of to grab a the White Church vs. the Black Church.
“Nothing’s wrong with either one, we just
guest or two from the audience.
The fiction in the play has gotten a little have different styles,” she said. “How they
close to reality for many audience members. acknowledge their wives, in the White
Although Oprah is actually ending her long- Church, they might say oh there’s my wife
time show this year, Paige is only taking Suzie over there, stand up Suzie, she waves,
she’s the mother of my three children. In the
over the time slot in fantasy land.
“This one lady thought it was real, she Black Church, ‘Get up you foxy woman!’
said, ‘Really?! Did you get it?’ No, no, this They say she’s the sugar in my cereal!”
is the play, stay with me here,” she said.
Artharee said that when the main charac-
Read the rest of this story online at
ter talks about being a redeemed pole
www.theskanner.com
dancer, many in the audience thought that
march 23, 2011 The Portland Skanner Page 3