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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 12, 2011)
WWW . thESKANNEr . COm O CtOBEr 12, 2011 S EAttlE , W AShiNgtON V OlumE XXXiii, N O . 50 25 CENtS i NSiDe Black and Broke page 4 NCAA Ethics page 5 Kam Williams C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow page 6 gala honors lowery Occupy The hOOd His ‘Crazy’ Life Took Him From Civil Rights Icon to SCLC By George e. curry TheDefendersonline.com R phoTo By SuSaN FrieD Occupy Seattle protesters joined the national protest against wealth inequality that started in New York with Occupy Wall Street. Seattle City Council Wednsday said police will enforce the no camping rule in Westlake Park where the protesters have been camping gospel Choir goes Carnegie hall Seattle Gospel Choir Goes to Carnegie Hall I n February of next year, The Sound of the Northwest gospel choir of Seattle trav- els to Carnegie Hall in New York City for the biggest per- formance in their long history. To help pay the cost they’re holding their first major fundraiser, Sunday, Oct. 16 at 4 p.m. at the Seattle First Baptist Church, 1111 Harvard Ave. Special guest is poet Dr. Gloria Burgess. The Skanner News spoke with Juan Huey-Ray, The Sound’s director and founder, about the choir’s upcoming con- cert, their vision and long-range plans. The Skanner News: What does it mean for your group that you’re having this opportunity? Juan huey-ray: Oh wow. We were shocked. What a way to start out your 25th anniver- sary year. So it means the world to us in that it puts us at another level. We’ve been a community chorus for 24 years now; we will continue to be. But we will be doing more with respect to music in terms of helping peo- iNDeX News .....................2,3,6 Calendar ....................2 Opinion ....................4,5 Bids/Classifieds............7 ple to understand and connect with it. As we have been a per- forming group in the past, we will now expand our teaching. Because we believe the spiritual has to endure whatever they’re confronted with in life. That’s demonstrated because of enslaved Africans who – we’re here because they were able to endure. The music that poured out of their souls can be refresh- ing and reviving for people today. TSN: So then will there be a recording made of the show? huey-ray: There will be a recording in fact, in January. It will be available in February when we get back. It would not be recorded in Carnegie Hall, they will not allow that. TSN: Talk a little about your vision of which musical selec- tions you’ll be performing. huey-ray: Good question. We have 25 minutes onstage by ourselves so we’ve selected seven numbers and they kind of See choir on page 3 ev. Joseph Lowery is a civil rights icon. He participated in all of the epic civil rights battles of his day, includ- ing the Montgomery, Ala. bus boycott, the violent showdown with “Bull” Connor in Birmingham, the Selma-to-Montgomery March and the famous 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Justice. He was a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and others. Lowery presided over the Atlanta-based SCLC from 1977-1997, a tenure as long as the combined time of his two predecessors, Dr. King and Abernathy, and longer than the combined service of all five presidents who succeeded him. On Sunday, a star-studded gala was held at the Atlanta Symphony Hall to celebrate Lowery’s 90th birthday, which was Thursday, October 6. Fellow civil rights icons C.T. Vivian, Stevie Wonder, Jennifer Holiday, the Blind Boys of Alabama and others participated in the celebation. Joseph Echols Lowery, who was born October 6, 1921 in Huntsville, Ala., always jokes that one has to be a little crazy to prac- tice nonviolence in the face of violence and brutality – but it’s what Lowery calls “good crazy.” President Obama discussed the concept last month in his dinner speech before the Congressional Black Caucus. “A few years back, Dr. Lowery and I were together at Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma,” Obama recounted. “… And Dr. Lowery stood up in the pulpit and told the congregation the story of Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego in the fiery fur- nace. You know the story – it’s about three young men bold enough to stand up for God, even if it meant being thrown in a fur- See Lowery on page 3 Cornel West Wants You to ‘Occupy the hood’ Protests against wealth inequality spread from New York to all cities N ew Yorker Malik Rahsaan was dis- mayed that few Blacks and Latinos were represented at the Occupy Wall Street Protests. That led him to create a movement aimed at including people of color: Occupy the Hood. The protests aim to highlight the growth of wealth and income inequality in the United States. They started in New York with the Occupy Wall Street movement and have now spread to at least 70 cities in the Unites States and others across the world. Dr. Cornel West told Malik he supports the protesters. “The hood ought to be the first communi- ty to be here because we have been suffer- ing than any other community with the exception of our indigenous brothers and sisters on reservations,” West said. “ In terms of education, housing, not enough jobs with a living wage, and the refusal of people to really come to terms with the suf- fering of the children. We have 42 percent of Black children 42 percent of Brown chil- dren and 42 percent of Red children living in poverty. The richest nation in the history of the world: That’s a moral disgrace.” Also on board the Occupy the Hood move- See occupy on page 6
