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