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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 29, 2014)
Local News Assault Honored at St. Andrew continued from page 1 her life and we just need to find the person who did this, so he can be brought to jus- tice,” Guinn said. As Krystal’s father, a local real estate agent with deep roots in North and North- east Portland, describes what happened to her at Black Book that night, his voice “They were all filtering out of the club, he’s grabbing on her butt, trying to keep it going. She turned around, had enough of that, pushed him off of her – get-the-you- know-what away from me. I guess a drink spilled on him, something happened, and he punches her in the eye.” Krystal’s family took her to the hospital, where she received stitches to her badly swollen eye. “He detached her retina, shat- tered her contact lens that she wears because when she was a baby she was born with congenital cataracts,” Guinn says. “He dis- lodged one of the cataracts in her eye as well, so this is turning into a situation where she may or may not gain full sight in that eye again, even though she already needed a lens there just to see.” Guinn says Krystal remains father home. “She really can’t do anything on her own right now, she’s mentally scarred, fragile right now,” he said. Guinn says Krystal’s doctor gives her about a 20 percent chance to regain full sight in her eye. “With her contacts she was 20/20, they said the best she could probably get is 20/200, which is no quality of sight in that eye. — Chris Guinn III, Krystal’s shakes with emotion. “There was this guy in there who was harassing her, sexually at first, putting his hands on her and grabbing her trying to get her to dance. She wasn’t responding to him in that fashion and told him to go away. He kept on; basically she got tired of it. PHOTO COURTESY ST ANDREW’S CHURCH She’s afraid, she can’t work, she had to quit school, she couldn’t start her last term in college because this happened right before she was about to go back – which caused her to lose her health insurance as well St Andrew’s Church last week honored beloved parishioner Edna Hicks with its Martin Luther King Jr. Award. A retired teacher, Hicks co-founded the African American Catholic Community-sponsored vacation Bible college 30 years ago at Immaculate Heart Parish, helping hundreds of local youth remain focused during the summer break. She is also an original member of St. Andrew’s Gospel Choir, which started in the 1980s. Together with her husband, Oscar, who passed away in 2011 after more than 50 years of marriage, Hicks joined St. Andrew’s in 1972. Pimps continued from page 1 arrested but are accused of sex trafficking a minor, as well as transporting the minor for prostitution. The DOJ says it is not naming them until they are in custody. “Until now, successful pimps reaped all the rewards with none of the risk, while the girls and young women they manipulated faced a life of violence and abuse,” said Sex trafficking is much more than just a law enforcement problem. This is an issue that our shared community must both acknowledge and address — Kevin Rickett, FBI Kevin Rickett, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Oregon. “Operations such as this one show the FBI can make a difference, but sex trafficking is much more than just a law enforcement problem. This is an issue that our shared community must both acknowledge and address.” Ture continued from page 1 Mississippi and Alabama. In 1966 he was elected SNCC’s national chairperson and soon afterward he became internationally known for his articulation of “Black Power.” The Skanner News spoke with Umi last week on the life and legacy of Ture (1941- 1998) and why the respected Civil Rights figure’s work resonates today. TSN: I bet a lot of young people today have never heard of Kwame Ture. What made you decide to celebrate him? Umi: The important thing about Kwame’s life is that he was always dedicated to organized struggle. He understood, and he constantly preached the message, that change comes about through mass partici- pation. So if a law is passed that represents forward progress – if something gets done — there’s always a movement behind that. Kwame was in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, when he left that one he was in the Black Panther Party, when he left that — when he moved to Africa — he was a member for the rest of his life of the All African Peoples’ Revolutionary Party, so he constantly promoted that. The other thing that’s important about Kwame’s life is he was totally committed to integrity and principal. Here’s a man who was internationally renowned for his partic- ipation in the Civil Rights Movement. He could have become a mayor of any big city, he could have become a chancellor of any large university like the political contempo- raries that he had at the time – people like John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, etc – but instead he chose to move to Guinea, which is one of the poorest countries in the world, no elec- tricity, no running water. He chose to live the last 30 years of his life dedicated to the revolutionary principals in organizing work that he was committed to. the United States, he went to Temple Uni- versity in Philadelphia. Nkrumah, who was a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, returned to Ghana and led the independence movement there and became president of that country. Nkrumah talked all the time about how we have differences wherever we’re born, but our similarities outweigh our differences. Kwame ... was always dedicated to organized struggle. He understood, and he constantly preached the message, that change comes about through mass participation. So if a law is passed that represents forward progress – if something gets done — there’s always a movement behind that. TSN: There’s another piece that comes into play, and that is the African and African American divide. Can you talk about that? Umi: I think that’s at the core of what Kwame’s life represents – that African peo- ple are the same no matter where we are in the world. He often quoted Kwame Nkrumah, who he took part of his name from. Nkrumah was a great Pan-Africanist who was the first president of Ghana, actu- ally, and Nkrumah went to school here in The reason that makes sense is because, if you look at it, the reality of why African people are scattered all over the world – there are political reasons for that. It’s not as if we were all in the same place and decid- ed individually that we wanted to live here and we wanted to live there. It’s colonialism and slavery that for the most part are responsible for the fact that we live today in 113 countries around the world. And it’s also a major reason why we have such distrust among each other, because of the colonial system that trained us to be dis- trustful of each other and to have a lack of appreciation for who we are, where we’re from and what we’ve contributed to the world. Even understanding that we’ve con- tributed anything. So this is the message in the work that Kwame was involved in, eradicating those negatives and bringing out the positive that no matter where we are we are still part of the same nation and our future is tied to one another. TSN: For people who are motivated by these issues, is there a group or an effort that they can plug into to participate and learn more? Umi: Yes absolutely. Like I said earlier, Kwame was a member of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party, an organiza- tion that I belong to that I am initiating a chapter here in Oregon. It’s a pan-African, independent, revolutionary political party that’s based in Africa, our base is in Guinea Bissau. We are an organization that has chapters all over the world, we’re working for this pan Africanism that I’m talking about. We also work and support other peo- ples’ struggles, that are not of African descent who are also struggling for justice. So it’s something that everybody needs to get involved in. People can learn more about us, they can contact us at aaprpore- gon@gmal.com. January 29, 2014 The Portland Skanner Page 3
