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J uly 8, 2015
P ortland
and
s eattle
V olume XXXVII, n o . 40
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C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow
Garden
to Honor
Lives
25
SUPPORT RALLY
Community member
grows food, flowers
for healing
Donovan M. Smith
Of The Skanner News
See GARDEN on page 3
INDEX
News .............1,3,6,9-10
Opinion .......................2
Calendars ................4,5
A & E ........................7,8
Bids/Classifieds ..........11
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
A
local gardener is commemorating
lives lost and cultivating healing in
Portsmouth Community Garden.
Galadriel Mozee is transforming her plot
at the Portsmouth Community Garden in
North Portland into a memorial for Black
people lost to police violence, terrorism, and
white supremacy after running a successful
crowdfunding effort.
Mozee says she set up the campaign in the
days following the massacre of nine people
at the historically Black Emanuel African
Methodist Episcopal Church in South Car-
olina last month.
“I was feeling really overwhelmed and
just saddened by all the loss of life. Espe-
cially after the killings in the church, I was
trying to think of a way that I could give back
to my community in a way that’s meaningful
for me,” she says.
Shortly after Dylann Roof’s attack at the
historic church more than 2,500 miles away,
Mozee set up a GoFundMe account for the
memorial and within 24 hours, the project
had been fully funded.
“I set it up and I knew that my friends
would donate and then a friend texted me,
‘Have you looked at your GoFundMe?’ and
I said no,” Mozee recalls. “I came back and
looked and I couldn’t believe that in just a
few hours it had already exceeded the goal.”
The $350 that Mozee asked for will pur-
chase an abundance of plants: strawberries,
sunflowers, lavender, coneflower, yarrow,
bleeding heart, sage, borage, motherwort,
red clover, oregano and thyme -- in addition
in to other native herbs and flowers.
Mozee will also place rocks around the
garden bed, each bearing the names of Black
people whose lives have each been cut short
due in systemic racist violence.
Most of what Mozee is choosing for the
garden, she says she chose with a mindful-
ness of their healing qualities.
With the money raised, Mozee says she
Hundreds of people, including many members of the clergy, showed up at First AME Church in Seattle on Tuesday,
July 7, to call for an end to violence and show their support for the people of Charleston, S.C. Following a short rally
at the church, people marched in solidarity with the Charleston 9 to Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Park. Marcelas
Owens, shown here, who was 11 when he had his picture taken next to President Obama as he signed the Afford-
able Care Act into law, was one of the speakers at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park. The event was organized
by the Seattle King County NAACP and Washington Christian Leadership Coalition.
Summerworks Program Kicks Off
Program aims to address youth unemployment with paid internships
By Arashi Young
Of The Skanner News
A
bout 750 local young
people will gain work
experience,
financial
literacy and a professional net-
work this year through Summer-
works, a paid internships pro-
gram that kicked off Monday.
This workforce development
initiative combats youth unem-
ployment. According to Sum-
merworks, there are more than
34,000 young people in the
area who are not working or in
school.
These numbers are getting
worse with time, as youth em-
ployment rates have dropped
from 44.4 percent to 26 percent.
Summerworks estimates that
only 12 percent of low-income
youth and youth of color are em-
ployed.
According to the youth em-
ployment non-profit Urban Al-
liance, early work experiences
mean youth are less likely to
drop out, have higher grades and
lead to greater lifetime earnings.
These experiences can keep
youth from becoming discon-
nected from work and school.
In contrast, disconnected
youth have a harder time getting
a job and are more likely to be
incarcerated. A Queens College
research study on at-risk youth
determined that every 20-year-
old that was disconnected with
school and work cost the econ-
omy $704,020 over his or her
lifetime. The losses are from
lower wages, less tax revenue
and higher government spend-
ing.
Summerworks
Director
Heather Ficht says there are
fewer opportunities for youth
employment which makes it
harder for kids to find jobs.
“It’s a national crisis, the
lack of youth work opportuni-
ties. When was the last time a
kid bagged your groceries at
the grocery store?” Ficht says.
“There just aren’t really kid jobs
when there are 60,000 adult job
seekers out there to compete
with who have relevant work
experience.”
Summerworks pays each in-
ternship minimum wage for 180
See SUMMER-
WORKS on page 3
Who’s Burning Black Churches?
Arsonists hit at least five Southern congregations in recent weeks
By Bethania Palma Markus
Special to the NNPA
from The Westside Gazette
t least five Black churches burned
overnight recently and three fires
have been attributed to arson.
The June 17 shooting at Charleston’s
Emanuel AME was perhaps the deadliest at-
tack on a Black church since the 1963 church
A
bombing by the Klan in Birmingham, Ala.
that killed four children. Since then, another
specter from America’s violent racist histo-
ry is again rearing its head – setting Black
churches ablaze.
At least three have been intentionally set
on fire in recent days, according to a survey
of news reports compiled by the Daily Kos.
On June 22, someone set fire to College
Hills Seventh Day Adventist Church in Ten-
nessee, according to local WATE. The ar-
sonist placed bales of hay outside the church
doors and lit them ablaze, fire officials told
the station. They also burned the church van.
On June 23, God’s Power Church of
Christ in Georgia was intentionally set on
fire, authorities told ABC News. Electronics
and other equipment were also stolen in the
early morning fire. Authorities told report-
See CHURCHES on page 3