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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 2017)
Page 2 The Skanner BLACK HISTORY EDITION February 22, 2017 Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Christen McCurdy News Editor Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Melanie Sevcenko Reporter Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2016 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2017 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Local News Pacific NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar RSS feeds BE A PART OF THE CONVERSATION @TheSkannerNews Opinion Reynold’s Coretta Scott King Memoir Is a Must-Read J ournalist Rev. Dr. Barba- ra Reynolds offers us the opportunity to remem- ber history in the Coretta Scott King memoir, “My Life, My Love, My Legacy.” Reyn- olds took copious notes and made extensive recordings in the decades that she worked and travelled with Coret- ta Scott King, and she has turned them into a memoir. Completed in 2007, it has tak- en a decade for the book to be published, largely because of complications with the King estate. But Reynolds chooses not to talk about the complica- tions, instead choosing to talk about the many ways her life was enriched and enhanced by her association with Mrs. King. She also chooses to il- luminate the leadership roles that Mrs. King embraced, both while her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was living, and after his death. The book is a great and inspi- rational read, especially now, when so many have despaired at the irrational-seeming leadership of Donald Trump. It is a reminder that it took 15 years of persistence to estab- lish the King holiday that we now all take for granted. It is easy to forget that Julianne Malveaux NNPA Columnist Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.) introduced the King holiday legislation in 1968, just days after Dr. King’s assassination. He introduced it again and again, year after year. According to Coretta Scott King, the bill was reject- ed more than 70 times. But she, and Conyers, persisted “ holiday, but through a rules change, a two-thirds vote was needed to establish a holiday instead of a simple majority. In 1979, the bill lost by a mere five votes. Agitation continued after this loss. A petition drive yielded six million signa- tures. Stevie Wonder released his “Happy Birthday” song that advocated for a King hol- iday. Senator Jesse Helms op- posed the holiday, introduc- ing a 300-page document that detailed King’s “Communist activities.” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was so out- raged by the document that he threw it to the ground, describing it as a “pack- et of filth.” On Oct. 19, 1983, the Senate passed King holiday legislation 78-22, fol- lowing a House vote of 338-90. President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law on Nov. 3, 1983, establishing the King holiday on the third Monday of January, beginning in 1986. Some states dragged their feet. Arizona did not acknowl- edge the holiday until a Super Bowl boycott in 1992. South Carolina waited until 2000 to Reynold’s memoir shows Coretta Scott King as a leader in her own right in their efforts to create a na- tional holiday. Coretta Scott King met with the reformed segregationist Sen. Robert Byrd. She says she would have been “anxious” to meet with a man who filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, but was assured that his views had changed. Indeed, Byrd supported the effort to establish the King acknowledge it. We often see Coretta Scott King as a stoic, dignified lady, and a graceful partner to civil rights leader Dr. Martin Lu- ther King. This memoir shows her from another perspective, as a leader in her own right, as a dedicated pacifist, as a per- sistent adherent to principles of nonviolence, as a gritty fighter for her husband’s leg- acy through the holiday and the establishment of the King Center. We also see her as a moth- er, and can read her assess- ment of her children, their strengths and their challeng- es. While I had the privilege to be in Mrs. King’s compa- ny on many occasions, and to speak with her personally and at length more than once, this book adds a depth to my knowledge of her and makes me wish I’d had the opportuni- ty to know the side of her that laughed with Betty Shabazz and Myrlie Evers (I laughed with both of those women, but never Coretta), enjoyed opera and let her hair down. Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com Freedom’s Journal to the NNPA, Black Press Is Still Relevant N o one is better equipped to tell your story better than you. And logic stands to reason that no one is better equipped and more passion- ate about telling our story than us. The stories of Blacks in America are equally as triumphant as they are trag- ic. And many, if not most, of these stories would be lost to time, if not for the Black Press. And in an age where Black people are both pro- gressing exponentially and under attack daily, the need for the Black Press has nev- er been more apparent. And in a day where all media is under assault from the high- est level, we must exalt the nations more than 200 Black newspapers, as they continue to serve as the defenders and the vanguard progress, enter- prise and liberty. Since the days of Freedom’s Journal — the first Black newspaper, published in 1827 during the height if slavery — to today, the Black Press has been a voice reason, compas- sion and defiance. Harry Colbert, Jr. NNPA Columnist Margot Lee Shetterly, au- thor of “Hidden Figures,” said if not for the archives of the Black Press such as the “Nor- folk Journal and Guide” and the “Pittsburgh Courier” the inspiring story of the Black women geniuses at NASA would not have been possible to tell. If not for the “Florida “ ticed. In Baton Rouge, it may have been a citizen’s lens that captured the senseless killing of Alton Sterling at the hands of police, but it is “The Drum” that keeps Sterling’s memory alive and is shining the white- hot spotlight on those respon- sible for his homicide. When factions of the so-called “alt- right” — a movement of rac- ism and intolerance — try to co-opt and corrupt the words (while ignoring the actions) of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it was the Rev. Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., presi- dent and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Asso- If not for the archives of the Black Press...the inspiring story of the Black women geniuses at NASA would not have been possible to tell Sun” in Orlando, the story of the great training in science and technology happening at Bethune-Cookman Universi- ty — one of the nation’s his- torically Black universities — would go untold and unno- ciation (NNPA), who provided a comprehensive and accu- rate remembrance of the re- vered freedom fighter. Weeks after the inaugura- tion of a president that most in mass media are still trying to wrestle with and dissect, trying to figure out how all the major polls got it wrong, it was the Black Press that ran article after article talking about voter suppression efforts happening in key battleground states in the aftermath of the United States Supreme Court decision in the Shelby v. Holder case that gutted the Voting Right Act of 1965. Possibly, had the warn- ings of the Black Press been heeded, maybe, just maybe, the nation and the world would not be in the predica- ment it now finds itself. The NNPA wrapped up its mid-winter training con- ference in Ft. Lauderdale a few weeks ago. The NNPA is a trade association of the more than 200 African Amer- ican-owned community newspapers from around the United States. Since its found- ing 75 years ago, NNPA has “consistently been the voice of the Black community and an incubator for news that makes history and impacts our country.” As journalists, our mission is to shine a light in the dark- est of corners. That mission was reaffirmed at the NNPA’s 2017 Mid-Winter Conference with a level of commitment and intensity never before seen. “Freedom’s Journal” ran the first leg of the relay. The NNPA and the Black Press have gladly accepted the ba- ton and we are more than capable of running the race. In running that race, what we ask of you, the reader, in this age of digital media and the sharing at the click of a button; that you seek out and share the valuable informa- tion of the Black Press with your networks as we must preserve and protect the Black Press.