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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 2024)
Page 2 The Skanner Portland & Seattle February 21, 2024 Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Setting the Record Straight on an Important Piece of Black History Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor Jerry Foster Advertising Manager W Patricia Irvin Product Manager Graphic Designer Saundra Sorenson Reporter Mary Reischmann Digital Content Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer The Skanner Newspaper, established in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publications 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. ©2024 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 Updated daily online. ebo m me • nts TheSkannerNews o k • learn • co in y o u r c o m m u n n F ac it Hear about it first. Sign up for Breaking News and Events at d ay ! • L i ke u s o ith the start of Black History Month, I brace myself for the mis-telling of Black History yet again. In schoolhouses and every- where the stories are told, a persistent myth shows its ugly head: the ridiculous no- tion that great Black leaders are not just exceptional but exceptions. It is an idea rooted in the ahistorical and unnatural misperception that the most notable Black Americans were superhumans that sprung forth from collective misery. It discounts the many, many Black leaders who were – and are – the children and grandchildren of courageous leaders in their own right. Paul Robeson was a phe- nomenal actor, orator, singer, athlete, and activist. The fam- ily that produced him might be even more impressive. His father escaped enslavement to earn two college degrees and become a prominent min- ister. His mother was part of the Bustill family, who were famous abolitionists and in- cluded Grace Bustill Doug- lass, the crusading abolition- ist and feminist. Kamala Harris’s path to the vice presidency began as a transformative district attor- ney. She refused to pursue the death penalty, and shifted her department’s punitive focus away from sex workers and squarely onto sex buyers and traffickers. She both provid- ed a model for the movement to elect more Black and pro- gressive district attorneys and spawned the national training institute for female candidates known as Emerge America. Vice President Ben Jealous Guest Columnist Harris would readily admit there is no explaining her un- common courage without ac- counting for her civil rights activist parents and her ed- ucation at the very universi- ty that produced Thurgood Marshall. Martin Luther King is per- haps Black America’s best- known leader. His grandfa- ther was himself a crusading Black Baptist preacher and the first president of the At- lanta branch of the NAACP. Whitney Houston became an iconic star of radio and the silver screen. Her first cousin was Dionne Warwick. Through Warwick, Houston had close, life-shaping rela- tionships with other celebrat- ed female singers and actors like her “honorary aunt” Are- tha Franklin, godmother Dar- lene Love, and close friend Cicely Tyson. Malcolm X is America’s most famous Black national- ist. Before him, his father Earl Little was a Black nationalist Baptist preacher who orga- nized for Marcus Garvey. Harassment by the Ku Klux Klan forced the Littles to re- locate from Omaha, Nebraska to Lansing, Michigan, where Earl was murdered by a Klan- like white supremacist group. Stacey Abrams rose to be- come the first woman leader of a party in Georgia’s legis- lature and the most impact- ful voting rights activist of the 21st century. Her parents were courageous civil rights activists and her father was among the youngest leaders of the Hattiesburg boycott in Mississippi. Middle Tennessee claims a famous political father-son pair in former Congressman and Senator Albert Gore, Sr. and former Senator and Vice President Al Gore. But west- ern Tennessee saw its own confrontational and crusad- “ It discounts the many, many Black leaders who were – and are – the children and grandchil- dren of coura- geous leaders ing former Congressman Harold Ford, Sr. followed by the diplomatic, incisive, and consensus-building former Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. From the time he started preaching at the age of four, Reverend Al Sharpton’s ear- ly years were shaped by the mentorship of Black leaders like Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., James Brown, and the incom- parable Jesse Jackson. But it was his mother Ada Sharp- ton’s work that inspired her son’s founding of the National Action Network. Mrs. Sharp- ton rose from poverty to pow- er as a prominent civil rights activist in New York City’s out- er boroughs and became pres- ident of Mothers in Action. Fifteen years ago, I was named the youngest nation- al president in the history of the NAACP. My grandmother Mamie Bland Todd trained fu- ture US Senator Barbara Mi- kulski as a social worker early in her career. In researching my latest book, I followed my own ancestry back to my grandmother’s grandfather. In the late 1800s, Edward Da- vid Bland led Black Repub- licans into coalition with former white Confederate soldiers to form a third par- ty that took over the Virginia state government. Known as the Readjusters, the biparti- san political movement won all statewide elected offices and controlled the Common- wealth of Virginia from 1881- 85. In that time, they abolished the poll tax and the whipping post; radically expanded Vir- ginia Tech and created Vir- ginia State University; and re- adjusted the terms of the Civil War debt to save the free pub- lic schools and take the state from a financial deficit into a surplus. Parentage and family con- nection are not and never should be a prerequisite for leadership in our country. But we can still recognize that one of the greatest traditions in Black leadership is Black lead- ers who raise Black leaders. Some of those leaders in- spire with their art; others with their activism; many with both. The historical arc they help form – which some- times wavers but ultimate- ly bends towards justice – would not be possible without that tradition. So, if it occurs to you that you do not know enough about how your ancestors might have led, get curious and do some research. You might just find an interesting and inspiring piece of family history. February is American Heart Month LOCAL NEWS BRIEFS LOCAL EVENTS to y • Opinion M y name is Priya Hel- weg, and I am the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services deputy regional director for Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Wash- ington and 272 federally rec- ognized tribes. February is American Heart Month, a time to recognize that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, especially in the African American community. Af- rican Americans are 30% more likely to die from heart disease than non-Hispanic whites. However, African Americans can successfully prevent and beat these diseas- es by understanding the risks and taking steps to address them. Being physically active, eating healthy, not smoking and finding healthy ways to deal with stress are all ways we can improve our heart health now and in the future. Priya Helweg US Dept of Health & Human Services For me, that means hiking in the mountains or walking my dogs around Green Lake in Seattle. As the deputy regional di- rector for HHS, I know many Oregonians rely on life-sav- ing medicines to keep their hearts healthy and improve their quality of life. For pa- tients with cardiovascular disease, prescription drugs can be expensive. Many pa- tients with heart disease may also have other chronic con- ditions that come with high costs, such as diabetes. As HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra often says, medica- tion is only effective if you can afford it. Under a new law, the In- flation Reduction Act, the Medicare program, can, for the first time, negotiate a fair price for certain prescription drugs taken by millions of “ Medication is only effec- tive if you can afford it beneficiaries. This year the secretary selected the first 10 high-cost medicines for negotiation, including 5 that treat cardiovascular disease or prevent complications that impact the heart. Drugs se- lected for negotiation include Xarelto and Eliquis, drugs taken to prevent blood clots that can lead to a heart attack or stroke, which together are taken by more than 60,000 Or- egonians with Medicare. Oregonians don’t have to wait for the drug price ne- gotiations to see lower costs, they can get relief right now thanks to additional benefits in the law that lower pre- scription drug costs for Medi- care Part D beneficiaries, including a policy that caps out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Medicare Part D beneficiaries. Learn about these new benefits at lower- drugcosts.gov. So, if you can, make time for that hike, play with your dog a little longer, or eat those ex- tra vegetables. And for those of you who pair those healthy habits with medication, learn how the Inflation Reduction Act makes prescription drugs less expensive and more ac- cessible. During American Heart Month, add an extra step towards a healthy heart. nt • lo c a l n e w s • eve
