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
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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