The return of Isis
@stlouisamerican
@stlouisamerican
The popular radio personality is back on the air at 95.5 FM
See page C1
St. LouiS AmericAn The
91 years of serving and empowering the St. Louis community
CAC Audited AUGUST 1 – 7, 2019
Vol. 91 No. 19 COMPLIMENTARY
stlamerican.com
Circuit attorney files motion to free innocent African-American man Gardner’s team alleges former prosecutors and police fabricated evidence to get conviction By Rebecca Rivas Of The St. Louis American Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s prosecutors have asked a circuit court judge to set aside the 1994 murder conviction of an African-American man, in a case in which Gardner’s team alleges that former prosecutors and police fabricated evidence to get the conviction of an innocent man. Twenty-four years ago, Lamar Johnson was convicted of murdering Marcus Boyd on Oct. 30, 1994, though evidence shows that Johnson was at a friend’s house and would not have been able to commit the crime. On July 19, prosecutors filed a 67-page motion
Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s new conviction-integrity unit has filed a motion to set aside a 1995 murder conviction, and it’s the first time a prosecutor has tried to overturn a wrongful conviction in the City of St. Louis or St. Louis County, according to the Midwest Innocence Project.
n “Everyone is in agreement that he’s innocent. Why should he sit in prison for one second longer?” – Tricia Bushnell, executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project
that attempts to prove Johnson’s innocence and grant him a new trial. It also provides evidence that the homicide detective allegedly made up witness
See GARDNER, A7
Photo by Wiley Price
Homegrown BLAck men
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Black struggle, white privilege and the need for mentorship
What Ferguson brought us, what it took away It briefly attracted new talent here, and enticed the newly woke to leave
By Andre Walker For The St. Louis American As a black man, I felt significant pressure to succeed from my culture but lacked the support, tools and resources needed to help guide me on the road to achievement I so desperately wanted to reach. Soon after graduating from McCluer North High School, I was accepted into Arkansas State University, a Division 1 school. I believed the cross-country track scholarship and academic scholarship I received would pave the way toward achieving my dreams. It wasn’t quite that easy. Though Arkansas State University treated me well, the lack of diversity at the school played a large role in developing a key awareness that black men have a place Andre Walker in society. I couldn’t afford a private high school education like my white teammates and classmates or pay for my own college tuition. If I had the same opportunity of resources, perhaps I could have adequately prepared myself for success in higher education. Sadly, the consequences of my reality did not go unnoticed. I struggled with keeping my grades up and, as assignments grew harder, my grades eroded to almost nothing. I attempted to reach out to a few friends for advice, only to find out that my predominantly white peers were either excelling with little to no effort or paying someone else to do their assignments for them. This information
See BLACK MEN, A6
By Chris King Of The St. Louis American
Photo by Wiley Price
Staying cool in the Ville Kaleena Jefferson keeps cool with a snow cone during Saturday’s CareSTL Health’s Back to School health fair held Saturday, July 27 in the Ville neighborhood of St. Louis.
In remembering the Ferguson unrest five years later, St. Louis and the rest of the nation and world should reflect on what it was and could be like in Ferguson during the daylight in the first few months of the protests. A lot of people had woken up in a way they had never been awakened before and were crackling with a new energy on the streets. These newly woke people were mostly young, mostly black and mostly local, but the original core was not only black and not only young, and international media Leyla King coverage quickly attracted displays her many people who were not artwork local. If you weren’t there to see and feel it for yourself, you would not know and might not believe it, but for a time there was a feeling of a new society being created in Ferguson, in St. Louis County, in the St. Louis region, and it was doing something that the region’s economic elite admits it has failed to do: connect talented people to this place and attract talent here from elsewhere. My daughter was 11 when Michael Brown was killed at 18, and I took her to the protest zone
See FERGUSON, A6