We will always love you Whitney Houston mourned by Black America.
Pages A2, A13, C12
Vol. 83 No. 46
CAC Audited FEBRUARY 16 – 22, 2012
COMPLIMENTARY
stlamerican.com
Sinquefield calls public schools a KKK conspiracy
Homegoing for David Peaston Members of the Shalom Church (City of Peace) Mass Choir performed during a memorial service for gospel and R&B recording artist David Peaston at Shalom Church last Saturday.
Says statement was ‘ill-timed’ and ‘inappropriate,’ but not inaccurate By Rudi Keller Columbia Tribune Billionaire conservative activist Rex Sinquefield seemed to embrace an unusual theory of why the U.S. has public schools speaking last Thursday in St. Charles – he said the Ku Klux Klan is responsible and that it was part of the racist hate group’s program for
“Decades ago, the Ku Klux Klan got together and said how can we really hurt the AfricanAmerican children permanently? How can we ruin their lives? And what they designed was the public school system.” – Rex Sinquefield
See SCHOOLS, A7
TEACHING DIVA Kendall Gladen to headline Opera Theatre production By Kenya Vaughn Of The St. Louis American
Photo by Wiley Price
“I hope they see themselves in me,” opera star Kendall Gladen said of the current class of Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ Monsanto Artist-InTraining Program. “And I hope that they see it’s possible.” They should. The opera star walked in the students’ musical shoes a generation before them in the early years of the program back in the early 1990s. Gladen returned to her St. Louis roots last week and spoke with some of the current Artist-In-Training students as a part of an eight-day resi-
Stakeholders shut out of local control North Tech grads Photo by Michael DeFilippo
Kendall Gladen last week teaching public school students at Dunbar Elementary School.
Police association grilled by aldermen, community By Rebecca S. Rivas Of The St. Louis American Only three parties were involved in deciding how to write up the ballot initiative for local control – an initiative that would transfer control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department from the State of Missouri to the City of St. Louis – said Jeff Roorda of the St. Louis
Police Officers Association (POA) at the Feb. 14 Board of Alderman public safety committee meeting. Sitting at that cloistered table were Mayor Francis G. Slay’s office, the POA and A Safer Missouri, a group funded by Rex Sinquefield, the billionaire and conservative policy activist. The language they created will appear on the November 2012 ballot if the sig-
nature-gathering effort funded by Sinquefield succeeds. Roorda told St. Louis aldermen that the – Jeff Roorda, POA got almost everySt. Louis thing they Police were asking Officers for in the iniAssociation tiative for local control – an issue the association has adamantly
“We were surprised at often how we said ‘yes’ and how often the mayor’s office said ‘yes.’”
See CONTROL, A6
See GLADEN, A6
show impact of policy Educated in Hazelwood but not eligible to work on district projects By Rebecca S. Rivas Of The St. Louis American John W. Davis, a 2004 Hazelwood East High School graduate, has not been able to get a construction job within the same school district that taught
him his trade. Like 97 percent of his alma mater’s current population, Davis is AfricanAmerican. In his junior and senior years, he attended North Tech High School. It’s one of two technical schools operated by the Special School District of St. Louis County, and 22 of the county’s public school districts send their sophomores, juniors and seniors to the tech schools. See POLICY, A7