Breakfast Club turns 20
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2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 Gold Cup Newspaper Missouri Press Association
St. LouiS AmericAn The
CAC Audited FEBRUARY 22 – 28, 2018
Vol. 89 No. 48 COMPLIMENTARY
stlamerican.com
Bishop Blake: We need a national call to action Bishop Charles E. Blake Sr., the presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ.
COGIC partners with AFSCME to mobilize voters By Bishop Charles E. Blake Sr. For The St. Louis American “The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around.” This may sound like a statement for our times, but it is one Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made in 1968 to a group of Memphis sanitation workers engaged
in the fight of their lives. In the heart of the Jim Crow South, these African-American workers endured degrading working conditions for poverty wages, until two of their brothers were crushed to death in the compactor of their malfunctioning garbage
Photo by Lawrence Bryant
The 2018 class of Young Leaders beamed after receiving their awards during the St. Louis American Foundation’s 8th Annual Salute to Young Leaders Networking Awards Reception Thursday night at The Four Seasons.
See BLAKE, A6
Costumed to sell cookies
‘It takes a village to raise a success’
Dylan Nolan, 5, had the support of her father, Kevin Nolan, as they sold Girl Scout cookies, while dressed as a cookie and carton of milk, at the intersection of Forest Park Parkway and Skinker Boulevard on Sunday, February 18. Dylan is a member of Girl Scout Troop #1259 and a student at Columbia Elementary School in its Gifted Program.
2018 class of Young Leaders celebrated in typical lively fashion By Kenya Vaughn Of The St. Louis American “Can I be honest?” Nicole McPherson, department leader of home office talent acquisition at Edward Jones, one of the sponsors for the St. Louis American Foundation’s 8th Annual Salute to Young Leaders Networking Awards Reception, asked Thursday, February 15 at The Four Seasons. “I didn’t know I was going to have this much fun here,” she confessed just before she helped present a group of awards to the 2018 class of Young Leaders. “I’m having a blast.” See LEADERS, A7
Photo by Wiley Price
Free police recruitment program starts February 27
Dr. Guion ‘Guy’ Bluford answers our questions
Ethical Society of Police prepares candidates for the Police Academy
By LaShana (Shan) Lewis For The St. Louis American
By Rebecca Rivas Of The St. Louis American Amber Hawkins, 27, wanted to become a police officer for all the “mushy, cookie-cutter reasons.” “I genuinely find enjoyment in finding ways I can help people,” n “We know exactly what it said Hawkins, a takes. They have a leg up in patrolwoman for being prepared to endure the District 2 in South St. Louis. “You’re rigors of the academy.” outside every day. You get to interact – Clarence Hines, with a million retired police sergeant different people.” When she was applying to the St. Louis Police Academy about three years ago, a sergeant told her that she could increase her chances of being accepted by See POLICE, A6
Talking to the first black man in space
Photo by Wiley Price
Pre-Academy Recruitment Program participants celebrated their graduation from the St. Louis Police Academy on June 30, 2016: Det. Keaton Strong; Police Officers Amber Hawkins, Rosa Rojas, Christopher Jamison; and Sgt. Bill Clinton.
On a blustery, rainy day in February — not unlike that day in 1983 when the first AfricanAmerican astronaut stepped onto the Challenger shuttle — Dr. Guion “Guy” Bluford held a Q&A session at Southern Illinois UniversityEdwardsville. Bluford, a retired U.S. Air Force veteran, met with a small press group before taking college students’ questions at the university’s Meridian ballroom on Dr. Guion Monday, February 19. As one “guy” Bluford of only a handful of people of color in the room, I asked a range of questions about his space career and current events in the field. See BLUFORD, A7