Nordstrom Rack apologizes after racially profiling students
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St. LouiS AmericAn The
CAC Audited MAY 17 – 23, 2018
Vol. 90 No. 8 COMPLIMENTARY
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Head Start with beetles
Developer petitioned for Community Benefits Agreement U. City has no minority inclusion policy for public-subsidized projects By Rebecca Rivas For The St. Louis American
Photo by Wiley Price
Aaliyah Jones and Emmanuel Rice, both age 5, played with paper beetles they made in class at the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis’s Martin Luther King Head Start Center in the Wells/Goodfellow neighborhood on Tuesday, May 16.
Black lives matter – even after death
See U.CITY, A7
Volunteers demand removal of billboards, end to ‘desecration’ of Washington Park Cemetery By Sophie Hurwitz For the St. Louis American Back in the 1970s, Wanda Brandon said, Washington Park Cemetery was the most beautiful place African-American people were buried in St. Louis. Today, the cemetery is unrecognizable. Much of the area is grown over with
honeysuckle. The small sections near the entry to the cemetery – that have been cleared show gravestones turned over and broken. The decay is especially shocking because it is a relatively modern cemetery, with the earliest gravestones dating back only to the 1920s. A small group of volunteers, including Brandon, have been coming to the cemetery in Berkeley since 2011 to clean it up.
About 10 miles south of the Ferguson unrest’s Ground Zero, developers have proposed a $203.3 million project that will redevelop the northern third – or 800 acres – of University City, making a Costco n A costor similar “big box” benefit retailer the anchor. analysis However, some projects that residents question U. City would whether University City officials are going generate to follow the Ferguson $2.3 million Commission’s in revenues recommendations to in 2029 if ensure that the project will create a more the project equitable, inclusive is built, region. compared to “We must take the $215,000 if it time now to ensure that benefits for the isn’t built. community are not only promised, but written into this deal as contractual obligations on the part of the developer,” stated Margaux Sanchez in an open letter. The developer is requesting $70.5 million in public subsidy – in the form of tax increment financing (TIF) and a
“This is all being maintained by me and other people,” Brandon said. “This cemetery has been under no ownership, for real, for 30-some years.” Even in the cleared sections, many graves are so decayed that the names are illegible. In the uncleared sections, about half of its total See CEMETERY, A6
From YES to WashU techie Science Center sends St. Louis transplant on journey to information technology field By LaShana (Shän) Lewis For The St. Louis American
Men of Honor mentors male students in Ferguson-Florissant Superintendent Joseph Davis: ‘We provide them good, clear focus’ By Jessica Karins For The St. Louis American At the Men of Honor banquet honoring students and mentors in the Ferguson-Florissant School District, ties are an important symbol. At the banquet, men need to wear a tie to eat dinner, and that includes the high school students who are members of Men of Honor. The organization hands out ties to anyone who needs one, and older men are on hand to instruct in the art of tying a tie. The ties represent the professionalism that Men of Honor, a mentoring organization run on a volunteer basis by FergusonFlorissant’s male staff members, hopes to impart to students. The group is dedicated to helping male students meet its expectations, which include maintaining a 3.0 grade point average or better, good attendance at school, and participating in 40 hours of community service per year. See MENTORS, A6
Photo by Jessica Karins
Ferguson Police Chief Delrish Moss; Men of Honor sponsors Elgin Carnes, Mario Charles and Albert Harrold; McCluer-South Berkeley Principal Eric Harris visited at the recent Men of Honor banquet honoring male students and mentors in the Ferguson-Florissant School District.
Candace Jarrett was transplanted to St. Louis from Arkansas with the dream of becoming a writer. She wanted to edit those high-end AfricanAmerican magazines that she saw on the stands. But then, she was faced with a challenge. At one of her regular meetups with Girls Inc., a program designed to empower young girls and women, she learned about a program at the Saint Louis Science Candace Center called Youth Jarrett Exploring Science (YES) that introduces young people to the fields of science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM). “I was going to be an editor for Vibe magazine and had my life all figured out,” Jarrett said. Then she met Diane Miller, the creator of YES, who asked her to edit their newsletter. This exposed the youth to different aspects of STEAM. Among her fond experiences, she remembered being on the Zero G plane – a plane designed to simulate the weightlessness of space – and testing an experiment on yeast productivity. After she graduated from the program in 1999, Jarrett studied journalism at Mizzou. See JARRETT, A7