State playoffs get underway A schedule for this week’s postseason action
Page B3
CAC Audited OCT. 31 – NOV. 6, 2013
Vol. 84 No. 31 COMPLIMENTARY
stlamerican.com
F.I.R.E. IN THE PULPIT
Pastor and captain Wayne Luster serves ‘spiritual and natural’ needs By Bridjes O’Neil Of The St. Louis American
Wayne Luster is founding pastor at Victory Outreach Ministries Church and a captain in the St. Louis Fire Department.
Wayne Luster is a captain in the St. Louis Fire Department today because he was a pastor first. Some 25 years ago, Luster was an associate pastor at New Jerusalem Cathedral Church of God in Christ (COGIC), where he noticed a recruitment flier for firefighters on a bulletin board. It had been posted by Wendell H. Goins, a member of New Jerusalem Cathedral and a founding member of the Firefighters Institute for Racial Equality (F.I.R.E.), a fraternal organization for African-American firefighters. “Wendell Goins is the one who brought me on,”
See LUSTER, A7
Slay loses water fight Veolia is out, MSD will consult on city water division By Rebecca Rivas Of The St. Louis American After almost a year of protests against a $250,000 consulting contract with Veolia Water North America, the controversial company has decided not to do business with the City of St. Louis, according to Mayor Francis G. Slay’s representative who spoke at an aldermanic committee meeting on Tuesday morning. Slay’s office spoke with the Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) on Monday about taking on the role that Veolia would have played – improving the functions and efficiency of the water department – said Mary Ellen Ponder, the mayor’s special assistant. However, Slay’s announcement did not stop the
Photo by Wiley Price
Pumpkin magic
See SLAY, A6
Sweet Potato Project students Keith Young, Darryeon Bishop and Marquitta Williams prepare a batch of sweet potato cookies under the supervision of Chef Bryan Rogers, a sous chef at Saint Louis University’s Salus Center.
Photo by Wiley Price
Journi Williams, 7, and her cousin Anayiah Neely, 8, work their magic on pumpkins Saturday at the Moonrise Hotel in the University City Loop. The annual Pumpkin Carve & Glow event is the fall kick off in the Loop.
Celebration of legal community Last week the Washington University School of Law hosted a celebration of the 65th anniversary of the Shelley v. Kraemer decision, where the U.S. Supreme Court
unanimously ruled that housing covenants restricting home ownership based on race violate the 14th Amendment. The event, held in the law school’s moot courtroom, was also a celebration of AfricanAmerican legal community. Kimberly Norwood, professor of law and of African and African-American Studies at
Sweet Potato Project brings national movement to STL with help of SLU By Sylvester Brown Jr. For The St. Louis American
Washington University, was the first in a series of powerful speakers. She remembered visiting with Margaret Bush Wilson, lead attorney for the Shelleys in the landmark 1948 case, not long before the legal legend passed in 2009.
For the past two years, I have urged the Sweet Potato Project youth to see themselves as “urban pioneers.” I tell them they will lead a food-based economic movement in long-neglected, impoverished neighborhoods. Today, they are planting sweet potatoes on vacant lots. The yield is used for the sweet potato cookies they will sell in a couple weeks. I ask them to imagine whole blocks where food is grown in
See LAW, A6
See PROJECT, A6
WUSTL School of Law hosts event in honor of Margaret Bush Wilson By Chris King Of The St. Louis American
‘Agricultural renaissance in the city’