Last chance to see Jackson Oliver L. Jackson’s one-man show at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis closes Sunday.
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Vol. 84 No. 10
CAC Audited JUNE 7 – 13, 2012
COMPLIMENTARY
stlamerican.com
Greater Mt. Carmel turns 100 Rev. Earl Nance Jr., pastor of Greater Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church, has been doing well in his recovery from a heart attack he suffered late last year. The church, located at 1617 N. Euclid Ave., will celebrate its centenary on Sunday.
Rev. Nance’s church celebrates a century – and the legacy of his father By Kenya Vaughn Of The St. Louis American “One hundred years. Think about that for a moment! Wrap your arms around it and embrace it,” Rev. Earl E. Nance Jr. writes in his forward to the commemorative book for the Greater Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist
Church Centennial. The church, located at 1617 North Euclid Ave., will celebrate its 100-year anniversary on Sunday, June 10 at 10 a.m. Nance, the church’s senior pastor, and his father, the Rev. Earl E. Nance See NANCE, A7 Photo by Wiley Price
‘Ricky’s last best chance’
MSD bond issue passes by wide margin
Midwest Innocence Project can prove Kidd’s innocence if court will let them
$945M in bonds will fund $4.7B in sewer repairs By Rebecca S. Rivas Of The St. Louis American The meager nine percent of St. Louis City and County voters who cast ballots in Tuesday’s election said they are not ready to double their sewer bills right away. About 85 percent voted in favor of the $945 million bond issue that will allow the Metropolitan Sewer District to fix the system’s environmental hazards and raise sewer bills gradually. All eight of MSD’s proposed amendments to its operating charter also passed with ease by about 80 percent margins.
By Rebecca S. Rivas Of The St. Louis American
See BOND, A6
A statue for Dred and Harriet Scott Unveiling at Old Courthouse on Friday By Isabelle Stillman Beacon intern One hundred and fifty-five years after the infamous Dred Scott Decision, which denied citizenship to former slaves, a statue of the couple whose fight inspired the Emancipation Proclamation and three amendments to the Bill of Rights will be unveiled where their battle began: the Old Courthouse in downtown St. Louis. A life-sized bronze statute of Dred and Harriet Scott will be dedicated Friday, June 8. The statue, by Harry Weber, is the first-ever See SCOTT, A7
Photo by Wiley Price
Stepping to Africa Young dancers performed with Afriky Lolo during the African dance troupe’s 9th annual African Dance celebration at COCA on Sunday.
Darryl Burton served 24 years in prison for a murder in St. Louis he didn’t commit. Joe Amrine served 17 years. Both innocent men found no relief in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Yet both Missourians are free now. Ricky Kidd has served 16 years of a life sentence without parole for a murder in Kansas City he didn’t commit, he says. Like Burton and Amrine, Kidd also lost his battle in the Eighth Circuit Court, which represents Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. If Kidd were in Colorado or other circuits, he would be a free man too, said Kidd’s attorney Sean O’Brien, former chief public defender in Kansas City and current Ricky Kidd’s board member for the appeal to his Midwest Innocence Project. murder However, inconsistencies conviction has in the federal courts are probeen taken on hibiting justice to be served by the Midwest in wrongfully-convicted murInnocence der cases, and Kidd’s case is Project. a prime example of that, O’Brien said. On May 9, O’Brien filed a petition in the U.S. Supreme Court for a “writ of certiorari.” “It’s Ricky’s last best chance,” O’Brien said. The purpose of the certiorari is to bring the Eighth Circuit Court in line with other federal circuits. Currently the Eighth Circuit’s standard for reviewing claims of innocence is “impossibly high and limited in scope,” O’Brien wrote in the May 9 petition. See KIDD, A6