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Write to: radarnard for more information
In the Tuesday Morning Bronzecomm Newsletter:
Pro-activity prevails as Metropolis Editor gathers businesses in Bronzeville for Stimulus Session
Olympic Committee hosts Community Meeting at Chicago Urban League tonight
Chicago Park District looking for minority suppliers for Athletic supplies
Upcoming Events at the DuSable Museum
Cocktails and Clay this Friday at the Hyde Park Art Center
Genealogist Tony Burroughs and others plan Burr Oak Memorial
Mayfair Academy announces Fall Registration dates
Jazz Institute of Chicago hosts Jazz Tours
Right-wing Mobs oppose Health Care Reform
Governor Challenged on Prison Reform
...and there's more, much more.
If there are items you think will be of interest to your friends,
family or co-workers, please pass our Newsletter on to them
with an invitation to take advantage of the FREE SUBSCRIPTION
by sending an email to with the
word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. That's all it takes.
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Thank you.
Raynard
1. From: Metropolis
Subject: Editor Gathers Businesses in Bronzeville for Stimulus Session
SMALL BUSINESSES GATHER IN BRONZEVILLE FOR STIMULUS SESSION
Vice President Joe Biden's Visit to Chicago Resonates with Minority Businesses
Vice President Joe Biden's remarks to the National Urban League on July 31st have inspired minority business owners
to host their own Stimulus Session for information on new programs offered in President Obama's Economic Stimulus Plan.
After hearing Biden's remarks, Bronzeville Metropolis Newspaper Editor Leila Khaled called the Small Business Administration,
the Illinois State Treasurer's Office, and Chase Bank's Bronzeville Branch to invite their representatives to speak directly to
the minority business community in Bronzeville. All said ‘yes' and within 48 hours of announcing the Bronzeville Stimulus Session
for Small Businesses, over 75 business owners had already signed up. Within five days, the session mushroomed to over
200 business owners wanting to participate and Khaled has already begun organizing a second session to be held in a larger venue.
The Bronzeville Stimulus Session - Part I is being held Tuesday, August 11th at Bronzeville Coffee and Tea,
528 East 43rd Street at 6:30pm.
Kim Shackleford of Asili Chi Salon and Spa who was mentioned in Biden's July 31st address will be the Session's special guest.
As a result of the Stimulus, Shackleford received an SBA backed loan of $150,000. Organizer Leila Khaled said, "I'm a small
business owner and we are being our own advocates. Should Chicago win the 2016 Olympic bid, we in Bronzeville will be in
a position to benefit. If Chicago does not receive the bid, Bronzeville is still the hottest area in the city and is slated for major
development. It is also the oldest Black neighborhood in Chicago and we intend to stay - with or without the Olympics. This is
not the time to wait and the overwhelming response to our Stimulus Session makes it clear that other business owners feel
the same way."
Radio host Steve Harvey who was in town for the Bud Billiken Day parade said, "Every year, more and more money that is set
aside for minority businesses is sent back. Here's the deal, if President Obama can become the President of the United States,
admittedly as he has said, on the shoulders of others, the gig is up. It's time for us to pull ourselves up. No more excuses."
###
Media wishing to cover the event or to schedule an interview with Leila Khaled or any of the attendees,
should call 312-719-3515 or email editor@bronzevillemetropolis.com.
2. From: Raynard
Subject: Olympic Committee hosts Community Meetings/
Chicago Urban League tonight 8/11/09
Community Meetings Calendar
See more dates: click here>>>
Chicago 2016 is committed to reaching out and providing a forum
for dialogue to all Chicagoland communities. The bid strives to
actively engage in participation and conversation with all
neighborhoods and communities. For up-to-date information about
community meetings, please check back often.
If you would like to request a meeting, please reach out to us at
community@chicago2016.org and we will try to accommodate
you as best as we can.
Also, please check our page dedicated to Neighborhood Legacy Forums
for information regarding our upcoming legacy meetings.
August 11 6:00 p.m. 3rd, 4th, 20th Ward Meeting Chicago Urban League - 4510 S. Michigan Avenue, First Floor
See more dates: click here>>>
3. From:
Subject: Athletic Supplies
Please see below message and respond asap.
Serious and ready to go aka “shovel ready” M/WBE only please.
Good Morning,
I am trying to identify M/WBE companies for athletic supplies (please see list below).
I have only been able to identify a few companies who may be able to provide these products.
If you are aware of any local M/WBE companies who are able to provide any these products
please let me know as soon as possible.
Badminton
Baseball
Basketball
Football
Golf
Hockey
Lacrosse
Miscellaneous (e.g. rhythmic ribbon, dodge balls, bean bags)
Rope
Soccer
Softball
Table Tennis
Tennis
Track and Field
Volleyball
If you have any questions or comments please contact me directly via phone or email.
Thank you in advance for your assistance,
Christie Krsek
Senior Compliance Officer
Purchasing Department
Chicago Park District
312-742-4436
312-742-5326 (fax)
4. From: DuSable Museum Events
Subject: Upcoming Events
DuSable Museum Events
You make history every day! Help us
celebrate by becoming a member today!
Call (773) 947-0600 x 238 for more information.
www.dusablemuseum.org
DuSable Museum Events
History is being made at DuSable Museum! Join the DuSable Museum today!
Call (773) 947-0600 x 238 for more information.
SPECIAL EVENTS
MOVIES IN THE PARK
Presented by The Chicago Park District and DuSable Museum
7:30PM
Free Admission
Saturday, August 22, 2009 - The Fighting Temptations
Saturday, August 29, 2009 - Sparkle
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
2:00 PM
Admission: $10.00 per person
Join actress/singer Sasha Dalton and her very special friends as they take you
on a musical journey of memories.
CURRENT EXHIBITS
The DuSable Museum of African American History presents
The Soul of Bronzeville, The Regal, Club DeLisa and The Blues
An exhibit by The Chicago Blues Museum
Through December 15, 2009
Focusing on American music traditions, the DuSable Museum is pleased to present
The Chicago Blues Museum exhibition The Soul of Bronzeville. This exhibition
salutes Chicago as the home of many legendary blues and R&B musicians including:
Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, Jerry Butler, Gene Chandler, Mavis Staples,
The Chi-Lites, The Dells and many, many others. Through instruments, original
photographs, personal memorabilia, concert collectibles, music and moving footage,
The Soul of Bronzeville chronicles the musical contributions of Bronzeville
and the artistic legacy of the blues.
DuSable Museum Events
740 East 56th Place
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 947-0600
www.dusablemuseum.org
5. From: Crystal Pernell
Subject: Cocktails and Clay - Friday Night!
Cocktails & Clay
at the Hyde Park Art Center
Friday, August 14, 8pm-midnight
5020 S. Cornell Ave.
hydeparkart.org
Try something new -- discover your creative potential
in the clay studio!
As usual, DJs will spin, the dance floor will be open,
and the cash bar will be stocked.
All galleries will be open during Cocktails & Clay.
6. From: Mayfair79@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Mayfair Academy - Fall Registration Begins 8/27
7. From: Raynard
Subject: Memorial planned for Burr Oak Cemetery
Historical society plans memorial for Burr Oak crime scene
BY LAUREN FITZPATRICK
Source: Southtownstar.com
Honoring everyone buried at Burr Oak Cemetery will fall to a new historical society now
that evidence of alleged grave-reselling schemes at the historic Alsip cemetery is done
being collected, the Cook County sheriff said Friday.
But when the gates will open in the burial ground closed since early July as FBI and
other investigators recovered some 1,200 loose human bones still is unknown. And it's
unlikely the bulk of recovered remains will be identified, he said.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said he'll leave the cemetery's preservation to the newly
established Chicago Burr Oak Cemetery Historical Society.
Genealogist Tony Burroughs said the historical society will create a fitting memorial to
the people whose remains will never be identified.
With local historians, representatives from the DuSable Museum of African American History,
Bronzeville Children's Museum and Historymakers, Burroughs wants to build a memorial
over the larger of the cemetery's crime scenes.
"Chicago Burr Oak Cemetery must be returned to a sanctuary of respect," said Burroughs,
who also has relatives interred at Burr Oak.
"Our goal is to ensure a lot of good comes out of this horrific tragedy," he said. "We want to
preserve Chicago Burr Oak Cemetery as well as honor and respect the traditions, the history
and the contributions of African-Americans laid to rest at Burr Oak."
Read the entire article: click here>>>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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8. From: virginia@jazzinchicago.org
Subject: Jazz Tours Old and New - presented by The Jazz Institute of Chicago
Click here to purchase tickets >>>
9. From: V Casanova
Subject: Burge Torture Victim Granted Hearing after 18 years
AFTER 18 YEARS OF IMPRISONMENT, HEARING FINALLY GRANTED
FOR POLICE TORTURE VICTIM KEITH WALKER!
Partial Victory…
After several denied appeals, Keith Walker had his day in court on Friday, August 7, 2009.
Judge Claps determined that Keith Walker will finally have a hearing to determine whether
he voluntarily confessed to charges in 1991 or if he was in fact tortured into confession
by John Burge and his cohorts.
Background:
In 1991, Walker was arrested outside a South Side store, taken to a police station, and was
beaten and tortured by Chicago Police officers. The officers used the same brutal tactics
the community now knows were routinely used by members of disgraced Chicago police
commander Jon Burge’s midnight crew for two decades. These tactics included
electro-shock, suffocation, severe beatings and mock executions on more than
100 African-American men.
Walker was one of those men who were brutally tortured. Fearing more torture at the hands
of officers Keith signed a false statement implicating him in a murder and attempted
armed robbery.
Currently, Walker has spent more than 18 terrible years in prison, and has been sentenced to
“life” behind bars, despite the fact that no physical evidence tied him to the crime.
Despite repeated dismissals and attempts to suppress the truth about the electric shock and
other tactics used against Walker in 1991, he has continued to seek freedom and justice.
It seemed hopeless, but now the entire world knows the truth about police torture in Chicago .
The Work Has Just Begun!
Walker received a partial victory on August 7, 2009. However, the work has just begun to
fully exonerate Walker and reveal the truth about torture practices in Chicago. A hearing
date will be set after months of intensive discovery and diligent preparation. At the hearing,
Walker will have the opportunity to subpoena officers and other relevant persons involved
in the commission of his torture so that the truth about his horrendous encounter may
be fully exposed.
Your Help Is Needed!
Justice will be fully realized when Keith Walker and all the other African Americans who
were tortured go free or win new trials. Pass the word along. Be an active voice among
your families, communities, and friends. When a date for the hearing is set come pack the
courtroom and let the numerous judges, prosecutors, officers, and police lawyers know that
torture will not be tolerated in our communities, and that we will not rest until Keith Walker
and his fellow torture victims are free!
SPONSORED BY: BLACK PEOPLE AGAINST POLICE TORTURE
& THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BLACK LAWYERS
For more Information Contact: Atty: Standish E. Willis at 312-554-0005
10. From: Letitia Taylor
Subject: CBTU AIDS/HIV Conference
CBTU AIDS/HIV Conference
Saturday 08/29/09
9:00 a.m. til 3:00 p.m.
Lunch will be provided
This conference is so important because you hear less and less talk about AIDS /HIV in our community.
As if we are winning the war. What you do hear is mis-information.
The truth is AIDS /HIV is hitting the lower economic community in alarming rates. While other segments
of our society this disease is being contained our numbers are increasing especially among those
over 50 and young folks.
Come and have a frank disscussion regarding the spreading and containment of this disease. Learn the truth
and what you can do to help spread the word.
We will have experts, age related workshops, testings and private consultations on site.
Come and bring a friend .
11. From: lolly bowean
Subject: In Ashes of Peggy Cooper Cafritz's collection, seeds of heritage
In Collection’s Ashes, a Heritage’s Seeds
Source: New York Times.com
WASHINGTON — Every morning Peggy Cooper Cafritz steps outside and confronts the wreckage:
the acrid smell of her incinerated walls and furnishings, the police tape clinging to a chain-link
fence surrounding her property, the rumbling backhoe hauling away the charred remains
of her longtime home.
She has been living in the house of a friend across the street from this scene, which she
matter-of-factly calls “the ruins.” And for the moment, at least, she is all business, filling out
insurance forms, talking to fire investigators and real estate brokers, replying to scores of e-mail
messages and letters of sympathy. She has not had time, she says, to weep or grieve.
So, when asked about her loss, Ms. Cafritz hesitates. Her $5.2 million mansion here in the Kent
neighborhood of northwest Washington held one of the largest private collections of
African-American and African art in the country, more than 300 sculptures, paintings, photographs
and other pieces that she painstakingly accumulated over the past two decades, often from artists
whose careers she had personally nurtured.
The works of 19th- and 20th-century painters like Edward Mitchell Bannister, Jacob Lawrence
and Romare Bearden hung amid contemporary work by artists like Hank Willis Thomas,
Nick Cave, Kara Walker and Kerry James Marshall. Virtually everything was destroyed
in the blaze that gutted the house on July 29, while she and her son were on vacation
in Martha’s Vineyard.
Read the entire article: click here>>>
12. From: Thomas Palmer
Subject: Reader Editorial Alert: Right-Wing Storm Troopers
From: Alternet:
Dear Reader,
What do Rupert Murdoch, Senator Jim DeMint, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey,
anti-choice zealot Randall Terry and health-care industry executives have in common?
They all want to kill health-care reform.
But you knew that.
What you didn't know -- until AlterNet uncovered it in an explosive article published today
-- is the extremes to which they will go to achieve that aim.
I rarely send special reader alerts, but I'm making an exception today, because this story is so important.
In a new article published today, AlterNet's Washington Bureau Chief Adele Stan uncovers the links between
establishment GOP figures and an extreme-right Web network, Grassfire.org, that is an organizing hub for
town-hall protesters. While other astroturf organizations and Web sites, like Dick Armey's FreedomWorks,
Tim Scott's Americans for Prosperity or Glenn Beck's The 912 Project, marshal the anti-tax mob, Grassfire,
through its sibling site, ResistNet, rallies the most extreme of the paranoid right.
In "Inside Story on Town Hall Riots: Right-Wing Shock Troops Do Corporate America's Dirty Work", Stan
chronicles the ties between the Republican establishment and ResistNet, where one finds not only the usual set
of conspiracy theories, but also threats of violence against the opposition, a videoed racist screed against
President Obama and even a prayer for the death of the president. The coup de grace is a slickly produced
video posted on the site that uses Nazi imagery casting Obama as the Fuhrer.
(The video is embedded in the AlterNet piece.)
Stan draws together the conflagration of corporate and GOP interests that have coordinated to unleash the unhinged
fringe to disrupt the nation's civic dialogue, tracing pieces of the narrative back to Howard Phillips, one of the founders
of the religious right, who served in the Nixon administration. She examines the tactics of the Republican right's
"inside-outside" strategy, using as a model Phillips' theocratic Constitution Party, to which Sarah Palin has ties.
You knew it was bad. AlterNet's must-read article tells you just how bad it really is.
Don Hazen
Executive Editor, AlterNet.org
13. From: LJ Reynolds
Subject: Horrors at Tamms Supermax Prison/Quinn must reform
Please read the series of investigative articles about Tamms supermax prison published this week
by the Belleville News-Democrat and syndictated nationally by the Associated Press. The full series
of articles is listed below, but just to give you an idea, here is a section about a man who was
originally diagnosed as a schizophrenic by the IDOC, but spent years in Tamms untreated:
After his transfer 11 years ago to Tamms, Fields coped in ways bizarre and self-destructive common
to many inmates held in continuous solitary confinement. He sliced his arms and throat with bits
of glass, metal and paint chips. A prison doctor who stitched him up once testified he didn’t always
inject anesthetic because the skin of many Tamms inmates became numb from massive scarring
from repeated self-mutilation.
Fields smeared excrement in his cell so often that maintenance men painted it with an easier to clean
coating. He swallowed glass. Prison officials charged him $5.30 for tearing up a state-owned sheet
to make a noose to kill himself.
And then in 2004, after he had been held alone and often naked in a segregation cell for nearly six
years, two psychiatrists called to testify in an ongoing lawsuit about conditions at the prison examined
him and his medical records and said Fields was a schizophrenic who needed immediate treatment.
They also reviewed a long-ignored 1999 report by psychiatrist Dr. Bernard Rubin, a former director
of the Illinois Department of Mental Health, diagnosing Fields a year after his arrival at Tamms as
a paranoid schizophrenic whose condition was deteriorating....
The prison's supervising psychologist, Kelly Rhodes, countered that Fields was trying to fake his way
to easier time. Under oath, Rhodes described self-mutilation as a game. "They'll compete with each
other to see who can cut because it's fun," she said, according to a deposition.
The series highlights non-violent offenders locked in solitary confinement for a decadeor more, and
mentally ill prisoners who were mistreated. Equally disturbing is the arbitrariness and capriciousness by
which men are sent to the supermax (and how the IDOC adds years to people's sentences in very
dubious ways). As a result of long-term isolation, men have mutilated themselves, attempted suicide or
died prematurely. In one case, an unsupervised, mentally ill prisoner transferred to another prison,
committed murder. Despite IDOC rhetoric that everyone at Tamms "earns there way there," more than
half of the prisoners transferred to the supermax committed no violent offenses at their prior placement.
* Of 247 Tamms inmates listed June 30 on the prison's roster, 138 had not been convicted of a crime after entering the prison system.
* Of the remaining 109 inmates convicted of a crime after entering prison, 55 committed assaults such as throwing body wastes and
spitting on or struggling with guards, and possessing contraband or homemade weapons -- acts that did not lead to serious injury
and can be attributed in some cases to mental illness and a need for self-protection.
This controversial supermax has been in the crosshairs of litigation and legislation in Illinois, but it has not
been covered much at all by mainstream press (with the exception of the New Yorker). Tamms Year Ten,
the coalition that has been pressing for changes at the supermax, is asking the Governor Quinn to make
a formal statement about allegations of mistreatment in placing mentally ill prisoners at Tamms,
and other counter-productive policies addressed in the series.
I hope you can share information about this prison, and the efforts to reform it, with your readers.
Laurie Jo Reynolds
Tamms Year Ten
773-505-3896
yearten.org
Investigative Series by George Pawlaczyk and Beth Hundsdorfer, Belleville News-Democrat
Trapped in Tamms: Inmates in Illinois' only supermax prison face battle proving mistreatment
http://www.bnd.com/homepage/story/865378.html
Trapped in Tamms: In Illinois' only supermax facility, inmates are in cells 23 hours a day
http://www.bnd.com/news/local/story/865377.html
EDITORIAL: Why Tamms matters to all
http://www.bnd.com/editorial/story/866411.html
Tamms inmate: Dangerous gang member, or a man who is mentally ill?
http://www.bnd.com/233/story/865355.html
A tale of two prisons: Tamms vs. Alcatraz
http://www.bnd.com/news/local/story/865454.html
Plaintiff's plight -- 'almost impossible for judicial system to untangle these things'
http://www.bnd.com/233/story/865365.html
View from the top: Fixing Tamms supermax (Interview with IDOC director Michael Randle)
http://www.bnd.com/news/local/story/865544.html
Tamms Year Ten
www.YearTen.org
TammsYearTen@gmail.com
More information:Human Rights Watch public statement to Gov. Pat Quinn about the mentally ill at Tamms, 5/4/09
Amnesty International public statement to IDOC Director Walker, 4/02/09Amnesty International public statement about Tamms supermax, 3/25/09Tougher Than Guantanamo: Illinois' Prison With No Way Out, Dusty Rhodes, Illinois Times, 6/18/09
Tamms is also discussed in this New Yorker article about how long-term solitary confinement is torture:
Hellhole: The United States holds tens of thousands of inmates in long-term solitary confinement.
Is this torture?, Atul Gawande, The New Yorker, 3/30/09
----------------------
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