The Westside Gazette
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PAGE 12 • JUNE 13 - JUNE 19, 2024<br />
Deeply Rooted<br />
www.thewestsidegazette.com<br />
Juneteenth Books<br />
By Various Authors<br />
c.2024, <strong>The</strong> History Press / Chronicle Books $24.99 /<br />
$17.99 141 pages / 40 pages<br />
<strong>The</strong> park shelter has been reserved.<br />
You’ve told everyone where to be and what to bring<br />
(Grandma’s favorite dessert!) and someone will set up games<br />
to occupy the kids. Your whole family celebrates Juneteenth,<br />
Motown & the Civil Rights<br />
Part 1 of a 2 Part Series<br />
By Don Valentine<br />
Motown is as homogenous<br />
as “Ice Cream and Apple<br />
Pie.” If you haven’t heard a<br />
Motown song you like, then<br />
you just haven’t heard the<br />
right song. That affection<br />
placed Berry Gordy’s record<br />
label as the vanguard musical<br />
advent for the Civil Rights<br />
movement. We all learned<br />
in school the story of how an<br />
$800 loan turned into a global<br />
passion for Soul music. What<br />
schools do not teach is the<br />
impact Motown had on the<br />
Civil Rights movement.<br />
Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy,<br />
Jesse Jackson and the other<br />
icons of the movement had a<br />
march planned in Detroit on<br />
June 23, 1964. “<strong>The</strong> Walk To<br />
Freedom” march coincided<br />
with the 100th anniversary of<br />
the Emancipation of Slavery.<br />
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.<br />
delivered, for the first time,<br />
the famous “I Have A Dream”<br />
speech. That was 2 months<br />
before the great march on<br />
Washington. In Detroit,<br />
a crowd of nearly 150,000<br />
people gathered singing<br />
so maybe it’s time to bring<br />
these two great books to your<br />
jubilee...<br />
If you sometimes feel like<br />
you’re always the last to know,<br />
then read “Galveston’s<br />
Juneteenth Story: And<br />
Still We Rise” by Tommie<br />
Boudreaux, Alice Gatson,<br />
Jami Durham and W.<br />
Dwayne Jones (<strong>The</strong> History<br />
Press, $24.99). Because<br />
sometimes, you are the last.<br />
Some sixty years before the<br />
end of the Civil War, Britain<br />
and the U.S. both “banned<br />
the international trade of<br />
enslaved people...” Slavery<br />
still existed, of course, and<br />
“Galveston [Texas] was known<br />
as the largest slave market<br />
west of New Orleans...”<br />
Roughly a thousand people<br />
were enslaved there, and<br />
“many more... passed through<br />
the city’s slave trading<br />
houses.” It’s estimated that<br />
“thousands” also tried to<br />
escape slavery through<br />
Galveston and Brownsville,<br />
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freedom songs and carrying<br />
signs demanding racial<br />
equality. <strong>The</strong> news outlet<br />
Visit Detroit.com wrote, “Dr.<br />
King was hoping to inspire<br />
the end of segregation and<br />
discrimination. In the Detroit<br />
speech, he speaks of his<br />
dream for Blacks in Detroit to<br />
‘be able to buy a house or rent<br />
a house anywhere that their<br />
money will carry them, and<br />
they will be able to get a job.’<br />
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thewestsidegazette.com<br />
Community Members Express Robust<br />
Support for 1908 Springfield Race<br />
Riot National Monument<br />
Springfield, IL — At<br />
a public meeting today<br />
hosted by the Department<br />
of Interior (DOI) at Union<br />
Baptist Church, Springfield<br />
community members called<br />
on President Biden to<br />
commemorate the site of<br />
1908 Springfield Race Riots<br />
as a national monument.<br />
Brenda Mallory, chair of<br />
the White House Council on<br />
Environmental Quality, and<br />
Shannon Estenoz, Assistant<br />
Secretary of the Interior<br />
for Fish and Wildlife and<br />
Parks, attended the meeting<br />
and heard from community<br />
Local Leaders<br />
Join Elected<br />
Officialsfor<br />
Public Meeting<br />
To Urge National<br />
Monument<br />
Designation<br />
leaders as they expressed<br />
robust support for President<br />
Biden to use the Antiquities<br />
Act to designate a national<br />
monument in Springfield.<br />
Attendees included<br />
representatives from<br />
Springfield organizations,<br />
elected officials, faith leaders,<br />
conservation advocates,<br />
and local residents. <strong>The</strong><br />
Springfield site would be the<br />
first national park to tell the<br />
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Idris Elba helps uncover the WWII soldiers<br />
of Color who never got their due<br />
Actor Francesco Di Rauso portrays combat medic<br />
Waverly Woodson Jr., who served with the 320th Barrage<br />
Balloon Battalion on D-Day, in a scene from “Erased:<br />
WW2’s Heroes of Color.” (National Geographic Via AP)<br />
Submitted by Mark<br />
Kennedy<br />
Associated Press<br />
(Source Florida Courier)<br />
NEW YORK — One of<br />
Idris Elba’s grandfathers<br />
fought in World War II,<br />
but he doesn’t know what<br />
he endured. No pictures or<br />
stories survive. “That part of<br />
my family’s history has been<br />
erased somewhat,” says Elba.<br />
That helped fuel the<br />
actor’s push to narrate and<br />
executive produce the fourpart<br />
National Geographic<br />
docuseries “Erased: WW2’s<br />
Heroes of Color,” which<br />
premieres Monday, days<br />
ahead of the 80th anniversary<br />
of D-Day, when the Allies<br />
landed on the coast of France,<br />
on June 6. Episodes will also<br />
later be available on Disney+<br />
and Hulu.<br />
More than 8 million people<br />
of color served with the Allies,<br />
and the series digs deep to<br />
focus on how some fared<br />
at D-Day, Dunkirk, Pearl<br />
Harbor and the Battle of the<br />
Bulge.<br />
It tells the story of the<br />
320th Barrage Balloon<br />
Battalion, the only all-Black<br />
combat unit to fight on the<br />
D-Day beaches, and Force<br />
K6, a little-known Indian<br />
regiment of mule handlers<br />
from the British army trying<br />
to evacuate at Dunkirk.<br />
<strong>The</strong> series uses archival<br />
footage, descendant<br />
interviews, soldier journals<br />
and actor portrayals — a<br />
mix that Elba says he found<br />
visceral and moving.<br />
“It really did actually<br />
impact me just in the<br />
narration booth, watching<br />
the imagery, looking at the<br />
faces, wondering about my<br />
own personal connect. Could<br />
my grandfather be one of the<br />
people in one of the pieces?<br />
Idris Elba<br />
That was what I thought<br />
about. So, it did definitely<br />
resonate with me.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> series also highlights<br />
stories like that of Doris<br />
Miller, a mess attendant<br />
aboard the USS West Virginia<br />
who after the Japanese attack<br />
at Pearl Harbor raced to an<br />
unattended anti-aircraft gun<br />
and fired at the planes until<br />
forced to abandon ship.<br />
He had never been trained<br />
to use the gun because<br />
Black sailors serving in the<br />
segregated steward’s branch<br />
of the Navy were not given the<br />
gunnery training received by<br />
white sailors. Miller’s bravery<br />
earned him the Navy Cross.<br />
“It just feels like a<br />
privilege and an honor to be<br />
able to shed some light on<br />
their stories,” says director<br />
Shianne Brown, who helmed<br />
the D-Day episode.<br />
Her episode highlighted<br />
Waverly Woodson, Jr., a<br />
medic who was wounded by<br />
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT<br />
WWW.TAMARAC.ORG/SPECIALEVENTS.<br />
ARTFUL MINDS from Front Page<br />
included Moss, Memorial Healthcare<br />
System, Bright Star Credit Union, GRYC Trial<br />
Lawyers, BBX Capital, Michaelangelo Impact<br />
Partners, Entertainment Impact Partner,<br />
Richardo Bichara CPA, P.A., SC- StrubleCohen<br />
Trial Lawyers Appellate Council, Kip Hunter<br />
Marketing, Edgar Degas Impact Partners<br />
Segal Trials, Baron Silver Steven, Media<br />
Impact Partners, Magazine Lifestyle, SFBW<br />
South Florida Business & Wealth, and more.<br />
Dr. Joe Oraveck, CEO, is excited to<br />
be leading NAMI in celebrating its 40 th<br />
anniversary. He stresses that what NAMI is<br />
known for “peer to peer” support. Family to<br />
family programs assist families going through<br />
a mental health journey with a loved one by<br />
connecting them with others going through a<br />
similar experience. <strong>The</strong>re are also individual<br />
mentor programs. He emphasizes that NAMI’s<br />
helpers are not therapists but trained peer<br />
to peer facilitators. In addition to facilitating<br />
these peer connections in community-based<br />
locations there is a goal of having a presence<br />
in every one of the thirty-one municipalities in<br />
Broward County. NAMI has been encouraging<br />
the self-reflection and healing that can come<br />
through engaging in art.<br />
Indeed, art as a somewhat individualized<br />
form of therapy which can later be displayed is<br />
shone throughout the exhibit area. Mad Arts<br />
gallery provided ample space for display of art,<br />
vocal performance and tasty hors d’oeuvres.<br />
NAMI offered an auction component which<br />
allowed the artist to receive full price on their<br />
pieces while fundraising to provide even more<br />
assistance to those in need of the services. <strong>The</strong><br />
items ranged in price from well under $100<br />
and up.<br />
Jewelry artists, poets, painters, musicians<br />
and more all flowed seamlessly through the<br />
space as visitors soaked in the variety and<br />
high quality of the works on display. For<br />
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