As a reporter I am
always alert to those posts and stories that seem to find a special resonance
with my readers. My best gauge comes from the people who take the time to
respond either via the comment feature or by sending me an offline email.
I can say with assurance
that the posts striking the broadest and deepest chords have usually been
rooted in either a personal narrative experience [see here and here] or a compelling local issue.
But over the last
couple of days, when I have resumed posting after a lengthy hiatus [initiated
by a sudden, urgent, and consuming remunerative writing assignment, followed
successively by recuperation, inertia, and then a personal family loss], I have
been surprised by the number of “thank you’s” I have received for posting, even
with late notice, about various community events.
I think the cumulative
response speaks to a number of issues, including how under-reported positive activity
in the black community is, and how refreshing it is to appreciate our diversity
and heterogeneity.
Of equal and perhaps
greater significance is that the evolution and dispersal of both the larger and
the African American communities over the years has, coupled with the
communications revolution, wrought such
change to our local world that being in touch is simultaneously easier and more
difficult in ways that are challenging to appreciate and difficult to adjust
to.
We are going to work
on this disconnect by doing a better job ourselves at timely reporting upcoming
community events. Most likely that will take the form of a regular weekly post.
We invite you to send notices of your civic events to us here.
Meanwhile, here are
two free, family-friendly events
taking place later today:
“You
Decide”, “Tu Decides”
A faith-based rally, supported
by leaders from more than sixty Hispanic Evangelical churches throughout
Greater Cleveland, takes place today from 5-8PM, at the Saigon Plaza, 5400
Detroit Avenue, near Gordon Square.
Rally goers
will
worship, reflect, network, and become educated on how to become agents of
change in order to address social and economic issues affecting the Hispanic
community.
The rally is a product of a group
of active Hispanic community folk who have united around motivating, organizing
and mobilizing faith-based community members, especially Evangelicals, to become
more engaged in civic and community matters, and specifically to help narrow
the gap in voter participation among Hispanics and Latinos in Northeast Ohio.
TU DECIDES is open to the general public,
and will include free food, free parking, and musical performances by local
Hispanic Evangelical church bands throughout Greater Cleveland. Special guests
will include Reverend Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino
Evangelical Coalition (NLEC), who will speak to Hispanic and Latino political
participation from a national perspective. No candidates will be allowed to
speak.
“Voting and civic involvement …
traditionally is not encouraged within
the church,” according to Pastor Jesus Laboy of Cleveland’s west side La
Iglesia Elim.
The US Hispanic population now
numbers more than 50 million, with over 60,000 Hispanics reportedly living in
Cuyahoga County. Fewer than half of the county’s 28,000 registered Hispanic
voters half turned out to vote in the 2008 Presidential election.
The Tu Decides event is
expected to lead to political training sessions to be scheduled later this
spring.
For more information, call
216.235.1578.
• • •
Madam C. J. Walker Extravaganza
Our good friend Prester Pickett,
coordinator of the Howard A. Mims
African American Cultural Center at Cleveland State University, wrote us
yesterday to tell us about today’s 2012
Madam C. J. Walker Extravaganza and its special tribute to Whitney Houston,
Don Cornelius, and Etta James.
The free, family-friendly
program — the “signature price” for most of Bro. Pickett’s AACC events —
includes a special exhibition opening in celebration of black music, courtesy
of the African American Professional Network at Rockwell Automation.
The program starts at 7PM will also be a special tribute
to some legendary African American Clevelanders portrayed by students from
CSU’s Campus International School.
Find more information online here.
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