View and download the special 4-page issue of The Virginia Defender! The paper distribution begins Thursday evening, July 24.
July 30, 2014
Dear friends,
The struggle over building a baseball stadium in historic Shockoe Bottom has entered a new stage: The Battle of the Barber Shops.
It looks like the business organization Venture Richmond, probably through the Alliance Group public relations firm, has recruited local radio personality Clovia “Miss Community” Lawrence to promote the mayor's development plan in the Black community. Ms. Lawrence is hosting “Up Close and Personal Community Conversations” for the mayor to speak at barber shops on Brookland Park Blvd., Southside Plaza and also at a restaurant in Shockoe Bottom. More such meetings are sure to come.
Following up on Mayor Jones' characterization of stadium opponents as “people who don't look like us” during his Emancipation Day presentation this past January, the goal of this new campaign seems to be to build support in the Black community for the development plan, making it easier for stadium supporters to argue that opposing this for-profit-developer-driven plan is racist.
Ms. Lawrence has written several pieces posted on the websites of local Black-oriented radio stations in which she states that the mayor's plan will result in 1,000 jobs (even Mayor Jones says the figure is 400) and that $30 million has already been raised for a heritage site, which is simply not true.
The main point of the mayor's presentation is that only his plan can produce the money necessary for properly memorializing the slavery-related history of Shockoe Bottom. But City Council has already committed $5 million, with or without a stadium, and the General Assembly has committed $2 million up front and up to $9 million more in matching funds – again, with or without a stadium.
In response, the Defenders have come out with 10,000 copies of a special, 4-page issue of The Virginia Defender, explaining who's behind this new campaign, what's wrong with the arguments and also the benefits of our alternative plan for a Sacred Ground Memorial Park, which allows for all the economic development the mayor has proposed.
We are now distributing this special issue to hundreds of barber shops, beauty parlors, churches, mosques, community centers, grocery stores and more.
We are more than willing to do this work, but we can't fund special issues of the Defender by ourselves. Please help keep this voice of the people alive and strong by making a contribution today – by PayPal at our website (www.DefendersFJE.blogspot.com), or by sending a check or money order made payable to “Defender” to: PO Box 23202, Richmond, VA 23223.
Defend Black History! No Stadium in Shockoe Bottom!
Thanks,
Phil Wilayto
Editor
The Virginia Defender
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