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AmeriCorps Montgomery

"locals serving locals for 23 years."

Posts by Paul Costello1

Recruiting 2021-11 Team

June 28, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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SERVICE BRINGS THE COMMUNITY TOGETHER!

Project CHANGE Montgomery is the original Montgomery County MD program of AmeriCorps, America’s “Domestic Peace Corps” for more than 20 years. AmeriCorps members serve the county’s most under-served K-12+ students inspiring them to believe in themselves enough to achieve. Project CHANGE uses its own phone app called MYSCORE, the innovative SEL tool that allows students to self-assess their growth in the 5C’s and reach out to the members to help them grow more confident, curious, collaborative, courageous and career/future focused learners.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

BENEFITS
In return, AmeriCorps members receive:

  • 300 hours of Training, peer-to-peer coaching, and professional development and mentoring
  • Living stipend of $18,000 per year
  • $6,345 educational scholarship
  • Health Insurance
  • Preference in hiring in many organizations and agencies
  • Child Care if qualified
  • Student loan forgiveness for the duration of the service
  • Lifelong friends who experience the challenges together
  • Invaluable experience of the local education/non-profit sector

Positions are full time (1700 hours over 12 months (August 2021 to August 2022) and some positions are Half Time (900 hours over a year.)S

MCPS

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) with 165,000+ Students enrolled, is one of the nations largest school districts and it grows every year. But since March 2020, all schools have shutdown, leaving kids cut off from their peers, depriving them of normal healthy social outlets. The virtual platforms of learning might be able to teach math or science but they cannot make up for losses in Social/Emotional learning, the very skills students need most to deal with the crisis. This is where you come in. “Back to Normal” is a misnomer given what so many students have missed out on.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Every child needs one on one attention, especially struggling students, who battle to believe in themselves. Project CHANGE is dedicated to the 5C’s curriculum that says every student needs to grow in Confidence, Curiosity, Collaboration, Courage and Career/future focused learning. Guided by internationally known teachers, the best narrative and coaching faculty in the region, the Project CHANGE 2021-22 team will serve together to tackle the COVID19 challenge to learning. By serving directly in schools and in after-school programs with leading non-profit organizations, AmeriCorps members commit to a year serving students so that they not just catch up, but “catch on fire” with taking the lead in their own learning.

For 20 years, AmeriCorps Project CHANGE Montgomery has combined a traditional AmeriCorps placement with the most innovative training and supervision drawn from the complementary disciplines of the narrative method and peer to peer executive coaching. 2021-21 will offer the same amazing faculty that includes Disaster Relief specialist Mary Fowler (Trauma informed teaching) performer and author Noa Baum, (on how to tell a story) Therapist Jonathan Zeitlin (Mindfulness and Zen) executive master coach Lynn Feingold ( the art of peer to peer coaching) Lockheed Martin retired manager John Dold (Building a Team) author and Professor, Dr. Jean Freedman ( How Improv can improve performance) Women’s Business Coach, Maria Mcelhenny (Financial Literacy) and many others. This outstanding team has been brought together under the leadership of world authority on narrative method and Project CHANGE director, Paul Costello.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

AmeriCorps Members are assigned to one of our outstanding nonprofit and educational organization partners:

My Y Story - Quinton

YMCA Youth & Family Services (YMCA-YFS) – YMCA-YFS is a community-based, comprehensive social services branch of the YMCA Metropolitan Washington. YFS provides school and community-based prevention and early intervention services to at-risk and under-served children and families from across Montgomery County, MD. YFS programs address basic social-service needs, teach fundamental life skills and assist participants in making healthy choices. The YMCA coordinates after-school programs for children, K-12.

AmeriCorps members serve as program assistants and coordinators at Benchmarks, serving middle school students.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Family Learning Solutions (FLS) – FLS provides services at Neelsville Middle School and at Gaithersburg High School. FLS offers tutoring to students referred by school personnel and juvenile court professionals. There is a need for bilingual AmeriCorps members to ensure that students and households struggling with English can access needed services. FLS also offers a special mentoring program for girls (6 – 12 grades) to ensure that they are equipped with essential life skills to thrive in their lives, personally, academically, and professionally. A safe, empowering, and supportive environment is provided as students cultivate authentic connection with themselves and others. 

AmeriCorps members can serve as a tutor for referred students and/or work as a mentor in the program for girls (6 – 12 grades).

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Arts on the Block | Montgomery County Volunteer Center

Arts on the Block (AOB) – AOB is an entrepreneurial nonprofit organization that provides a unique model of youth development and community engagement through public art. AOB is the only organization in the Washington, DC area offering youth of diverse backgrounds the opportunity to learn first-hand about the intersection of art, design, and business by engaging in real-world projects. Today, more than 100 AOB apprentice-created projects — from park benches to large-scale murals — grace public and private spaces throughout the area. 

One AmeriCorps member will assist the AOB cohort of passionate individuals in providing opportunities for creative youth in Montgomery County and beyond. This is a perfect placement for a budding artist.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

MONTGOMERY HOUSING PARTNERSHIP INC - GuideStar Profile

Montgomery Housing Partnership (MHP) – MHP serves more than 1,400 families in Montgomery County. They house people, empower families, and strengthen neighborhoods. Since 1989, Montgomery Housing Partnership’s mission is to preserve and expand quality affordable housing in Montgomery County. They advance their mission through three key strategies; by acquiring, rehabilitating, building and managing quality affordable housing, by developing and implementing community life programs to improve the quality of life and increase opportunities for our residents, and by collaborating with concerned citizens and businesses, public officials and community organizations to build strong, vital neighborhoods. 

Two AmeriCorps members coordinate and supervise preschool and after school programs for students who live in these properties.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Student Services - Psychological Services - Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, MD

The MCPS Restorative Justice Unit – Restorative Justice is an approach to building community, self-care, and conflict resolution. It’s a social justice platform that allows students to:

  • Actively engage and problem-solve physical, psychological, social and disciplinary issues that affect themselves and the community.
  • Take responsibility for their actions.
  • Work with those affected to restore and/or repair the members and community who were harmed as a result of those actions.

Two AmeriCorps members assist The MCPS Restorative Justice Unit in preparing and engaging all stakeholders in restorative practices through meaningful trainings, school-level support, collegial collaboration, and supported community partnerships.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MCPS Times Report 1/26 – ReachForTheWall

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) – MCPS is searching for classroom support to the teachers and students in the highest needs schools in the County, which include:

  • Kemp Mills Elementary School (Requires a Spanish Speaker)
  • Sligo Middle School
  • Jackson Road Elementary School
  • Thomas Edison School of Technology
  • Saturday School

Seven AmeriCorps members will serve as assistants in the classrooms and provide direct support to the teachers and students.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

\

George B. Thomas Sr. Learning Academy, Inc. - Saturday School | Montgomery County Volunteer Center

George B. Thomas Sr. Learning Academy (GBTLA) – GBTLA is often called Saturday School and is open to all students in Montgomery County. Saturday School is a sixth day of academic instruction with certified teachers in a nurturing and supportive environment. The Curriculum is aligned with that of Montgomery County Public Schools: Grades 1 through 8 focus on reading, language arts and math, Grades 9 through 12 focus on core subjects (English and Math); support for High School Assessments; HSA Bridge support available at select sites. College and career readiness is emphasized. 

The AmeriCorps member is involved in student- parent outreach and communication with an emphasis on the Latino community which has not yet participated in large numbers in this Saturday learning opportunity.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Community Bridges – Empowering Girls, Building Leaders for the Community

Community Bridges –  Community Bridges is a non-profit organization that helps empower girls from diverse backgrounds to become exceptional students, positive leaders, and healthy young women. Community Bridges envision an inclusive community where each person is valued and has abundant opportunities to improve themselves and the world around them. The following principles guide all their work. The organization believes in:

  • Endless Potential: Individuals are encouraged and given opportunities to explore limitless possibilities in order to actualize their dreams.
  • Strength-Focused Thinking: Everyone is in possession of assets that can be mobilized to promote collective action in schools and communities.
  • Resourcefulness: Barriers can be overcome by applying enterprising strategies to define resourceful ways to accomplish goals.
  • Multidimensional Approaches: The world is interconnected and whole-systems thinking ensures the success for those involved.

Three AmeriCorps members serve over 450 girls from Grades 4-12 in the after-school program, covering Elementary, Middle and High School.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Career Readiness Education Academy (CREA) - Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, MD

The Career Readiness Education Academy (CREA) – CREA is an academic and career readiness education program for older ESOL students in MCPS. Students in CREA are provided with opportunities to prepare for the GED exam, learn valuable work skills, and earn industry certifications. Students are referred to CREA if they are at least 18 years old and unlikely to meet all graduation requirements prior to turning 21 and/or if they are interested in pursuing an alternative pathway to a high school diploma via GED preparation. The CREA program is currently offered at both Seneca Valley High School and Thomas Edison High School of Technology as a full-day or evening program. Having these two program options provides students who need to work or care for their own children with an opportunity to continue their education in MCPS until they turn 21. Students who participate in either CREA program are considered full-time MCPS students. 

One AmeriCorps members will assist in tutoring students and providing support to the program educators.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MCPS Recovery and Academic Program (RAP) – RAP is a partnership between Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) and Sheppard Pratt Health System to connect youth with academic and substance use recovery support services. The program pairs academic coursework from MCPS with recovery support services provided at The Landing, Family Services’ recovery clubhouse. RAP helps students continue working toward graduation in a safe and supportive environment during the day while learning the necessary skills needed to maintain sobriety in the afternoons and evenings. It is free of charge to Montgomery County youth and accepts referrals from MCPS, juvenile drug court, and other non-profit agencies. 

One AmeriCorps members from Project CHANGE will assist the RAP participants in academic tutoring and mentoring and offer support to the program staff as needed.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

NEXT STEPS-INFORMATION SESSIONS

All applicants must be high school graduates and American citizens or permanent residents. Send a copy of your resume and a letter of interest and be prepared for an interview over June/July and attend a ZOOM information session on one of these dates:  June 11, June 24, July 7th, July 20th. Links to the ZOOM are below. 

DETAILS TO ATTEND AN INFORMATION SESSION ON ZOOM


Wednesday July 7th 2.00pm-3.30pm    https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88317577100

Tuesday July 20th 10.30am-12pm    
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85645207166


APPLY on Indeed here
 Email us at americorpsmontgomery@gmial.com

All members will be serving with MCPS schools and partner organizations that must abide by the Montgomery County Health and Safety Guidelines.

Apply 2021-22

June 28, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
Off

Edit

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is AdobeStock_246435405-scaled-1024x683.jpg

SERVICE BRINGS THE COMMUNITY TOGETHER!

Project CHANGE Montgomery is the original Montgomery County MD program of AmeriCorps, America’s “Domestic Peace Corps” for more than 20 years. AmeriCorps members serve the county’s most under-served K-12+ students inspiring them to believe in themselves enough to achieve. Project CHANGE uses its own phone app called MYSCORE, the innovative SEL tool that allows students to self-assess their growth in the 5C’s and reach out to the members to help them grow more confident, curious, collaborative, courageous and career/future focused learners.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

BENEFITS
In return, AmeriCorps members receive:

  • 300 hours of Training, peer-to-peer coaching, and professional development and mentoring
  • Living stipend of $18,000 per year
  • $6,345 educational scholarship
  • Health Insurance
  • Preference in hiring in many organizations and agencies
  • Child Care if qualified
  • Student loan forgiveness for the duration of the service
  • Lifelong friends who experience the challenges together
  • Invaluable experience of the local education/non-profit sector

Positions are full time (1700 hours over 12 months (August 2021 to August 2022) and some positions are Half Time (900 hours over a year.)S

MCPS

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) with 165,000+ Students enrolled, is one of the nations largest school districts and it grows every year. But since March 2020, all schools have shutdown, leaving kids cut off from their peers, depriving them of normal healthy social outlets. The virtual platforms of learning might be able to teach math or science but they cannot make up for losses in Social/Emotional learning, the very skills students need most to deal with the crisis. This is where you come in. “Back to Normal” is a misnomer given what so many students have missed out on.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Every child needs one on one attention, especially struggling students, who battle to believe in themselves. Project CHANGE is dedicated to the 5C’s curriculum that says every student needs to grow in Confidence, Curiosity, Collaboration, Courage and Career/future focused learning. Guided by internationally known teachers, the best narrative and coaching faculty in the region, the Project CHANGE 2021-22 team will serve together to tackle the COVID19 challenge to learning. By serving directly in schools and in after-school programs with leading non-profit organizations, AmeriCorps members commit to a year serving students so that they not just catch up, but “catch on fire” with taking the lead in their own learning.

For 20 years, AmeriCorps Project CHANGE Montgomery has combined a traditional AmeriCorps placement with the most innovative training and supervision drawn from the complementary disciplines of the narrative method and peer to peer executive coaching. 2021-21 will offer the same amazing faculty that includes Disaster Relief specialist Mary Fowler (Trauma informed teaching) performer and author Noa Baum, (on how to tell a story) Therapist Jonathan Zeitlin (Mindfulness and Zen) executive master coach Lynn Feingold ( the art of peer to peer coaching) Lockheed Martin retired manager John Dold (Building a Team) author and Professor, Dr. Jean Freedman ( How Improv can improve performance) Women’s Business Coach, Maria Mcelhenny (Financial Literacy) and many others. This outstanding team has been brought together under the leadership of world authority on narrative method and Project CHANGE director, Paul Costello.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

AmeriCorps Members are assigned to one of our outstanding nonprofit and educational organization partners:

My Y Story - Quinton

YMCA Youth & Family Services (YMCA-YFS) – YMCA-YFS is a community-based, comprehensive social services branch of the YMCA Metropolitan Washington. YFS provides school and community-based prevention and early intervention services to at-risk and under-served children and families from across Montgomery County, MD. YFS programs address basic social-service needs, teach fundamental life skills and assist participants in making healthy choices. The YMCA coordinates after-school programs for children, K-12.

AmeriCorps members serve as program assistants and coordinators at Benchmarks, serving middle school students.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Family Learning Solutions (FLS) – FLS provides services at Neelsville Middle School and at Gaithersburg High School. FLS offers tutoring to students referred by school personnel and juvenile court professionals. There is a need for bilingual AmeriCorps members to ensure that students and households struggling with English can access needed services. FLS also offers a special mentoring program for girls (6 – 12 grades) to ensure that they are equipped with essential life skills to thrive in their lives, personally, academically, and professionally. A safe, empowering, and supportive environment is provided as students cultivate authentic connection with themselves and others. 

AmeriCorps members can serve as a tutor for referred students and/or work as a mentor in the program for girls (6 – 12 grades).

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Arts on the Block | Montgomery County Volunteer Center

Arts on the Block (AOB) – AOB is an entrepreneurial nonprofit organization that provides a unique model of youth development and community engagement through public art. AOB is the only organization in the Washington, DC area offering youth of diverse backgrounds the opportunity to learn first-hand about the intersection of art, design, and business by engaging in real-world projects. Today, more than 100 AOB apprentice-created projects — from park benches to large-scale murals — grace public and private spaces throughout the area. 

One AmeriCorps member will assist the AOB cohort of passionate individuals in providing opportunities for creative youth in Montgomery County and beyond. This is a perfect placement for a budding artist.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

MONTGOMERY HOUSING PARTNERSHIP INC - GuideStar Profile

Montgomery Housing Partnership (MHP) – MHP serves more than 1,400 families in Montgomery County. They house people, empower families, and strengthen neighborhoods. Since 1989, Montgomery Housing Partnership’s mission is to preserve and expand quality affordable housing in Montgomery County. They advance their mission through three key strategies; by acquiring, rehabilitating, building and managing quality affordable housing, by developing and implementing community life programs to improve the quality of life and increase opportunities for our residents, and by collaborating with concerned citizens and businesses, public officials and community organizations to build strong, vital neighborhoods. 

Two AmeriCorps members coordinate and supervise preschool and after school programs for students who live in these properties.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Student Services - Psychological Services - Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, MD

The MCPS Restorative Justice Unit – Restorative Justice is an approach to building community, self-care, and conflict resolution. It’s a social justice platform that allows students to:

  • Actively engage and problem-solve physical, psychological, social and disciplinary issues that affect themselves and the community.
  • Take responsibility for their actions.
  • Work with those affected to restore and/or repair the members and community who were harmed as a result of those actions.

Two AmeriCorps members assist The MCPS Restorative Justice Unit in preparing and engaging all stakeholders in restorative practices through meaningful trainings, school-level support, collegial collaboration, and supported community partnerships.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MCPS Times Report 1/26 – ReachForTheWall

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) – MCPS is searching for classroom support to the teachers and students in the highest needs schools in the County, which include:

  • Kemp Mills Elementary School (Requires a Spanish Speaker)
  • Sligo Middle School
  • Jackson Road Elementary School
  • Thomas Edison School of Technology
  • Saturday School

Seven AmeriCorps members will serve as assistants in the classrooms and provide direct support to the teachers and students.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

\

George B. Thomas Sr. Learning Academy, Inc. - Saturday School | Montgomery County Volunteer Center

George B. Thomas Sr. Learning Academy (GBTLA) – GBTLA is often called Saturday School and is open to all students in Montgomery County. Saturday School is a sixth day of academic instruction with certified teachers in a nurturing and supportive environment. The Curriculum is aligned with that of Montgomery County Public Schools: Grades 1 through 8 focus on reading, language arts and math, Grades 9 through 12 focus on core subjects (English and Math); support for High School Assessments; HSA Bridge support available at select sites. College and career readiness is emphasized. 

The AmeriCorps member is involved in student- parent outreach and communication with an emphasis on the Latino community which has not yet participated in large numbers in this Saturday learning opportunity.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Community Bridges – Empowering Girls, Building Leaders for the Community

Community Bridges –  Community Bridges is a non-profit organization that helps empower girls from diverse backgrounds to become exceptional students, positive leaders, and healthy young women. Community Bridges envision an inclusive community where each person is valued and has abundant opportunities to improve themselves and the world around them. The following principles guide all their work. The organization believes in:

  • Endless Potential: Individuals are encouraged and given opportunities to explore limitless possibilities in order to actualize their dreams.
  • Strength-Focused Thinking: Everyone is in possession of assets that can be mobilized to promote collective action in schools and communities.
  • Resourcefulness: Barriers can be overcome by applying enterprising strategies to define resourceful ways to accomplish goals.
  • Multidimensional Approaches: The world is interconnected and whole-systems thinking ensures the success for those involved.

Three AmeriCorps members serve over 450 girls from Grades 4-12 in the after-school program, covering Elementary, Middle and High School.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Career Readiness Education Academy (CREA) - Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, MD

The Career Readiness Education Academy (CREA) – CREA is an academic and career readiness education program for older ESOL students in MCPS. Students in CREA are provided with opportunities to prepare for the GED exam, learn valuable work skills, and earn industry certifications. Students are referred to CREA if they are at least 18 years old and unlikely to meet all graduation requirements prior to turning 21 and/or if they are interested in pursuing an alternative pathway to a high school diploma via GED preparation. The CREA program is currently offered at both Seneca Valley High School and Thomas Edison High School of Technology as a full-day or evening program. Having these two program options provides students who need to work or care for their own children with an opportunity to continue their education in MCPS until they turn 21. Students who participate in either CREA program are considered full-time MCPS students. 

One AmeriCorps members will assist in tutoring students and providing support to the program educators.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MCPS Recovery and Academic Program (RAP) – RAP is a partnership between Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) and Sheppard Pratt Health System to connect youth with academic and substance use recovery support services. The program pairs academic coursework from MCPS with recovery support services provided at The Landing, Family Services’ recovery clubhouse. RAP helps students continue working toward graduation in a safe and supportive environment during the day while learning the necessary skills needed to maintain sobriety in the afternoons and evenings. It is free of charge to Montgomery County youth and accepts referrals from MCPS, juvenile drug court, and other non-profit agencies. 

One AmeriCorps members from Project CHANGE will assist the RAP participants in academic tutoring and mentoring and offer support to the program staff as needed.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

NEXT STEPS-INFORMATION SESSIONS

All applicants must be high school graduates and American citizens or permanent residents. Send a copy of your resume and a letter of interest and be prepared for an interview over June/July and attend a ZOOM information session on one of these dates:  June 11, June 24, July 7th, July 20th. Links to the ZOOM are below. 

DETAILS TO ATTEND AN INFORMATION SESSION ON ZOOM


Wednesday July 7th 2.00pm-3.30pm    https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88317577100

Tuesday July 20th 10.30am-12pm    
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85645207166


APPLY on Indeed here
 Email us at americorpsmontgomery@gmial.com

All members will be serving with MCPS schools and partner organizations that must abide by the Montgomery County Health and Safety Guidelines.

The deadly race riot ‘aided and abetted’ by The Washington Post a century ago

June 22, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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A front-page article helped incite the violence in the nation’s capital that left as many as 39 dead

By Gillian BrockellJuly 15, 2019 at 7:00 a.m. EDT27

The man attacked Louise Simmons in the afternoon, as she was leaving the Washington school where she taught. He had ridden up on a bicycle, leapt off and started pummeling her, she said. He dragged her toward a grove of trees; Simmons fought back until she was able to escape. It’s unclear how good a look she got of his face, but she could tell that, like her, he was black.

On that day, June 25, 1919, there were four major newspapers in the nation’s capital competing for readers. The Washington Herald published a small item about the attack on Simmons on page two, under the headline “Negro attacks negress.” The Washington Times ran a longer story but buried it in the back of the paper. The Evening Star and the smallest paper of the four — The Washington Post — didn’t mention it.

Five days later, a white woman said she was attacked by a black man, and the response was complete fury.

What followed was weeks of hysteria ginned up by the media, the arrest of hundreds of innocent black men, a riot that left as many as 39 dead and 150 injured, and put two black men in prison for decades for crimes they most likely did not commit.

The white woman, Bessie Gleason, said she was walking through the woods near her Takoma Park home when a black man leapt from the bushes, beat her with a club and choked her until she lost consciousness.

Police told newspapers another white woman had been accosted the same day. Different papers gave varying descriptions of the incident. In one, she merely saw a black man and ran away screaming. In another, the man “embraced” her, and she screamed until she was rescued by a white soldier.

In Tulsa, a century-old race massacre still haunts Black Wall Street

Soldiers crowded the city that summer, both white and black. Most had just been demobilized after returning from fighting in World War I, but they were allowed to continue wearing their uniforms while they looked for work. Some were still active-duty servicemen who suddenly didn’t have much to do.

The lines between soldier and citizen were blurred, but white residents were anxious to reestablish the order of white rule over any black veterans who may have forgotten “their place,” according to historian David F. Krugler in the journal “Washington History.”

Plus, while the men had been overseas, the District had gone dry, its prohibition on alcohol preceding the rest of the country. White soldiers looking for a drink ventured into the rough Southwest neighborhood of Bloodfield, where, according to Krugler, “black entrepreneurs controlled the illicit liquor trade.”

On July 5, newspapers reported the serial attacker struck again. Another white woman, Mary Saunders, said she was assaulted by a black man just over the District line in Maryland near Chevy Chase Circle.

The District’s chief of police told newspapers he was sure the crimes were all committed by the same perpetrator. He assigned 40 officers to investigate. Then 60 more. Then he authorized hundreds of volunteers from a wartime amateur patrol called the Home Defense League to join in the manhunt.

Over the next week, hundreds of black men were rounded up by police and league volunteers as possible suspects. According to Krugler, many were taken from their homes without warrants.

“Negro fiend pursued by 1,000 posse,” a Herald headline read. Days later, the paper reported “a group of white-hooded figures” were “riding at night, keeping undesirables indoors and spreading the fear of justice through the community.” The Ku Klux Klan “of reconstruction days” had been “revived,” the Herald declared.

On July 9, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sent a letter to the four newspapers, pleading with them to tone down the rhetoric, and warning that they were “sowing the seeds of a race riot by their inflammatory headlines.”

The warning was justified. Already that summer, race riots had erupted in Charleston, S.C., Longview, Tex., and New London, Conn. By fall, there would be two dozen more — in Chicago, Omaha, and Elaine, Ark. In addition, by mid-September, white mobs had lynched at least 43 African Americans, according to a Department of Labor report. Seven black veterans were lynched in their Army uniforms.

Vandals damage historical marker commemorating 1917 uprising by black soldiers

The morning the NAACP sent its letter, Louis Randall, a 22-year-old deacon in a black Baptist church, was walking across the Connecticut Avenue bridge in Northwest Washington when he was spotted by detectives. He ran, was caught and struggled to break free.

“I didn’t do it!” The Post reported him shouting, which detectives said was “strong evidence” against him, for how could he have known what he was denying unless he had actually done it?

Police Inspector Clifford Grant, like the chief of police, told the press only one man was responsible for all the attacks. But a few days later, when two white boys told police they had seen Forest Eaglen, a 20-year-old country club golf caddie, near Chevy Chase Circle, the inspector changed his story: Randall was the culprit for the attacks on Simmons and Gleason, and Eaglen had assaulted Saunders.

Then, on July 18, a young white newlywed was walking home from her job at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing when she encountered two black men. The four newspapers wrote wildly different versions of what happened — from verbal insults to a violent robbery — but she told police some kind of confrontation occurred.

Her husband, a civilian working for the Navy, overheard police say they had questioned a black man named Charles Ralls and became convinced of his guilt, the Evening Star reported. The next day, a Saturday, the husband enlisted more than a hundred friends, soldiers and veterans to hunt for Ralls. When night fell, they marched across the Mall toward Bloodfield armed with clubs and lead pipes, vowing to “clean it up.”

The forgotten story of an African American girl accused of murdering a police officer

They found Ralls walking with his wife and beat them both. The couple fled into their home, and the mob surrounded it, firing shots, pushing at the door and assaulting anyone else unlucky enough to pass by. One man was hospitalized with a fractured skull.

Officers from three police stations, a provost guard and a Marine detachment finally dispersed the crowd, but according to retired Post journalist Peter Perl, who researched the riots in the 1980s, police “arrested more blacks than whites, sending a clear signal about their sympathies.”

The next night was worse. The mob grew — emboldened by the halfhearted response from the authorities — and spread throughout the city, yanking black men, women and children off streetcars for beatings. One man was assaulted in front of The Post, another in front of the White House.

Down Pennsylvania Avenue, a brand-new dean at Howard University, historian Carter G. Woodson, narrowly escaped harm by hiding in the shadows as a white mob approached.

Others weren’t so lucky. Woodson later recalled what he witnessed: “They had caught a negro and deliberately held him as one would a beef for slaughter, and when they had conveniently adjusted him for lynching, they shot him. I heard him groaning in his struggle as I hurried away as fast as I could without running, expecting every moment to be lynched myself.”

The next morning, the city executive — Washington did not elect a mayor at the time — condemned the rioters and sensationalist coverage, saying “it is the duty of every citizen to express his support of law and order by refraining from any inciting conversation or the repetition of inciting rumor and tales.”

Then came an item on the front page of The Post, under the headline “Mobilization for Tonight.” “Every available service man” had been requested to meet on Pennsylvania Avenue between 7th and 8th streets, it read. “The hour of assembly is 9 o’clock and the purpose is a ‘clean-up’ that will cause the events of the last two evenings to pale into insignificance.”

Later, the NAACP blamed this article more than any other for the mayhem that followed. In his 1977 book about the history of The Post, legendary reporter Chalmers Roberts called it “highly provocative and shamefully irresponsible.”

An estimated 500 guns were sold that day, but it turns out they were bought mainly by black residents. And when the police forced gun dealers to stop selling, black organizers arranged an “underground railway” of firearms and ammunition from Baltimore, according to Krugler. A black citizens group distributed leaflets urging “our people . . . to go home before dark and to remain quietly and to protect themselves.”

White cavalry and Marine units were deployed across the city, but it was unclear whether they would be fighting the mob or joining it; some of the servicemen who were called in had rioted the night before.

Black residents suspected the target that night would be LeDroit Park, the prosperous black neighborhood next to Howard University. Two thousand black veterans and their compatriots formed a line of defense down Florida Avenue/U Street from 6th to 14th streets, facing south. They were armed.

As the sun set, Krugler wrote, skirmishes broke out. A white mob chased a black delivery driver; a band of black men boarded streetcars and assaulted uniformed Marines.

The police ordered the line of black veterans to disperse; they refused. Officers jabbed at the veterans with bayonets; it didn’t work. Then the police drew their weapons, and shots rang out — perhaps from the black sharpshooters stationed on the roof of the Howard Theater. An officer fell to the ground. The police opened fire; the black veterans returned it as they retreated.

It continued like this through the short summer night. A black veteran shot into the crowd chasing him and killed a man. A white conductor stopped his streetcar and shot at a black passenger. A 17-year-old black girl shot a police officer dead after he entered her family’s home without a warrant. A vigilante in the Home Defense League shot and killed the son of a beloved black messenger for the House Speaker. He had come back from the war only 10 days earlier.

The day 30,000 white supremacists in KKK robes marched in the nation’s capital

The next day, President Woodrow Wilson, an avowed segregationist who had been sick for days with severe diarrhea, took decisive action, ordering thousands of troops from surrounding bases to descend on the city.

Mobs gathered again that night, but something finally happened to dampen the rampage: a heavy summer rain.

Nine people were killed in the rioting; 30 more later died from their wounds, according to Perl’s account. Of all the race riots to erupt that summer, the one in Washington holds a peculiar distinction — it’s believed to be the only one with as many white casualties as black, or more.

A week later, with headlines now fixed on rioting in Chicago, more than a thousand black residents packed into the Howard Theater to form a defense fund for people of color arrested during the riots. The Post quoted an organizer named William T. Ferguson saying he believed the police, city leaders and “the reporters of Washington newspapers were aware of the approaching riot and aided and abetted it.”

It’s unclear if the defense fund was ever used to help Forest Eaglen or Louis Randall, who spent the four days of the riot in the D.C. jail. If it was, then it didn’t work.

Early in the investigation, Grant, the police inspector, told newspapers that Eaglen’s alibi — he claimed he was playing pool downtown at the time Saunders was attacked — had checked out “in part.” And Grant had “readily admit[ted]” to reporters he was “skeptical” of Randall’s guilt. All three women were initially uncertain when asked to positively identify Eaglen or Randall.

But by the time of the young men’s respective trials that winter, the uncertainty was gone. The women identified Eaglen and Randall as their assailants.

Eaglen, who was tried in Maryland, was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years.

Randall was convicted in two separate trials; for the attack on Simmons, the black teacher, he was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. For the attack on Gleason, he was sentenced to death. He was twice given an execution date before President Wilson commuted his death sentence to 30 years, to be served consecutively with his other term.

Seven months after the riot, a music teacher named Gertrude Mann was found beaten to death in the woods near Connecticut Avenue. A year after the riot, a police officer noticed a 22-year-old black man named William Henry Campbell testing doorknobs in Columbia Heights in Northwest Washington. Detectives searched his home and found $2,000 worth of women’s jewelry in a bag tucked into his chimney.

He confessed not only to killing Mann but to dozens of other robberies and assaults, including those on Saunders, Gleason and Simmons. When investigators suggested he was lying about the other attacks to do Eaglen and Randall “a favor,” he offered to go to the scene of each crime to explain how he committed them, according to the Washington Times.

Campbell recanted his confessions once he was provided with an attorney. He was convicted of killing Mann and hanged.

When Campbell was first arrested, the Times said Eaglen and Randall’s attorneys planned to file paperwork requesting pardons.

Two years after the riot, on August 19, 1921, the Times had an exclusive: Gleason was now unsure if it was Randall or Campbell who had attacked her.

That’s the last time Eaglen or Randall made it into a local paper.

Census records show that in 1930, Forest Eaglen was still in the Maryland Penitentiary in Baltimore. An archivist for the Maryland State Archives was unable to find a record of his release, pardon or death, which he called “puzzling.” No other records that could shed light on what happened to him have yet been found.

In 1930 and 1940, the last year for which census records are publicly available, Louis Randall was in federal prison in Atlanta. A Social Security record indicates a man with the same name and birth year died in Washington in 1974; it is unclear if this is the same man.

If Randall had served his full 45-year sentence, he would have been released around 1965. It is possible he was back in Washington for the next major riot in 1968.

Read more Retropolis:

1968 riots: Four days that reshaped Washington

The day 30,000 white supremacists in KKK robes marched in the nation’s capital

Death of ‘a devil’: The white supremacist got hit by a car. His victims celebrated.

When Portland banned blacks: Oregon’s shameful history as an ‘all-white’ state

‘Fearless’ Ida B. Wells honored by new lynching museum for fighting racial terrorism

Why Congress failed nearly 200 times to make lynching a federal crime27 Comments

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By Gillian Brockell Gillian Brockell is a staff writer for The Washington Post’s history blog, Retropolis. She has been at The Post since 2013 and previously worked as a video editor.  

Silver Spring Civil Rights Museum???

June 22, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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This entry was posted in Silver Spring and tagged historic preservation, History, Montogmery County (Md.) by David Rotenstein.

Crivella’s Wayside Inn. Tucked away in the 1000-block of East West Highway near downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, this former restaurant was the scene of non-violent civil rights protests between 1962 and 1965. Montgomery County in 2006 bought the former Crivella’s Wayside Inn. After holding listening sessions with members of Silver Spring’s historic Black community, county leaders worked with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History to collect stories, artifacts, and design exhibits to tell the story of Silver Spring’s Black communities, from colonial plantations and enslavement through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement.

That’s what a journalist writing about a new Silver Spring Civil Rights Museum might have written had there been a museum developed in the former Crivella’s space. Instead, Montgomery County officials demolished the former restaurant and erased its history. This post explores a lost opportunity for Montgomery County to confront its segregationist history and seek reconciliation with its African American residents, past and present.

Crivella’s Wayside Inn

In early 1962, a U.S. Department of Labor employee whose office had recently moved to Silver Spring from Washington decided to have lunch at nearby restaurant. Just a few weeks earlier, the Montgomery Council had enacted an open accommodations law making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race.

Crivella’s was owned by Samuel A. Crivella Sr. (1904-1980). His parents, Nunzio and Sarah Crivella, were Italian immigrants who settled in Baltimore in 1901. Nunzio identified himself as a butcher in immigration documents. He became a grocer in the United States. By 1910, the family was living on H Street N.E. in Washington, D.C.

H Street was was a diverse ethnic community with many European immigrants: German and Russian Jews and Italians. Nunzio quickly accumulated enough wealth to begin buying several properties in the corridor. He opened his own grocery store and his family lived in homes they owned.

Crivella’s Market operated at 10th and H streets for several years. Nunzio’s sons joined him in the business and they traded as N. Crivella and Sons: Joseph (born in Italy in 1896) and later Samuel (born in Baltimore in 1904). Nunzio and Sarah’s other son, Tony, becacme a barber. The couple also had two daughters, Rose and Jenny.

According to an obituary, Nunzio Crivella retired in 1932 and died a decade later, in 1942. His sons, Joseph and Sam, succeeded him in the family business.

By the late 1930s, Sam and a partner, Louis Pisapia, appear to have been renting a Georgia Avenue storefront on Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, just north of the District of Columbia. He called it the “Wayside Market.” In the late 1930s, the market appeared in several newspaper articles, including one in 1937 about a robbery. In 1944, the federal government ordered the store closed for three weeks for violating war rationing regulations.

Around the same time that the Wayside Market was operating, a restaurant in a new building on East-West Highway was opening up. According to newspaper coverage of its liquor license applications, it was called the “Wayside Inn.” There is no available documentation to show a connection to Crivella prior to 1948.

Samuel Crivella obituary photo. The Washington Post, May 10, 1980.

In July 1948, Sam Crivella bought a rectangular lot at 1008 East-West Highway. Already the site of the “Wayside Inn,” Crivella kept the name (perhaps because he might have had a financial interest in it before buying the real estate) and continued to do business there until he retired in the late 1950s.

Sam Crivella and his wife Roselea had two children: a son, Samuel Jr., and a daughter, Mary. The junior Sam Crivella took his father’s place as the restaurant’s manager. The elder Crivella had already stepped away from the restaurant and was enjoying his retirement when the family’s business began appearing in court documents and headlines, his daughter told me in 2017.

Samuel Crivella Jr. was in charge of the restaurant in early 1962 when the Montgomery County Council enacted an open accommodations law. The law prohibited discrimination on the basis of race in public places in the county, including parks, hospitals, lodging establishments, and “all restaurants, soda fountains and other eating or drinking establishments.” Prior to that point, business owners could serve or decline to serve anyone they wished.

Montgomery County Open Accommodations Law.

The new law, titled “Elimination of Discrimination in Places of Public Accommodation” (Ordinance No. 4-120), became effective in February 1962, a few months after the U.S. Department of Labor moved several hundred office workers from downtown Washington, D.C., to Silver Spring.

Office building at 8701 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland. Shortly after the building was completed, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that it was leasing space there and in another building on Eastern Avenue. The move involved 620 employees, including 150 to 200 African Americans. This eight-story modern office building was designed by Washington architect Edwin Weihe. According to the Montgomery County Historic Preservation Office, the building is historically significant for its architecture: its design by Weihe and as an “early local example of the glass curtain wall office building.”

More than 200 African Americans were among the agency staff transferred. That point wasn’t lost on journalists who noted that Silver Spring was rigidly segregated. “Silver Spring has a very small Negro population,” wrote the Washington Post in October 1961. “A recent study by the Montgomery County Human Relations Commission showed that some eating establishments will accept Negro patronage and some will not.”

The Washington Post, October 17, 1961.

The Black press at the time was more blunt in its take on the move. Jet magazine reported in November 1961, “More than 300 Negroes were among 1,000 Labor Dept. employees shifted from Washington to new work quarters in exclusive, nearly all-white Silver Spring.” The headline read, “Goldberg Integrates Swank White Md. Suburb.”

Crivella’s Wayside Inn became the first battleground where the county’s new public accommodations law was challenged and Department of Labor employees led the charge.

Integrating Silver Spring: Roscoe Nix and Crivella’s

“Denying that the shift is a calculated attempt to integrate suburbia, a Department spokesman said Labor Sec. Arthur J. Goldberg is not unhappy at what he called ‘an unintended dividend of social progress,’” wrote Jet magazine, in its coverage of the Department of Labor’s Silver Spring move. There’s a direct through line connecting the fall 1961 agency move to the 1962 Montgomery County Open Accommodations law to the civil rights actions that took place at Crivella’s starting in the spring of 1962.

Roscoe Nix. Source: Montgomery County Volunteer Center.

Roscoe Nix (1921-2012) was born in Greenville, Alabama. He attended Alabama A&M University for three years before enlisting in the army during World War II. After the war, he graduated from Howard University. He was working in the Department of Labor in 1961 when his office relocated to Silver Spring.

Historian Bruce Johansen interviewed Nix for a dissertation on Silver Spring. He recounted the decision in 1962 to eat at Crivellas. Johansen wrote,

Roscoe Nix was well aware that Montgomery County had passed the ordinance and knew of the tavern exemption, but mainly because Crivella’s Wayside Restaurant was not a bar, he could see no reason why he and an African American friend should not lunch at the downtown Silver Spring family-owned business. “I had a friend who was a minister who came out to have lunch with me one day,” he remembers. “We were looking for a place to eat lunch and spotted one.” The friend asked if they were welcome to go inside, to which Nix replied, “Sure, we can go in there.” So they did. He recounts what happened next:

We went in there and immediately this waitress came over and told us ‘all of these places are reserved, so you can’t sit down.’ So we left. He [the friend] said, ‘I think she’s lying.’ So what we did, we had a friend who looked Caucasian and we decided that we were going to go in there at around 11:45, this may have been a couple of days or a week later even. And we said to her, ‘Get something on the table, whatever it is.’ The quickest thing she could get was something she didn’t like, onion soup.

After Peggy, a co-worker from the Labor Department, had placed her order, Roscoe entered with a second African American woman friend. This other woman, he said, “was obviously black. And the two of us, we went in and she [Peggy] said, ‘Come on over and have a seat.’ The waitress said, ‘you can’t sit there.’ And we said, ‘Why?’” At their request, the waitress brought the manager to them. “He said, ‘This is a private club,’” to which Peggy responded, “Well, I’m not a member of the club.” The manager told Peggy that there would be no charge for her soup and then called the police. As Nix remembers, the officer was polite but said that there was nothing he could do about the refusal of service. “Trying to be nice, he said, ‘Well, you know, they can refuse to serve you. They can refuse to serve a dirty white man.’ So we left.” Bruce Johansen, Imagined Pasts, Imagined Futures: Race, Politics, Memory, and the Revitalization of Downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, pp. 319-320.

That episode triggered three years of proceedings before the Montgomery County Human Relations Commission and litigation. It is hailed as a pivotal point in Montgomery County and Silver Spring’s civil rights history. The subsequent protests included sit-ins and demonstrations that attracted Washington civil rights leader Julius Hobson.

Baltimore Afro-American, May 5, 1962.

Roscoe Nix’s leadership in that moment set him on a trajectory to spend the remainder of his life in civil rights. He left the Labor Department and went to work for the U.S. Justice Department’s Community Relations Service, which focused on conflict resolution in cities experiencing civil unrest. He became the Maryland Human Rights Commission’s executive secretary in the late 1960s and in 1974 he became the first African American elected to the Montgomery County School Board. Nix also served as the Montgomery County Chapter of the NAACP president for a decade (1989-1990) and in 2001 he was inducted into the Montgomery County Human Rights Hall of Fame.

Yet, despite the significant events that took place at Crivella’s, in downtown Silver Spring there are no commemorative plaques, markers, or monuments celebrating Nix’s achievements and the civil rights movement in the Washington suburb.

The Silver Spring Civil Rights Museum

The Crivella family sold the restaurant in 1978. They rented the space to a series of businesses, including a car rental agency and video store, before selling the property in 2006 to Montgomery County. The building had been surveyed in for the Silver Spring Central Business District Historic Sites Survey. The historic preservation consultants working under contract to the Montgomery County Planning Department documented the former Crivella’s restaurant in a three-page Maryland Historic Trust Determination of Eligibility Form.

Former Crivella’s restaurant, 1008 East-West Highway. Maryland Historic Trust Determination of Eligibility Form, 2002.

According to the survey, which was published in 2002, the property was not eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. The form contained no narrative statement about the building’s history. According to the survey,

This is a 1-story brick building that has been heavily altered. It has a flat roof that has been decorated with a small asphalt shingled porch roof supported by wrought iron railings. The majority of the structure has been faced with T-11 siding and all windows and doors have been replaced with large aluminum sash insulated windows.

2002 Historic Resources Survey form.

Montgomery County government held onto the vacant building for several years before demolishing it in 2008 or 2009 to complete a new pedestrian master plan for the neighborhood. The county rebranded the new space “Bottleworks Lane” to commemorate two historic bottling works that had been located nearby. A local blogger captured its opening in 2009 with local dignitaries (Reemberto Rodriguez, Jamie Raskin, Isiah Leggett, Chris Van Hollen, and Nancy Floreen, left to right) cutting a string with plastic bottles suspended from it.

Bottleworks Lane Ribbon cutting ceremony, December 18, 2009. Dan Reed on Flickr.

Montgomery County lost a tremendous opportunity to tell Roscoe Nix’s story and the history of the civil rights movement’s efforts to strangle Jim Crow in Silver Spring. To learn about segregation in Silver Spring, the Black experience, Roscoe Nix, and the civil rights era, folks need to read obscure dissertations and academic articles. They won’t find these stories in the downtown Silver Spring Heritage Trail markers or in books about Silver Spring history or in public art commemorating other notable Silver Spring residents and events.

Isn’t it about time Silver Spring stepped up and confronted its racist past and its racist presentation of history and celebrated the community’s significant civil rights achievements?

Former Crivella’s Wayside Inn site/Bottleworks Lane, August 2016.

© 2020 D.S. Rotenstein

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Systemic Racism? A conservative weighs in.

June 22, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Opinion: I’m a conservative who believes systemic racism is real

Opinion by Michael Gerson Columnist June 21, 2021 at 1:48 p.m. EDT844

The phrase “systemic racism,” like “climate change” and “gun control,” has been sucked into the vortex of the culture war. The emotional reaction to these words seems to preclude reasoned debate on their meaning.

But a divisive concept can be clarifying. I know it has been for me: I don’t think it’s possible to be a conservative without believing that racism is, in part, structural.

Most on the American right have dug into a very different position. They tend to view racism as an individual act of immorality. And they regard the progressive imputation of racism to be an attack on their character. In a free society, they reason, the responsibility for success and failure is largely personal. They’re proud of the productive life choices they’ve made and refuse to feel guilty for self-destructive life choices made by others.

It’s an argument that sounds convincing — until it’s tested against the experience of our own lives.

I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood of a middle-class suburb in a Midwestern city. I went to a middle-class high school, with middle-class friends, eating middle-class fried bologna sandwiches. And for most of my upbringing, this seemed not only normal but normative. I assumed this was a typical American childhood.

Only later did I begin to see that my normality was actually a social construction. By the time I was growing up in the 1970s, St. Louis no longer had legal segregation. But my suburb, my neighborhood and my private high school were all outcomes of White flight. The systems of policing, zoning and education I grew up with had been created to ensure one result: to keep certain communities safe, orderly and pale.

I had little hint of this as a child. It seemed natural that I hardly ever met a person of color in a racially diverse city or seldom met a poor person in a place with some of the worst poverty in the country. All I knew was that I shouldn’t get lost in certain neighborhoods or invite Black people to the private pool where we were members. (My brother did once, and there was suddenly a problem with processing our membership card.)

But none of this was neutral or normal. Systems had been carefully created to ensure I went to an all-White church, in an all-White neighborhood, while attending an all-White Christian school and shopping in all-White stores. I now realize I grew up in one of the most segregated cities in the United States.

Was this my fault? Not in the strictest sense. I didn’t create these systems. But I wish I had realized earlier that these systems had created me.

This is what I mean by systemic racism. If, on my 13th birthday, all the country’s laws had been suddenly, perfectly and equally enforced, my community would still have had a massive hangover of history. The structures and attitudes shaped during decades and centuries of oppression would still have existed. Legal equality in theory does not mean a society is justly constituted.

For me, part of being a conservative means taking history seriously. We do not, as Tom Paine foolishly claimed, “have it in our power to begin the world over again.” We live in an imperfect world we did not create and have duties that flow from our story.

There is an important moral distinction between “guilt” and “responsibility.” It is not useful, and perhaps not fair, to say that most White people are guilty of creating social systems shaped by white supremacy. But they do have a responsibility as citizens, and as moral creatures, to seek a society where equal opportunity is a reality for all.

It is true that “wokeness” can be used as a political weapon. It is true that shame culture can be cruel and misdirected. And, as a conservative, I believe that equal opportunity, rather than mandated economic equality, is the proper goal of a free society. But what if we are (to employ a football analogy) not 30 yards away from the goal of equal opportunity in the United States, but 70 yards? What if equal opportunity is a cruel joke to a significant portion of the country? Shouldn’t that create an outrage and urgency that we rarely see, and even more rarely feel?

Though our nation is beset with systemic racism, we also have the advantage of what a friend calls “systemic anti-racism.” We have documents — the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the 14th Amendment — that call us to our better selves. We are a country that has exploited and oppressed Black Americans. But we arealso the country that has risen up in mass movements, made up of Blacks and Whites, to confront those evils. The response to systemic racism is the determined, systematic application of our highest ideals.

Read more:

Michele L. Norris: Here come the Juneteenth knickknacks. Where are the lesson plans?T

Civil Rights in Montgomery County MD

June 21, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/humanrights/resources/files/civil_right_progress.pdfh

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/montgomery-county-civil-rights-leader-roscoe-nix-dies/2012/01/06/gIQAukRufP_story.html

My community’s history is racist. How can I correct it?

https://www.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/B9ZLDC5607E2/$file/David%20Rotenstein.pdf

https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/humanrights/resources/files/civil_right_progress.pdf

PROCLAMATION-JUNETEENTH

June 18, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Montgomery County Maryland

Where to celebrate Juneteenth in the Twin Cities and beyond (2020)

WHEREAS, on June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the bill establishing Juneteenth National Independence Day a federal holiday; and

WHEREAS, in 1860, Montgomery County had a population of 18,322, including some 5,500 slaves and 1,500 free blacks. Maryland would remain a slave-holding state until the Maryland Constitution of 1864 outlawed slavery on November 1, 1864; and

WHEREAS, Juneteenth has come to symbolize freedom for many African Americans just as the Fourth of July means freedom to all Americans; and

WHEREAS, Juneteenth is one of several freedom-day celebrations commemorating the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and celebrates the notification of the last slaves in Galveston, Texas by General Gordon Granger on June 19, 1865, almost two and a half years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation; and

WHEREAS, throughout our nation, Juneteenth is celebrated annually as a historical and memorable tribute to our country’s African American heritage and triumph of the human spirit over the cruelty of slavery; and

WHEREAS, the Quakers in Montgomery County actively participated in the freedom of slaves and were the first to provide secret trails to the Underground Railroad and safe houses leading to Canada and freedom; and

WHEREAS, tonight we honor the life-long contributions made by Dr. Elwood Raphael Gray, Willie Mackey King, Reverend Dr. Sterling King Jr., John Macklin, and Dr. Hercules Pinkney who have served to further the cause of social justice, inclusion, and a more harmonious Montgomery County; and

Where to celebrate Juneteenth in the Twin Cities and beyond (2020)

WHEREAS, Montgomery County is proud to join in honoring Juneteenth with this twenty fourth countywide celebration to promote and enhance the unity and spiritual strength that brought Africans out of slavery and sustained their dignity and perseverance to the present day.

Signed this 19th day of June in the year 2021 Marc Eirich, as County Executive,

and Thomas Hucker, as Council President proclaim June 19, 2021 as JUNETEENTH in Montgomery County.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Montgomery-County-MD-Logo.jpg

We encourage all residents to observe the 156th anniversary of this historic day. &�£:R✓

V MARC ELRICH County Executive

;LJ(L_ TOM HUCKER Council President

President Biden Announces Michael D. Smith as Nominee for AmeriCorps CEO

June 17, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Dear National Service Community,

As we continue to work in partnership with you to advance the Biden Administration’s vision that everyone should be able to serve in communities across the country, I am pleased to share President Biden’s intent to nominate Michael D. Smith, Executive Director of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance and Director of Youth Opportunity Programs at the Obama Foundation, as AmeriCorps’ next Chief Executive Officer.

A former colleague and fervent champion, Michael has an incredible story steeped in service and well represents our commitment to getting things done for the country. He’s a long-time advocate, changemaker, and innovator who can undoubtedly help us expand access to and interest in national service and community volunteerism—both which can drive change related to challenges communities around the country are facing, like COVID recovery, economic justice, racial equity, disaster mitigation, conservation efforts and so much more.

From the White House announcement:

Michael Smith currently serves as Executive Director of the My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) Alliance and Director of Youth Opportunity Programs at the Obama Foundation. MBK Alliance leads a national call to action to build safe and supportive communities for boys and young men of color where they are valued and have clear pathways to opportunity. Smith was part of the team that designed and launched the My Brother’s Keeper initiative in the Obama Administration, and was appointed Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director of Cabinet Affairs for My Brother’s Keeper, managing the initiative and interagency Task Force at the White House.

Prior to joining the White House team, Smith was director of the Social Innovation Fund, Senior Vice President of Social Innovation at the Case Foundation, and helped build national initiatives aimed at bridging the “digital divide.” Smith is a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity and a member of Boys and Girls Clubs of America’s Alumni Hall of Fame, the highest honor bestowed by the organization. He also serves on the board of directors of Results for America and Venture Philanthropy Partners.

We look forward to the leadership Michael will bring to the national service team and are prepared to work with the White House and Congress throughout the confirmation process. View the full statement on our website. 

In Service,

Mal Coles
Acting Chief Executive Officer
AmeriCorps

Opinion: Maryland’s education crisis worsens every day students are out of school

June 11, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Opinion by Margery Smelkinson Washington Post
April 9, 2021 at 9:00 a.m. EDT15

Margery Smelkinson is an infectious-disease scientist and a leader in Together Again MCPS.

President Biden wants schools fully reopened by his 100th day in office, April 30. To help this along, his policies and administration have provided money, given vaccinations to educators and revised Centers for Disease Control and Prevention physical distancing guidance to enable more students to enter classrooms. Unfortunately, meager reopening efforts by state and county officials may preclude Maryland from achieving this goal. The state hovers near last place in the country for offering live instruction.

Weeks ago, Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Karen B. Salmon encouraged districts to use three-feet distancing for all students in schools in accordance with the new CDC guidance, and Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said students “must have the opportunity to return to attending school in some form or fashion.” Sadly, Maryland’s largest districts are reopening glacially, and it was naive to assume they would do otherwise. They are clearly serving other interests. The unscientific policies and union demands that have kept schools closed for more than a year demonstrate our leaders’ ongoing apathy toward our children’s academic and mental well-being.

It will take far more than these weak nudges to get compliance out of districts, such as Montgomery and Prince George’s, that have been incredibly lethargic in returning students to classrooms. To achieve Biden’s goal, state leaders will need to mandate full reopening five days a week.

Eighty-six percent of U.S. public-school students attend schools that are offering instruction in person, many of them five days a week. The CDC reported in January that very few school outbreaks were recorded between March and December 2020 and that infection rates were the same in communities offering live instruction as they were in those offering virtual. This is because schools can be, and usually are, reopened safely with basic and inexpensive precautions.

However, as the state’s largest school boards remain slow to act, despite the research available on how to reopen safely, Maryland students are suffering the consequences. The state’s failing report card reflects this negligence.

Second-quarter data shows most districts in Maryland have doubled or tripled failing grades in math and English compared with last year. Most districts are also reporting significant drops in attendance. This school disengagement is a key driver of our youth mental health crisis, with diagnoses of anxiety and depression elevated over pre-pandemic times. The CDC, by comparing students learning in person with those learning remotely or in a hybrid model, links this mental health crisis, at least partly, to the seclusion of virtual learning.

Recognizing the extensive failings of online learning and the established safety of reopening, some of Maryland’s smaller counties, such as Cecil, Allegany and Carroll, have already returned students to school at least four days a week. In contrast, the lackadaisical reopening efforts of Montgomery, Baltimore, Howard and Prince George’s counties and Baltimore City, comprising 60 percent of Maryland’s students, are unscientific and disgraceful. As these districts also encompass three-quarters of Maryland’s Black and Hispanic population, this limits access to those very communities suffering the worst with online learning.

In January, Hogan called on schools to reopen for hybrid instruction by March 1, but these five districts are taking until mid-April or later to return all students for a piddling few days a week. Some students will have waited 400 days for even this little amount of in-person instruction. Being large does not excuse this sluggish return. Many similarly sized or larger districts have returned all students to schools in two to three weeks, including neighboring Fairfax County, with 188,000 students. A better showing by these large counties is essential to ending Maryland’s infamy as one of the states offering the least amount of live instruction.ADVERTISING

Adding insult to injury, even when students do return, many still languish in the isolation of Zoom because their teachers remain remote. Virtual instruction from the classroom is inadequate, does not address the academic needs of Maryland’s children, and does not reflect the live instruction that our children deserve and millions elsewhere are already receiving. Now that most Maryland teachers are vaccinated, which crushes transmission and infection, these accommodations must end. Teachers were prioritized for vaccination to provide live instruction.

Fully reopened schools are essential to reverse the downward trajectory of education in Maryland. Parents are ready to send kids back, but the largest counties are moving far too slowly, lengthening waitlists instead of responding to community needs and recognizing the urgent harms of online learning.

Every day our children are out of school worsens this academic and mental health crisis. This is particularly pressing as a recent national survey shows large racial disparities among students learning in person and those learning remotely, which will undoubtedly widen the education gap between White students and students of color.Advertisement

Schools are open five days a week in most states. In some cases, where local leaders have floundered, governors and state boards of education have required schools to provide full-time live instruction.

With the fourth quarter approaching, state leaders here must mandate schools fully reopen this spring. Every day that they don’t, Marylanders continue to fall further behind.

Read more:

Kendrick E. Curry: Now is the time to plan for D.C.’s next school year

Catherine Rampell: Our students fell way behind this year. It’s time to start talking summer school.

Emily Oster: Schools are not spreading covid-19. This new data makes the case.

The Post’s View: Students have already lost too much time. They need to be back in classrooms.

Helaine Olen: It’s past time for schools to reopenUpdated June 9, 2021

Read more from Opinions on Maryland issues

Opinions by Post columnists and guest writers:

Mike Tidwell and David Shneyer: We are faith leaders in Maryland. Congress must pass Biden’s American Jobs plan.

Jeneva Stone: My son’s home health worker is the face of infrastructure

Julie M. Statland: Maryland women will win when they get equal funding and endorsements

Richard Leotta: Congress has the power to end drunken driving — by getting the right technology built into cars

James Tate: Prince George’s County is leading the way on healthy options for children’s meals

Hans Riemer: How Montgomery County is working to create safe, police-free schools

Opinions by the Editorial Board:

A shooting on Metro is veiled in official silence

Hogan is backing off his plan to widen the Beltway. Expect more traffic.

How to remember a stain on American history

We need a solution to get White’s Ferry running again

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Anger: A Powerful Force for Empathy and Change

June 8, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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By Susana Rinderle July 29, 2015

Susana Rinderle

Among Good People dedicated to social justice, progressive causes and personal growth, there is often a high value placed on self-awareness and authentic expression.  Being fully present, having feelings and being transparent about one’s experience and perspective are encouraged – at least that’s the intent.  However, I often find that the value of authentic expression and feelings extends only throughout the territory of “positive emotions” like love, joy, connection, harmony, compassion, and even grief.  “Negative” emotions – shame, envy, contempt, anger – aren’t as welcome.  Especially anger.

Anger seems to especially unnerve and threaten good-hearted, progressive people.  It’s often treated as an emotion that’s unsuitable for “evolved” people, who should transcend such “inferior” feelings.  Maybe it’s because anger typically occurs in the belly and deep torso – long considered an inferior part of the body – instead of the chest or head.  Maybe it’s because racial, cultural, class, and gender dynamics (White, middle-to-upper class, female) and these groups’ corresponding aversion to anger pervades many social justice, progressive, and personal growth communities.  Maybe it’s just plain old fear. 

This aversion to anger is not serving us, because anger serves us.  Anger is not an inferior, or even “negative” emotion.  Like all emotions, it gives us valuable information about our experience; about our interpretation of what’s going on around us.  Anger lets us know we’re experiencing disrespect or the violation of a boundary.  As a highly social species, expressed anger has helped humans keep each other in check for tens of thousands of years by showing displeasure with those who violate social norms essential to our survival.  It’s helped us maintain cohesive communities and survive multiple threats to our existence as a species.

Anger is power.  It’s red.  It’s heat.  Anger is movement and sound.  Anger is a force for change, a force of strength.  It’s a “catalyst for necessary destruction, making way for rebirth and renewal.”

Anger is power.

This might be why Good People fear anger.  We fear power.

Good People often eschew power.  We’ve seen individuals with power abuse and violate other individuals in the home and in the streets.  We’ve witnessed people with power disrespecting and belittling other people at work.  We’ve experienced institutions and companies with power cheating and decimating entire groups of people in society.  We’ve witnessed nations and ethnic groups with power invade and murder other nations and ethnic groups.

So we reject power as harmful, even evil.  This is a mistake.  Power isn’t the problem, it’s one form of power that’s the problem: Power Over.   While there’s evidence that merely possessing Power Over – even temporarily and in laboratory settings – triggers bad behavior in humans I maintain that the real problem is abuse of Power Over, intentional or not.  Power is merely a tool or resource.

Also, other forms of power exist, which aren’t only useful, they’re essential to creating change and a world that works better for everyone.  In his enlightening work with The Co-Intelligence Institute, Tom Atlee explores three other types of power besides Power Over: Power With, Power From Within, and Power As.  He also talks quite a bit about Wholesome Power.  This is the kind of expansive thinking Good People should adopt and embody.  Thinking of power in limited terms as only one form – which is inherently evil – deprives Good People of one of the engines of much-needed (capital C) Change.

I define power as “the ability to create a result.”  Results are desperately needed.  Good People who are trapped in Overheartedness aren’t moving us forward.  Those who live only in peace, love and kindness aren’t moving us forward.  In his excellent book Power and Love, Adam Kahane describes the importance of both Power and Love to move change – that to wield only one is to walk with only one leg.  Drawing on Paul Tillich, Kahane defines power as “the drive of everything living to realize itself, with increasing intensity and extensity” and love as “the drive toward the unity of the separated”.  He writes:

“love is what makes power generative instead of degenerative.  Power is what makes love generative instead of degenerative.”  

He reminds us that Martin Luther King said “power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic….this collision of immoral power with powerless morality constitutes the major crisis of our time.” Kahane adds:

“love without attention to or transformation of power can be, not merely sentimental and anemic, but reinforcing of the capacity of the already powerful to act recklessly and abusively.”

We must exercise our power.  Of course anger isn’t the only source of power, but it is a high-octane fuel for Change.  Think about moments in history, and moments in your own life, where anger moved stuckness and led to beneficial change.  Think about where we’d be in the USA without mass protests and sustained, disobedient resistance to oppression: women probably wouldn’t have the vote, African Americans might still be slaves, laborers would be more abused, and LGBT people might still live in the closet.  Righteous anger fueled many of these movements.  In my own life, once I realized I was angry, realized it was OK to be angry, began to honor and respect my anger then choose new behaviors, I became more fulfilled, more successful – and less depressed.

In fact, to NOT be angry in the world today may be a sign of insanity.  Despite our myriad triumphs and all the progress we have to celebrate, most of us live with a crippling amount of unnecessary oppression, injustice, invasions of privacy, and dishonoring of our sacred personhood.  I believe that our numbing to this, and increasing apathy as we drown in a sea of irrelevant information, is something to be deeply concerned about.  Many of us become paralyzed by anxiety or depression, which is arguably a reasonable and healthy response to the state of the world, but doesn’t move us to do anything about it.  Anger is an appropriate response to oppression, injustice, disrespect and dishonoring.  I recently wrote a friend that had I been in Sandra Bland’s shoes during that fateful traffic stop in Texas two weeks ago, I’d probably have been just as “combative”, and rightly so.

To not be angry may also be a sign of denial or privilege.  I was shocked by those who claimed after 9/11 there was nothing they believed, cherished or experienced – nothing – that would ever cause them to fly a plane full of people into a skyscraper full of people. I’m troubled by those who can’t fathom why African Americans set their community ablaze after an unjust trial verdict or yet another incidence of police violence against them with no meaningful consequences for those responsible.  I don’t understand either of these views.  I can imagine a dozen scenarios that would cause me to commit horrific acts of violence in the name of justice, survival, blind rage, terror, staggering grief or sheer desperation.  How fortunate, or how numb, are those who can’t (or won’t) imagine such possibilities.  How fortunate or numb they must be to be unable to identify a single incident in their lives deserving of outrage.  How separate they must feel from the rest of us who, as I outline in my poem corajuda, have “excellent reasons and outstanding references” for our anger.

Being in touch with anger and what I’m capable of doesn’t mean I would commit horrific acts. Feelings don’t have to lead to action.  Feelings aren’t a statement about a person’s character or worth – behavior is.  Deciding mindfully, with our “upstairs” executive function brain, what to do with our anger is where we truly own our power.  Owning our anger allows us to use our precious energy making effective choices instead of suppressing our feelings with shame. Being in touch with our anger allows us to empathize with other humans, and become curious about why someone might fly a plane full of people into a skyscraper full of people or burn down their community.

Such empathy and curiosity can lead to real change and sustainable solutions. It’s a new way to approach our problems.  Eckhart Tolle said “Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath.”  Marshall Rosenberg said  “Violence in any form is a tragic expression of unmet needs.”  Pain must be heard, felt, respected, then healed.  Unmet needs must be met somehow. This is how to diffuse anger – not denial in ourselves or others.

Yet sometimes anger doesn’t need to be diffused, it needs to be transmuted – into action.  Or anger needs to transmute another emotion, like fear.  I recently saw a Facebook post from a younger female acquaintance who was understandably upset by (yet another) man groping her at a busstop.  She expressed her profound fear and devastation at this repeated behavior in men around her.  I was struck not only by her lack of anger, but the lack of anger of almost everyone who responded (only offering empathy and concern).  It makes me super angry to witness one more young woman so programmed to see herself as powerless that her response to a man grabbing her in public is fear and running away instead of baring her teeth, fiercely snarling NO in his face and kneeing him several times in the groin until he falls down.  It makes me super angry that none of the Facebook bystanders (except me) urged her to conquer her fear, learn to defend herself, and kick the shit out of the next a-hole who dares to invade her space.

Fear comes when we see ourselves as less powerful than the other.  This is often an illusion of our powerlessness, or our limited read of where we stand in the Power Over paradigm.  Having, feeling, and expressing anger is a result of taking a stand for our worth; of owning our power.  Anger is a sign of awakening self-love.  It’s a remembering of self-respect.

We need the self-loving force of anger to drive change not just in our individual lives, but as a collective.  Writer Courtney Martin recently said  “one of the things I feel like my parents really entrusted me with was this idea that you should trust your own outrage.  And being able to honor that anger, to me, is one of the most important muscles of a rebel.”  We can be a rebel in our own lives, or a rebel in the world.  Or both. The value of anger is its power as a righteous catalyst for individual and collective Change.  Let’s not dishonor it.

So what are you angry about? And what are you going to do about it?