Community leaders call on local governments to use American Rescue Plan funds on violence prevention Begin funding these Black and brown organizations, boots on the ground, putting their life on the line each and every day to save this city. Author: Kiya Edwards Updated: 7:18 PM CDT July 22, 2021
MINNEAPOLIS It is the job of just 12 people who make up the National Fund Peace Organization to travel across the country and make sure community organizations are receiving money to do their own jobs, on the ground, in violence prevention.
Agape Movement says its 40 years of work in north and south Minneapolis, including recent work to reopen roads around George Floyd Square, has yielded results.
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In Los Angeles, the news that Mayor Eric Garcetti was being tapped by the Biden administration as its nominee for ambassador to India was greeted with little surprise, following months of speculation about the possible pick.
Much of the reaction revolved around the ongoing crises in the city, most notably homelessness. Miguel Santana, who served as the city’s top budget analyst for much of Garcetti’s tenure, said the mayor served the city during “the best of times and the worst of times.”
Under Garcetti’s watch, he said, the city experienced massive economic growth. “At the same time, the city experienced unprecedented disparity between the haves and have-nots and a tremendous growth in inequality,” said Santana, noting the rise in homelessness and the challenges the faced by the working poor during the pandemic.
âCritical race theory,â again?
Groan. Every time I surf the news these days, those three little words continue to pop up, even though hardly anybody, including the people who say it, seem to know what âcritical race theoryâ or CRT, for short, really means.
So I was only half-surprised to see the CRT dispute has even reached churches, including the internal tug of war between ultraconservatives and moderate conservatives in the very conservative Southern Baptist Convention.
Two prominent Black megachurch pastors, the Rev. Charlie Dates of Chicagoâs Progressive Baptist Church and the Rev. Ralph D. West of Houstonâs The Church Without Walls, made national headlines in religious media by announcing that they would be leaving the denomination in protest.