By Troy Finley Cheryl Sudduth, a Bay Area community organizer and international negotiator, is seeking election as the first U.S. Representative for California’s new 8th Congressional district. She is challenging incumbent Democratic Congressman John Garamendi. Last year, the California Black Census and Redistricting Hub pushed the California Citizens Redistricting Commission to draw a new congressional district to consolidate the | By Troy Finley Cheryl Sudduth, a Bay Area community organizer and international negotiator, is seeking election as the first U.S. Representative for California’s new 8th Congressional district. She is challenging incumbent Democratic Congressman John Garamendi. Last year, the California Black Census and Redistricting Hub pushed the California Citizens Redistricting Commission to draw a new congressional district to consolidate the
By Kathy Chouteau
During the March on Washington in 1963 when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his historic “
I Have a Dream Speech” calling for an end to racism, a three-year-old Richmond boy and his infant brother were in the crowd with their parents. The family Rev. Booker T. and Irma Anderson, and their sons Ahmad and Wilbert weren’t just everyday participants. They were closely acquainted with Dr. King, and in fact, Rev. Anderson had helped him carve the path for that historic march at a meeting in Richmond.
A few years earlier in Richmond, Rev. Anderson helped Dr. King sow the seeds for Selma too the 1965 march when Dr. King led nonviolent demonstrators from Selma, AL to the steps of the capital in Montgomery over several days in support of voting rights. According to Mrs. Anderson, who once served as mayor of Richmond, “when he had his Pettus Bridge march, Martin called Booker and said ‘I need you to come down.’” Rev. Anderson obliged, and coordinated minister