Arizona PBS By Nicole Sadek, Laura Kraegel, Jimmy Cloutier and Michael McDaniel/Special for Cronkite News
May 13, 2021
(Video by Michael McDaniel/Special for Cronkite News)
Phoenix police don’t follow Fe’La iniko on social media, but he knows they’re watching.
“They’re pretty hip to Instagram,” the racial justice activist said. “Sometimes they’ll pop up in my story views.”
Iniko, whose given name is Milton Hasley, often uses social media to share fliers on upcoming protests or speak out against police violence. So when officers surrounded his car last summer while he was leaving a demonstration against the killings of George Floyd and Dion Johnson, iniko worried he might have been targeted in advance for his views. As a handful of cop cars trained their spotlights on him, he was careful to keep his hands visible as he placed them on the steering wheel, a video he posted on Instagram shows.
Provided by the Akron Stories project with permission from Lucille Esposito
Lucille Esposito recorded a story about her mother, Filomene Mae Riccilli, shown at right in this photo, who worked at BF Goodrich from 1933-1976.
At one time the rubber industry employed more than 72,000 workers in Akron. Many Akronites have ancestors who worked in the industry. And it attracted one population in particular.
As the city unveils a new statue Thursday in tribute to those workers, we hear some of the stories that visitors will be able to listen to at an accompanying interactive kiosk.
“He heard that there was work up in Akron and he came up to Akron.”