As members of a live audience and listeners around the nation settled in for the Bev Smith Show Town Hall Meeting, titled “The Disappearing Black Community and How We Get It Back,” they were in for somewhat of a surprise. What they learned from the panel of national figures is that the Black community has never existed.

BEV SMITH speaks to live audience. (Photo by Rossano P. Stewart)

“Contrary to what people think, we do not have a Black community. What we have are Black neighborhoods. Black folk in America have not prospered because we don’t have communities,” said Claud Anderson, president, Powernomics Corp. of America. “We fail to play as a team. You’ll never find a Black town because we’re too busy trying to integrate.”

The panel made up of civil rights activists and scholars at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture Nov. 12 gave directives for how African-Americans should go about forming Black communities. They stressed the importance of investing in Black-owned businesses and several demonized integration as a system used to rape African-Americans of their culture.

Less than a week after the Pittsburgh Public School District Board of Education received community input on the ongoing superintendent search, they have already interviewed a candidate. Claims are circulating that PPS Deputy Superintendent Linda Lane, Ed.D. was interviewed Nov. 15 and could be appointed to the position, forgoing a national search process.

CHOOSING OUR SUPERINTENDENT— From left: Thomas Payzant, Sala Udin, board chair, A+ Schools; Mike Casserly, Tim Stevens and Esther Bush, president and CEO, Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh. (Photo by Rossano P. Stewart)

“I’m not too much opposed to (appointing Lane), I’m opposed to the process. We’ve had two meetings unannounced to the public. I’m just outraged that there’s no respect for the public. This is the kind of game playing that happens when there’s a hidden agenda,” said Mark Brentley, District 8 school board representative. “We have never handed a position off. We have always conducted searches. They’re basically saying you have to stay on the plan that Mark Roosevelt presented which in my opinion is poor if you’re African-American.”

NAACP President M. Gayle Moss has been elected to her fourth term as president of the Pittsburgh Unit of the NAACP. At the biennial elections on Nov. 9, Moss reportedly won by an overwhelming majority, according to a press release by the NAACP.

M. GAYLE MOSS

“Special thanks to all the NAACP supporters who came out to vote in this NAACP election on (Nov. 9). I invite each and every one of our members to join the executive officers and executive committee to work together to make a difference in our community. There is much work to do, so we need everyone,” Moss said. “More specifically we need to join forces to help eradicate human injustices in the workplace and in the community in areas of employment, housing, and prison reform; violence in our neighborhoods; and shortcomings of the school systems that do not accept education as a civil right that fully prepares all children equally, regardless of color, for the job of the future.”

Over the weekend, a series of shootings in several different parts of Allegheny County have pushed this year’s homicide count past last year’s total. At the current count of 89, over last year’s count of 87, there is still time for the count to soar even higher with one and a half months left until the new year.

TAKE ACTION—Rev. Glenn Grayson inspires the crowd to move forward. (Photo by Gail Manker)

In a city commonly known for its disjointed activism efforts, law enforcement, government officials and community leaders came together on Nov. 13 to address the city’s Black-on-Black violence epidemic. The emergency town hall meeting hosted by the Community Empowerment Association in collaboration with the Peace Alliance Network drew approximately 200 people to Schenley High School.