Mother Baltimore: Stay safe
I don’t have much to say this week except that I hope everyone is staying safe and getting appropriate rest :)
Have a story tip or just want to talk? Contact me at 618-239-2624 or dsutgrey@bnd.com.
Now, here’s the latest news in southwestern Illinois:
A dance legend owned these abandoned East St. Louis homes. Local group wants to save them.
The Katherine Dunham Museum board of directors is working on renovating three homes in East St. Louis that were once owned by Dunham before she passed away in 2006. BND reporter DeAsia Paige talked to board members and East St. Louis Mayor Robert Eastern about Dunham’s legacy in the city and plans for the homes.
More on Katherine Dunham:
Dancing at the Dunham Children’s Workshop
Stray bullet strikes 3-year-old girl lying in bed in East St. Louis apartment
Last Sunday, a three-year-old girl was struck by a stray bullet while she was at the Roosevelt Homes in East St. Louis. She eventually died from the gun wounds. East St. Louis Police Department is currently investigating the shooting and no arrests have been made.
More on crime in the metro-east
IL man whose counterfeit money ended up in St. Clair, Madison counties is going to prison
16-year-old is shot and killed in East St. Louis. Police appeal to public for help
Here’s a ZIP by ZIP report on southwest IL vaccination rates. How is your community doing?
Every week, BND reporter Kavahn Mansouri writes about the area’s ZIP code vaccination data. As of Wednesday, 308,737 of the 660,223 people who live in St. Clair, Madison, Clinton, Washington, Bond, Monroe and Randolph counties have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. However, Black-majority communities in the area still lag behind compared to other cities. ZIP codes representing East St. Louis and Cahokia Heights are among the top five least vaccinated zip codes in the area.
More on COVID-19 in the metro-east:
Southwest IL school district continues to face challenges from COVID-19 cases
COVID cases among southwest IL youth have tripled recently. Here’s a list by county
What to do
This is a new section of Mother Baltimore that’ll highlight upcoming events in the metro-east that’s relevant to Black communities. If you have tips for events, send them to dsutgrey@bnd.com
Youth Entrepreneur Fest
12- 4p.m. on Saturday, September 18, at John Thorton Memorial Park in Washington Park
Hosted by Black on Black Love, the Youth Entrepreneur Fest aims to empower youth and highlight businesses owned by kids in the area. Kids ages 6-18 are encouraged to participate in the event. Admission to the Youth Entrepreneur Fest is free. For more information, call 415-574-8150
What to watch
VMAs
The 2021 MTV Video Music Awards will take place on Sunday, September 12, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York City. Hosted by Doja Cat, this year’s awards will feature performances from artists like Justin Bieber, Lil Nas X, Olivia Rodrigo, Alicia Keys and more. The VMAs will air at 7 p.m. CST on MTV.
What to read
They Invented the Supermodel. These ten Black women should all be household names.
For The Cut, writer Jason Campbell profiled Black women who transformed the modeling landscape. Among them include Tyra Banks, Kimora Lee Simmons and Beverly Johnson. Campbell writes:
With the odds stacked against them, the women in these pages were the first Black models to translate runway and editorial bookings into big-money advertisement deals, capitalizing on their images to create mainstream commercial success — a tenet of supermodeldom — in an industry historically unwilling to do the same.
That’s all she wrote!
Talk to y’all in two weeks!
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