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Amid news that Donald Trump is about to be indicted by a hyperpartisan prosecutor and of his hysterical responses, and prompted by vagrant reading about the War of 1812 and Woodrow Wilsons violations of civil liberties in World War I, a thought occurred to me. America seems to go crazy every 50 years or so.

Start with the War of 1812, about 50 years after colonies Stamp Act protests. Theres a touch of absurdity here. Because of the slowness of trans-Atlantic communication, Congress declared war because of British restrictions on neutral shipping six days after the British repealed them. Americans won their major land victory in New Orleans, 15 days after the peace treaty had already been signed in Ghent.

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The Americans strategy was based on a delusion that Canadians would welcome American conquest and American tactics were riddled with blunders. Detroit was surrendered without a shot, and Washington was left undefended, allowing the British to burn the White House. The treaty left in place the status quo, and the positive response was psychological, verging on delusional. In historian Gordon Woods words, this inconclusive war did finally establish for Americans that independence and nationhood of the United States that so many had doubted.

Almost exactly 50 years later, the U.S. plunged into civil war, which outgoing President James Buchanan might have prevented by sending troops to secessionist South Carolina, as his mentor Andrew Jackson had done almost thirty years earlier. But the differences were fundamental. Democrats supported the liberty of slaveholders to retain their property anywhere in a nation an increasing number of whose citizens regarded slavery as intolerable. Republicans were determined to deploy the federal government to put slavery, in Abraham Lincolns words, on the path to extinction.

Winfield Scott, a young officer in 1812, provided Lincoln with the Anaconda strategy, squeezing the South by blockade until Grant and Sherman could defeat the Confederate armies. The result wasnt crazy slavery was abolished in an ultimately intact Union. But it all came at a crazy cost, with some 600,000 lives in a nation of 38 million.

Fast forward 50 years to the only American president who spent his boyhood in the Confederacy, watching Sherman march into South Carolina, Woodrow Wilson. After Congress, with 56 dissenters, voted to enter World War I, Wilson superintended the overbroad 1917 Espionage Act. As Adam Hochschild vividly recounts in American Midnight, the Wilson administration imprisoned those who spoke against the war or the draft, including Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs. Wilson deported aliens supposedly involved in radical activities under the supervision of the twenty-something J. Edgar Hoover. He censored the press, stamping out what liberals today call misinformation, and cooperated with local efforts to suppress German cultural organizations.

As Hochschild makes clear, it wasnt only the Wilson administration that went crazy. Radical anarchists set off deadly bombs on Wall Street, at Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmers house, and across the street from Assistant Navy Secretary Franklin Roosevelt.

The much-derided Red Scare was a response to fears raised by the takeover of the larger and more populous Russia by a handful of Bolsheviks, whose murderous and squalid regime ended up lasting 70 years. Americans a century ago didnt know that this wasnt going to happen here.

Sometimes people can learn from mistakes. In World War II, FDR, who witnessed Wilsons excesses up close, didnt seize the railroads or shipyards. With the important exception of the Japanese American internments, he also didnt violate civil liberties as Wilson had.

Unfortunately, sometimes people dont learn. Fifty years ago, America saw a tripling, roughly, of violent crime and welfare dependency in a decade, even as prison populations were reduced and police delegitimized. A rash of hundreds of violent bombings was followed by serious government misconduct.

Ironically, after the 1964-68 civil rights acts changed America for the better, there were cries that racist treatment of blacks was as bad as ever. America was going crazy again, on schedule.

And so it has in the last few years. After the election and reelection of the first black president, we heard Black Lives Matter, like the Black Panthers 50 years before, proclaim that America was even more racist than it ever had been. Since the mostly peaceful riots of summer 2020, there have been sharp increases in violent crime and moves to defund and delegitimize police departments, which are, in fact, far less racist than in the 1960s.

America went crazy too over COVID, in my view, by treating a virus fatal to just a small segment of the population as if, like Ebola, it had an infection fatality rate of around 50%. Authorities imposed lockdowns and mandates while ignoring economic costs and lasting collateral damage, like adults missing cancer screenings and children missing first and second grade.

Like Woodrow Wilsons propagandist George Creel, government agencies suppressed as misinformation speech and arguments, including many which turned out to be accurate.

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Another symptom of America going crazy is presidential dysfunction. Fifty years ago, the highly intelligent and experienced Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were ousted at ages 60 and 61 because of Vietnam and Watergate. Now, despite repeated stumbles, the inexperienced and distractable Donald Trump and the (according to bipartisan Defense Secretary Robert Gates) nearly-always-wrong Joe Biden are seeking second terms they would complete at ages 82 and 86, respectively.

Having witnessed and written for publication during two 50-years-apart episodes of craziness, I seek consolation from Adam Smiths reflection, after Britain lost the 13 colonies, that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation. But I hope America will do a better job, 50 years hence, of learning from this episodes mistakes.

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America seems to go crazy every 50 years or so - Washington Examiner

On March 23, 1980, the late recording artist Prince performed for the first time in Detroit. The concert stop was during Rick James Fire It Up tour at Cobo Arena.

Janis Hazel, then a Detroit Cass Tech High School student, begged her parents to attend and they reluctantly approved. Prince, to some music critics, was considered risque. Hazel attended a concert with her older brother, Peter, who enjoyed James, who was the more established artist at the time. James, a music legend who is most noted for his 1981 hit single, Super Freak, died in 2004.

Hazel vividly remembers the concert featuring the iconic performers.

I distinctly recall my brother saying when Prince hit the stage: Who is this little freak in his panties?

I immediately defended Prince, said Hazel. He is a genius, prodigy, has his own distinct style and I love him!

Since that time, Hazel, a communications and public policy professional who worked for Democratic former lawmakers U.S. Reps. John Conyers Jr. of Detroit and Shirley Chisholm of New York City. She also worked for U.S. Sen. Donald Riegle, a Democrat from Flint.

Hazel said that she has attended more than 40 Prince concerts over the years.

Born Prince Rogers Nelson in Minneapolis, he also performed in several cities throughout Michigan, including Auburn Hills, Clarkston, Saginaw, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. In November 1984, he kicked off his Purple Rain tour at Detroits Masonic Temple. He returned in 1996 to Cobo Arena to hold a concert on his birthday on June 7 of that year.

[Prince] has demonstrated a consciousness for the people of this city, said then-Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young in 1984 at the height of Princes career, according to Detroit News reporting.

The recording artist was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.

During his life, Prince supported the Black Lives Matter movement and in 2012 donated money to Trayvon Martins family after the unarmed African American teen was fatally shot in Florida by a neighborhood watch volunteer. In addition, Prince reportedly donated to human rights charities.

His last Detroit performance was in April 2015 at the Fox Theatre. Prince died at age 57 in April 2016 after accidentally overdosing on fentanyl.

Detroit artist Charles Chazz Miller designed a mural of Prince in the citys Old Redford community immediately after Princes death.

In Minnesota, the legislature is currently considering a measure, HF 717, that would name a stretch of Highway 5 for Prince.

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On this day in 1980: Recording artist, activist Prince performs in ... - Michigan Advance

In the belly of WXPNs radio station at 30th and Walnut streets, members of the Black Opry Residency huddle inside a recording studio around trailblazing country artist Rissi Palmer, who recalls the challenges of her early career as a Black woman in country music.

Picture it: Nashville, 2007, she starts.

Though she opens as if to regale with a Sophia Petrillo-esque tale of days gone by, her story is one thats quite contemporary and all too relevant to the world Black Americana artists operate in. Palmer recalls a music video shoot gone horribly wrong under the guidance of a manager who, to put it lightly, neither understood her nor what it meant to be a Black country artist. The message to the residents: Be your authentic selves and dont settle for a bad manager with a big name.

Its one of many lessons imparted upon five Black Americana musicians selected from among a pool of 100 applicants to participate in the Black Opry Residency, hosted by WXPN, funded by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, and produced in collaboration with Black Opry, a platform and touring revue founded by Holly G to amplify the voices and music of Black country artists. The Black Opry residents spent the week of March 19 learning from mentors like Amos Lee and Palmer, collaborating with one another through song shares, and will perform in a showcase at World Caf Live on March 24.

Among the residents: Tylar Bryant, a Texas native from Nashville who adds a rock and pop flair to traditional country; Denitia, another Texas native now based in Nashville whose sound is experimental but rooted in country; Grace Givertz, a Florida native and current Bostonian who leans toward folk with banjo as a constant; Brandon and Derek Campbell, aka The Kentucky Gentlemen, who blend country-pop with R&B; and Samantha Rise, a Philadelphia-based teacher, activist, and performer whose dreamlike music draws from indie folk.

We have the full continuum of [Americana sound], says Bruce Warren, assistant general manager for programming at WXPN. Warren, in addition to co-organizing the residency, was part of a six-person committee that selected the residents, including Holly G, WXPN General Manager Roger LaMay, WXPN Black Opry Residency Project Manager Nathan Tempro, country singer Miko Marks, and Palmer.

Theres a range of Americana music [among the residents], including everything from a more singer-songwriter-oriented sound to country flavor, and folky to bluegrass. And as you make your way through that continuum theres also the mainstream Black country artist who is mostly ignored by mainstream country radio, says Warren.

Jasmine Henry, an assistant professor of music in the School of Arts & Sciences, explains that the structure of the modern U.S. music industrywhich emerged only in the early 20th centuryhas largely buried the Black history of Americana. Recent scholarship, she says, has sought to reclaim this history.

Its a story of erasure, says Henry. There are scholars, artists, and journalists who have been working to really address this erasure and think about not just how to amplify the voices and uncover those silenced or hidden in history but think about what forces were at play that created these types of erasures and continue to limit opportunities for Black people in Americana.

While Americana might commonly summon images of predominantly white, Appalachian music or culture, she says, the genres roots stem from an intertwining of European and African musical cultures as a result of plantation slavery. Influences that created Americana ranged from Irish jig music to African folk musicwhich, though many think of African music as drum-based, Henry says, also included strings. This history, combined with the banning of drums among people who were enslaved, is how popular Americana string instruments like the fiddlea prevalent instrument in African folk music cultureand the banjo came to have such influence.

Thats a lot of the grounding that gets overlooked and makes it harder to see the connection between Blackness and Americana that was right there at [the genres] foundation, Henry says.

The recent uptick in attention to reclaiming Americanas Black history, she notes, can be attributed to a confluence of events in the past decade, such as Black Lives Matter and the protests surrounding the killing of George Floyd, the success of Lil Nas X with Old Town Road, and the success of Beyonces Lemonade, which sought to reclaim the Black roots of several different genres, including rock, electronic dance music, and country.

Theres also a broader discussion about other genres, such as rock music and its Black roots, or electronic dance music, which is my area, and its Black roots, she says. And so theres a broader discussion about how many of them have been whitewashed, and theyre Black and queer, and how these roots are hidden in history.

Another key part of that dialogue, she adds, is about genre and its commercial origins to limit audiences, segmenting them by race, gender, class, and sexuality.

I think it takes a lot for people to break through that, she says.

For two decades, WXPN has cast a spotlight on emerging artists through its Artist to Watch series. Born from that foundation is the Black Opry Residency, which is a manifold expansion of that effort and targets the groundswell of activity in Americana to amplify the voices of Black Americana musicians.

[Americana] is an important part of American music, and in particular with Black Opry, this is an effort to diversify and tear down some walls in country music, as well as Americanawhich is a bigger tent than just country music, says LaMay.

The structure of the week was developed by surveying the needs of Black artists through the Black Opry network. The residents, he explains, benefit during the residency from the mentor connections of the station, the collaborations with one another, the broadcast exposure of WXPN, and, moreover, the urban experience of being in Philadelphia. The residents were housed in a former frat home at 39th and Walnut streets.

In the early [planning] stages we were told by people in the residency world that its unusual to do something in an urban setting, LaMay says. Its usually out in the woods somewhere. So, were very excited to be working that into a residency that not only uses the facilities of the station but also gives these residents a chance to experience a bit of Philadelphia and its heritage.

The residents saw Jill Scott perform at the Met in North Philadelphia, for example, and ate at local restaurants that range from Bookers in West Philadelphia to South, a jazz restaurant on North Broad Street.

In truth, the Black Opry Residency is what he considers a pilot for what WXPN can accomplish in the future. To his knowledge, he says, WXPN is the only public radio station that has attempted an artist-development residency program, and this likely will not be the stations last.

The Kentucky Gentlemen, twin brothers Derek and Brandon Campbell from Lexington, Kentucky, recall listening to Billy Currington on the school bus, as well as being hooked on country music that a person they playfully call Radio Mana patient of their mothers (a therapist)would habitually play in her waiting room. They did not choose country music, they explain, country music chose us.

They applied for the residency after several friends reached out and recommended they apply, they explained. They couldnt be happier that they did.

We joked earlier that [this residency] is intensiveThis is school! laughs Derek Campbell. I think this is super important because all of us are taking up space in country and Americana in our own way, and to be able to put our best foot forward and take our moments and use them to their utmost ability, I think its pivotal for progress in the industry and thats why this is history.

As twins, they explain, theyre used to working together. Growing up, they both took ballet and piano lessons and later played high school football. They became a musical duo when, after returning home from their respective colleges after six months, they collectively decided they wanted to be creatives in their career; working together on music, it was obvious that what naturally came out of them was country.

They describe their current sound as fun, dramatic, pop- and R&B-adjacent country with a gloss of glamour, Brandon Campbell says. Theyre inspired by artists like Brooks & Dunn, Kacey Musgraves, and Maren Morris. Derek Campbell says they relate to artists who are outspoken and can stand 10 toes down and arent afraid to break rules.

All of us are taking up space in country and Americana in our own way, and to be able to put our best foot forward and take our moments and use them to their utmost ability, I think its pivotal for progress in the industry.Derek Campbell, member of The Kentucky Gentlemen

Grace Givertz, who grew up in Jupiter, Florida, had a different path to country music: Until Taylor Swift came on the scene, she barely listened to it at all.

My first guitar, when I was 11 years old, was a sparkly Daisy Rock that looked just like Taylors, she says. It was essentially a toy, looking back on it, but I used it until I was 18 and wrote my first songs on that guitar. I just continued based on Taylor and listened to the radio more and the influence was like, Wow, wait, this is a genre I really love.

But then, Oh, wait, Im a disabled Black girl and theres no spot for me here.

So, she dug into the roots of Americana, folk, and bluegrass, and was inspired by the genres Black history.

I realized, I need to play banjo yesterday, she adds.

Now, banjo is a regular fixture in her indie-folk music and shes proud to reclaim it. Through the residency, she says, shes been inspired to see how others have not limited themselves through genre and are not afraid to break the mold.

Its also been really helpful because when youre in a room with people who have information to give you, mentors, different industry folk, its hard to know the right questions to ask, she says. So, having so many people around you who can bounce other questions is really helpful because youre not going to have the opportunity to ask all the questions if you dont think of them.

Through the residency, she explains, she hopes to not only build out her network but seek inspiration for an album shes currently working on.

I want to use it to catapult and make this record do what I think it deserves to do, she says. Which is to be heard by a lot of people, hopefully.

Denitia, meanwhile, grew up in a variety of refinery towns outside of Houston, Texas, and was exposed to country music through her family. After a four-year stint in Nashville, attending Vanderbilt University, she spent a brief time in Austin and then moved to New York City for 10 years to experiment with her soundparticularly by picking up DIY production skills. While there, she put out music and toured as Denitia and Senean electronic, R&B, indie-pop groupbefore moving to Rockaway Beach in New York City, where she eventually tapped back into a country sound that culminated in her 2022 album Highways. Shes since returned to Nashville.

It felt full circle, she says of tapping into her country roots. It felt like I had finally expressed the whole gamut of who I am as an artist and now that Ive put all these things out there, music thats country to me, that is resonating with people and feels pure, earnest, and honest, Im moving forward and really excited to take all those elements and roll them together to come into a different door in the country music world.

She was interested in the residency because of its collective experience and the ability to communicate with other Black artists in the Americana space, she says. Shes also, frankly, a fan of WXPN.

Im a big fan of what this radio station does for music and for culture, she says. Its an honor to be celebrated by them, and it just feels the reason I applied for this residency is I feel like Im at an exciting point in my career and I wanted to be part of this community, but also because I respect the taste-making nature of this radio station.

LaMay says one goal of the residency is to enable this group of musicians to elevate their artistic practice while giving them additional tools, contacts, and capacity to make a living doing it.

And to know that theyre not alone in this effort, he adds. If even one of them lands a recording or publishing deal or takes a big step forward out of this, it would be a success for all involved.

For now, WXPN hopes to jumpstart that process by featuring the residents on air and exposing them to Philadelphia live and radio audiences through a showcase performance on March 24 at World Cafe Live that will also be streamed on NPR Music Live Sessions. They will each perform a short set of original music.

The residency is also a step toward furthering audience development in a way that is explicitly inclusive, LaMay adds.

Obviously XPN has played Black artists for a very long time, he says, but its important for us to make sure that some of our programs are geared toward telling Black audiences that theres a home for you here.

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WXPN's Black Opry Residency reclaims Americana as the inclusive ... - Penn Today

By Stephen M. Lepore For Dailymail.Com 06:03 23 Mar 2023, updated 12:16 23 Mar 2023

The radical president of Los Angeles' teachers union, who once said 'there is no such thing as learning loss' and attended an NBA game in a suite after announcing a solidarity strike, is among those in support of the LA schools' strikes.

Staff atLos Angeles's only public school districtbraved the rain to make good on their threats of a three-day strike Tuesday in hopes of obtaining better wages,shutting down the nation's second-largest school system in the process.

Educators and employees have been slammed on social media for failing families, saying they are using nearly 500,000 young people as 'leverage' in their own battle for better pay and other benefits.

SEIU99 Executive Director Max Arias has led the support staff union into the strike and insisted the strike was the 'workers' last resort', arrived at only after nearly a year of bargaining for better wages.

His union has been supported in a 'solidarity strike' by United Teachers Los Angeles and their union President Cecily Myart-Cruz, someone who has courted controversy in the past for her views on lockdowns and social justice.

Ahead of her election as president, Myart-Cruz spoke at the convention for the left-wing political group Democratic Socialists of America's 2019 convention in Atlanta, in which she stated 'I see teaching as a revolutionary act, just the way I see organizing.'

'It's hard, it's messy and sometimes it can be too much but you can never allow fear to win. We must engage folks to take action in different ways and we must work to make every work site an anti-racist one.'

She's seen elsewhere in the speech criticizing the 'neoliberal' Los Angeles Unified School District which she argues 'starved our schools' and claimed bosses in all walks of life 'prey on fear.'

Her union bio also shows her as a member of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, the 2020 rallies of which she used to suggest there is 'no such thing as learning loss' for children who were not in school during the COVID-19 pandemic.

'Our kids didn't lose anything,' she told LA Magazinein 2021. 'It's OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.'

Her other remarks included 'reopening schools without a broader improvement of schools will be unsafe and will deepen racial and class inequalities' and 'You can recall the Governor, you can recall the school board. But how are you going to recall me?'

Myart-Cruz won re-election in 2023 on a platform that included requests for schools to take pieces of a 'Green New Deal' into their district.

Their demands included expansion of outdoor education space, tech education in green energy fields, solar panels on all district buildings, increased electric school buses and extending free public transportation for students.

She also led the union while it planned to voteon joining the 'Boycott, Divest and Sanction' movement against Israel. The vote was eventually shut down after heavy criticism.

Before becoming head of the teacher's union, Myart-Cruz attended Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, then Mount Saint Mary's, a Catholic women's college inBrentwood.She graduated in 1995, and on to Pepperdine to gain her teaching certificate - where fees now stand at $80,000-a-year.

She began her teaching career in Compton, then went to an elementary school Westwood where kids first thought she was too strict but ended up 'loving her', according to a teacher who taught next door.

She is divorced from her husband of 16 years and the pair share a ten-year-old son.

She is now datingVanCedric Williams, an elected member of the Oakland Unified School Board, according to the Los Angeles Magazine article.

The pair attended an NBA game between the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors with Assemblyman Matt Haney in a box suite just after declaring the solidarity strike.

She then went to teach at Mesa Elementary in Crenwshaw, where students and their families were less affluent - but didn't last there long, according to former colleagues.

In 2020, the former head of the union - Alex Caputo Pearl - reached his term limit and endorsed her to take over.

She stopped teaching 2014 to devote herself to the union full time and was part of the leadership team when dues were increased from $689-a-year to $917 in 2016.

She took over in February 2020 - a month before the pandemic closed schools all over America and the world.

There are 33,000 teachers in the union but only 5,000 voted in the election where she became president with 69 percent of the vote - about 3,500 votes.

Earlier this year, she blamed 'white wealthy parents' for wanting to get kids back into classrooms, claiming: 'Unfortunately, the plan reverts to deeply flawed ideas in Gavin Newsom's proposal in December to offer school districts more money if they open faster.

'If you condition funding on the reopening of schools, that money will only go to white and wealthier schools that do not have the transmission rates that low income black and brown communities do.'

The Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America has also heavily backed and worked with the unions. Myart-Cruz spoke at its convention in 2019.

The left-wing group has already held a 'Tacos for Teachers' event on Tuesday, and several days of phone banking efforts to campaign for the unions.

Their social media feeds have been full of DSA-LA members marching the picket lines with the union members.

Meanwhile, SEIU99 Executive Director Max Arias, promoted a march to Defund the Police and re-invest in schools in 2020.

At a rally on Monday, Arias led picketers in a chant of 'no justice, no peace' and said their campaign was about justice.

'It's about 65,000 education workers telling the district what it needs to do to improve the conditions of schools to ensure that every student can succeed and do what they wish in life. Listen to the voices of the people that do the work.'

He finished by saying the only thing that could stop their work was 'justice' before leading the chant.

The native of El Salvador notably has a plaque in his office stating 'it's on, motherf**kers!' according to the LA Times.

He proudly boasted of his membership: 'Once you learn you have power, its not easy to take it away. Theyve shut the district down!'

Now, more than 1,000 public schools are closed, and processions consisting ofsome30,000 non-teaching support workers and 35,000 teachers are sprouting up across the city.

The campaign for increased pay in the wake of rampant inflationand soaring housing costs saw thousands traversing the dark, rainy morning as early as 5:00 am Tuesday to march rain ponchos and jackets.

Union members behind the strike argue that the school support staffers - such as janitors, bus drivers, and lunch workers - on average, earn just $25,000 per year, forced to live in poverty in high-priced LA. The average annual rate of pay for a cashier at Burger King, for reference, is roughly $27,000, according to Glassdoor.

Taking to the streets Monday, workers affixed signs to their umbrellas while others offered pro-union chants in the storm of protests, which had been anticipated for weeks - and come as a somewhat unfavorable outcome for the district, as well as roughly a million parents, with more than 500,000 students now set to miss school.

Members of Service Employees International Union Local 99 were among those marching in the cold rain Tuesday, toting signs with messages that decried the district for not adhering to their demands - which include a 30 percent pay raise.

'We've had enough of empty promises,' Arias told the outlet, flanked by school staffers and supporters of their demands. 'If LAUSD truly values and is serious about reaching an agreement, they must show workers the respect they deserve.'

While citizens are fed up, public school workers in the embattled state - which is currently mulling over a proposal that would see roughly 1.8million black Californians gifted $360,000 in 'reparations' - are equally tired with the local government, leading to the planned walkouts that were announced last week.

'Workers are fed-up with living on poverty wages and having their jobs threatened for demanding equitable pay,'Arais said in a statement last week criticizing district for not bowing to their demands of an immediate wage increase.

'Workers are fed-up with the short staffing at LAUSD - and being harassed for speaking up.'

On Wednesday, Superintendent Carvahlo decried the possibility of a strike after prolonged campus closures interrupted students' learning during the pandemic.

'What are the consequences?' Carvalho said of the possible repercussions of yet another week of closures.'The consequences are once again learning loss, deprivation of safety and security that schools provide to our kids, deprivation of food and nutrition that many of our kids depend on.'

He added: 'I know that we focus our attention on the needs of the workforce. I need to focus my attention also primarily on the needs of our kids.'

Parents have expressed similar concerns. Local mother Yesenia Benites complained the closures will not only affect her young daughter, but her as well, as she divides her time between parenting and taking online classes at an undergrad university.

'Since I do go to college and take online classes, having to have a daughter that's here... it's gonna take my study time to do homework and all that.'

That said, the mom said she was most concerned about her daughter.

'She's going to miss being with her friends and learning,' she lamented.

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The Los Angeles union chiefs holding education of 500,000 Californian schoolkids to ransom - Daily Mail

A community organisation is taking over the running of Leicester's African Caribbean centre from the city council - with a cash boost to revamp the building too. The African Heritage Alliance will now run the popular venue in Maidstone Road, Highfields, which is currently owned and ran by the council.

The group has been granted a five-year lease with a peppercorn rent to run the centre under the city council's community asset transfer policy, after presenting a detailed business plan during an open bidding process. A range of organisations were invited to express interest in running the centre by the city council in June last year.

In the winning business plan, the alliance set out proposals such as new social activities and childcare services, to help meet the needs of the community. The group also intend to offer education, support and welfare services.

READ MORE: Leicestershire NHS boss outlines major recruitment drive to tackle staffing crisis

A grant of 60,000 will be given to the group by the city council from the council's Black Lives Matter funds to help with running costs during the first year of its lease. It will now take responsibility for repairs, maintenance and day-to-day running costs for the building and will also pay the council a token rent of 1 a year.

City Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said: Local facilities are often best run by the people who use them and, over the years, a number of centres have already successfully transferred to community groups through our Transforming Neighbourhood Services programme. The African Heritage Alliance have produced a business plan that demonstrates they have the capacity, experience and resources to take on the running of the African Caribbean Centre.

"I look forward to the implementation of this plan, which will bring benefits to the community while making a significant contribution to the social and economic wellbeing of the area.

The news comes after the council launched a public consultation in October 2021, where community members were asked how they would like the centre to be run. The consultation received 352 responses and over half of the respondents said that they would prefer community organisations to be given the opportunity to take on the lease and running of the centre.

One respondent said in the consultation: Having lived in Leicester for all of my life, the African Caribbean Centre has been a part of my Caribbean heritage living in Leicester. It is the one place we can call our own and know that the African Caribbean community who have been instrumental in managing the centre have African Caribbean communities best interests at heart. It needs to remain that way.

The handover of the Maidstone Road centre is now taking place. The African Heritage Alliance is expected to take over the lease in the next six to nine months.

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Leicester's African Caribbean Centre handed to local community group for 1 a year rent - Leicestershire Live