Opinion

The vision of a Black Wall Street in Boston embodies more than just a shopping district. It embodies a movement toward economic empowerment, community unity, and a reduction of the race wealth gap.

On Nov. 12, Paul Glass and Charles D. Evans of Falmouth were honored with this year’s AARP Andrus Award for Community Service. It’s AARP’s most prestigious and visible state volunteer award for community service. They are the first married and Black gay couple in AARP’s history to receive the award.

After the murder of George Floyd and the unprecedented protests against police brutality and systemic racism, many corporations recognized that they could no longer stand silent and would take an active role in confronting the overarching problem through diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives.

1963 began lightheartedly enough for me with the best-selling comedy album, Vaughn Meader’s “The First Family,” a parody of President John F. Kennedy in the White House, playing in my home, the record having arrived as a holiday present. The year ended in devastation after Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22 and the subsequent crumbling of Camelot.

When Harvard Law Professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. walked into the federal courthouse in Brooklyn last month, he was prepared to denounce what government prosecutors had revealed in writing about their attitude towards African Americans.

We as Black people have a superpower no one can take from us: Black joy, rooted in the never-ending love we have for ourselves and each other. It has kept us rising through it all.

Today, the African American community lacks what my late dear sister friend Mukiya Baker Gomez would call a “bench,” meaning individuals who are ready to move up and into office and political leadership. We can and must do better.

Boston’s Haitian leaders at the forefront of the migrant crisis are overwhelmed and the state’s safety nets are stretched. The established Haitian community must step up to help expedite the integration of Haitian migrants into the local community.

After teaching in the Boston Public Schools for four years, I left the system this summer. I witnessed how the system poorly responded to students during a pandemic that led to unimaginable loss, hurting communities that had already been dismissed for too long.

Over the past month, the people of Gaza have been subjected to a rain of Israeli missiles, white phosphorous munitions, tank shells and other weapons. This on top of Israel’s closure of all borders with the territory designed to cut off all water, food and electricity to Gazans, half of whom are children.

This week, we celebrate another Veterans Day. As we look around the world, it is clear that this year, as is true with way too many years in the past, American men and women in the military will be called on to solve centuries-old problems.

What conduct is sufficiently ignominious to require government officials to expunge the names of prominent individuals from public buildings?