Local News Roundup: Mask mandate stays; airport parking changes; remembering Cheslie Kryst

Featured at WFAE

Although COVID-19 numbers are beginning to decrease and officials in Charlotte say we are “turning a corner,” Mecklenburg County’s mask mandate will stay in place — at least for the next few weeks. We’ll hear what County Health Director Raynard Washington had to say about it earlier this week.

The North Carolina Commission for Public Health voted to deny a petition seeking a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for kids 17 and up. It’s a move that the governor and the Department of Health and Human Services also opposed.

The Union County Public Schools board approved a resolution to end contact tracing and quarantine requirements. Are more decisions to end COVID-19 protocols ahead for other schools?

The free hour of parking at Charlotte Douglas International Airport is no more. We discuss the changes and the reasons behind them.

And the death by suicide of former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst, who grew up in the Charlotte area, sparks a conversation about mental health.

Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters delve into those stories and all the week’s top local and regional news.

GUESTS:

Joe Bruno, WSOC-TV reporter
Mary C. Curtis, columnist for rollcall.com and host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”
Claire Donnelly, WFAE health reporter
Jonathan Lowe, anchor and reporter for Spectrum News

Feb042022 TAGS: ,

Should there be a Black History Month?

Featured at Roll Call

Black history is often celebrated as though it were not American history. So many presidents have held up proclamations on behalf of Black History Month while their policies betray Black Americans. Mary C. Curtis talks with Boston Globe opinion writer Renee Graham about the need to expose hypocrisy and view Black history in a way that honors Black Americans as equals.

Read the rest atRoll Call
Feb032022 TAGS:

How Ralph Northam is spending his Black History Month

Featured at Roll Call

OPINION — The lessons of this February’s Black History Month commemorations have already veered far beyond the usual ones that begin and end by quoting a snippet of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech — the part about judging folks not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. A new curriculum is being written in real time, affecting real-life politicians and their constituents. And Virginia is hardly the only state not ready for the big exam.

Of course, the politician in question, Gov. Ralph Northam, has been learning as he goes — about blackface, about apologies and about redemption.

Read the rest atRoll Call
Feb132019 TAGS: , , , , , , , ,

Black History Month Lessons for ‘Trump World’

Featured at Roll Call

Every year, when February rolls around, you hear the same questions: Why do we need a Black History Month? When is White History Month? (The answer to that second question is January through December, by the way.)

For the answer to the first, look no further than the movie that just picked up the top award from the Screen Actors Guild. “Hidden Figures” is about the African-American female mathematicians who helped propel the U.S. space program, and who were mostly left out of the history books and previous film accounts of NASA and the talents who made it soar. (John Glenn wouldn’t leave home without their trajectory equations.)

When people of color and women play more than token roles in the telling of this nation’s history, there will no longer be a need to remedy omissions with a designated month here and there.

In 2017, we are far from that moment.

 

Read the rest atRoll Call
Feb022017 TAGS: , ,

A Month of Arts, Remembrance and Honors

Featured at WCCB Rising


 

February in Charlotte means a month of arts, remembrance, and honors.

Mary C Curtis is giving us a tour of where it’s all happening.

The Blumenthal Performing Arts helped produce ‘”The Mountaintop“, which is being performed at the Booth Playhouse through March 2. It centers around Martin Luther King Jr’s last speech before his assassination. At the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art the exhibition “Mario Botta: Architecture and Memory” features more than 200 objects; the show spans the 50-year career of internationally acclaimed architect Mario Botta, the designer of the Bechtler.

Also, props to Johnson C Smith University; they were named School of the Month by the Tom Joyner Foundation.

Read the rest atWCCB Rising
Feb052014 TAGS:

Keeping it Positive: Black History Month in Charlotte

Featured at Fox News Rising


CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Black History Month is in full swing all throughout Charlotte.  Contributions by African-Americans are being preserved as well as celebrated through different events. A Keeping it Positive report highlights all the places you can take part in observing.

Read the rest atFox News Rising
Feb062013 TAGS: , ,

Strom Thurmond’s black daughter: a symbol of America’s complicated racial history

Featured at The Washington Post

Thurmond’s daughter was for years kept on the outside looking in, a pattern that mirrors the lives of African Americans, integral to the life blood of the country’s progress and promise, yet not always invited to sit at the family table.

Read the rest atThe Washington Post
Feb052013 TAGS: , , , , ,