Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Mr. Wonderful

Mr. Wonderful

By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 11, 2005
See that lady on the bus, back there. The lady with the long black-brown braids, with red wine lipstick and feet so swollen they seem to melt into puddles, spilling over her black shoes.

See her backpack, her home on her lap. She is wearing a jacket, despite a heat index of 106.

Don't stare. But notice that after the bus made its last stop, the lady is still riding, curled up in that blue plastic seat, her head tucked beneath her arms, like the folded wings of a sleeping bird.

And if you rode all night, you would notice that when the bus gets to the end of the line and turns around for its next run, she does not get off, but keeps riding.

On that bus going down Georgia Avenue, you notice another woman sitting with dignity, and then you look at her feet, and notice although they are covered by red fishnet stockings, they, too, are melting into puddles.

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Racial turmoil in Md.’s ‘Friendliest Town’ after black police chief is fired

By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer

POCOMOKE CITY, Md. — The crowd gathered outside City Hall last week, demanding that their community’s first black police chief — fired amid allegations leveled against white officers of departmental racism — be given his job back.

In a place that bills itself as the “Friendliest Town on the Eastern Shore,” angry residents marched with posters that read “We Support Chief Kelvin Sewell” and jammed inside the quaint red-brick building to voice their outrage to the Pocomoke City Council.

Pocomoke City has been on edge since Sewell was fired by the council June 29. According to the former chief and his supporters, he was sacked for refusing to dismiss two black officers who described working in a hostile environment.

The officers alleged in complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that they faced racism that was overt and rampant — allegations the city denies. Among the incidents alleged: a food stamp superimposed with President Obama’s face that was left on a black detective’s desk and a text message that read, “What is ya body count nigga?”

“This is one of the most egregious cases of primary racial discrimination and retaliation for assertion of rights before the EEOC that I’ve seen,” said Andrew G. McBride, co-counsel for the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, which is representing Sewell. “Chief Sewell has a fantastic record as a police officer. He was terminated because he stood up for two African American officers who filed an EEOC complaint.”

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