Village Life Section :: Page 212
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Neighborhood gardens grow community, savings
Neighborhood gardens — shared plots for gardening with others near and within neighborhoods on Village-owned land — are new to Yellow Springs, and may be growing on land near you this year.
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TLT, AACW join for roots fest
Every year the local blues fest reminds community members about the roots of contemporary popular music. If gospel can spawn the blues, jazz, reggae and rap, then what can the art of the local community tell us about our own history and roots? African American Cross-Cultural Works and the Tecumseh Land Trust aim to find out when they put on the first ever Roots Fest on Saturday, March 27, at Bryan Community Center. It will be an evening of performances in which villagers use the arts to connect to and share their own stories.
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Assessing the value of diversity
For Jewell Graham, the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s were exhilarating times to live in the village. Having come to Yellow Springs as a young African-American woman with her new husband, Paul, who after graduating from Antioch had been offered a job at Vernay Laboratories, Graham was impressed with the quality of relationships between blacks and whites. Many businesses were integrated in a way unusual for the time, and a passion for the civil rights movement further brought people together. There was considerable socializing between blacks and whites in her world, as well as a sense of shared purpose.
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Do housing costs affect diversity?
If local diversity can be measured by the number of African Americans who live within the geographical boundaries of Yellow Springs, the village has experienced three decades of decreasing diversity, and is likely wrapping up a fourth. Since 1970, the village has lost about 500 African-American residents, mirroring a larger regional trend.
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Here comes the sun
Lauren Sheets danced as Scott Lee of Kettering played and sang outside Brother Bear’s.
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Diversity decline linked to fewer jobs
If Yellow Springs has lost a significant number of jobs in the past 15 years, it follows that villagers have lost employment opportunities, which has a visible effect on an already minority African-American population. There are fewer African Americans employed in the village now than there were 30 years ago, and though there have never been a lot of African Americans who own and operate businesses in town, the current number appears to be lower than ever.
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Green space funds go to Jacoby farm preservation
At their March 1 meeting, members of Yellow Springs Village Council unanimously approved contributing to the preservation of two farm properties, one of which includes the headwaters of the Jacoby Creek and is the first farm preserved within the Jacoby greenbelt.
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Village youth say race is still an issue
Yellow Springs can be a supportive town for black youth to grow up in, according to a group of 10 current Yellow Springs High School students and recent graduates in recent interviews. But the village is not immune to the issues that tend to divide the community by color and burden some African-American families disproportionately. Instances of discrimination are very subtle, and can be unintentional, but they do occur here, the youth said, and they pose obstacles both of perception and in actual practice that young people of color are challenged to overcome.
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Achievement gap complex, but true
When Joyce McCurdy accepted a teaching position in the Yellow Springs School District, there was a black chief of police, a black member of Council, and a black member of school board. The principal of the high school was black, and three of McCurdy’s colleagues were also black — and actively involved in the social issues of the day. The year was 1965.
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Bye-bye-athlon
Robert Hasek got his wintertime thrills, making his way home in the dusky hours over a fresh blanket of snow.
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