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It was very appropriate on the day before the start of Black History Month an Arkansas native was honored with this year’s Black Heritage stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service.
A ceremony was held Tuesday in Arkansas City, hometown of publisher John H. Johnson, who created Ebony and Jet magazines.
Johnson launched Ebony in 1945 with a press run of 25,000 copies. Its circulation had exceeded 1.6 million at the time of his death in 2005.
Born Jan. 19, 1918, Johnson moved to Chicago with his family at age 15. He founded Johnson Publishing Co. while working as a clerk for an insurance company.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The Black Heritage stamp bearing Johnson’s photograph went on sale Tuesday and is being issued as a Forever stamp. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current first-class mail one-ounce rate.
The Johnson stamp is the 35th stamp in the Black Heritage series, which highlights outstanding individuals who helped shape American culture. Past honorees include singer Ella Fitzgerald, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, baseball player Jackie Robinson, poet Langston Hughes and Congresswoman Barbara Jordan
Johnson overcame poverty and racism to build a business empire that included magazines, radio stations, book publishing and cosmetics. He was the first black on Forbes magazine’s annual list of the 400 wealthiest people in America in 1982.
“John Johnson’s unyielding commitment to journalistic excellence and his unparalleled reporting on African-American culture have distinguished him as one of America’s greatest publishers,” said postal service Chicago Senior Plant Manager Anthony Vaughan in announcing the release of the stamp.
His magazines, which played a large role in the civil rights movement, portrayed black people in a positive light at a time when such representation was rare.
Sampson suspended
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Donald Sampson, director of the Pine Bluff’s Economic and Community Development Department, is under a 10-day suspension without pay ordered by Mayor Carl A. Redus Jr.
Sampson is scheduled to return to work on Feb. 14, according to a statement released by city Human Resources Department Director Vickie Conaway. During the two week suspension, Redus said he will oversee the day-to-day operations of the department.
“Mayor Redus would only indicate that it was an internal personnel matter,” Conaway stated in the release. “However, he did say that the disciplinary action was based upon inadequacies in performance.”
Later, Redus acknowledged the “performance” issues involved an application for a housing grant worth $955,000. The municipality’s application for the housing monies from the Arkansas Development Authority was rejected because it was submitted after the authority’s deadline.
The city proposed using grant funds to acquire foreclosed residences repair them and provide affordable housing to city residents. The application may not have been approved if it met the deadline, but we will never know.
Unfortunately, this was not the first time the municipal department has failed to take advantage of meeting the housing needs of the city’s poor.
Training tools
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Southeast Arkansas College’s nursing program continues to impress us.
With Diann Williams as vice president for assessment/nursing and allied health, obtaining new teaching tools to put students in real world situations is something we have learned to expect at SEARK.
The college used a $40,000 grant to acquire mother and child simulator models to provide clinical opportunities for nursing students.
The simulators allow the nursing instructors to program a wide range of emergency situations that may arise during a birth and puts students in those real world scenarios.