By Vivian Shipe KNOXVILLE, TN — Nine businesses were recognized for their contributions in helping the city achieve its core values and helping to increase business partnerships with minority and women owned buses. The work of the radio station started by the great entertainer James Brown back in 1968 as a community leader and influencer was recognized by the City of Knoxville for its help in solving a huge city problem. The city had reached a crisis situation. Retirements and the pandemic had affected the bus lines of Knoxville Area Transit; creating a shortage of drivers and causing several routes…
Author: Vivian Underwood Shipe
By Vivian Shipe KNOXVILLE, TN — Between the two of them they feed, clothe, vaccinate, provide showers and free hair cuts every week to thousand.s. They are the leaders of the Faith Leaders Initiative and Care Cuts and they run their organizations like a well oiled military operation. Their headquarters lie in opposite areas of the city. Cynthia’s is in the inner city and east and Martha’s lies downtown and to the west; but they cover the whole city and counties beyond. A force to be reckoned with, they can amass an army of volunteers simply by a text or…
By Vivian Shipe KNOXVILLE, TN — The latest reports show Tennessee is still leading the country with the highest number of covid cases. In Knoxville two schools closed for a week after Labor Day due to the high number of student absenteeism, the Knox County school board continues to refuse to enact any type of mask mandates and Bob Thomas, school superintendent announced his retirement. Yet as the storm surges, the army of Faith Leaders who hold a vaccine clinic every week are looking neither left nor right: still pressing forward in the war on COVID-19. Part of their their…
By Vivian Shipe KNOXVILLE, TN — It seemed fitting somehow. The city that was finally celebrating and remembering the school integration by the Clinton 12 and the Oak Ridge 85 chose to offer vaccine clinics in the historic African American community of Scarboro. The event was part of festivities honoring the first Black students to attend Clinton High School which was blown up in 1958 after integration and also honored the 85 Black students who first integrated Oak Ridge High School; also known as the secret city because of the creation of the nuclear materials needed to build the atomic…
By Vivian Shipe KNOXVILLE, TN — The numbers revealed by Knoxville hospitals on last Thursday were startling enough. Over 107 people on ventilators, hospitals with no beds, and diversion of overnight surgeries due to COVID-19. Then the news reported over 8600 kids were absent in one day. The Knox County School system has left the wearing of masks to parent discretion and there is no social distancing or contact tracing being done in the schools. For many parents across the city and county it is too much to bear and they have begun taking matters in their own hands after…
By Vivian Shipe KNOXVILLE, TN — It’s been 15 months since Cynthia Finch and Gwen McKenzie sat down to develop a plan to educate the Black churches about the dangers of going back into their sanctuaries in the height of the COVID 19 surge. Forty church leaders representing thousands of African Americans were on that first call. In the year and a half since the weekly one hour meetings began on Thursday evenings, the number of those educated and vaccinated has grown to over 180 organizations across the state and the nation, raising the numbers of those vaccinated, tested, and…
By Vivian Shipe KNOXVILLE, TN — The number to call is 800-222-8477 to share information about yet another senseless killing that took the life of another rising star in the Knoxville community. Johnkelian John Mathis, known by those who knew him as ‘John John’ , age 17, died by gunfire in the early morning hours of August 8th. He was smart, respectful, a fine football player, a senior, well loved by the community. He was a son, a brother, a friend…. Do the right thing…Speak up. Calls can be made anonymously.
By Vivian Shipe KNOXVILLE, TN — Knoxville overflowed with activities in celebration of August 8th, the date of celebration for Tennesseans freed from slavery. There were gospel programs, galas, the refreshing of the Black Lives Matter Mural, shoes for school drive with over 1500 pairs of brand new shoes given away, stadium prayers , and the celebration of the unveiling of the Austin East Magnet High School Communications Center. Between the evening and morning of the 8th there was also a sad gut-wrenching low as yet another A-E student lost their life to gunfire in the early morning hours after…
By Vivian Shipe KNOXVILLE, TN — She is everywhere and she seems to know everyone who steps on the property of the Fish Pantry. She ask about their families, if they are receiving the resources they need; she seems to know their history, she is Emma Cosigua, trusted messenger in the Hispanic and homeless communities of North Knoxville; the gatekeeper thru which the people were able to get the ‘one and done’ Johnson and Johnson vaccine to protect them in the on going war against COVID-19. Emma runs the Community Links clothing center and works closely with Fish Hospitality Pantries…
By Vivian Shipe KNOXVILLE, TN — There was a scene in an old baseball movie once where one of the characters said, “If you build it, they will come.” This was the thought pattern back in January when three visionaries got together to plan for the reopening of the city post Covid-19. They believed by the end of summer, right before schools began again, that vaccinated people would be ready to put on some party clothes and shake a tail feather. They were correct in their assumption. Hubert Smith, local radio personality, Lee Willis, local performer, and John Rutherford, one…