Tucker Family Meets with President Biden in Angola; Sturtevant Wants to Stop Wall Street from Flipping Houses; Ella Baker Youth Leadership Program Deadline is Dec. 15
🚩 17 days until Dec. 25 🎅🏽 Christmas + Hanukkah and 19 days until Kwanzaa
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🚩 31 days until the Virginia General Assembly convenes on Jan. 8, 2025.
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Tucker Family Members Join President Biden in Angola
Members of one of America’s first families, the Tucker Family of Hampton, traveled to Angola to meet up with president Biden during his trip last week.
Wanda Tucker and her brother Vincent Tucker traveled once again to Angola — the time to meet a U.S. President. On Dec. 3rd at the National Slavery Museum in Morro da Cruz, Luanda, Angola, President Biden spoke to dignitaries and recognized three proud members of America’s first Black family.
“There you are, Wanda. God love you. Her brother, Vincent… Carolita as well. Thank you for being here,” President Biden said as he gave them a shout out from the podium. Biden’s Angola trip will be one his last before he leaves office. The Tucker family are descendants of Antony and Isabella Tucker who were kidnapped in Angola in 1619 by Portuguese settlers and brought to what was then “Fort Comfort” and is now Fort Monroe in Hampton Virginia.
During an interview with Black Virginia News on Dec. 6, Wanda Tucker discussed the trip and meeting President Biden.
“I received an email from the White House to be a part of the delegation and so we flew over the day before President Biden left and met him in Angola. There was a meet and greet with President Biden and he took pictures with each one of us and then spent some time just talking to the group,” she detailed.
Though the trip to Angola is 19 hours it is a familiar one for the Tucker Family as they have an annual pilgrimage to Angola each year.
The Tucker Family is busy. They have many events commemorating their family’s special history each year.
“We had our commemoration event at the cemetery this year — we had it at the Hampton Convention Center in partnership with project 1619 and the Angolan Embassy in DC. It was just incredible,” Wanda Tucker told Black Virginia News.
Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters
On Dec. 6, Senator Angelia Williams Graves visited in the Nuss Center at Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters. Sen. Williams Graves sponsored a resolution that establishes December as Chest Wall Deformity Awareness Month in Virginia.
Sen. Sturtevant Wants to Stop Wall Street from Flipping Houses in Virginia
Sen. Glen Sturtevant, R-Chesterfield, has been frustrated by large investment firms purchasing homes in Virginia. Both in posts on social media and in a Zoom call open to the public and press on Wednesday, he outlined some policy proposals that he hopes can help with affordable housing.
First, he laid out his legislative efforts to reign in investment firms. After an unsuccessful attempt in 2024, he said that he’s reworking his bill for the 2025 session. If passed, it would prohibit investment firms worth more than $50 million from purchasing homes. Similar ideas have been introduced in Congress and other state legislatures, so Sturtevant wants to try it in Virginia.
“This is intended to target the big Wall Street investors, not your mom-and-pop investors who buy a home and flip it or who have a duplex under management,” he said. READ ENTIRE at The Virginia Mercury
Dec. 15, 2024 Deadline : Apply to the Ella Baker Youth Leadership Program
State Senator Jennifer Carroll Foy’s office is accepting applications for The Ella Baker Youth Leadership Program - Click here to apply
Five Books of Note
1- Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey (Oct. 2024)
2- When Mayor Doug Wilder Ruled Richmond: Strong-Arm Politics in Virginia's Capital City by Linwoood Norman (Aug. 2024)
3- Rumor, Repression, and Racial Politics: How the Harassment of Black Elected Officials Shaped Post-Civil Rights America (Since 1970: Histories of Contemporary America) by George Derek Musgrove
4- The New Jim Crow (2010) by Michelle Alexander
5- Remaking Virginia Politics by Paul Goldman (Jan. 2022)
TODAY AT NOON
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