Best friends say they found ‘heaven' — and a racist landlord ruined it
Amanda Mills and Angela Smith thought they had found paradise when they discovered Lazy Cove Campground, a scenic southern Virginia retreat on the banks of Smith Mountain Lake.
The two friends had been inseparable since they were 16-year-olds working at Harris Teeter and when the coronavirus pandemic hit, they saw an opportunity to bring their families together in the secluded outdoor area. Mills would be in one camper with her family; Smith would be in one nearby with her husband, Damien Smith, who is Black, and their 8-year-old son, who is biracial.
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Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Boston Globe
‘I don't know why the president has this problem': Trump had a history of disparaging Haiti and Haitians before the travel ban
So when Haiti was included late Wednesday in a list of countries on which Trump was imposing a near-total travel ban, some saw a culmination of a long campaign against the population. Advertisement 'Donald Trump has been very consistent in his anti-Black racism, both domestically and globally, and when it comes to the country of Haiti, the people of Haiti, he has a long track record of vile, offensive, harmful rhetoric and policies,' said Boston Representative Ayanna Pressley, who co-chairs the congressional Haiti Caucus. 'It is just purely evil.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Florida Democratic Representative Maxwell Frost, who is of Haitian descent, echoed Pressley's comment that the travel ban is 'rooted in bigotry.' 'It does nothing to make our communities safer, but it does vilify immigrants,' Frost said in a statement. 'It will devastate our immigrant families across this country.' In response to Pressley's accusations, the White House called her assertions 'lazy, unfounded and just straight-up false.' Advertisement 'While President Trump is fulfilling his promise to unite the country and keep the American people safe, Pressley is desperate to divide us and smearing our heroic law enforcement officials in the process,' White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement, pointing to the rationale listed in the ban. Haiti is one of 12 countries facing a near-total ban on travel to the United States under Trump's new order, which cites an inability to vet immigrants for national security risks and a high rate of people overstaying their visas as justification for the measure. There are limited exceptions, including current visa-holders, permanent residents, dual nationals, athletic teams, and certain immediate family members of US residents. Other countries affected include Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. The move follows several other Trump administration actions that have had an impact on the Haitian community in the United States, including an early end to Temporary Protected Status protections for an estimated through the appeals process. Trump made similar moves in his first administration though most were ultimately blocked by the courts. The United States first granted Haitian migrants protection from deportation after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country. Since then, a string of natural disasters and political conflicts have worsened conditions. Today, gang violence, crime, and instability are rampant on the island. Advertisement Amid the worsening situation, many Haitians sought refuge in the United States or came to join family here, either through the CHNV program, legal avenues, or without permission. Massachusetts has the third-largest population of Haitians in the US, including an estimated 15,000 who held TPS, But the influx of migration from Haiti has also spurred backlash, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, who was the only Democrat in the 2018 meeting with Trump's now-infamous comments, said he doesn't understand why Haiti seems to irk the president as it does. 'His hatred over Haiti is just impossible to explain,' Durbin said. 'I've been there many times. And this is one of the poorest nations on Earth, the poorest in our hemisphere, these people are suffering and need help, and they're wonderful people. I don't know why the president has this problem.' But Republicans defended Trump's actions and denied there was any animus behind it. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican who has backed pro-immigration policies in the past, was also in that 2018 meeting. And while Diaz-Balart declined to talk about what was said, he does not believe Trump has an issue with Haitians. Advertisement 'No, I don't,' he said. 'I really don't. I really, really don't.' His South Florida district is home to a large Haitian population and others affected by the CHNV and TPS reversals, including Cubans but he defended the travel ban. 'There are countries obviously that can't guarantee a process where we know that people are [vetted] to keep the country secure,' Diaz-Balart said. 'I don't think it's unreasonable.' Former Florida Republican Representative Carlos Curbelo, a moderate who was part of the immigration negotiations in 2018 that preceded the meeting, said Trump seems to prefer 'white-collar' immigrants or those whom Trump perceives to be have been recruited or have sufficient resources to come here. 'I don't think he understands or cares that those types of comments and campaigns unfairly mischaracterize hundreds of thousands of people at a time, and I don't think he understands that just because you're a refugee or an exile, that doesn't mean that you aren't capable of making major contributions to this country,' Curbelo said. Noting the Cuban exile community where he (and Diaz-Balart) hail from, Curbelo continued: 'It's people who had to leave their country, that was not their first choice, that was their only choice, and that doesn't preclude people from becoming exceptional Americans who do wonderful things.' Pressley, though, is convinced Trump's approach to Haitians is a concerted effort. She compared the trauma inflicted on the migrant community to the terror campaign of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan, saying it gets harder to fight back and project optimism when the actions layer on top of each other. 'It is terrorizing. It is terrifying. It is traumatic,' Pressley said. 'And it's just so intentional. ... Singling out Haitians, I mean, he's moved in a way that is obsessive and consistently, pointedly harmful.' Advertisement Tal Kopan can be reached at
Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Miami Herald
Former HBCU star thriving with Harlem Globetrotters
Randy McClure always dreamed of making basketball his career-and now, he's living that dream with flair. Known as 'Crash' the former HBCU standout at Albany State University, McClure is now dazzling audiences around the globe with the World Famous Harlem Globetrotters. McClure carved his name into Albany State history with over 1000 career points. From 2016 to 2020, he earned titles such as D2 All-American and SIAC All-Conference. He was also named twice to the NBPA HBCU Top 50, a rare honor for student-athletes at historically Black colleges and universities. After college, McClure played overseas. He won both League MVP and Championship honors in the Moldova Superleague. His success abroad led to a homecoming with one of basketball's most iconic teams. "When an opportunity to play with the world's most historic team comes, you don't turn it down," McClure said. Since joining the Harlem Globetrotters in 2021, McClure has continued to rise. In 2024, he was invited to perform as a third quarter showman during the team's world tour. That role is typically reserved for veterans. "No way at all would I have pictured myself in this position my first weeks as a Globetrotter," McClure reflected on Instagram. "But in my third year, I've learned a thing or two from the best." He gave special thanks to mentors Saul White Jr. and Chandler Mack, as well as the entire team for their support. From HBCU hardwood glory to international courts and the bright lights of the Globetrotters' stage, Randy McClure's journey is shared by his teammates. He also plays alongside former HBCU stars like Carl Garcia from Miles College, Prince Moss from Grambling, Asanti Price from Benedict College and Angelo Sharpless from Elizabeth City State University. The post Former HBCU star thriving with Harlem Globetrotters appeared first on HBCU Gameday. Copyright HBCU Gameday 2012-2025
Time Magazine
6 days ago
- Time Magazine
The American Tradition of Trying to Address Anxiety with Parks
As summer approaches, America's national parks are bracing for an influx of visitors, even as deep federal cuts to park services likely mean fewer camp employees, closed campgrounds, long lines, and cancelled programs. Travelers have been warned away from some national parks by experts, urged to reschedule for next year. But millions are still opting to go. Last summer, a record 332 million people visited America's 63 national parks. Based on yearly upward trends, the estimates for this summer are even higher. In a 'hold-your-breath year' for national park tourism, Americans are still turning en masse to the natural environment as respite from the stresses of modern life. The frenzy shouldn't surprise us. With festering worries related to economic uncertainty, inflated costs, and federal policy whiplash, the popularity of park vacations is no coincidence. Rather, the rush to escape to these beautiful sanctuaries echoes a long history of Americans turning to nature for relief from anxiety, particularly during moments of sudden and widely felt changes. In the 1870s, the United States was in the midst of the most spectacular transformations yet in its history. The end of the American Civil War brought an end to slavery and the emancipation of some 4 million Black people, while a slew of new innovations brought irreversible changes to the day-to-day lives of all Americans. New machinery brought advanced manufacturing, jobs, speedier production of goods, and lower costs for consumers. Hundreds of thousands of miles of telegraph cable delivered information at break-neck speed, forever reshaping how Americans accessed news, communicated, conducted business, and envisioned the world. And the completion of a continent-crossing railroad in 1869 revolutionized travel, making it possible to move people and cargo across vast distances in hours, rather than weeks or months. Spurred by monumental developments in technology, industry, and travel, more Americans than ever before—including new immigrants—made their way to growing cities, seeking work, education, entertainment, and exposure to new people, ideas, and possibilities. Sudden and rapid change fired up excitement about the future. But it also stirred anxieties. During this time, American doctors noticed more and more seemingly healthy patients with a range of complaints about hard-to-explain medical issues, including digestive problems, hair loss, sexual dysfunction, aches and pains without identifiable injuries, and profound exhaustion without obvious cause. In response, a widely respected neurologist named George Miller Beard offered a theory. Americans, he said, were suffering from a malady called 'neurasthenia.' Writing in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Beard borrowed an old term used to describe 'weakness of the nerves' and reintroduced it to the medical community as a 'morbid condition' afflicting Americans at a worrisome rate. In his 1881 book American Nervousness, Beard also pinpointed the key culprit: modern change. For instance, new communication technology delivered shocking news of faraway crime, disaster, and war; mechanization in industry brought extreme economic volatility and labor strife; speedy railroad travel introduced the real possibility of horrific accidents involving ' wholesale killings.' Even the invention of the pocket watch, a simple hand-held timepiece, fostered a maniacal obsession with punctuality. Americans were 'under constant strain,' Beard warned, 'to get somewhere or to do something at some definite moment.' Constant strain was a big problem, according to Beard and his contemporaries. Victorian-era neurologists theorized that the body functioned like an electrical machine, powered by energy distributed through the nervous system. When Americans spent too much energy navigating the extreme shifts and new worries in their modern lives, they experienced aches, pains, exhaustion, irritability, and malaise. Doctors also theorized that urban life only made such conditions worse by further taxing and weakening the body. In response, a range of popular remedies and medical treatments for neurasthenia emerged. Some doctors recommended that women suffering symptoms should halt all physical and intellectual activity. Colloquially known as the 'rest cure,' this treatment—famously recounted in 'The Yellow Wallpaper,' a horror novella written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman—involved isolation in the home, bed rest for weeks, and an embargo on reading, writing, drawing, socializing, and exercising. Women patients and doctors, including New York City physician Grace Peckham, successfully argued that the rest cure was not only quack medicine but more harmful to patients than the nervous sickness itself. Thus, it didn't stick. What did catch on was the ' West cure,' a different kind of treatment originally reserved for men. Neurologists worried that the urban environment, factory work and office jobs, and other modern pressures were making men tired, indecisive, and physically weak. On doctor's orders, male patients ventured into the western wilderness, where, it was thought, the natural environment would inspire the mind and reinvigorate the body. Prescriptions emphasized physical exercise, including hiking and horseback riding. The legacies of this are notable. In the 1880s, Theodore Roosevelt, a young, well-to-do New Yorker at the time, suffered from a range of neurasthenic conditions including asthma, and he sought treatment. Roosevelt was so inspired by his own privileged experience of the West cure, and its restorative outcomes, that later, as president, he built upon state park preservation and forest protection acts to dramatically expand federal support for public access to park lands, including National Parks. Most famously, in 1903, Roosevelt partnered with naturalist John Muir —also diagnosed as neurasthenic—to expand federal protection for Yosemite in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. Initially, it was urban elite white men, like Roosevelt, who were most likely to have the means to travel and to pay for the therapy of riding horses, hunting game, and sleeping under the stars. But the notion of the natural world as an antidote for the stresses of modern life appealed broadly, across lines of class, race, and gender. Although few Americans had access to medical care in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the idea that the body could be recharged through outdoor physical activity caught on thanks to the low-cost medical pamphlets, ads for over-the-counter remedies, advice columns, and simple word of mouth. The media-fueled desire to fend off neurasthenia drove a booming market in exercise equipment, including bicycles, and participation in cheap outdoor sports, like baseball and pedestrianism, a competitive walking trend. By the end of the 19th century, city planners, imagining more healthful, walkable, livable urban environments, also incorporated green spaces for urban residents to enjoy for free. From small picnic areas and playgrounds to sprawling urban parks designed to feel like the bucolic countryside, American cities began providing West cure benefits without the steep price tag or the need to travel. Camping became another popular, and more affordable, option for vacations from modernity. Working people could purchase a simple tent, one-burner stove, and a few other provisions, load up the horse and buggy and head to a park or campground just outside the city. This cheap and accessible alternative to West cure travel ballooned in popularity in the early 20th century, with the proliferation of camping guides and camping clubs, the growth of the National Park Service, and the introduction of the car. Enthusiasm for camping and national park tourism as affordable restorative activities endured through the 20th century. And they remain as popular as ever today. Neurasthenia as a diagnostic category, has not endured. It disappeared in the early 20th century, thanks mainly to the rise of psychoanalysis and expanding knowledge about mental health and conditions like chronic fatigue, anxiety disorders, phobias, and depression. But its most popular remedy—particularly exercise, outdoor recreation, and reflection in nature—has proved truly beneficial for both mental and physical health. Amid unsettling changes, Americans touted the curative powers of the natural world, fueling the call for outdoor exercise and recreation, and laying the groundwork for the astounding growth of national and state park tourism. Today, with so much to worry about, it is important to remember how national and state parks, and the workers who run and sustain them, have long played a healing role in American society. As we head off to America's many majestic park destinations—our favorite 'mental health escapes' and ' calmcation ' getaways—may this history reinforce the need to preserve, protect, and invest in them, especially in uncertain times. Felicia Angeja Viator is associate professor of history at San Francisco State University, a culture writer, and curator for the GRAMMY Museum.
