As a result of a report in a recent Chicago Sun-Times article, one of this community’s premier Black businessmen, Larry Huggins, founder and president of Riteway Construction, has stepped up and agreed to provide three laptops for last year’s Bud Billiken Royal Court participants, plus provide the disputed $279 for the young lady who did not get the cash component of the program.
“We enjoy
putting on the Bud Billiken King and Queen contest. We love the kids,” said
Carol Bell, Defender executive director finance. “This is the 62nd year for the
contest.
It’s
unfortunate that we too have suffered from the current economic times like most
other newspapers. But I can assure you that this snafu will be short-lived.”
Beverly
Reed-Scott, Sustainable Futures director for the Chicago Defender Charities,
said though she regrets the Chicago Sun-Times article, “I am encouraged by the
outpouring of support from the community for both the Chicago Defender
Charities and the Chicago Defender Newspaper.”
Reed-Scott
pointed out that although the newspaper and the charities are separate and
distinct entities, “we are united in our commitment to continuing Robert
Abbott’s legacy of ‘taking care of
the people.’ We have been here to herald in the Great Black Migration through
the election of this nation’s first Black president.”
Reed-Scott
said the Bud Billiken Parade & Picnic “is a strong proud tradition that
will not be reduced by sensationalism. Just ask the 70 youth we hired for the
summer, and the (Sun-Times article) just speaks to the continued need for our own
voice in our own newspaper.”
Bell said
the newspaper has received numerous calls from benevolent people and businesses
offering to participate in the Bud Billiken program by donating gifts to the
Bud Billiken participants.
“It is a
blessing to have Black businesses and institutions responding to need in these
troubled times,” she said, recalling a quote from former Defender publisher John Sengstacke, who
said, “If we take care of the community first, the community will take care of
us.”
“The Defender is the community’s paper,” Bell
said.
Copyright
2011 Chicago Defender
