Richmond Faces
Corky Booze, Lillie Mae Jones, Rev. Phil Lawson and Eula Averhart were honored for “past and on-going commitment to positive social change” in a ceremony celebrating Black History Month.
Take a stroll down McDonald Avenue near Ninth Street west of downtown, and you might come face-to-face with a local legend.
Louis Fantin limped into the brightly painted building, as he often does on Tuesdays, and took a seat at a round table. At 85 years old, he dealt the cards and studied his hand a little slower than he used to.
Commercial real estate broker John Troughton claims the City of Richmond agreed to pay him $1.5 million if the Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians came to Point Molate. But no deal was signed, and no one at City Hall is talking.
Nat Fitz doesn’t consider himself a history buff. The Richmond resident, who is 86, never talked to his parents about the family’s history and ancestors. It wasn’t until he was in his 70s that he started taking an interest in the past, after he discovered that members of his family were part of a colony for former slaves in Kansas.
Tim Manhart, owner of Catahoula Coffee roasting, says the shop’s clientele has been a revelation, dispelling some widely-held notions not only about who drinks gourmet espresso, but about who makes up Richmond’s population in general.
It’s not hard to imagine how Barbara Becnel charmed her way into spending more than 12 hours a day with Los Angeles gangsters for a year and a half. Or befriended a former gangster on death row for murder. Or ran for governor of California.
Working in a constant, fluid motion, artists at the National Institute of Arts and Disabilities honor creativity in its most spontaneous form.
With the current economy, a day in the life of a bail bondsman is made up of a few phone calls, visits to the jail and a lot of waiting.