Thursday Concert: "FLAVUH," NY/NJ's Preeminent Neo-Soul Band!

Okay, Plainfield! I know that those of you who came out to last week's awesome "Rhythm Revue Dance Party" with DJ Rahiem Diggs and DJ George Moore had a great time, as the photos (below) attest! It was a wonderful evening of music, dance, and fun! Well, we are finishing up this year's "Thursdays in the City Summer Concert Series" with an encore performance by FLAVUH, described as "NY/NJ's preeminent neo-soul band," featuring Plainfield's own Wayne Griffin! Playing classics and hits, this band will want to make you bring your dancing shoes again!

The final show is this Thursday, August 31, starting at 7:00 pm at City Hall Plaza, 515 Watchung Avenue!

This Weekend: Youth Commission Pool Party & Senior Swim Soiree!

The City of Plainfield is hosting two great events this weekend--one for the teens, and one for our older active adults! This Saturday, August 26, 2017, from 2:00 - 6:00 pm, the Plainfield Youth Commission, in partnership with the Plainfield PBA, will host the "Youth Commission Pool Party and PBA Community Cookout" at Hannah Atkins Pool, located at 508-552 West 3rd Street. In addition to music, games, and food, there will be a FREE GIVEAWAY to the first 50 teenagers (in the pool area). ID is needed to enter the pool area (15-19 year olds) and, as always, proper bathing attire is required.
 
Sunday, August 27, 2017, from 3:00 - 7:00 pm, the City of Plainfield is proud to sponsor the "Senior Swim Soiree" for our seniors (AKA older active adults), also at Hannah Atkins Pool, located at 508-552 West 3rd Street. Registration is required--call (908) 753-3097! Come and enjoy water aerobics, card games, music, dancing, and food and drink. There will also be a Bathing Suit Contest (Best Cover Up, Best Designed Bathing Suit, and Most Colorful Bathing Suit). Bring your own beach Chair! Lifeguards will be on duty!
So...come on out and have some fun as we end the summer pool season!

Thursday Concert: RHYTHM REVUE DANCE PARTY & Battle of the DJs!

Bring your dancing shoes, because this week's "Thursdays in the City Summer Concert Series" will showcase our Rhythm Revue Dance Party, featuring a "Battle of the DJs," with our DJs playing a variety of music--classic house, old school, r & b, hip hop, and even favorites from the 60s, 70s, and 80s! The show starts this Thursday, August 24, starting at 7:00 pm at City Hall Plaza, 515 Watchung Avenue! We will close out on August 31 with an encore performance by FLAVUH, described as "NY/NJ's preeminent neo-soul band!"

Plainfield's Vigil: Ev'rywhere We Go...We're Gonna Let Light Shine

 

Some of the crowd who attended the Plainfield Vigil on behalf of Charlottesville, VA victims.

Last night, residents of Plainfield joined clergy, elected and appointed officials, and community leaders at a vigil we held on behalf of the murderous, racist violence that occurred in Charlottesville, VA last week. I want to thank my colleagues and administration officials who attended, along with Rev. Hodari Hamilton, Rev. Ann Marie Alderman, Pastor Antione Hart, and Rev. Damaris Ortega, who delivered words of comfort and strength to our community. After a rousing invocation and benediction "book-ended" by City Council Vice President Barry Goode, we closed out the evening as he led us in song. Here is a video (posted on YouTube by TapIntoPlainfield's editor Jenn Popper). 

At the request of a couple of friends who attended, I am posting below the words that I spoke last night. 

We are here this evening to come together as one as we mourn the deaths and injuries that occurred in Charlottesville, VA last week, and in hopes of renewing our commitment to fighting against racism and all the other “isms” that would seek to further divide our nation. The events of the past week have thrown into high relief the continuing moral failures of our country, exemplified in the words of the disgraceful Donald Trump--who has decided that it is "okay" to equate the counter-protests of the Black Lives Matter activists and other anti-racist groups with the KKK, neo-Nazis, and the other white supremacist individuals and groups who injured and murdered American citizens in the name of white supremacy and anti-Semitism. 

As we have seen, many are ignorant of the history lessons of the past—when Donald Trump, possibly the most ignorant person ever to occupy the White House, says that there were “…many fine people…” marching with the KKK members, neo-Nazis, and other white supremacist racist groups—we must call him out. Our country has had a very painful history—the pain continues, despite the end of legal slavery through the historic amendments to the Constitution, despite the advances gained through the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and despite much additional legislation designed to live up to the credo of equal rights. A little over a month before the end of the Civil War in 1865, President Lincoln delivered his 2nd Inaugural Address. In that speech, knowing that the war’s end was near, he spoke of the need for the nation to come together. He said:

“If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

So, Lincoln was saying that whether it was Providence that allowed the offense of slavery to come, Providence also brought the war, and Providence dictated that the blood of the lash upon the enslaved would be paid by the sword—meaning, the Union would fight the traitorous Confederacy until the war was done. The South did not commemorate their treason until decades after Reconstruction, when the vanquished and their descendants erected monuments to their treason and evil. To those, like Donald Trump, the neo-Nazis, the KKK, and other white supremacists, whether in groups or alone, who want to maintain shrines to these traitors, we must say no. Pull the monuments DOWN. 

I know that I speak for the entire governing body when I say that is important that we, as a city, stand together against those who want to normalize and fan the flames of racial hatred. We will not accept a moral equivalency between those fighting racism and those who revel in its violence. We must say ‘NO’ to such evil. Thank you.

 

Plainfield Hosts Candlelight Vigil to Honor Victims of Charlottesville

As I noted on my city council blog the other day ("Charlottesville...and the #KlanPresident"), this past week's events have highlighted the continuing moral failures of many in our nation--exemplified in the words of the disgraceful Donald Trump--who has decided that it is "okay" to equate the counter-protests of the Black Lives Matter activists and other anti-racist groups with the KKK, neo-Nazis, and the other white supremacist individuals and groups who injured and murdered American citizens in the name of white supremacy and anti-Semitism. We, as a community, need to come together and, in one voice, denounce such hatred. To that end, please join family, friends, elected officials, and clergy on Monday, August 21, 2017, at a candlelight vigil in Plainfield to honor the victims of the racist violence that occurred in Charlottesville, VA last week. The city's event will take place at 7:30 pm on the steps of Plainfield City Hall. It is important that we as a city stand together against those who want to normalize and fan the flames of racial hatred. Donald Trump is dedicated to creating a moral equivalency between those fighting racism and those who revel in its gory violence. We must say ‘NO’ to such evil. 

Rev. Hodari Hamilton, pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Plainfield, will be the keynote speaker. Before moving to New Jersey to lead Shiloh, Reverend Hamilton was the pastor of the First Baptist Church, the oldest African American church in Charlottesville, where a major focus was (and remains) social justice. Rev. Ann Marie Alderman from the First Unitarian Society of Plainfield, Freedom Ministries' Pastor Antione Hart, Rev. Dámaris E. Ortega of United Church of Christ Congregational, and Pastor Carl Brewer of Metropolitan Seventh-Day Adventist Church will offer prayers. Councilman Barry Goode, who is also an ordained minister, will deliver the invocation and other community leaders will offer remarks. The entire Plainfield community is invited to stand in solidarity in remembrance of the victims and in commitment to unity. Parking is available in the lot behind the city hall building. Let us come together.

WE WILL NOT LET HATE WIN.