Tag Archives: William S. Coleman III

Come Together, Worcester and America!

By Bill Coleman

What will it take to bring us together as a people and as a nation?

America is hurting in so many ways. The novel coronavirus is killing more people every day. Each one of us will be touched by the loss of someone near to us or that of a friend or family member.

What can we do to get through these very challenging times?

We can pray, be kind, refocus on what is really important. Let’s face it: Life is precious and life is short.

Bill in his younger days when he painted/created American flags with the community all over Worcester County/America. One of his public art 🇺🇸🇺🇸 …

Just the other day we were facing the devastation of the attack on America with 911 in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C. – that was nearly 20 years ago. Then the Mid East wars … Now this pandemic. It is not going away any time soon, and Washington politicians better realize it. The Pandemic of 1916-1920s killed more than half a million Americans … This one has killed more than 132,000 …

I hope to help America by helping us be better people. The movement to finally end systemic racism in every day practice will not let up.

Bill with helpers …

I hope and embrace the effort of us as Americans to see our past and create a new future that breaks the chains that have held us to a sub-human and second class status as a people. For that I have, over the years, painted the American flag on rusted old fences (with permission from local governments), walls, etc in Worcester and 16 states – from Hiram, Maine, to Kauai, Hawaii.

Bill’s handiwork

Worcester had six of my flags at one time. Now there is just one a fence on Frontage Road, off Lincoln Street.

The good people of Philadelphia invited me to paint an American flag on a 150-foot fence of the
American Legion Ball Field in North East Philadelphia. The summer campers dedicated the flag by saying the Pledge of Allegiance at its dedication.

I hope we come together as caring Americans with a bright future. It will take time and patience, but some day we will all be able to “BREATHE.” Black Lives Matter for all.

♥️

– William S. Coleman III

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

REPARATIONS – NOW

By Rosalie Tirella

HARRIET: Watch this movie tonight!

RIP, John Lewis.🇺🇸🇺🇸 To honor a GREAT AMERICAN, ONE OF OUR CIVIL RIGHTS ICONS, America must begin to make reparations.

Let us start with FREE PUBLIC UNIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOR ALL AFRICAN AMERICANS in our country. DESCENDANTS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN SLAVES. A beginning. … I watched the film HARRIET two nights ago. …

HARRIET DVD cover♥️

Wonderful film – not as harrowing or intense as it could have been, but the filmmakers said they wanted their movie HOPEFUL. And it is. It is rated PG 13 – perfect for all junior and senior high students. Should be shown in all American schools – public and private. THE BRUTAL REALITY WAS CONVEYED in this beautifully acted movie – it MADE ME REALIZE WE NEED TO MAKE REPARATIONS. Now. Please watch this movie with your kids this weekend!

Here in Worcester we can begin with FREE Worcester State University and Quinsigamond Community College for all DESCENDANTS OF SLAVES. Our Black brothers and sisters. NOW. White folks, especially our fat glue pot politicians, know how to make the system work for them. They must SHARE THE WEALTH. Former Worcester District 4 City Councilor Barbara Haller made all the right calls and got her daughter a history professor job at Worcester State University (WSU) on the West Side. T and G ACE COLUMNIST Jim Dempsey (he told me) COULD NOT GET A TEACHING JOB at WSU WHEN HE RETIRED FROM THE NEWSPAPER – that is how “connected” you must be – but operator/political Haller got her daughter in alright. Her daughter is even head of the professors’ union…more politics. Haller’s daughter has a great job, great pay – for life. Pathetic. … WHY NOT HAVE BARBARA’S DAUGHTER – WHOSE KID IS NAMED HARRIET – give back? Why not have her do the right thing and PUSH FOR FREE COLLEGE CLASSES AND BOOKS for all of Worcester’s Black, African Americans at WSU? Now. The City must follow thru. … WHITES HAVE FEATHERED THEIR NESTS FOR CENTURIES. Haller and her daughter are a bold example of that. Why not have them do FOR Worcester BLACKS WHAT Babs DID FOR her DAUGHTER?

InCity Voices

This just in from Bill Coleman🇺🇸 on our 19th B-day! Thank you, Billy😊!

June 19, 2020 admin

Looking Back

By Bill Coleman

Bill at a community meeting several years ago.

I remember picking up my first copy of InCity Times 19 years ago – seems like the other day!

It was exciting to have another newspaper in the city of Worcester to compete with the telegram and Worcester magazine and many other newspapers that were coming about, but not challenging the status quo.

I had a feeling the passion of its founder, publisher/editor/chief salesperson/delivery gal Rosalie Tirella, would drive this publication – that this paper was going to be the one that had legs and would stick around. Why? Because of the way she would gather content and the feelings of a community who felt lost and abandoned … from the issues that kept them stifled in their willingness to speak out against neighborhood Injustices.

Oh, the established media types of the day and its writers didn’t give Rose a chance in the beginning! They thought she would fall flat and fail, but they didn’t know that this young woman with a passion in her heart for our Worcester Neighborhoods would fight and challenge the city’s status quo.

Rose went on the attack when they went after her personally, and those who are no more than faded journalistic names in a Dewey Decimal System in a library are not part of the conversation that we’re having in this community – our long history gone – but Rose is still here as a long established journalist who has successfully survived.

I have written many articles for InCity Times and have had welcome feedback from many segments in the Worcester community, some for its humor “What Makes You Happy, Worcester?” or “Mine is Bigger than Yours” and then, “Black Like Me Worcester,” a political history of the political involvement of Worcester and its Communities of color.

Bill’s cover story for ICT

This editorial space would never have been afforded by the mainstream media.

Today in our world we talk about finally ending racism and addressing the issues of police brutality, lack of job opportunities and affordable housing.

As we are grateful to have a voice in InCity Times and CECELIA newspapers and incitytimesworcester.org, we are even more grateful to have an editor – Rose – who understands the pulse of people’s heart and the climate in our communities, today 2020.

Through the publication of CECELIA and InCity Times newspaper and their above website, we have a permanent record of the events of our times – Worcester and the world. History will forever remind those in the future looking at what we did to improve the lives of people in our city neighborhoods.

InCity Times will be a part of that archive. Congrats, Rose, and thank you.

Today – CECELIA!

MISS YOU, JACK HOFFMAN:

💙💙💙💙💙💙💙

InCity Voices

From Worcester city council candidate Bill Coleman!

August 17, 2015 admin

Bill Coleman Announces Non-Stop 24 hour Voter Registration Effort

IN AN EFFORT TO ENERGIZE THE ELECTION TURNOUT FOR THE SEPTEMBER 8TH PRELIMINARY ELECTION …

… AT LARGE CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE WILLIAM S. COLEMAN III (BILL COLEMAN)
HAS BEEN REGISTERING PEOPLE TO VOTE SINCE HE BEGAN HIS CAMPAIGN FOR THE CITY COUNCIL.

MR. COLEMAN WILL CONTINUE HIS EFFORTS TO REGISTER PEOPLE TO VOTE ON A NONSTOP 24 HOUR BASIS UNTIL THIS WEDNESDAY AUGUST 19, 8 PM

THIS IS WHEN VOTER REGISTRATION CLOSES FOR THE SEPTEMBER 8TH PRELIMINARY ELECTION IN THE CITY OF WORCESTER.

Mr. Coleman’s will travel around Worcester and help people fill out their voter registration forms and bring their completed forms to City Hall before the deadline.

Mr. Coleman is also providing a copy of a sample of the September Preliminary Election Ballot.

Mr. Coleman has voter registration forms in English, Spanish, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Russian.

Call Mr. Coleman at 508 826 1307 and upon request he will deliver voter registration forms to businesses, Churches, neighborhood centers, apartment buildings and Crime Watch Groups.

The main focus is going to be coffee shops, diners, parks, shopping centers and the Worcester Bus Terminal.

With the upcoming Voter Registration Deadline fast approaching City Hall will be open until 8 PM this Wednesday for people to register to vote or to change their address.

You can also go to the Election Commission Office on the Second Floor of City Hall, to fill out an absentee ballot application and you can vote at City Hall that day for the September 8th Preliminary Election.

If you are not sure of your voter status or to check to see if your voter location has moved, and to find out more about absentee ballot voting or voter registration, contact the Election Commission Office at Worcester City Hall, by calling 508-799-1134.

Contact:

William S. Coleman III (Bill Coleman)

508- 826-1307 (Talk or Text)

Billcoleman333@gmail.com

InCity Feature, Uncategorized

Happy 10’th birthday, Worcester Senior Center!

October 18, 2010 admin Leave a comment

By William S Coleman III

The Worcester Senior Center, which sits atop Vernon Hill at Providence Street and was once the home of the St. Vincent Hospital School of Nursing, is 10 years old. And as amazing as it may seem, this municipal gem of a building, an institution for our city, was the clumination of a hard-fought battle. Many of our outstanding seniors who led the battle for the establishment of a Senior Center in Worcester are no longer with us, and for them and their efforts and the personal contributions they made to this city, their families and the businesses, schools and workplaces, I ask each one reading this article to honor them with a moment of silence … .

I first got involved in the fight for a senior center for Worcester in 1976, while I was working as an aide to former US Senator Edward W. Brooke, R-Massachusetts. Someone had written a letter asking if the Senator could help Worcester join other communities around Massachusetts that had built senor centers for their elderly. At this time the Director of the Council on Aging was Milton Bornstein. The Senator gave a letter to me to research and act on; I immediately began contacting the legislative leaders, including former State Senator Dan Foley, Representative Robert McNeal, Representative Tom White, Congressman Joe Early, City Councilor Tom Early, Joe Tinsley and City Manager McGrath and other political leaders prominent at that time.

Back in 1976, Worcester was an industrial power house. Continue reading Happy 10’th birthday, Worcester Senior Center! →

InCity Voices

Mine is bigger than yours!

June 15, 2010 admin Leave a comment

By William S. Coleman III

That got your attention!

Much can be said for the competitive nature in each one of us. It must be in the natural instinct of women and men, young and old, short and tall, fat and skinny, rich and poor,Dump and smart, educated and uneducated, able bodied and not, to be competitive. What is it that drives us to one up each other?

Notice how competitive we are as a society. We are competitive in our workplaces, our schools, the supermarkets, our churches, our mosques, our temples or our synagogues. We get competitive about everything we do. Just listen to people as they start comparing the stories of their lives with friends, or family or even perfect strangers. We get competitive when we go to the bank. OK, just once, my health care is better than your health care. People even get competitive about getting sick. Continue reading Mine is bigger than yours! →

InCity Voices

Worcester’s Infant Mortality Rate: taking it to the streets!

May 26, 2010 admin Leave a comment

By William S. Coleman III

“A baby’s health is a city’s wealth.”

-Worcester Commissioner of Public Health, Leonard J. Morse, MD.

The city of Worcester is losing babies to premature death and we must find out what the causes are and do all we can to reverse this trend. There are a group of professionals who meet monthly and discuss the issues and review the data relating to infant mortality in the city of Worcester. The Worcester Infant Mortality Reduction Task Force is a gathering of doctors, nurses, other health care professionals, community leaders, and social workers bound by the common goal of eradicating the cause of infant mortality in our city.

The issue of infant mortality is complicated.

We do know that Worcester has a higher rate of infant mortality than the state average and the nation’s average. We also know that this trend has been consistent for many years. Continue reading Worcester’s Infant Mortality Rate: taking it to the streets! →

InCity Voices

Gone too soon

April 16, 2010 admin Leave a comment

By William S. Coleman III

If you see me and I don’t have the usual smile on my face and I seem not to put forth my optimistic personality, it is because I am grieving the recent loss of three people I cared about.

These last couple of months I’ve have witnessed heartache and pain from families that I know and love because of recent deaths in their families.

There comes a time in all of our lives when someone we know will die; and whether they have lived a day, a week, 19 years, 57 years or any age, the impact of the loss of their lives on us will make our hearts skip a beat. Often times we will find ourselves emotionally choked up, and the only outlet we have is to take a walk in the rain where we can let our tears fall from our face.

When you know somebody, a friend, a family member or someone in your community who has lost a family member, be compassionate, caring and understanding. Show them support and empathy.

I am dealing with a deep hurt and sadness for the loss of the daughter of one of my best friends in college, Len Gengel. Len Gengel is a friend who has a heart as big as you can imagine. He lost his beloved daughter, Britney, to the Haiti earthquake. Continue reading Gone too soon →

InCity Feature, InCity Voices

What makes you happy, Worcester?

April 9, 2010 admin Leave a comment

By William S. Coleman III

When I was given the assignment of writing this column, I thought I would ask people around the city: “What makes you happy?”

I met a woman who has lived in Worcester for seven years. She told me, with a coy look in her eye, that when she moved to Worcester she had no expectations, and Worcester hasn’t disappointed her yet!

While driving around the city, I stopped people randomly and had them tell me what makes them happy. Some of their responses: Continue reading What makes you happy, Worcester? →

InCity Feature, InCity Voices, Uncategorized

Black like me: Worcester’s Black leaders – a brief history (part 1)

June 15, 2009 admin Leave a comment

By William S. Coleman III

I will always remember the night of November 4, 2008. On this night America elected a qualified man – a black man – to be the next President of the United States of American and leader of the free world.
That night I joined a packed house of people gathered at a Green Street pub to watch the election returns.

There were all races of people: male and female, 21 and older, digital and analog. We came together to witness history and hoped history would be on our side that night.

The room would erupt, as the election returns would come in first from the East Coast: Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, and then New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, and the big shocker, Florida – all for Barack Obama. Continue reading Black like me: Worcester’s Black leaders – a brief history (part 1) →