Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

A Confederate monument still stands in Philly | Morning Newsletter

And, Philadelphia rallies for justice after the Breonna Taylor grand jury decision.

    The Morning Newsletter

    Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter

Good morning, all. I want to use this space this morning to highlight a piece of ours that always makes me smile. It’s one I’ve come back to time and again to remind myself of human beauty over the last half-year (and even before that). It’s a love story, one that’s set in the Italian Market and showcases all it has to offer. Remember, please try to take care of yourself.

— Josh Rosenblat (@joshrosenblat, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

In Philadelphia, a memorial to the Confederate dead has stood for more than a century in the National Cemetery on West Oak Lane. It was dedicated in 1912, the 32nd anniversary of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s death. Its goal, according to my colleague Jeff Gammage’s reporting, was “to obscure the pro-slavery cause of the Confederacy, and to recast the fight of the Southerners who lay nearby as true to the ideals of the Founding Fathers.”

Whether it’s the only Confederate monument within the Philadelphia area is uncertain. But after the city took down a statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo and covered a Christopher Columbus statue, some wonder whether the city will overlook the 9-foot, 6-inch tall granite block that bears the name of 184 Southern soldiers and sailors not far from the resting places of 350 African American soldiers who died to free those enslaved in the South.

People in Philadelphia protested yesterday a grand jury’s decision in Kentucky to indict a single former police officer for shooting into neighboring apartments, but did not charge any officers for their alleged roles in the killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville this year.

A law firm spent months investigating the “horrifying accounts of rape and repeated sexual abuse” from a violinist while she studied at the Curtis Institute. The firm’s report, which detailed her experience and separate claims of abuse by about two dozen students over decades, was unanimously accepted Tuesday by the Curtis board.

The report began after an Inquirer investigation detailed violinist Lara St. Jean’s claim of rape and sexual abuse by a violin professor at the institute and school leaders' repeated dismissal of her accounts.

What you need to know today

  1. Amy Kennedy could soon keep the Kennedy name alive in Congress. But she’ll have to first beat Jeff Van Drew in New Jersey.

  2. Could herd immunity protect us from COVID-19? In theory, yes. Infectious-disease experts explain why.

  3. A man was critically injured after being stabbed at the encampment at the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on Tuesday night.

  4. Pennsylvania has released an app that uses Bluetooth to alert someone when they come into close contact with a person who has tested positive for the coronavirus.

  5. Philadelphia has gotten back on schedule with trash and recycling collections. But the union that represents sanitation workers is concerned about a potential second wave of the coronavirus.

Through your eyes | #OurPhilly

Who else puts way too much pressure on their morning coffee to help them wake up? Thanks for sharing this picture, @shotbyjmoon.

Tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and we’ll pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout-out!

That’s interesting

  1. 📺Here are 21 bars and restaurants that are showing Eagles games outside.

  2. 🌲Are social media location tags making nature spots too crowded? Or do they open up the outdoors to more people?

  3. 📃Jere Edmunds is a documentary filmmaker known as “The Flier Guy” and is behind We Do It Distribution Services. He travels around Philadelphia on a bike to post fliers, brochures, and pamphlets.

  4. 🍻This is what Philly-area Oktoberfests are going to look like this year — if they’re still even happening.

  5. 🇨🇷Kim Haas, who grew up in West Mount Airy, launched a travel show on national PBS stations that focuses on the contributions of Black people to the culture and history of Costa Rica.

  6. 🦅It’s been a bad start to the Eagles' season, but one sports columnist writes about how they’ll turn it around.

Opinions

“The newly married couple were inside surrounded by friends. I could hear their laughter and conversation. Before COVID-19, this social butterfly would have been right in the mix, but these days I avoid socializing in confined spaces.” — writes columnist Jenice Armstrong about attending her niece’s “micro-wedding” during the pandemic.

  1. A racist tobacco lawsuit is hurting Philadelphia’s children of color, writes Ryan Coffman, the city health department’s tobacco policy and control program manager.

  2. Columnist Maria Panaritis writes about Upper Darby’s first Black fire chief.

What we’re reading

  1. Technical.ly Philly covers the PickupPHL app, which will let residents track trash trucks and their pickup routes in real time.

  2. Wired has a story on an epic poker cheating scandal.

  3. The Verge has a summer’s worth of leaked audio from Mark Zuckerberg discussing Facebook’s role in democracy.

Your Daily Dose of | Dumplings

With National Dumpling Day coming this Saturday, Philly-based hospitality consultant Liz Einhorn and baology co-owner and chef Judy Ni have organized Dumplings 4 All. They got together nine chefs to create dumplings representative of different culinary traditions. Each purchase not only gives you a chance to try the dumplings but also help fund volunteers at North Philly Peace Park, a community garden at 22nd and Jefferson Streets. It started yesterday and runs through Sunday.