Around noon on Tuesday, March 19, State Representative Rodney R. Hubbard*, his brother Rontonyo Hubbard-Bey, and local businessman Sam Salama went to have lunch at Johnny’s Restaurant and Bar, 1017 Russell, in Soulard.
Shortly after their arrival, they became the victims of racially-charged threats by two male patrons who told them that they were in a “white bar” and unwelcome. Mr. Salama went to management twice to inform them of the actions of the two visibly intoxicated men.
Before the situation escalated any further, Rep. Hubbard, his brother, and Mr. Salama left and called the police from outside. When the police arrived, they issued a summons to the intoxicated men for disturbance of the peace. No one in Rep. Hubbard’s party was ticketed, arrested, or detained in any way.
“It is ironic that just one day after Senator Barack Obama reminded the nation that its racial wounds have not yet healed, that I am personally reminded that our city’s racial divide is still very much alive,” said Rep. Hubbard.
“I know that the actions of these two men are not indicative of the vast majority of people, but if an elected official like myself, a businessman like Mr. Salama, or a man like my brother experience this kind of blatant discrimination in 2008, it is clear we still have a lot of work to do.”
*Hubbard is a client of A D French & Associates
March 19th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Maybe this will give Rep Hubbard an insight as to how his constituents feel in the 5th ward. We are faced every day with the hell that the money that White Republicans paid him to allow. Now maybe he can understand what is like to have someone openly disregard your feelings because you are not white. Maybe he will give his $30,000 contribution from Rex Singuinfield(sp)back and start standing on the side of black St Louisians. Maybe he should use his position in Jeff City to expose the disrespect that is going on daily in his district.
March 19th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Someone needs to look into Johnny’s liquor license.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Let’s get real. Johnny’s is a T&A bar for single businessmen. Married men too if your married, but single.
This is some bull. This can’t be Senatorial candidate Rodney Hubbard that you are talking about, because he would know better than to go to a place like this. However, you did not mention if he was the Senatorial candidate Rodney Hubbard in this story. There is no way that a Senatorial candidate would go into Johnny’s Restaurant and Bar knowing that there are half-naked women in there.
Somebody has to show a photograph for some proof of this fact. No Senatorial candidate in their right mind would make a decision like this during their campaign. So show some proof about this matter or be quiet. This story is just to hard to believe.
How do you get into a disagreement in a T&A bar? You really have to be argumentive to accomplish this, or have a negative disposition.
Nobody gets into an argument in a T&A bar. Racism in a T&A bar in Soulard.
What did Johnny’s have to say about allowing this to go on?
Who were the men that were issued a summons for disturbance of the peace?
What were their names?
Why call the police after you left the T&A bar, and bring further attention to the matter?
What were they doing meeting in a T&A bar for lunch?
Let’s follow this story, because it doesn’t add up. Maybe black people should come together to protest Johnny’s, since they allowed the white people to practice racism against Rodney Hubbard.
Johnny’s should have called the police, not Rodney Hubbard!
That’s the solution, let’s protest Johnny’s Restaurant & Bar this Saturday, 3-22-08, at 12:00PM. Let’s protest the discrimination against Rodney Hubbard, and show Johnny’s that black people will not take this!!!!
Who is with me?
March 20th, 2008 at 3:18 am
Representative Hubbard ended the first half of the Missouri Legislative Session speaking to a group of supporters at EM Harris Development Company about the same things Sen Barrack Obama spoke eloquently to in Philadelphia. Look, its easy to find the differences between educated and non educated people who are concerned about the community. So why go the easy route.
The comments made by the unamed 5th district resident and
Different Strokes fanatic represents a perspective that is relevant and based on some facts. We should commend everyone who makes the effort to voice their opinion. We should also hold them accountable when it is based on concepts that divide.
Whenever a person is accosted by anyone that is deliberately intoxicated ask yourself what is the problem? Are the people around them just in the wrong place? Are the students attending unacreditted shools in the largest city in Missouri in the wrong place? No,I think not. Just like those who get drunk and socially misbehave get severe punishment so should those who put at risk a much greater set of circumstances risking children access to success.
Are the kids of STL in the wrong place or doing the wrong thing. In the case of Rex Sinquefield supporting black, white, male, female, democrats, and republicans LEGALLY is nothing unique. What is unique is that he cares enough to engage personally to help children first acquire the tools they need to be successful. When the school districts of St Louis are crumbling like a stale cookie, leaders like Hubbard and Sinquefield have a plan to fix it and execute it. Similar plans exist in a ton of file cabinets we call brains, but one key difference is EXECUTION which makes a plan become a living entity that eats up people that just sit around an plan….like DESE
March 20th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Soulard is a great neighborhood that, unfortunately, like Dogtown and the Landing, retains vestiges of an inglorious redneck past, not quite sanded smooth by decades of gentrification and yuppie incursions. These two areas are also at times adopted playgrounds for people who want to start fights, harass females, and generally act like drunken, shitbag assholes. Being white, I have not been subjected to racial abuse by this element, but have on occasion been otherwise hassled: Johnny’s, (once Hillary’s, where the bartender-pimp cozied up to out-of-town “sports” looking for action) McGurks, Joanie’s, Broadway Oyster, others. Johnny’s is sleazy, and unappealingly so. The others are much better, but still at times draw low-class patrons. I don’t think the drunks in this episode represent a majority or even a substantial number of Soulardians. Hell, they might be from Crestwood or Alton. Bar culture is a niche context, not a representative one.
March 20th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Racism in St Louis, I find it hard to believe! A candidate for Senate involved in an altercation at a T&A bar WOW!
March 20th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Hubbard was not only at a T&A bar, he was hanging out with “businessman” Sam Salama, owner of a notorious food-stamp trap. How embarrassing!
March 20th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Al Martin, III Says:
March 20th, 2008 at 3:18 am
In the case of Rex Sinquefield supporting black, white, male, female, democrats, and republicans LEGALLY is nothing unique. What is unique is that he cares enough to engage personally to help children first acquire the tools they need to be successful. When the school districts of St Louis are crumbling like a stale cookie, leaders like Hubbard and Sinquefield have a plan to fix it and execute it.
When I read something like this—it is hard for me to know how to begin to respond—with my feelings of outrage over the cold, definitely “I don’t care about the kids” political manipulations which have gone on the last couple of years and more at slps.
The best thing that could happen tfor education in MO—would be if Bourisaw would replace Kent King.
I would love to see Bourisaw and Sinquefield have a debate–One thing I can do is paste an article by Chris King of the sl American, sent out by the elected board in a mass mailing–
A crowd of parents and activists gathered on a Thursday evening in late February outside the Downtown office of St. Louis Public Schools. They gathered to show support for SLPS Superintendent Diana Bourisaw, who had recently declined a surprise offer from the district’s Special Administrative Board to apply for the position she already holds.
The offer came as a particular surprise to Bourisaw, because she had recently submitted a proposal to the SAB for a two-year contract on what she considered reasonable terms.
Rick Sullivan, CEO of the SAB, said the board had discussed Bourisaw’s contract, but “not in detail.†He said it was “similar in scope to her existing contract.†He said her contract proposal “may have played some part†in the board’s opening a national search for superintendent.
Should Bourisaw leave her position at the end of the current school year, she would become the sixth superintendent to depart SLPS within five years.
Many of the students in the city’s public schools may struggle in mathematics, according to State assessment tests, but that math is easily understood by district parents - and it angers many of them.
“I like Diana Bourisaw. I like stability,†said Kathleen Styer, the mother of two children at Metro High School who said she “has worked with the system since my oldest daughter was in kindergarten.â€
Styer said, “I am very unhappy with the current situation.â€
Peter Downs is baffled by it. Downs is president of the elected school board, whose authority was ceded to the SAB by decree of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Downs (who also is a parent in the district) was one of many close observers shocked to see Bourisaw, in effect, handed her walking papers immediately after Sullivan’s appointment as CEO of the appointed board was approved. The abrupt request for the current chief administrator to apply for her own position was a clear blow to the district’s stability.
“And when the elected board met with the State’s special commission, one of the things you said you were most concerned about was the district’s stability,†Downs told the American.
Downs used the direct address of “you†because he was speaking to the American’s editorial board, which is chaired by publisher Donald M. Suggs, who also served on the State’s special commission to review the city’s public schools. Suggs and others of that board’s commissioners, including William H. Danforth, chancellor emeritus of Washington University, have been watching the district under the leadership of the SAB with growing concern.
Sullivan also told the American yesterday that he personally considered Bourisaw “very qualified†for the position of superintendent, but that she had declined the board’s offer to apply for the position.
Meanwhile, many parents are incensed.
Bill Ramsey, an activist and parent in the district, said the SAB’s handling of Bourisaw “was disastrous for the teachers and parents of the district.â€
Styer, who stuck with the city and the district through six superintendents in five years and “through many, many school closings,†said the SAB’s timing of its de facto dismissal of Bourisaw shows how out-of-touch Sullivan, Richard Gaines and Melanie Adams are with the district’s operations.
“Why, now that it is starting to work, would you change it?†Styer asked.
“The morale of principals and teachers is infinitely higher now than it’s been. Why fix it when it isn’t broken? I think the timing is ludicrous.â€
Styer, Ramsey, Downs and other activist parents express frustration that the taxpayer-funded district responsible for the education of their children is now administered by three un-elected board members - none of whom has a child who attends school in the district.
“None of them have children in the district,†Styer said of the SAB members. “None of them have a stake in the system.â€
Of the SAB members, Sullivan was appointed by Gov. Matt Blunt and Gaines was appointed by Lewis Reed, president of the Board of Aldermen. Only Adams was appointed by Mayor Francis G. Slay. But many district parents detect Slay’s fingerprints on the effective ouster of Bourisaw, who was brought in to lead the district by an elected board majority (led by Downs) that had defeated a slate of school board candidates backed by Slay.
“I am sure the mayor is involved,†Styer said. “He doesn’t control our funds, yet somehow his name comes up with everything.â€
Slay, his Chief of Staff Jeff Rainford and Robbyn Wahby, his education liaison, have campaigned aggressively for more charter schools in the district. Bourisaw, like many veteran administrators of public schools, doubts the wisdom of focusing limited resources and energy on charter schools.
“I have an issue with the expansion of charter schools when there is no selectivity,†Bourisaw told the American.
“A number of charter schools are performing very poorly and need to be shut down, yet they are allowed to continue and be ineffective.â€
Bourisaw, like many policy experts on public education, also said the charter school movement deepens existing educational disparities.
“We have 10 percent homeless students in the district,†Bourisaw said. “Are charter schools another way to divide those who have little from those who have nothing?â€
Such sober observations run directly counter to Slay’s cheerful promotion of charter schools. He and Rainford have promoted charter schools directly to meetings of Catholic clergy, an important base for the mayor that stands to benefit from additional resources devoted to charter schools - and to privatized public education, or school vouchers, which Slay also supports. Many think Bourisaw’s principled opposition to focusing the revival of a troubled district on charter schools and privatized education is the real reason behind the SAB’s abrupt withdrawal of support for her.
Styer said of the SAB, “I think they are looking for someone who is more pro-voucher, more pro-charter schools, who can help them bring down the present system.â€
Sullivan, the SAB CEO, did speak the precise language of the school voucher movement when interviewed by the American about a KIPP charter school coming to St. Louis. Sullivan said, “As the competition gets better, we will have to respond.†This expresses the business model of competition often used by proponents of both charter schools and school vouchers.
Bourisaw, as superintendent of a cash-strapped public district with 28,570 students, was struck by the resources Washington University seems prepared to pour into KIPP, which plans to educate only 1,500 students over the next 10 years. She told the American, “I asked KIPP for their cost per pupil. They wouldn’t give it to me.â€
Bourisaw also wanted to lend Slay her expert advice on charter schools. He wasn’t interested in hearing it.
“I asked Robbyn Wahby to be on their charter school advisory board,†Bourisaw said. “They denied me.â€
If the SAB is headed in a direction where Slay’s vision for the public schools has more authority, many parents are filled with dread. Ramsey said, “Any time the mayor has intervened, we’ve had a less stable district.â€
The mayor’s intervention in the public schools has always been understood as part of an effort to make the city more livable and thereby increase its population and tax base, which are important goals. But his efforts are having the opposite effect on parents like Styer.
She said, “They’re not driving me away from the city and the district, because I am committed, but they are coming pretty close. They say they want more parents who are involved in education, more parents like me, but they are driving me away.â€
The SAB will hold a public hearing on the 2008-2009 Budget at 5:30 Thursday, April 3 at the Administration Building, Room 108, 801 N. 11th Street. It will hold a public board meeting that evening at 6 p.m.
The elected board will hold a public meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 8 at Carr Lane VPA Middle School, 1004 N. Jefferson Ave. in the dance studio.
- Jessica Bassett contributed reporting to this story.
March 21st, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Were those drunks with the racial anomosity Mayor Slay and KSDK’s Mike Owens?
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:21 am
Did someone say in the past that Rodney Hubbard is a Muslim? What’s a good, practicing Muslim doing in such a bar?
March 22nd, 2008 at 8:37 am
A while back, a local resident was assaulted during the day by somebody who was intent, apparently, on robbing a neighbor. The police were called, but the assailant slipped off. Oddly, the assailant was followed by another neighbor. He was trailed to Johnny’s Rest. and Bar. The following person went back to the site of the assault and left word that the perp was at Johnny’s. When the police showed up at the site, they were directed to Johnny’s, where they arrested the assailant. Lesson: Johnny’s caters to low lifes and assholes. You have been warned: if you go to Soulard (and to Johnny’s in particular) and you are a victim of crime (racial, mugging, what-have-you), only blame yourself because you knew what kind of neighborhood it was.
March 22nd, 2008 at 11:14 am
“the racial anomosity Mayor Slay”
That’s not even grammatically correct. If Slay’s opponents can’t even construct a good sentence, how can the rebuild a whole city?
March 22nd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
You might find that this is not a great place or at least from those I have asked about it. Sorry that we still have such ignorant bar flies in this city I see it as a weakness. I suggest since he is running for Senate that he choose closly where he goes and that’s a shame but reality somedays for us all.
March 22nd, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I remember a few years ago going into a restaurant down by the Fox before a show, and being greeted at the door by two employees who told my group we were in the wrong place, this was a “soul joint,” and then we were herded back out the door.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
what resturaunt was that since you have the steak restaurant owned by greeks, a jazz bar and 2 defunct restaurants on the nw and sw corners of grand and washington maybe you were at the asian restaurant down the Washington. Other than that there are no soul joints near the Fox liar.
March 25th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Might it have been Gary’s near the Fox since it was ‘a few years ago’?