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Leaflet allows public to see itself

With articles on neighborhood events and social issues, a newsletter has helped to connect a predominately black community.

By DAN DeWITT
Published July 24, 2005

BROOKSVILLE - Though the name of Paul Boston's newsletter is JUST US, it is not meant to exclude anyone, he says.

Yes, its stories and columns focus on predominantly black south Brooksville. But Boston, a native New Yorker, does not live in the neighborhood. And one of his editors, Steve Zeledon, a resident of Ridge Manor, is not African-American.

So the other meaning of the name is the important one, Boston says. JUST US, which stands for Jointly Uniting Society Through UnderStanding, is about justice.

"When I see south Brooksville, I see a fight. I see a little guy with short arms getting pounded on by a great big guy," said Boston, 47. "That's the only reason I'm involved."

Certainly it is not for the money. JUST US is free, and Boston is unpaid. He spends his own money - along with small amounts from contributors like Zeledon and a few advertisers like M.C. Chef's restaurant - and publishes on the computer and printer at his home on California Street. The newsletter, which appears every other week, is printed in black and white on both sides of several sheets of legal-sized paper.

Despite its modest appearance, JUST US has encouraged residents to get involved in issues such as the planned expansion of Sun Fiberglass Products Inc. on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

And by printing photographs and stories from church dinners and block parties, it has made the people living on the streets south and east of downtown feel more like neighbors.

"Every event I've had over here in the past four years, he's been there to take photographs and put them in the paper," said JoAnn Munford, program coordinator at the Jerome Brown Community Center in Brooksville. "It really helps the community of south Brooksville."

JUST US started as an unnmamed newsletter for Minority Legal Assistance, a nonprofit organization founded in Brooksville by Richard Howell. Boston took it over in 2001 and named it after a television program he had worked on as a photographer and camera operator in Queens, N.Y.

Taking on the responsibility, he also assumed some of the political burden Howell has carried for more than a decade as the most vocal critic of city and county policy toward south Brooksville.

"The majority of the issues we've been fighting have come from Richard," said Boston, who moved to Hernando County in 1999 to help care for his ailing mother.

"A lot of people say we're troublemakers. ... They think I'm a big bully sometimes."

Really, he said, he just wants residents to be aware of issues that are important to them and encourage them to fight for fair treatment.

"Part of the problem is that people around here are very submissive, so they think somebody like me is very abrasive," he said.

Certainly Boston's approach in JUST US is different from the local mainstream papers, which carried brief accounts of the County Commission's decision on July 20 to postpone a vote on Sun Fiberglass's plans to convert a house on Martin Luther King to a sales center.

Stopping industrial intrusion into the community was the headline on Boston's piece about the meeting, the lead story in the most recent issue. The community comes out to fight for their health, safety and life.

The story documented the long history of oppression in south Brooksville. Industrial pollution is an ongoing part of that pattern, the story said, and is responsible for the death rate in the neighborhood, which is the highest in the county, Boston wrote.

"Now you want to bring new industry to this area. I ask the question: Why? Is it because we are not dying fast enough?"

In the previous issue, printed shortly after the U.S. Senate apologized for failing to pass antilynching legislation, the lead story in JUST US explained why the Senate action was meaningless.

Why are some black folks so happy to hear an apology from people who don't mean it? was the headline on the commentary.

"He gives a lot of his own opinion. When I look at his writing I see somewhat of an activist," said Herman Scrivens, who runs the House of Refuge, an outreach ministry on Shayne Street.

Scrivens said he does not always agree with Boston, but the pieces in JUST US have awakened south Brooksville residents to important issues such as the possible expansion of Sun Fiberglass and contamination at the former county Department of Public Works garage on Martin Luther King.

"I think it influenced the people who came to speak out about that," Scrivens said, referring to the Sun Fiberglass proposal. "It let them know this is an issue that is going on in the community."

And, Scrivens said, that is the crucial distinction: He knows that items that appear in Boston's newsletter are important to his neighborhood.

"When I see it in JUST US, it hits home," he said.

Boston said he establishes this bond with the neighborhood by printing pictures and news of local people and events.

When the Brooksville chapter of the Buffalo Soldiers, re-enactors who portray African-American cavalry soldiers, had a Christmas parade last year, he devoted the front page to pictures of them.

He runs pictures of smiling couples for his Valentine's Day issues and of costumed children at Halloween.

He wrote a story about a block party to celebrate the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Super Bowl victory in 2003. The year before, he ran pictures of the Kennedy Park Little League and a story encouraging adults to volunteer as coaches.

And, of course, Munford said, Boston has delighted the young people at the Jerome Brown Center by displaying the pictures he takes there.

"They love it," Munford said. "When the children know they're going to be in it, he has to bring a whole bunch of copies over here."

"The pictures are the hook," Boston said. But he hopes people will pay attention to the more serious stories as well.

In fact, it was a story that caught the attention of Gwen Williams, who one afternoon last week was sitting outside M.C. Chef's restaurant on E Jefferson Street.

As she watched a friend leaf through the latest issue, she saw a headline notable enough to read aloud:

" "Ten worst places to be black.' Look what they have in there," said Williams, who took the JUST US newsletter out of her friend's hands.

The story that grabbed her attention, a state-by-state analysis of imprisonment rates of African-Americans, was not one she would likely see in a mainstream newspaper, said Williams, 47, who lives across the street from the restaurant.

"This lets me know what's going on on this side of town and everywhere else."

Dan DeWitt can be reached at dewitt@sptimes.com or 352 754-6116.

[Last modified July 24, 2005, 00:22:18]