Gambit's Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down for June 6

Kim Vaz-Deville was recently named a Harvard Radcliffe Institute fellow.

Kim Vaz-Deville,

a Xavier University of Louisiana professor and a scholar who has written extensively about the Baby Doll tradition, has been named a Harvard Radcliffe Institute fellow. The fellowship supports scholars in the humanities, sciences, social sciences and arts pursuing projects across a full year. Vaz-Deville will use the fellowship to focus on her new book, "The Art of Resistance: Sacred Visual Creations of New Orleans’ African American Mardi Gras Maskers."

More than 300 local people

volunteered their time to turn nearly 200 miles of yarn into wigs for children with cancer through the Magic Yarn Project. Volunteers from Divine Mercy Catholic Church, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School and the wider Metairie and Kenner communities threw "yarn parties" to make the yarn wigs. Chris Russell, a manager at The UPS Store, donated the packaging and covered the shipping costs to mail the 25 boxes of yarn.

Louisiana Senate Republicans

last week voted down a bill raising the minimum wage in Louisiana to $10 an hour and up to $14 by 2028, marking the latest defeat in the effort to give working Louisianans a pay bump. New Orleans Sen. Gary Carter proposed the measure, which made it to the Senate floor but was killed 25-13. According to MIT, a living wage in Louisiana is $15.86 for a single adult with no children.

For more than 40 years, Gambit has covered New Orleans, for New Orleans. We’ve stood up to city hall with you, cheered the Saints with you, danced in the streets with you and cried over our collective loss with you. And we’re plannin’ on being here for 40 more. To do that, we need your help. Become a Gambit member today and help us continue our mission

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