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Indybay Feature

Black and gray uprising in Vallejo

by KPFA Weekend News/Ann Garrison
A Black and gray uprising in Vallejo is demanding the return of a tournament size pool table donated to the Florence Douglas Senior Center by Vallejo native son CC Sabathia, a major league baseball star currently pitching for the New York Yankees.
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At a protest outside Vallejo's Florence Douglas Senior Center, James Little Jr. holds a picture of the largely African American men who had became accustomed to socializing around the center's pool table until the center suddenly and surreptitiously sold it.

The Florence Douglas Senior Center has operated as a non-profit corporation in Vallejo since 1977, but the Vallejo seniors who gathered there were primarily Caucasian until Sabathia donated the pool table and a large flat screen TV. Both the pool table and its relationship to the African American Yankees pitcher born and raised in Vallejo attracted a growing number of African American male seniors. In November 2014, senior center director Peter Wilson suddenly sold it for $100 and even brought in a security guard in case anyone objected. CC Sabathia’s mother demanded that the pool table be recovered, so the senior center bought it back for $1700, but then turned around and donated it to the Omega Boys Club. An ad hoc, multi-ethnic group of Vallejo citizens has organized to demand that the pool table be returned to the senior center.
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