September 5, 2015

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Before Superstardom, Williams Sisters Stunned On Compton's Courts

Sisters Serena, left, and Venus Williams shake hands after a match in 1991 in Compton, Calif.
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On Stockton Street, in Compton, Calif., there’s a small white stucco house with a chain-link fence and an old tree out front.

There’s isn’t a sign or plaque in the yard, and there aren’t any tour groups taking photos. There’s nothing here to indicate that this house, in this quiet neighborhood, was the childhood home of two of the best athletes of all time.

Sisters Serena, left, and Venus Williams shake hands after a match in 1991 in Compton, Calif. Paul Harris/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Paul Harris/Getty Images

Long before the U.S. Open this week, before the Nike and Gatorade sponsorships and before the stardom, a young Venus and Serena Williams were given their first tennis rackets here.

Next door, Maria Gomez leans up against her blue pickup truck. She’s lived in this house since 1974, so she knew the Williams family. She says she remembers Venus and Serena running around the house and playing in the tiny backyard next door.

The girls cut their teeth on courts around Compton. And to this day, the Williams sisters are a source of pride in the city.

“To be able to say that they’re from the town that you grew up in — who wouldn’t be inspired by them?” says Janna Zurita, a Compton councilwoman. She was born and raised in Compton, and says she used to watch the Williams sisters train.

“A lot of the little kids here in the community, they look up to them and they think they’re great. I mean, they’re two beautiful women that changed the whole life of tennis,” Zurita says. “And they’re straight outta Compton.”

Their dad, Richard Williams, was their coach back then. He was known for being tough and pushing his daughters to perfection on the court — hours on the courts, day in, day out.

Some of the places where they’d practice were in rough neighborhoods, like East Rancho Dominguez Park, formerly known as East Compton Park. Today, the courts are repaved and there’s a new recreation center — but that’s not how it used to be.

Andre Barbee says the last time he stood on the courts at East Rancho Dominguez, gang members would hang out on park benches just outside the fence.

“You see them thugged out, drinking, smoking their weed,” he says. “But they never messed with us. So I never had a problem with nobody here.”

Barbee was a 21-year-old limo driver and part-time tennis coach when Richard Williams invited him to train with his daughters.

“Tennis was a passion,” he says.

Barbee was a tennis prodigy himself, so when he faced Venus and Serena on the court, he had finally met his match.

“Man, it was unbelievable,” Barbee says. “Never seen nobody that good. It was something I’d never seen before in my life.”

Venus wasn’t even a teenager yet.

Training meant hitting hundreds of balls with enough force to break the strings on their racquets.

“Every other day, I was restringing my racquets,” he says. “My shoes, once a week. A hole right in my foot of my shoe. Used to tape them up.”

They’d run drills up and down the court, honing their power at the baseline.

Andre Barbee met Venus and Serena Williams on the tennis courts at East Rancho Dominguez Park in Compton. He was 21 years old when Richard Williams invited him to train with his daughters.

Andre Barbee met Venus and Serena Williams on the tennis courts at East Rancho Dominguez Park in Compton. He was 21 years old when Richard Williams invited him to train with his daughters. Daniel Hajek/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Daniel Hajek/NPR

This year, Serena has been unstoppable. If she wins the U.S. Open, she’ll be the first since Steffi Graf in 1988 to win all four grand slam titles in the same year.

Older sister Venus, once dominant in the sport, is on an upswing. On Friday, she advanced to the fourth round of the U.S. Open when she beat 18-year-old Belinda Bencic.

Playing in Compton is a distant memory now: The Williams family moved to Florida in 1991. But this is where Venus and Serena learned the game’s fundamentals.

“I love them like my little sisters,” says Barbee. “And Richard Williams, I loved him like a father. He was like a dad, you know? I miss training with them. At the time, I didn’t have a high school diploma. And [Richard] told me, ‘Promise me that you get your high school diploma.’

“Richard? I kept my promise,” he says. “I have my high school diploma.”

Barbee doesn’t play much tennis these days. But on this court, I can see him reliving that year he spent training with Venus and Serena Williams.

And for the record, the last time he played Serena, they never finished their match.

“She didn’t beat me yet,” Barbee says. “So Serena, if you’re hearing this, you still owe me a match. I can still play. It’s just, I can’t play long. I can play a set. Come on Serena, give me one set.”

Barbee starts laughing.

He’s ready for a rematch on the tennis courts at the corner of Compton Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue, where it all started.

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Veterans Used In Secret Experiments Sue Military For Answers

Historic images from the Naval Research Laboratory depict results of a test subject who was exposed to mustard gas.
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Historic images from the Naval Research Laboratory depict results of a test subject who was exposed to mustard gas. Naval Research Laboratory hide caption

itoggle caption Naval Research Laboratory

American service members used in chemical and biological testing have some questions: What exactly were they exposed to? And how is it affecting their health?

Tens of thousands of troops were used in testing conducted by the U.S. military between 1922 and 1975. As one Army scientist explained, the military wanted to learn how to induce symptoms such as “fear, panic, hysteria, and hallucinations” in enemy soldiers. Recruitment was done on a volunteer basis, but the details of the testing and associated risks were often withheld from those who signed up.

Many of the veterans who served as test subjects have since died. But today, those who are still alive are part of a class action lawsuit against the Army. If they’re successful, the Army will have to explain to anyone who was used in testing exactly what substances they were given and any known risks. The Army would also have to provide those veterans with health care for any illnesses that result, in whole or in part, from the testing.

The law firm representing the veterans estimates at least 70,000 troops were used in the testing, including World War II veterans exposed to mustard gas, whom NPR reported on earlier this summer.

Bill Blazinski has chronic lymphocytic leukemia, which he thinks may have been caused by the military tests. He was 20 years old and had just graduated from boot camp when he volunteered in 1968.

“There would be a guaranteed three-day pass every weekend unless you had a test,” he says. “There would be no kitchen police duties, no guard duties. And it sounded like a pretty good duty.”

What sounded more like a vacation than military duty quickly changed, he says. In one test, doctors said they would inject him with an agent and its antidote back to back.

“We were placed in individual padded cells. And you know the nurse left and I’m looking at this padded wall and I knew it was solid but all of a sudden started fluttering like a flag does up on a flag pole,” he recalls.

To learn about what substances made him hallucinate, in 2006, Blazinski requested the original test documents under the Freedom of Information Act. It showed two antidotes for nerve agent poisoning with dangerous known side effects.

Researchers kept information about which agents they were administering from test subjects to avoid influencing the test results. A lawyer representing the veterans, Ben Patterson of the law firm Morrison and Foerster, says that’s a problem.

“They don’t know what they were exposed to. You know, some of these substances were only referred to by code names,” Patterson says.

Code names such as CAR 302668. That’s one of the agents, records show, that researchers injected into Frank Rochelle in 1968.

During one test, Rochelle remembers that the freckles on his arms and legs appeared to be moving. Thinking bugs had crawled under his skin, he tried using a razor blade from his shaving kit to cut them out. After that test, he says he hallucinated for 40 hours.

“There were animals coming out of the walls,” he says. “I saw a huge rabbit and he was solid white with red eyes.”

In 1975, the Army’s chief of medical research admitted to Congress that he didn’t have the funding to monitor test subjects’ health after they went through the experiments. Since then, the military says it has ended all chemical and biological testing.

Test subjects like Rochelle say that’s not enough.

“We were assured that everything that went on inside the clinic, we were going to be under 100 percent observation; they were going to do nothing to harm us,” he says. “And also we were sure that we would be taken care of afterwards if anything happened. Instead we were left to hang out to dry.”

The Department of Justice is representing the Army in the case and declined to comment for this story. In June, an appeals court ruled in favor of the veterans. On Friday, the Army filed for a rehearing.

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Classic Sounds And Fresh Updates With Betto Arcos

Totó La Momposina's new album, Tambolero, is a reworking of her 1993 album La Candela Viva, regarded by many as one of Colombia's most important albums.
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Totó La Momposina’s new album, Tambolero, is a reworking of her 1993 album La Candela Viva, regarded by many as one of Colombia’s most important albums. Betto Arcos for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Betto Arcos for NPR

Betto Arcos hosts Global Village on KFPK in Los Angeles, and he frequently visits All Things Considered on the weekends to share the new music he’s discovered while traveling the world. This time, he brings NPR’s Arun Rath a stack of new records that re-imagine classic styles of Latin music, from Afro-Cuban jazz to Mexican banda.

Hear the conversation at the audio link above, and delve deeper into the music below.

Hear The Music

Nueva Era

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Daymé Arocena

  • Song: El Ruso
  • From: Nueva Era
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En Vivo

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Orquesta Típica Fernández Fierro

  • Song: Marejada
  • From: En Vivo
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Totó La Momposina

  • Song: La Candela Viva
  • From: Tambolero
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Banda de los Muertos.

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Banda de Los Muertos

  • Song: El Paso
  • From: Banda de Los Muertos
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Will The Fed Raise Rates, Or Keep The (Little) Economic Party Going?

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Friday’s decent but unspectacular jobs report didn’t answer the question of whether the Fed is about to raise interest rates. But even if the Fed finally takes the plunge, it will do so very gradually.

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 5.1 percent – a lot better than the 10 percent jobless rate back in 2009. But the economy still has weak spots. The Federal Reserve will take all of this into account in two weeks, when it decides whether to raise rates from the lowest level on record. NPR’s Chris Arnold reports.

CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE: After the financial crisis hit, the Fed did something remarkable. It pushed its benchmark interest rate down to zero, where it’d never been before, and it stayed there for years. Now, the Fed’s poised to start removing that life support for the economy by raising rates. That has some analysts nervous. After all, if you take life support off too soon, the patient might crash again. But economist Diane Swonk says that people shouldn’t be too worried.

DIANE SWONK: The real message for everyone is, no matter what the Fed does, the first move is going to be small, and thereafter it’s going to be a crawl – up on rates. There is no surge in rates out there, and that’s because the economy’s just not hot enough.

ARNOLD: Swonk is with Mesirow Financial in Chicago, and she says the Fed is very aware that the economy still isn’t that great. There are several million working-age Americans without jobs. Wages are stagnant. So until things improve more…

SWONK: The Fed doesn’t want to snuff out what little party we might have going.

ARNOLD: Still, leaving interest rates so low for too long could spark bubbles in the housing market or the stock market, so the Fed is trying to steer a tricky course to keep the economy sailing into a better recovery. And there’s another reason to raise rates. Lisa Lynch is interim president of Brandeis University and a former Labor Department economist.

LISA LYNCH: Right now, the Fed has used pretty much all of its arsenal. And if you do have another negative shock, what do they do?

ARNOLD: In other words, with interest rates at zero, the Fed wants to get back to a place where it could drop interest rates again if it had to. Still, Lynch actually sees enough slack in the labor market and the economy that if she were at the Fed, she would wait a little longer before raising rates.

LYNCH: I don’t think there’s any harm done in doing that. And if you move prematurely and trigger uncertainty and concern and slow down the economy, we certainly don’t want to do that at this stage.

ARNOLD: One cause for uncertainty right now is China. Its economy is slowing down. Analysts say the Fed will be trying to figure out just how big a problem that might be for the global economy. Chris Arnold, NPR News.

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