Greene County Democrat

Month: August 2017

  • Students participate in launching new technology program

    BOE group.jpg At a press conference held Monday, August 28, 2017, Greene County Schools Superintendent Dr. James Carter, members of the school board, principals and students officially launched the new technology program which will place a Tablet or Chrome book in the hands of each child enrolled in the system.
    Students representing each of the three school facilities were present to conduct the official opening and display of the Tablets and Chrome Books. They shared expressions of excitement and anticipation in having access to take-home technology.
    Dr. Carter made the following statement: “Today we set a milestone in the the Greene County community. We are expanding our vision for technology to transform the learning opportunities for all students in the Greene County School System by providing Chrome Books and tablets to our students.

    “Technology has the potential to bring new possibilities to teaching and learning by providing our teachers with the opportunity to share best practices and offer parents the platform to engage in their students learning.
    “We are pleased to provide our students with this remarkable tool. Parents will receive training as well so that they will be able to assist their students at home.”
    It was also noted that this program will allow the school system to expand its online courses for students.
    According to Dr. Carter, approximately 947 Chrome Books will be distributed to students in grades 4 through 12, and 327 tablets will be provided to the lower grades.
    Others present for the press conference included School Board President Leo Branch, Vice President Dr. Carol P. Zippert and board member Carrie Dancy. Principals Barbara Martin, Frederick Square, Dr. Sharon Jennings and Gary Rice accompanied the students.
    This project is co-sponsored by the Housing Authority of Greene County and T-Mobile.

  • Mia Jordan wins BBQ grill

    Grill.jpgGreene County Associates of the Black Belt Community Foundation held a raffle of a BBQ grill at the festival. Mia Jordan of Eutaw (3rd from left) won the first prize in the raffle. W. Hamm won the $50 second prize and Mr. Gee, a blues musician from Montgomery won the $25 third prize. In photo are Greene County BBCF Associates, from left, John Zippert, Darlene Robinson, Jordan and Geraldine Walton.The raffle generated more than $1,200 for the work for the Black Belt Community Foundation.

  • Annual Black Belt Folk Roots Festival embraces spirit of ownership in community

    IMG_1127John Byrd marinades finger licking barbecue

    IMG_1070Fatima Robinson- assortment of handmade crafts

    IMG_1189Blues men Jontavious Willis, Eugene (Geno) Little, Clarence Davis and Jock Webb perform a mix session of blues.

    IMG_1200St. John Baptist Church Choir leads devotion at festival

    IMG_1237Glory To Glory Gospel Singers join Bro. Sam Isaac, a long time festival favorite.

    IMG_1124Rita Sands Mahoney serving soul food dinners

    IMG_1119Delfreda Coleman introduces her home made ice cream at festival

    The 42nd annual Black Belt Folk Roots Festival, held August 26-27, 2017 on the old courthouse square in Eutaw, was truly embraced by the community in a very special ways. There was a spirit of ownership floating throughout the events and grounds. The festival goers seemed to say: “This is our festival; this is our community celebration; we own it.” Vendors and visitors assisted each other in setting up tents, unloading materials and securing cords to the power source. There were many exchanges of well wishes and encouragement for the festival’s continuation. Heartfelt donations were shared. The community embraced the blues of their struggles on Saturday and prayed their faith through the gospel singing on Sunday. The multiple craft and food vendors prepared delicacies pleasing to the eye and the pallet. The 42nd festival was a joyful time for all.

  • Newswire : Rev. Al Sharpton rallies 1,000 Ministers for historic Interfaith March On Washington

    It was held on the anniversary of the day Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech.

    By Lilly Workneh, Black Voices Senior Editor, HuffPost

     

    1,000 Ministers March
    1,000 Ministers March

    The Rev. Al Sharpton helped to rally 1,000 ministers for a march on Washington on Monday, which he said marks one of the largest interfaith gatherings to protest racism in America.
    The daylong Ministers March For Justice, which represents people of all religious backgrounds including Christians, Muslims, Jews and other faith-based communities, began at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and end outside of the Justice Department. Sharpton, who is leading the effort through his nonprofit organization the National Action Network, said it deliberately falls on the 54th anniversary of the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, during which King delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech calling for widespread racial equality.
    “In Dr. King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, he talked about voting rights, health care, criminal justice and economic injustice,” Sharpton told HuffPost. “All four of these areas are at risk.”

    The march is a direct response to the dangerous ways that Sharpton says President Donald Trump has embraced racism, and it intends to call out how Trump has further emboldened white supremacists. Sharpton, a longtime civil rights activist who has frequently spoken out against Trump in the past, said he is outraged at the ways the president and his administration have tried to roll back the civil rights progress America has made over the decades.
    Sharpton also shared his own grievances with religious groups, expressing dissatisfaction with the level of action faith-based communities have collectively taken to confront Trump and his administration. He says it’s one reason why this march marks a significant moment in the resistance.
    “The purpose of the march is to really put front and center leaders in the faith community that have not really made a real dramatic statement about the moral outrage that we’re looking at now in terms of the embrace of white supremacy and anti-Semitism,” Sharpton said.
    The march went through Washington, D.C., where the group made a brief stop outside of the Trump Hotel in the city to join in prayer. While Sharpton said he doesn’t expect Trump to embrace their message, he said, “We expect everyone in the Congress and Cabinet to say, ‘This we can’t scoff at.’”

    Sharpton has led countless marches in the past, but he said Monday’s gathering will mark a historic moment as hundreds within the interfaith community will march through Washington in the name of civil rights. While many have criticized the effectiveness of marching as a means of protest, Sharpton said that it is not the only method of protesting and that he is far from the only civil rights advocate pushing for racial equality. Although strategies and personal attitudes around activism in the black community vary, Sharpton said that there is nothing wrong with “a respectful difference in tactics” and also acknowledged the power of nonviolent youth-led activist groups and mass movements like Black Lives Matter.

    “Many people criticize marching yet do not understand what marching is for. The job of marching is to dramatize an issue,” Sharpton said, pointing to King as an example of someone who was not an elected official yet used his voice and the power of protest to effectively amplify issues. “MLK dramatized issues and made the office holders have to come up with anti-segregation and voting laws. If you don’t raise or dramatize an issue, then no one will be forced into legislature on local or national levels to deal with it.”
    Sharpton said he hopes Monday’s march sent a strong message about the faith community’s intolerance toward racism and religious discrimination ― and that it draws deeper meaning considering it is held partly in memory of King and the day his powerful words rang through Washington.

  • Newswire : The real story behind that ‘Blacks for Trump’ guy at the Arizona rally

    Maurice Symonette pushes wild conspiracy theories and once followed a killer cult leader.

    By Nina Golgowski, Huffington Post
    Blacks for Trump.jpg

    Black man with sign and T-shirt at Arizona rally

    Waving a “Blacks for Trump” sign behind President Donald Trump on Tuesday night, he was impossible to miss. Maurice Symonette, who has also called himself “Michael the Black Man” and Maurice Woodside, was an eye-catching figure during the rally in Phoenix. Trump supporters lauded him on social media for his T-shirt reading “Trump & Republicans Are Not Racist.”
    Perhaps they should have checked him out first.
    Between his signs and his shirt that night, Symonette was also showcasing two websites: blacksfortrump2020.com and gods2.com. Click on either and you’ll be taken to honestfact.com, which spews a range of rambling conspiracy theories.
    One claims to link Hillary Clinton with the Islamic State and the criminal gang MS-13. Another declares that “Cherokees are the real KKK Racist Slave Masters, not White Gentiles who are Black Peoples Republican Emancipators!”
    Symonette has uploaded a number of long-winded videos on YouTube, often as “Michael the Black Man.” There he discusses his theories on race wars involving Democrats, gentiles, Canaanites and the Cherokee.
    Speaking to a Chicago radio station on Wednesday, Symonette said that he arrived early at the Phoenix rally and that allowed him to secure a prominent place close behind the president.
    “I wasn’t placed [behind Trump], I put myself there,” he told WLS-AM 890. “I’m glad I was there so I could get the message out, tell people what’s going on with Democrats and the Cherokee Indians that are absolutely destroying the black man and the white man of America.”
    When the radio hosts expressed surprise that he would get such a coveted seat, Symonette added, “I don’t really know how it works. They have seen me a lot of times.”
    Photos posted online certainly support that statement. Symonette’s Facebook page shows pictures of him posing with a number of high-profile Republican politicians and Trump supporters, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and the president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr. There are also videos of him at a rally with Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) and celebrating with Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway outside what appears to be Trump Tower in New York City.
    And last year, the Miami New Times reported that Symonette and his signs had scored prime seating at more than one Trump rally in Florida.
    Symonette has popped up in a number of mugshots as well. His rap sheet lists arrests for racketeering, firebombing, conspiracy in 14 murders, and grand theft auto, the New Times reported in 2011. None of the charges stuck, however.

    In the early 1990s, Symonette, who then went by the name of Maurice Woodside, was arrested along with other members of an African-American cult called the Temple of Love, the New Times reported. Its leader, Yahweh ben Yahweh (formerly known as Hulon Mitchell Jr.), was later sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for conspiring to commit murder. Symonette was acquitted.
    During Wednesday’s radio interview, Symonette defended Yahweh ben Yahweh as “not violent.” He had told the New Times that he was 21 when he met the Temple of Love leader and became enthralled by the man’s preachings. “He got me by just walking up and saying, ‘All white people are the Devil,’” Symonette recalled. “I was a real militant race warrior right then, so I said, ‘Whoa! Yeah, that’s right!’”
    Symonette has said he started following Yahweh ben Yahweh, after the cult leader came up to him and declared “all white people are the Devil.”
    Symonette’s views have changed over the years. Long after Yahweh ben Yahweh went to prison, his former follower started participating in political protests against Barack Obama. In 2008, Symonette reportedly claimed that then-Sen. Obama had tried to have him assassinated.
    Last year, he tried to paint Hillary Clinton as the presidential candidate who was too close to racists, by accusing her of once “kissing the head of the Ku Klux Klan” and saying, “That’s my mentor.” The trouble with that conspiracy theory was that the man Clinton greeted was the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who by the time she praised him had long since evolved from a one-time member of the KKK to a strong supporter of advancing civil rights.

  • Newswire : Ten ways to fight hate: Experts estimate more than 260,000 hate incidents per year

    Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Southern Poverty Law Center
    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – Hate in America has become commonplace. A presidential candidate wins election after denigrating Muslims, Latinos, women and people with disabilities. A young White man opens fire and kills nine African-Americans who welcomed him into Bible study at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, telling his victims, “I have to do it.” A Muslim woman is seated on a bench in front of a coffee shop in Washington, D.C., when a woman begins screaming anti-Muslim epithets. A swastika and other anti-Semitic graffiti appear at an elementary school in Stapleton, Colorado. A lone gunman carrying an assault rifle and a handgun storms a well-known gay club in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and wounding 53 others.
    What can we do to stop the hate? Bias is a human condition, and American history is rife with prejudice against groups and individuals because of their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or other characteristics. As a nation, we’ve made a lot of progress, but stereotyping and unequal treatment persist. When bias motivates an unlawful act, it is considered a hate crime. Most hate crimes are inspired by race and religion, but hate today wears many faces. Bias incidents (eruptions of hate where no crime is committed) also tear communities apart and can escalate into actual crimes. Since 2010, law enforcement agencies have reported an average of about 6,000 hate crime incidents per year to the FBI. But government studies show that the real number is far higher — an estimated 260,000 per year.
    Many hate crimes never get reported, in large part because the victims are reluctant to go to the police. In addition, many law enforcement agencies are not fully trained to recognize or investigate hate crimes, and many simply do not collect or report hate crime data to the FBI.
    The good news is that all over the country people are fighting hate, standing up to promote tolerance and inclusion. More often than not, when hate flares up, good people rise up against it — often in greater numbers and with stronger voices.
    This guide sets out 10 principles for fighting hate in your community.
    1. ACT – Do something. In the face of hatred, apathy will be interpreted as acceptance by the perpetrators, the public, and — worse — the victims. Community members must take action; if we don’t, hate persists.
    2. JOIN FORCES – Reach out to allies from churches, schools, clubs, and other civic groups. Create a diverse coalition. Include children, police, and the media. Gather ideas from everyone, and get everyone involved.
    3. SUPPORT THE VICTIMS – Hate crime victims are especially vulnerable. If you’re a victim, report every incident — in detail — and ask for help. If you learn about a hate crime victim in your community, show support. Let victims know you care. Surround them with comfort and protection.
    4. SPEAK UP – Hate must be exposed and denounced. Help news organizations achieve balance and depth. Do not debate hate group members in conflict-driven forums. Instead, speak up in ways that draw attention away from hate, toward unity.
    5. EDUCATE YOURSELF – An informed campaign improves its effectiveness. Determine if a hate group is involved, and research its symbols and agenda. Understand the difference between a hate crime and a bias incident.
    6. CREATE AN ALTERNATIVE – Do not attend a hate rally. Find another outlet for anger and frustration and for people’s desire to do something. Hold a unity rally or parade to draw media attention away from hate.
    7. PRESSURE LEADERS – Elected officials and other community leaders can be important allies. But some must overcome reluctance — and others, their own biases — before they’re able to take a stand.
    8. STAY ENGAGED – Promote acceptance and address bias before another hate crime can occur. Expand your comfort zone by reaching out to people outside your own groups.
    9. TEACH ACCEPTANCE – Bias is learned early, often at home. Schools can offer lessons of tolerance and acceptance. Host a diversity and inclusion day on campus. Reach out to young people who may be susceptible to hate group propaganda and prejudice.
    10. DIG DEEPER – Look inside yourself for biases and stereotypes. Commit to disrupting hate and intolerance at home, at school, in the workplace and in faith communities.
    For more detailed information, contact: https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/com_ten_ways_to_fight_hate_2017_web.pdf

  • Newswire : Kenya, going green, slams the door on plastic bags

    Kenyan man with cloth bag
    Kenyan carrying cloth bag at market
    Aug. 28, 2017 (GIN) – If it’s a choice between suffocating seabirds, strangling turtles or the convenience of a plastic bag, Kenya is taking the side of marine animals.

    Starting this week, citizens producing, selling or even using plastic bags will risk imprisonment of up to four years or fines of $40,000. It’s the world’s toughest law attacking plastic pollution which threatens land and sea.

    Throughout Kenya, plastic bags are found everywhere — on roofs, on walls and clogging drainage. Kenyans are estimated to use 24 million bags a month. “It is a toxin we must get rid of,” Judi Wakhungu, the country’s environment minister, told reporters. “It’s affecting our water. It’s affecting our livestock and, even worse, we are ingesting this as human beings.”

    In Nairobi’s slaughterhouses, some cows destined for human consumption have had bags removed from their stomachs. “This is something we didn’t get 10 years ago but now it’s almost on a daily basis,” said county vet Mbuthi Kinyanjui as he watched men in bloodied white uniforms scoop sodden plastic bags from the stomachs of cow carcasses.

    Plastic bags take between 500 to 1,000 years to break down.

    Kenya’s law allows police to go after anyone even carrying a plastic bag but enforcement will initially be directed at manufacturers and suppliers.

    More than 40 other countries have banned, partly banned or taxed single use plastic bags, including China, France, Rwanda, and Italy.

    What’s good for the turtle, however, is not necessarily a welcome idea for manufacturers who complain that some 176 companies with thousands of workers producing plastic bags will have to close. Kenya is a major exporter of the bags to the region.

    “The knock-on effects will be very severe,” said Samuel Matonda of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers. “It will even affect the women who sell vegetables in the market – how will their customers carry their shopping home?”

    Meanwhile, in Nairobi, many supermarkets have switched from plastic bags to reusable, cloth sacks, but a quick drive around Nairobi revealed that plastic bags are still in use. So far, there have been no reports of any enforcement actions.

  • Mike Espy receives award at Federation’s 50th Anniversary

    FederationMike Espy, former Secretary of Agriculture received the Estelle Witherspoon Lifetime Achievement Award on Thursday night in Birmingham as part of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives’ 50th Annual Meeting and anniversary. Shirley Blakely of Mississippi, Board Chair, joined by other board members and Cornelius Blanding, Executive Director, presented the award. The meeting continued Friday and Saturday at the Federation’s Rural Training and Research Center. More than 500 people attended the three-day celebration. The Federation was founded 1967 by 22 cooperatives and credit unions, arising out of the Civil Rights Movement, who banded together for mutual assistance, training and pooled resources. For more information, see the organization’s website at: http://www.federation.coop.

  • Greene County School System rolls out Technology Initiative

    At the regular monthly meeting of the Greene County Board of Education, held Monday August 21, 2017, Superintendent James Carter announced that a press conference to announce the rollout of the new Technology Initiative will be held Monday, August 28, 2017 at 10:30 pm at the board’s central office, 220 Main Street, Eutaw, AL. The public is invited to attend.
    According to Dr. Carter the Chrome Books Program/Tablets will be available for students, parents and teachers in the current 2017-2018 school session. The Chrome Books are for students in grades 4 -12; the Tablets are for students in grades K-3. The initial rollout will begin the process of training first teachers, staff and students in using the technology. The next step will be to train parents, so students will have support at home for homework projects.
    Superintendent Carter stated that a survey is being conducted to determine how many student households have access to the internet. A follow up phase will be to determine how to assist families without internet access.
    According to Dr. Carter, approximately 947 Chrome books and Tablets will be issued to students for use in school and, hopefully at a later date, to take home for continued school work.
    The Chrome Books Program/Tablets is a collaboration with the Housing Authority of Greene County and Stillman College and T-Mobile.
    In his report Superintendent Carter also cautioned that in order for our students to be Career and College Ready, there must be an Educational Proficiency Plan for each student grades 8-12. If a student is preparing for college, there should be a written plan to follow the student’s progress.
    Dr. Carter noted that the ACT Aspire Data results showed increases in reading and math at Eutaw Primary School; Robert Brown Middle School students’ results flat lined across the entire school; Greene County High showed little or no improvement across the school population. Carter explained that the state has determined that the ACT Aspire does not test students according to the Alabama Department of Education’s mandated curriculum, thus, the ACT Aspire will no longer be used and will be temporarily replaced with the Global Scholar assessment.
    In other business the board approved the following Personnel Services Items:
    *Reassignment: Fentress Means, half day Physical Education Teacher, at Eutaw Primary School, and half day Drivers’ Education Teacher, at Greene County High School.
    * Resignation(s): Robert Brown Middle School, Majorie Duncan, 5th Grade Teacher, effective June 25, 2017; Jacob Sullivan, Assistant Football Coach; Greene County High School, Jerome Franks, Physical Education / Drivers’ Education Teacher effective July 19, 2017.

    * Employment at Robert Brown Middle School: Cardelia Paige – 5th Grade Teacher; Angel Cardona, Adjunct Instructor, Dance; Katlin Whittle, Arts Instructor, Eutaw Primary and Robert Brown Middle School, Grades 4-6; Justin Booth, Part-time Physical Education Teacher, at Greene County High School, and Part-time Agro-Science Teacher, Robert Brown Middle School, for 6th, 7th and 8th Grade; Ms. Lester Cox, Teacher Aide at Eutaw Primary School from August 9th 2017 – September 29, 2017.
    *Additional Service Contract 2017-2018 for the following employee at Greene County High School (Separate Contract): Fentress Means, Head Baseball Coach.
    *Activity/FUNraiser
    * Catastrophic Sick Leave: Linda Little, Greene County High School.
    * Family and Medical Leave : Angelia Hood, Central Office.
    Administrative services items approved:
    * Increase in admission for Robert Brown Middle School Athletic events from $3.00 to $5.00.
    * Contract with West Central Volleyball Officials Association, and West Central Football Officials Association, as home game officials.
    * Meal price change to be in compliance with the Child Nutrition Guidelines for visitors during the 2017-2018 school year. The necessary meal price adjustments are as follows: Visitor Students Breakfast $1.25, Lunch $3.50; Visitor Adult Breakfast $2.00, Lunch $3.75; Employees Breakfast $1.75, Lunch $3.50.
    * Bid summitted by Flowers Bakery for bread during the 2017 – 2018 school year; Bid summitted by Borden Dairy Milk Company Inc. for Milk during the 2017-2018 school year.
    * Bank reconciliations as submitted by Ms. Katrina Sewell, CSFO.
    * Payment of all bills, claims, and payroll.
    * Travel for Greene County High School Debate Team to John Paul II High School in Nashville.
    Instructional Services Items approved: First Reading for Greene County Schools One-on-One Technology Handbook; Implementation Guide of Curriculum Component for Strategic Plan (Phase 1).

  • Newswire : Steve Bannon, most controversial Trump advisor, leaves White House post

    By Lauren Victoria Burke (NNPA Newswire Contributor)
    Civil rights leaders and members of Congress praised the dismissal of Chief Strategist Steve Bannon from the White House; Bannon’s exit is just the latest departure from the chaotic Trump Administration, that has yet to win a major legislative victory.
    Bannon seemed to be in good spirits after the White House announced that he would be leaving the coveted post.
    In an interview with The Weekly Standard, Bannon said that he felt “jacked up.” “Now I’m free. I’ve got my hands back on my weapons,” Bannon told The Weekly Standard. “Someone said, ‘it’s Bannon the Barbarian.’ I am definitely going to crush the opposition. There’s no doubt. I built a f***ing machine at Breitbart. And now I’m about to go back, knowing what I know, and we’re about to rev that machine up. And rev it up we will do.”
    He also told the magazine that he could be more effective without the constraints of the White House. “I can fight better on the outside,” Bannon said. “I can’t fight too many Democrats on the inside like I can on the outside.”
    In a statement about Bannon’s dismissal, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La.) said that Bannon needed to go, but so do other White supremacists working in the Trump Administration.
    “Firing Steve Bannon is not enough, because the issue of him working in the White House has never only been about him,” said Richmond. “It’s also been about the racist and discriminatory policies he’s helped draft and implement which hurt African Americans.”
    The CBC released “A Top Ten List of the Trump Administration’s Racist and Discriminatory Policies.” The list included:
    1. Voter Suppression Commission
    2. Supporting Texas’ Discriminatory Voter ID Law
    3. Reinstating the War on Drugs
    4. Attacking Affirmative Action at Colleges and Universities
    5. Rolling Back Consent Decrees that Keep Police Accountable
    6. Muslim Ban
    7. Mass Deportation
    8. Rolling Back Civil Rights Enforcement Across Federal Agencies
    9. Reinstating the Use of Private Prisons
    10. Refusing to Protect Americans and the Nation from White Supremacists
    In a separate statement on Bannon’s removal, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) called the ousted Breitbart chief the standard-bearer for the worst instincts in American society.
    “Whether Bannon personally trades in violence, racism, and bigotry, he allowed Brietbart, his media organization, to become a platform for White nationalism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and anti-immigrant sentiment of the worst kind,” said Conyers. Although Conyers said that he was pleased that Bannon was no longer serving in the White House, he added that Bannon’s removal will not undo the damage that has already been done and it will not reconcile the hate-filled agenda of the Trump Administration.
    “President Donald Trump has shown us his true colors,” said Conyers. “He sided with un-American White supremacists, neo-Nazis, and all those who give racism and hatred a voice. Trump’s failure to reflect on his dangerous rhetoric continues to embolden these groups and ideals.”
    Civil rights leaders also voiced their support of Bannon’s exit.
    Kristen Clarke, the president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law said that Bannon was the driving force behind the racial turmoil that threatens to tear this country apart. “Such a divisive figure has no place in the White House,” Clarke said in the statement.
    Vanita Gupta, the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said that Bannon’s departure was the right result, but not for the right reason. “The president, who continues to sow hate and division, clearly did not fire Bannon because of his White supremacist views and ties to the so-called ‘alt-right,’” said Gupta. “Someone like Bannon should have never worked in the White House to begin with.”
    Gupta continued: “President Trump must address the deep wounds he has created by ridding his administration of Sebastian Gorka, Stephen Miller, and any other staffers who stoke bigotry, hate, and division. Unless and until the president calls out evil; disavows neo-Nazis, White nationalists, and White supremacists; fires these staffers; and abandons his administration’s anti-civil rights agenda, he will continue to have no moral credibility.”
    White House insiders have claimed that Bannon submitted his resignation letter earlier this month, but the announcement was delayed, because of the violent White supremacists’ rally in Charlottesville, Va., that left one dead and 19 injured.
    Since July 21, four senior staffers have departed the White House; Press Secretary Sean Spicer, Chief of Staff Reince Preibus, and Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci.
    Derrick Johnson, the interim president and CEO of the NAACP, said that the group was glad to see Bannon out of the White House.
    “Ousting one key staffer, however, can’t erase the words used by President Trump this week in defense of domestic terrorists, neo-Nazis and White supremacists,” said Johnson, in the statement about Bannon’s dismissal. “President Trump provided permission for these hate groups to exist. Following the tragedy in Charlottesville, Virginia, numerous other rallies and White supremacist groups are being mobilized across the country.
    Johnson continued:” These groups are not rallying for peace, or for the preservation of Confederate memorabilia. They exist purely to foment hatred and violence. And they march with the president’s blessing.”
    Lauren Victoria Burke is the White House Correspondent for NNPA and a writer and political analyst. She appears on NewsOneNow with Roland Martin every Monday. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke