Greene County Democrat

Month: August 2017

  • Newswire : Comedian and Freedom Fighter Dick Gregory dies at 84

    By Stacy M Brown (NNPA Newswire Contributor)

    Dick GregoryDick Gregory
    Legendary civil rights activist and comedian Dick Gregory died on Saturday. He was 84. Friends, family and celebrities took to social media to honor the icon and innovator of the Black community.
    “It is with enormous sadness that the Gregory family confirms that their father, comedic legend and civil rights activist Mr. Dick Gregory departed this earth tonight in Washington, DC,” said Christian Gregory, his son, in a statement posted on Facebook. “The family appreciates the outpouring of support and love and respectfully asks for their privacy as they grieve during this very difficult time.”
    On Facebook, Roland Martin, a journalist and host of NewsOne on TV One said that he had enormous respect for Gregory. “He was honest, truthful, unflinching, unapologetically Black. He challenged America at every turn. RIP,” wrote Martin.
    “He was one of the sweetest, smartest, most loving people one could ever know,” said Steve Jaffe, Gregory’s publicist of 50 years, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Jaffe added, “I just hope that God is ready for some outrageously funny times.”
    Singer John Legend tweeted that, “Dick Gregory lived an amazing, revolutionary life. A groundbreaker in comedy and a voice for justice. RIP.”
    Filmmaker Ava DuVernay tweeted that Gregory “taught us and loved us.”
    Quoting legendary entertainer Richard Pryor, sports writer Myron Medcalf tweeted, “Dick Gregory was the greatest, and he was the first. Somebody had to break down that door.”
    Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. the president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, also paid homage to Gregory. “We salute and honor the living legacy of freedom fighter Dick Gregory. RIP,” Chavis wrote on Twitter.
    Gregory had been in a Washington, D.C. area hospital battling an undisclosed illness. However, as late as Thursday, family members were said to have been upbeat about his recovery and he even had plans to appear at a show on Saturday in the nation’s capital.
    Born Richard Claxton “Dick” Gregory in St. Louis, Missouri on Oct. 12, 1932, Gregory became a comedian and civil rights activist whose social satire changed the way Whites perceived African-American comedians, according to his biography.
    Dick Gregory entered the national comedy scene in 1961 when Chicago’s Playboy Club (as a direct request from publisher Hugh Hefner) booked him as a replacement for white comedian, “Professor” Irwin Corey. Until then Gregory had worked mostly at small clubs with predominantly Black audiences (he met his wife, Lillian Smith, at one such club), according to his biography.
    “Such clubs paid comedians an average of five dollars per night; thus Gregory also held a day job as a postal employee. His tenure as a replacement for Corey was so successful — at one performance he won over an audience that included southern White convention goers — that the Playboy Club offered him a contract extension from several weeks to three years,” Gregory’s biography said. “By 1962, Gregory had become a nationally known headline performer, selling out nightclubs, making numerous national television appearances, and recording popular comedy albums.”
    Gregory’s biography continued: “It’s important to note that no biography of Gregory would be complete without mentioning that he and his beloved wife, ‘Lil,’ had ten children, who have become highly respected members of the national community in a variety of fields. They are: Michele, Lynne, Pamela, Paula, Stephanie (a.k.a. Xenobia), Gregory, Christian, Miss, Ayanna and Yohance.”
    While a student at Sumner High School in St. Louis he led a March protesting segregated schools. Later, inspired by the work of leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Gregory took part in the Civil Rights Movement and used his celebrity status to draw attention to such issues as segregation and disfranchisement, according to his biography.
    “When local Mississippi governments stopped distributing Federal food surpluses to poor blacks in areas where SNCC was encouraging voter registration, Gregory chartered a plane to bring in several tons of food,” the biography said. “He participated in SNCC’s voter registration drives and in sit-ins to protest segregation, most notably at a restaurant franchise in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Only later did Gregory disclose that he held stock in the chain.”
    Gregory’s autobiography, “Nigger,” was published in 1963 and it became the number one best-selling book in America. Over the decades it has sold in excess of seven million copies. He explained his choice for the title in the foreword of the book, where Dick Gregory wrote a note to his mother, his biography explained. “Whenever you hear the word ‘Nigger’,” he said, “you’ll know their advertising my book.”
    Through the 1960s, Gregory spent more time on social issues and less time on performing, his biography noted. He participated in marches and parades to support a range of causes, including opposition to the Vietnam War, world hunger and drug abuse.
    Dorothy Leavell, chairman of the NNPA and publisher of the Crusader Newspaper Group said that this was a sad moment and a great loss to America, especially Black America. “Dick Gregory was a personal friend, but also a voice for Black America which has now been stilled,” said Leavell. “Dick was also a close friend to the Black Press and the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA).” Leavell continued: “While we mourn this loss we are grateful for the many contributions he made that have helped us all.”
    Chavis agreed. “Dick Gregory epitomized the rare combination of being an intellectual genius and one of our greatest social visionaries,” Chavis said. “The National Newspapers Publishers Association deeply mourns the passing of freedom fighter Dick Gregory.”

  • Newswire : Nigerian leader, ending 3 month hospital stay, returns with fiery speech

    President Buhari of Nigeria
    Nigerian President Buhari
    Aug. 21, 2017 (GIN) – After a long absence due to ill health, President Muhammadu Buhari returned to Nigeria pledging to renew the fight against terror group Boko Haram and end a rash of ethnic violence which he blamed on “political mischief makers.”

    Buhari, 74, looking thin and frail, referred to a movement of Biafrans seeking an independent region in the southwest. The group had crossed a “national red line,” he said. The separatists were “daring to question our collective existence as a nation. This is a step too far.”

    Fifty years ago, the people of “Igbo-land”, waged a futile war of secession against the well-armed Nigerian government, citing the persecution of Igbos and control over oil production in the Niger Delta.

    The Federal Military Government imposed a blockade which led to severe famine. Over the two and half years of war, between 500,000 and 2 million Biafran civilians perished from starvation.

    While the Igbos comprise one of the three largest ethnic groups, they have fewer states than the Hausas in the north and the Yorubas in the south-west, resulting in a smaller budget allocation.

    This, some feel, puts them behind the other regions. The south-east has not been at the forefront of Nigeria’s development and none of its cities are major economic hubs.

    Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, has called on his followers to boycott local and national elections scheduled for Nov. 18. Arrested in October 2015 for allegedly intending to levy war against Nigeria, he faces a trial on charges ranging from treasonable felony, terrorism and illegal possession of firearms.

    Meanwhile, many Nigerians were disappointed that Buhari failed to comment on his prolonged health issues, but no reasons were given for his absence or the diagnosis.

    Solomon Okoduwa told a reporter: “As a leader and the number one citizen, he should be able to tell his subjects the kind of headache, the kind of malaria, the kind of fever he went to treat in the UK that we cannot treat in Nigeria,” he said.

    Failure to disclose the nature of his health issues is widely seen as an indication that he has something to hide.

    Nigerians will be watching whether he is going to make a third medical trip abroad this year. If that were to happen, calls for his resignation will surely be expressed even louder.

  • Doug Jones sweeps Greene County in Democratic primary; wins statewide without a runoff; Republicans Roy Moore and Luther Strange to face off in second primary on September 26

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    Doug Jones speaks with voters

    In yesterday’s statewide Democratic primary for the U. S. Senate, Doug Jones won 1,303 votes or 93% of the 1,408 votes cast in Greene County.
    Statewide, Jones received 64% of the vote cast, which means that he has won the nomination with out a second primary. Jones can now campaign for the special General Election on December 12, 2017.
    Final vote totals are still being compiled.

    In the Republican primary, there will be a run-off between Luther Strange, who currently holds the Senate seat and Judge Roy Moore, who has been removed twice from the Alabama Supreme Court for ethics violations. The two Republicans will square off in the run-off election on September 26. Statewide, Moore led with 39% followed by Strange with 32% and Congressman Mo Brooks third with 20%.
    In Greene County, there were 272 votes cast in the Republican primary, with Moore receiving 128 (47%) votes, Strange 87 (32%) and Mo Brooks 32 (12%).
    Senator Hank Sanders commented, “We are proud of the results of this primary. Doug Jones is the best candidate. He was endorsed by Alabama New South Alliance, ADC, labor unions and civic groups, which helped him to win the Democratic Primary without a runoff. We know he will have an uphill battle to win the seat on December 12, but we are going to work together with him to put together a winning campaign for this important Senate seat.”
    Doug Jones a former U.S. Attorney known for the prosecution of convicted killers Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry for the 1963 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, has picked up several endorsements from Democratic leaders, including Rep. John Lewis of Georgia and Rep. Terri Sewell. Last week, Jones also received an endorsement from former Vice President Joe Biden.
    “All my life I have been trying to work with folks to make sure people have equal opportunities–they’re treated fairly, they’re treated the same under the law, they be treated with dignity and respect,” Jones said when he arrived to his watch party after learning he had won.
    “You know, 15 years ago, I actually went up against the Klan. And we won,” Jones said.
    Jones said his campaign is looking forward to the general election set for later this year. “We’re going to have the same message through December that we’ve had through August. We will be discussing ‘kitchen table issues’ like providing affordable healthcare for all people, working for a livable wage and making sure young people can afford higher education without overwhelming debt.”
    See below more detailed campaign results for Greene County by precinct.

  • Sheriff Benison hires new officer

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    Sheriff Jonathan Benison shown swearing in newly hired Deputy Emonfre White.

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    White is shown above surrounded by family members Racquel Johnson, Alyce Josephine Hill and Mary Goodson, not pictured Idolis White. Sheriff Benison, Lieutenant Jeremy Rancher and Vincent Hardwick

    Emonfre White stepped from the university door into the door of the Greene County Sheriff Department.
    In the photo above, Sheriff Jonathan Benison is shown swearing in newly hired deputy, Emonfre White, from Tuscaloosa, AL, but whose roots are in Mantua, Greene County. Ms. White is the 23 year old daughter of Mary Bell Goodson and Fred White, Jr. and the granddaughter of the late Ovis and Bertha Goodson. Her paternal grandparents are Fred and Mary White of Fosters, AL.
    White graduated from the University of Alabama on August 5, 2017 with a BS in Human Environmental Sciences. She is also a 2012 graduate of Tuscaloosa County High School.
    Prior to joining the sheriff’s department, White has been serving in the Army National Guard at the Canton, AL Post. According to White, her training at Fort Jackson, SC allowed her to work diligently and gain her place with the graduating class on September 30, 2015.
    According to Deputy White, “Law enforcement has been a life long dream for me.”
    She plans to be active in community while enforcing the law and grateful and honored to be in this position.

  • County buys new trucks; adjusts for voter registrars pay raise; imposes security deposit for Activity Center

    The Greene County Commission, at its regular meeting held Monday, August 14, 2017, acted on various items carried over and placed on the agenda from the work session discussions of the previous week. The commission approved paying off an existing loan at Citizen Trust Bank on a garbage truck and beginning the process to acquire a loan to purchase a new garbage truck as well a new pick-up truck.
    In addition to its current fee schedule for use of the Eutaw Activity Center, the commission approved imposing a security deposit of $150 which will be refunded to renter providing no damage has occurred during use.
    As part of her budget amendments report, CFO Paula Bird informed the commission of an adjustment relative to the state mandated raise for County Voter Registrars.
    In 2016 the Alabama Legislature raised the pay rate for registrars from $60 per day to $80 per day with maximum number of days for each registrar not to exceed 120 per year.

    Following conclusion of required advertisement, the commission approved hiring a person in the solid waste division. Engineer Willie Branch oversees that process.
    The commission approved a credit card policy which was adopted from basic policy drafts available through the Alabama Association of County Commissions.
    Other actions approved by the commission included the following.
    * Hiring a temporary driver for the Eutaw Nutrition Site.
    * Providing access to courthouse restrooms during the annual Black Belt Folk Roots Festival.
    * Purchasing items for the shop ($69,500) and equipment repairs ($5,000) from General Fund bingo funds and amending budget to reflect approved expenditures.
    * Material agreement with Archie Bird, LLC.
    * Developing a pit on County Road 117, providing basic standards are met.
    * CD investment in amount of $110,416.41 with Robertson Banking Co., highest bidder.
    * Budget amendment for expenditure for RSA retired members one time lump sum payment, funded from 2007 Bond Warrant.
    * Renewed contracts with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama; S&W – Revenue/Appraisal; TriState-Appraisal; Delta Software-JOP; Digital Information Systems – IT Management for courthouse, jail and highway department.
    The commission tabled an item dealing with requests for bridge abandonment.

  • Newswire : White Supremacists’ Rally in Charlottesville, VA turns Violent, One Dead, 19 injured

    By Freddie Allen (Managing Editor, NNPA Newswire)


    Pictured : Driver crashing into crowd of demonstrators; Heather Heyer, 32 year old white counter-protestor murdered by car in terrorist attack
    James Alex Fields Jr., a 20 year-old from Ohio, who drove his dark gray Dodge Challenger into a crowd of people protesting a White nationalist march in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday, August 12 showed a deep interest in Nazism and Adolph Hitler in high school. Fields is being held on suspicion of second-degree murder, malicious wounding and failure to stop in an accident that resulted in death, according to CNN.
    ABC News reported that Derek Weimer, Fields’ former world history teacher at Randall K. Cooper High School in Union, Kentucky, said that Fields was “fairly quiet,” “smart,” and also an open admirer of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Weimer also told ABC News that Fields thought the Nazis “were pretty cool guys.”
    According to ABC News, “Some of Fields’ classmates at the school recalled a trip to Europe a group of students took after graduation in 2015, when they visited the Dachau concentration camp. Two of the students on the trip said when they arrived at the concentration camp, Fields said, ‘This is where the magic happened.’”
    The ABC News report continued: “Weimer noted that Randall K. Cooper High School is not particularly diverse, and said that as a result, he didn’t have many opportunities to see Fields interact with many non-whites or Jewish people.” Weimer told ABC News that the student body at Randall K. Cooper High School was about four percent Black.
    Last weekend, White nationalists descended on the college town to protest the removal of a statute of Robert E. Lee, the infamous general of the Confederacy.
    “A career army officer, Lee didn’t have much wealth, but he inherited a few slaves from his mother. Still, Lee married into one of the wealthiest slave-holding families in Virginia—the Custis family of Arlington and descendants of Martha Washington,” the Chicago Tribune reported. “When Lee’s father-in-law died, he took leave from the U.S. Army to run the struggling estate and met resistance from slaves expecting to be freed.”
    According to the Tribune, “Documents show Lee was a cruel figure with his slaves and encouraged his overseers to severely beat slaves captured after trying to escape. One slave said Lee was one of the meanest men she had ever met.”
    Fields’ mother, Samantha Bloom, told the Associated Press, that she thought her son was attending a political rally, “that had something to do with Trump” and that she tried to stay out of her son’s political views.
    Media reports have described, Heather Heyer, 32, the lone fatality in Saturday’s tragedy, as a paralegal from Greene County, Va, and a supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.). Heyer was in Charlottesville to protest against the White nationalist rally in Charlottesville.
    Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer called Heyer’s killing and the injury of others by a vehicle at a rally in the city a “terrorist attack with a car used as a weapon,” according to ABC News.
    In a statement about the violence and the White nationalist march in Charlottesville, Neera Tanden, the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, said that events over the weekend are another stark and disturbing reminder that violent extremism continues to exist in our neighborhoods and communities. “All of us at the Center for American Progress condemn in the strongest possible terms the racist and derogatory rhetoric and behavior on display,” said Tanden.
    In a statement from his New Jersey golf club, President Donald Trump said that he condemned the “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.”
    Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke said that the White nationalists’ protest represented a turning point for this country. We are determined to take this country back. We’re gonna fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in,” Duke said in a video posted to Twitter. “That’s why we voted for Donald Trump because he said he’s going to take our country back.”
    Facing sharp criticism for the president’s initial response to the tragedy, the White House issued a follow-up statement that included a stronger rebuke of “White supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis and all extremist groups.”
    Tanden said that throughout the campaign and in his brief presidency, Trump has had many opportunities to not just fully distance his administration from those allied with Nazi sympathizers and the KKK but also to denounce them. “To be clear, there is only one side that wishes to provoke hate and violence, and there is only one side that committed an apparent act of terrorism [in Charlottesville,” said Tanden. “Nazis and White nationalists showed up to cause harm and unrest in Charlottesville. Their racism, hatred, and bigotry have no place in our society.”
    Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) tweeted that the Black Press condemned the racial hatred and violence in Charlottesville.
    “Love presupposes justice, equality, freedom, and empowerment. Hate renders only more hatred,” Chavis tweeted. Echoing Tanden’s concerns about the president’s dithering remarks about the White nationalist movement, Congressman Cedric Richmond, (D-La.) said that since the campaign, President Trump has encouraged and emboldened the type of racism and violence that occurred in Charlottesville.
    “This is a president after all who has two White supremacists working for him in the White House—Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller,” said Richmond. “For these reasons, we weren’t surprised President Trump couldn’t bring himself to say the words ‘White supremacy,’ ‘White supremacists,’ and ‘domestic terrorism’ when he addressed the nation’ on Saturday. He instead chose to use racially coded dog whistles like ‘law and order’ and false equivalencies like ‘many sides.’
    Richmond continued: “Where is Attorney General Sessions? Instead of suppressing votes and dismantling affirmative action, he should be working with the Department of Homeland Security to investigate today’s crimes. Where is the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security?”House Committee on Homeland Security to investigate this sort of domestic terrorism, months ago.
    “As 49 members who represent and are part of a community who has for centuries been victimized by White supremacists, we strongly condemn what happened in Charlottesville,” said Richmond in the statement. “We also condemn the Administration’s poor response to it.”

     

  • Newswire : Civil Rights organizations counter Justice Department’s attack on Affirmative Action

     

    By Charlene Crowell
    ifill sherrilyn2
    Sherrilyn Ifill, director/counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund
    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – As millions of students return to school, the nation’s Justice Department (DOJ) is beginning an investigation that could potentially sue universities over affirmative action admissions policies. As first reported by the New York Times, Justice’s Civil Rights Division will carry out this effort to determine whether white applicants were discriminated against.
    For Black people and other ethnic and racial minorities, this investigation seems like window-dressing to deny millions of students a quality education in the name of injustice. Such actions also signal a more subtle message is to roll back to the progress achieved in broadly affording students of all races and ethnicities the benefits that higher education derives. Among education and civil rights advocates a strong belief holds that everyone benefits when obstacles to educational opportunity are overcome.
    “The American Dream offers each new generation the opportunity to build on the successes of previous ones,” wrote Nikitra Bailey, an executive vice president with the Center for Responsible Lending, in a related op-ed. “However, if you are African-American, the nation’s history of enslavement and legal bigotry consistently requires each generation to start anew.”
    Bailey is correct. Despite the vigilance of civil rights heroes over multiple generations, the heralded 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, or a series of 1960s laws that were enacted to guarantee full and first-class citizenship to every Black American, even more work remains to be done before everyone is afforded the promises of America.
    It’s been several years since the anti-affirmation action crusade took its venomous campaign to states across the country. Beginning in California in 1996 and continuing through 2010, Ward Connerly, a former University of California Regent, led a series of statewide campaigns to constitutionally ban affirmative action in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Washington State. Regardless of the state, the goal was always the same: make it illegal for public colleges and universities to include consideration of race or ethnicity in college admissions.
    Only in Colorado was the effort turned back by voters. In all of the other locales, the measure passed with broad support, often despite many business and corporate leaders joining with civil rights advocates in opposition.
    For example, prior to the November 2006 Proposal 2 ballot vote in Michigan, Paul Hillegonds, a white Republican and former Speaker of the State House, helped to lead a statewide coalition of more than 200 organizations pledged to defeat the measure.
    “If it passes, we are announcing to the world that women and minorities will not be given an equal opportunity to succeed in business in our state,” said Hillegonds. “This is the wrong message to send at a time when we are trying to attract new businesses and develop a talented, multicultural workforce ready to meet the demands of the 21st Century economy.”
    State approved bans on affirmative action in higher education also led to fewer Black students in the University of California system as well as at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
    Today the real difference between then and now is that the U.S. Justice Department is resuming a fight for the preservation of white privilege that is armed with resources and personnel that taxpayers of all colors provide.
    “President Trump’s Justice Department has hardly been worthy of its name,” said Sherrilynn A. Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “It has retreated from meaningful police reform, argued on behalf of state laws that suppress minority voting rights, directed prosecutors to seek harsh sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, and extended the federal government’s power to seize the property of innocent Americans.”
    “Each of these steps disproportionately and systematically burdens people of color, denying them their constitutional rights and widening the racial divides that this country has struggled for so long to close,” continued Ifill.
    The United States Supreme Court recently affirmed the use of affirmative action in admissions decisions in Fisher v. University of Texas. In that ruling, the importance of diversity as a compelling state interest was affirmed as settled law. The decision was also a victory for equal opportunity and recognized again that it is critical for schools to create diverse and inclusive student bodies.
    As the cost of higher education tends to increase every year, students of color are the ones most likely to go into debt in search of a degree that will deliver a middle class standard of living. Even four years after graduation, Black college graduates earning a bachelor’s degree owe almost double the debt of their white classmates, according to CRL research.
    Said Bailey, “The U.S. Justice Department must enforce inclusive educational policies as they open the doors of opportunity for all.”

  • Newswire : Kenneth Frazier, Merck CEO resigns from Trump’s Manufacturing Council

    donald trump kenneth frazier mark fields Trump with Frazier

    Kenneth Frazier, CEO of Merck & Co., resigned from President Trump’s American Manufacturing Council when the President’s response to violence in Charlottesville was insufficient. Frazier was the lone African-American business leader on the Council

    Although Trump later issued what sounded like a forced apology Monday afternoon, Frazier was joined by Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank, and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, in leaving the Manufacturing Council according to Business Insider.
    CNN reports that when he resigned, Frazier released a statement saying, “America’s leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy.”Trump immediately responded with a tweet that reinforced his reputation for pettiness. Trump wrote that Frazier’s resignation will provide him more time for lowering prices for “ripoff drugs.”
    When a White nationalist “unity rally” went horribly awry, the nation looked to a President whose election is still under investigation for a condemnation of the racial hatred that spurred the attack. Instead, Trump issued a statement blaming the violence on “all sides,” insinuating that the counter-protesters were responsible for the violence they suffered.
    After his comments were rebuked over the weekend, Trump did release a statement condemning the White supremacist hate groups that converged in Charlottesville, VA. He called the groups “repugnant,” departing from the stance he took while campaigning. Frazier’s resignation is not the first time Trump has been rebuked by Corporate America. Most recently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stepped down from the manufacturing council after Trump’s June 1 announcement that he was leaving the Paris climate accord.
    Other members of the Council have also criticized Trump but decided to remain on the Council. MSNBC reported that the full Council has never had a meeting since it was announced by Trump soon after his Inauguration.

  • Newswire : Supporters call a ‘United We Stand rally for Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee instead of standing for the National Anthem at NFL football games

    By: Ryan Wilson, CBS Sports Reporter

    Colin Kaepernick
     Colin Kaepernick

    We’re a couple weeks into training camp and Colin Kaepernick remains a free agent, and it’s unclear if that will change in the coming weeks and months.

    One explanation for Kaepernick’s current situation: He hasn’t been very good in recent seasons. Another take is that Kaepernick is being blackballed for his stance on social-justice issues. That’s why there will be a rally at NFL headquarters in Manhattan on Aug. 23 to support the embattled quarterback, according to a tweet from filmmaker Spike Lee.

    This comes three months after Kevin Livingston, the president of 100 Suits for 100 Men — one of the organizations Kaepernick worked with earlier this year — organized a “stand up” outside the NFL’s New York City headquarters as a show of solidarity with the quarterback.

    “He stood up for us,” Livingston told ESPN’s Michael Rothstein at the time. “It’s only right that he took our issues in our communities and brought it to a national level and sacrificed salary and being ostracized by the NFL. It was only right that we stand up for him. I started this, literally, when he came to my office — I was moved. I work with parolees. People usually want to ostracize this particular population. Me working with him on the front lines and him coming to my office, this is not the first time I’ve worked with him. So I thought it was only right that I stand up for him.”

    “We’re not protesting,” Livingston continued. “This is not anti-NFL. This is not going against the police. What we’re doing exactly is we’re showing solidarity to the league on behalf of Colin Kaepernick. This is nothing planned by him. This is all me. Others have suggested that Kaepernick’s supporters boycott attending and watching NFL football games until he is employed by one of the teams.

    “But I have to say, Colin Kaepernick really moved me when he did that for our community. And so … the reason why I chose [NFL headquarters] is the league needs to see that Colin is being supported. And that we’re buying consumers and that our dollars matter and I don’t think it’s fair the way he’s being treated by the league. I just want to make that very clear.”

    Kaepernick, who played for the 49ers from 2011-2016, began last season on the bench behind Blaine Gabbert, but was reinserted into the starting lineup in mid-October. When it was over, he had started 11 games and completed 59.2 percent of his passes with 16 touchdowns and four interceptions. He also rushed 69 times for 468 yards and two scores. But according to Football Outsiders’ metrics, Kaepernick ranked 30th among all quarterbacks, just ahead of Case Keenum, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Brock Osweiler and Jared Goff.

    The Seahawks showed interest in Kaepernick in May, and the Ravens appeared to close to signing him earlier this month. Nothing materialized and Kaepernick is still looking for his next opportunity.

     

  • Newswire : Hundreds feared dead in Sierra Leone mudslide linked to climate change

    Mud Slide in Sierra Leone
    Mudslide in Sierra Leone, west Africa

    Aug. 14, 2017 (GIN) – A fast-moving wall of mud, loosened by heavy overnight rains, has buried over 300 Sierra Leoneans, many of them sleeping children, during a torrential downpour early Monday. The deluge was foreseen by climate change experts.

    Videos posted by local residents show an angry flood of dark orange mud rushing down a steep street in the capital. In some shots, people waist and chest deep in water are seen desperately trying to cross the road.

    Early estimates put the number left homeless from the hilltop area of Regent at 2,000 while over 100 properties at the foot of Sugar Loaf mountain were reported submerged or collapsed before sunrise, said the Red Cross.

    Residents of the Kaningo neighborhood on the west side of the capital Freetown were seen collecting the dead even as floodwaters had yet to recede. The neighborhood was among the hardest hit by rampaging floodwaters, which washed away a bridge and left homes caked in mud and debris.

    Two years ago, a member of the Africa Research Institute, Jamie Hitchen, investigated the country’s flood cycle and its impact on the 61 or more unplanned settlements, many of which are perched on the farthest land masses before the sea.

    “Kroo Bay, one of the largest coastal slums with an estimated population of 6,000, has flooded every year since 2008”, Hitchen observed. “The floods were not unexpected,” Hitchen maintained. Increasingly frequent floods disproportionately affect those living in “at risk” communities.

    A recent report by the USAID Climate Change Risk Profile highlighted the country’s environmental threat. “Sierra Leone faces multiple risks from climate change that threaten key economic sectors and increase the potential for wider environmental degradation.

    “Projected increases in the intensity of rainfall events will exacerbate the existing impacts of floods, which include loss of life and property as well as damage to critical service and transport infrastructure. Floods account for 85 percent of disaster-related mortality in the country, followed by landslides and storms.”

    Meanwhile, a hydroelectric power plant that promised to “light up” Freetown has barely delivered the much-needed 60MW of power intended. This month, a UK company has taken over construction of Bumbuna II, a second power plant. Estimated year of completion: 2030.