Greene County Democrat

Month: January 2018

  • Newswire : Hidden photo of Obama and Farrakhan released in new book

    In autobiography, Askia Muhammad tells why and how the photo was kept a secret

    By Hazel Trice Edney

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    Obama and Frrakhan at 2005 meeting of CBC
    This photo by Askia Muhammad that was hidden for 12 years has now been released in the journalist’s autobiography. Pictured from left to right are: Minister Farrakhan’s son-in-law, Leonard Farrakhan Muhammad; His son and security chief, Mustapha Farrakhan; U. S. Sen. Barack Obama; Minister Farrakhan’s son Joshua Farrakhan; Minister Louis Farrakhan, and the Rev. Willie F. Wilson, pastor of D.C.’s Union Temple Baptist Church.

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – It was during a mid-2005 Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) meeting on Capitol Hill when award-winning journalist Askia Muhammad captured one of the most significant photos of his career.
    Muhammad had doggedly covered then Chicago Sen. Barack Obama since he “first laid eyes on him” at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Now, here was the Senator in a warm conversation with constituent and fellow Chicagoan Minister Louis Farrakhan. As leader of the Nation of Islam, Farrakhan is another star in Black America, but one whose name is synonymous with controversy.

    Wasting no time, Muhammad snapped the news photo. But moments later, he faced a dilemma.
    Obama had already become the darling of national Democratic politics. And the scent of a presidential run was strong.
    Muhammad and others almost immediately realized that the public release of this photo could mean major trouble down the road. Mainly because of bigotry and fear-mongering, the public release of that photo could doom America’s chances of electing Obama as its first Black President.
    Muhammad had not even left the scene when he received a call and the photo was being summoned by a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Muhammad ultimately surrendered the disk to Minister Farrakhan’s chief of staff. And it remained one of America’s best hidden secrets for the next 12 years.
    For the first time, more than a decade later, the glowing photograph of now former President Barack Obama and Minister Louis Farrakhan has been published in a book by Muhammad to be released Jan. 31 – “The Autobiography of Charles 67X”. Muhammad and some political observers still believe that if that photo had been released, it could have drawn enough fire – even from some of Obama’s supporters looking for excuses – to dent his chances of becoming President.
    “I gave the picture up at the time and basically swore secrecy,” Muhammad said in an exclusive interview with the Trice Edney News Wire this week. “But after the nomination was secured and all the way up until the inauguration; then for eight years after he was President, it was kept under cover.”
    As for any debate that the photo could have made a difference in the outcome of the Obama presidential election, Muhammad is emphatic: “I insist. It absolutely would have made a difference.”
    He has agreement in high places.
    “I do believe that it would have had a very, very negative affect in that given moment as far as the candidacy of candidate Obama at that time,” says Dr. Shayla Nunnally, president of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. Her opinion was based largely on the “negative stereotypes about Muslim Americans about Black people and about their allegiance to the United States,” which have often been twisted and used to fit bigoted agendas – especially after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
    “On top of that,” Nunnally said, “people have always characterized Minister Farrakhan as being a combative figure in American politics. That adds another layer.” Nunnally, a professor of political science who also teaches in the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut, specializes in public opinion, political behavior, race and politics.
    She questioned what the release of the photo will mean “even now because there’s so many conspiracy theories still floating.”
    Obama, who is a Christian, has constantly been the target of bigoted attacks, Nunnally pointed out. When a woman called him an Arab during a public forum, even his re-election opponent Sen. John McCain retrieved the microphone and corrected her, saying, “No ma’am. He’s a decent family man.” Nunnally also recalled how former Secretary of State Colin Powell once weighed in against negative stereotyping of Muslims saying, “He’s a Christian…But the really right answer is, what if he is” a Muslim?
    Nunnally concluded, “There are many, many, many layers of what that picture can represent to people in their various perceptions. So, I say this to mean that I can see that the release of that photo in that given moment, it would have been highly controversial.”
    Also, pictured in the photo are Minister Farrakhan’s son-in-law, Leonard Farrakhan Muhammad; His son and security chief, Mustapha Farrakhan; Minister Farrakhan’s son Joshua Farrakhan; and the Rev. Willie Wilson, executive producer of the program for Farrakhan’s Million Man March in 1995 and a chairman of the 20th anniversary.
    In an interview, Wilson says he doesn’t recall the photo and didn’t know he was in it. But hearing the description, he also was certain it could have hurt Obama’s campaign.
    “I’m sure it would,” Wilson said. “Given all of the furor related to the sermon that his pastor, Jeremiah Wright did, I’m sure that it would more than likely have had a tremendous effect on his candidacy.”
    Wilson says Farrakhan is so controversial because, “He speaks truth and this is a country that has in so many ways attempted to cover up the realities of its wrong doings of which Minister Farrakhan is quite vocal in bringing to light.”

    The book tells of other notables who knew about the photograph and never divulged it. In addition to narratives of pivotal moments of his life, the autobiography is also a book of Muhammad’s poetry.
    Columnist and political observer A. Peter Bailey, anticipating the book release, says he believes the photo would have created controversy for Obama, but could not have caused him to lose the election or his re-election because of the groundswell of Black voter support for him. “It could have done some damage,” Bailey said. “But nothing could have stopped the election because Black support would have countered it.”

  • Newswire : ADL Report: White Supremacists murdered 18 people in 2017

    Beatrice Dupuy
    Posted with permission from Newsweek
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    Klu Klux Klan members
    White supremacists not only shed their masks in 2017 but unleashed one of the deadliest years for extremist violence in almost half a century. Over the past 12 months, white supremacists committed the largest number of domestic-extremist related killings, helping to make 2017 the fifth-deadliest year for extremist violence since 1970, according to a newly released report from the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.
    The center counted a total of 34 people killed by domestic extremists, of which 18 were killed by white supremacists, more than double the number of the previous year. In the last decade, right-wing extremism made up 71 percent of extremist-related murders compared to 26 percent of murders by Islamic extremists.
    The overall number of deaths attributed to domestic extremists has declined—from 71 people in 2016 and 69 in 2015. The report attributes the fall to a drop in extremist-related mass-shooting sprees like the one Omar Mateen carried out when he killed 49 people at the Orlando Pulse nightclub in 2016.
    Even with the decline, the resurgence in white supremacy has politicians raising questions. Democratic Senator Kamala Harris tweeted out Tuesday that she was deeply troubled that the Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen “failed to mention” domestic acts of terror during a Tuesday Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on threats to the U.S.
    Nielsen was testifying on a new report by the Department of Homeland Security that studied the number of immigrants taken into custody for terrorism-related activities. The report was part of President Donald Trump’s executive order to protect the nation from “foreign terrorist entry” to the U.S.
    “It is deeply troubling that when talking about threats to our nation, Secretary Nielsen failed to mention a report that talks about some of the most rampant terror attacks that face our nation—domestic acts of terror, including white supremacist extremists,” Harris said in a tweet.
    Experts say that the emphasis placed by the government on foreign-born extremists as opposed to domestic-related extremists is part of a larger problem. Anti-Defamation League’s Director of the Center on Extremism, Oren Segal, said the report was a skewed version of terrorism threats in the U.S. by leaving out domestic-terror incidents.
    “In a time when the public discussion still tends to focus on foreign terrorist organizations, it is important to remember that white supremacists in particular still very much pose a threat in this country,” he said
    The Anti-Defamation League report cites several incidents of white supremacist killings in 2017 including a school shooting in Aztec, New Mexico. William Edward Atchison, 21, entered his old high school by pretending to be a student and then killed two students before turning the gun on himself in December. Atchinson posted online in pro-Trump and alt-right forums, with usernames including Future Mass Shooter, and ranted about his racist ideology, according to The Daily Beast.
    The report found that murders carried out by white supremacists in 2017 had ties to the alt-right, a movement that spread online and sprung into rallies and protests where supporters share views seen by many as anti-semitic and racist. The movement entered the mainstream in part thanks to the emergence of Donald Trump. The president’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon once called the publication he until recently ran, Breitbart News, ” the platform for the alt-right.”
    Segal said white supremacists are now emboldened and their recent activity, including holding rallies and using social media to radicalize people, must be taken seriously to “mitigate and protect” Americans from next the next attack.
    “We just don’t have the luxury to ignore any extremist threat in this country,” he said.

  • Newswire : Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, Civil Rights Icon, Chief of Staff to Dr. King, dies at 88

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    Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker speaks at Virginia Union University’s annual Community
    Leaders Breakfast in Richmond in January 2008.
    Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press
    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker Jr. did all he could to advance civil rights during his long life. He is credited with being the key strategist behind many of the civil rights protests that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led in seeking to end the racial injustice of Jim Crow in the 1960s.
    During his four years as Dr. King’s chief of staff, he helped raise the money for and orchestrate major civil rights protests. Dr. Walker came to Dr. King’s attention after leading protests against segregation in Petersburg that resulted in his repeated arrests. At the time, he was pastor of Petersburg’s Gillfield Baptist Church, which he led for seven years.
    On New Year’s Day in 1959, he led a “Pilgrimage of Prayer” in Richmond against school segregation. Dr. Walker’s contributions to justice and freedom in America are being remembered following his death Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018, in Chester, near Petersburg, where he lived for the last 14 years. He was 88.
    Funeral arrangements were incomplete at Free Press deadline on Wednesday. The Rev. Al Sharpton, a family friend, announced the death of Dr. Walker, who also was the first board chairman of Rev. Sharpton’s National Action Network.
    “A true giant and irreplaceable leader,” Rev. Sharpton stated in releasing the information on Dr. Walker’s death on Twitter. “A huge tree has fallen.”
    “America has lost a great civil rights leader,” said Henry L. Marsh III, a retired civil rights attorney who served as Richmond, Va.’s first African-American mayor and later as a state senator. “He was a Virginia civil rights leader who earned a place on the national stage. The world is a better place because of his presence,” said Mr. Marsh, who was deeply engaged in attacking segregation and racial injustice in the courts.
    Dr. Walker spoke against bigotry and racial oppression from pulpits in Petersburg, Atlanta, New York City and on five continents. He also was a leading voice in protesting apartheid in South Africa and was part of the team that helped supervise South Africa’s first free elections in 1994 when the late Nelson Mandela was elected that country’s president.
    He also advocated for affordable housing and better schools in New York during his 37 years as the pastor of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem. The grandson of a former slave, Dr. Walker was born just before the start of the Great Depression on Aug. 16, 1929, in Brockton, Mass. He was the 10th of 11 children of the Rev. John Wise Walker and Maude Pinn Walker. His father read both Greek and Hebrew and was a member of the 1899 graduating class of Virginia Union University. His mother also was a VUU graduate.
    Although the family had little money after his father became pastor of a church in New Jersey where he grew up, Dr. Walker said his father instilled in him his passion for fighting racial injustice. “My father was what we called a ‘race man,’” Dr. Walker said. “He reacted to anything that smacked of racial injustice or prejudice. I was under that influence growing up. He was my first hero.”
    Dr. Walker came to Richmond after World War II to start his studies at VUU. A standout student who went on to earn his undergraduate and ministry degrees at the university, he began his civil rights work while a student. Refusing to accept second class status, he often was put off Richmond street cars for refusing to move to the back. After being called to the Gillfield Baptist Church pulpit in 1953, he preached, protested and courted arrest.
    The first of his 17 arrests came when he led a group of African-Americans through the whites-only door of the Petersburg Public Library, one of his many acts of civil disobedience. He also served as president of the Petersburg Branch NAACP, state director of the Congress of Racial Equality and founder of the Petersburg Improvement Association, which was modeled on the Montgomery Improvement Association that guided the bus boycott in 1956 in that Alabama city.In 1960, Dr. Walker went to Atlanta to join Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference as its executive director after previously serving on the board.
    He had met Dr. King when both were presidents of their seminary classes, he at VUU and Dr. King at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, where Dr. Walker later would earn his doctorate. Through 1964, Dr. Walker served as the SCLC executive director and Dr. King’s right-hand man. Dr. Walker raised money to support the SCLC and also devised boycotts and demonstrations for Dr. King, most notably in the spring of 1963 in Birmingham, Ala., under the code name “Project C.” The C stood for “confrontation,” Dr. Walker recalled in an interview.
    “The federal government was against us, the local communities were against us, the judges were against us, but we managed to do it, and I guess we found the strength to do it because it was a moral fight,” he told an interviewer in 2006. “I was fully committed to nonviolence, and I believe with all my heart that for the Civil Rights Movement to prove itself, its nonviolent actions had to work in Birmingham,” he said.
    “If it wasn’t for Birmingham, there wouldn’t have been a Selma march, there wouldn’t have been a 1965 civil rights bill. Birmingham was the birthplace and affirmation of the nonviolent movement in America.”
    Dr. Walker played a key role in circulating Dr. King’s famous “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” penned in April 1963, that argued for civil disobedience as a legitimate response to racial segregation. Dr. Walker also helped organize the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was capped by Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
    Historians and those who worked with Dr. King argue that Dr. Walker’s management skills enabled the SCLC to grow from a largely volunteer organization into a crucial, professional element of the Civil Rights Movement, with a $1 million annual budget and 100 full-time workers. Dr. Walker’s “brilliance as a strategist was his greatest contribution to the Civil Rights Movement,” according to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who also worked with Dr. King and went on to found and lead the national Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
    He knew how to harness the energies of people who were excited about social change and how to use the church as the center of his advocacy for the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed,” Rev. Jackson said. Dr. Walker left the SCLC in 1964 to become pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and to work with the Negro Heritage Library.
    In 1966, he became president of the organization whose goal was publishing works of African-Americans and pushing for inclusion in textbooks information on the role of African-Americans in U.S. history. In 1966, at Dr. King’s recommendation, he became interim pastor of Canaan Baptist Church, a post he held until a series of strokes forced him to retire in 2004.
    Dr. Walker led the church in developing housing units with reduced rents, retail stores and apartments and a service center for elderly people. He also fought to remove drug dealers from streets around the church, and when he thought police were ignoring the problem, he took action.
    For example, in April 1970, Dr. Walker preached a Sunday sermon through a bullhorn outside the Teen City pizza parlor that was notorious for drug trafficking. “We are trying to save our children,” he said, before turning his bullhorn toward tenements across the street.
    “You, up there in the windows,” he said, “tell your kids to keep out of Teen City.”
    At one point, the Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas “put a hit out on me,” Dr. Walker recalled, “because I was effectively thwarting the drug traffic.”
    He said he ignored warnings that his work against illicit narcotic sales was too dangerous. “I had been involved in the struggle in the Deep South, so I was accustomed to dangerous situations,” he said. “It was tough to frighten me because I was so convinced that God would take care of me.”
    Dr. Walker also was considered an authority on sacred music. Along with composing religious music, Dr. Walker also was the author of 10 books and articles dealing with the ties between music, religious traditions and social change. He also was noted for his photography and for founding Harlem’s first charter school in 1999.
    Dr. Walker chaired the boards of Freedom National Bank until it collapsed in 1990 under the weight of risky loans and of the Consortium for Central Harlem Development, which Canaan Baptist stated was responsible for $100 million in housing. In the years since his retirement, the aging and frail Dr. Walker, who needed a wheelchair to move around, received numerous invitations to speak. He used his speeches to continue to encourage activism on the racial justice front and was outspoken in support of Black Lives Matter.
    In a speech a few years ago during the holiday for Dr. King, he expressed his concern that the legislative victories of the 1960s at the height of the movement — including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — “seduced us into becoming too comfortable.”
    “It is insufficient for us to come together on (Dr. King’s) birthday, sometimes in an artificial way, White and Black together, and sing ‘We Shall Overcome’ and hold hands and get a warm feeling and then go back to business as usual in White racist America,” he said.
    Survivors include his wife of 68 years, Theresa Edwards Walker; a daughter, Patrice W. Powell; three sons, Robert, Earl and Wyatt Tee Walker Jr.; his sister, Mary Holley; and two grandchildren.

  • Newswire : Ghanaian women up against U. S. owned gold mine that destroyed their farms

    ghanaian woman yaa konadu
    Ghanaian woman farmer

    Jan. 8, 2018 (GIN) – On the website of the Colorado-based Newmont mine, the top page reads in bold letters: “Culture of Zero Harm.”

    This might come as a surprise to the Ghanaian women of Dormaa-Kantinka whose farms have been threatened and/or seized by the company many thousands of miles away.

    Yaa Konadu, a 74 year old grandmother, was given the bad news from one of her workers. “Newmont has destroyed the farm,” she was told. Many of her cocoa trees were ruined. A red notice with a case number was the only sign of the culprit of this devastation.

    In a heart-rending report by U.S.-based environmentalists in the latest Sierra Club magazine titled “Fools Gold”, the story of women in the central Brong-Ahafo region of Ghana, fighting to keep their family farms against the efforts of the second largest gold mining company to take them, unfolds.

    Newmont reportedly offered Yaa Konadu 1,500 Ghanaian cedis, or $343, for her eight acres of farmland that had supported her family for generations – land she’d inherited from her grandmother – and about $50 for the small farmhouse. There was no direct negotiation, she told Sierra Club, and she accepted the sum feeling she had no choice but she refused the $50 for her home as woefully inadequate.

    The U.S. company faces opposition from local Ghanaians. According to Ghana’s “The Chronicle” of Aug. 3, “irate youth” living within the Newmont Ghana Gold Ahafo Mine Area staged a massive demonstration against the company for failing to hire local workers in the better-paying jobs while employing staff from outside the area. Further, they told reporter Michael Boateng, the company failed to honor training programs for the locals and neglected locally-owned companies for awards of contracts.

    Newmont claims it has paid $36 million and $42 million as royalties as taxes respectively, with $363 million spent in the Ghanaian economy.

    Mine manager Derek Boateng defended the company but acknowledged that employment expectations and resettlement challenges remained huge problems. Also, illegal mining by small-scale miners known as “galamsey” was a “great menace” which government, stakeholders and other relevant institutions had to to stamp out, he said.

    Meanwhile, chemicals used in gold mining have killed fish near the Newmont Processing facility. Residents and activists with the Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining blame a cyanide spill. Also, despite claims by the company of investment in women’s initiatives, the rates of unwanted pregnancies have increased and schoolgirls point the finger at Newmont workers, nurse Regina Dufie told the Sierra reporter.

  • Brown family donates additional $5,000 to Robert Brown Middle School; CSFO Sewell resigns position with Greene County School Board

    Greene County Career Center and JROTC Programs salute school board members for School Board Members Appreciation Month. L to R: Attorney Hank Sanders, School Board Member Kashaya Cockrell, GCH student Gabriel Turner, School Board Members Carrie Dancy and Leo Branch, GCH students Alanna Robinson and Miah Armour, Superintendent James Carter, School Board Members Carol Zippert and William Morgan and GCH Career Center Counselor Angela White.

    In recognition of January as School Board Members Appreciation Month, School Board Members, Board Attorney and Superintendent receive fruit baskets and citations from central office staff. L to R: Attorney Hank Sanders, Schools Board Members Carrie Dancy, Kashaya Cockrell, Leo Branch and Carol Zippert, Superintendent James Carter and Board Member William Morgan.

    Danny Jones, COO Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama presents $300 award to Greene County Board. For outstanding participation in West Alabama Works. L to R: GCH Career Center Counselor Angela White, GCH Principal Gary Rice, Gabriel Turner, Superintendent James Carter, Miah Armour and Danny Jones.

     

    At its monthly meeting held Monday, January 22, 2018, the Greene County Board of Education accepted the voluntary resignation of its Chief School Financial Officer Ms. Katrina Sewell with the following stipulations: CSFO Sewell must sign an agreement, with Board President Mr. Leo Branch, to complete the 2017 financial close out for the system and conduct all matters required for making of payroll through January 2018; the completion of these must be certified by the CSFO and Superintendent James Carter by January 30, 2018.

    Sewell was hired by the Greene County School Board in March 2017 and was given a three year contract as CSFO. On January14, 2018 she submitted her resignation to the board and later confirmed that she had accepted a job offer as CSFO with the Perry County Board of Education. Subsequently, the board authorized the superintendent to open the search for a chief school financial officer. The position will be advertised.
    Jerri Brown presented a contribution of $5,000 to Robert Brown Middle School on behalf of his family. To date, the Brown family has contributed $10,000 to RBM since the consolidation. Brown indicated that this contribution to RBM is designated for the sciences, the library and the athletic program.

    The school is named for Dr. Robert Brown, who served the Greene County School System as teacher, principal and superintendent before his retirement. His son Jerri Brown encouraged the community to consider making contributions to the school system. “ Giving to our schools which are non-profit entities, will help you on your tax reports and returns,” he said.
    As part of his report to the board, Dr. Carter recognized Donny Jones, Chief Operating Officer with the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama, who presented a check for $300 to the board for having the second largest attendance of students and parents at the World of Works program held at Shelton State Community College in the Fall.
    Superintendent Carter announced that the Virtual School Program will be extended to serve students in the Greene County School community. “Scholars who dropped out for legitimate reasons or need only few units to graduate will be our top priority,” he stated.
    The Greene County High Career Center, the JROTC Program, and the Central Office staff gave special tributes to the board members as part of the National School Board Members Recognition Month. Ms. Barbara Martin, Robert Brown Middle School Principal, invited the board members to a luncheon on January 25 sponsored by the Robert Brown Middle School faculty and staff. Mr. Rice, Greene County High Principal, indicated that the board would be recognized at a program planned for honor roll students.
    In other business, the board approved a revision of the contract with the county regarding the resource officers assigned to the local school facilities. The Summer Feeding Program will also be provided at these sites.
    Other personnel items approved by the board included the following.
    * Rebecca Coleman hired as teacher with the 21st Century Community Learning Center at Robert Brown Middle School.
    * Allow medical leave (child birth) for Demilia D. Snyder beginning Jan. 5 to March 12, 2018.
    The following administrative services were approved by the board.
    * Six weeks summer school at Greene County High, Robert Brown Middle School and Eutaw Primary School beginning June 4, 2018

  • Newswire : Congressional Black Caucus plans protest of Trump at State of the Union

    By Lauren Victoria Burke (NNPA Newswire Contributor)
    During a lengthy, members-only meeting on Capitol Hill on January 19, members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) discussed various options to protest the current President of the United States. Their protest plans centered around the annual State of the Union address.
    President Donald Trump’s second State of the Union address is scheduled for January 30.
    The meeting the CBC held to talk over State of the Union protest plans occurred only hours after 66 members of the House voted to act on impeaching the President. That effort was led once again by Black Caucus member Rep. Al Green (D-Texas). Rep. Green’s second impeachment try failed 355-66. Three Democrats voted “present.”
    Weeks after Donald Trump reportedly called Haiti, El Salvador and the continent of Africa “shithole countries” during a meeting on immigration with members of Congress in the Oval Office, many members have had it.
    CBC members who attended the discussion confirmed that several options of protesting President Trump were discussed including walking out, wearing African themed garb and even not showing up to the State of the Union at all. The more vocal members included Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.).
    During an interview with Buzzfeed on January 17, days before the meeting, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La.) mentioned the CBC might hold its own State of the Union.
    “We will…discuss how we want to respond to the president’s State of the Union. We could go, we could go and walk out, we could go and hold up fists…or we could not go, or we could hold our own ‘State of the Union,’” Richmond said.
    A few Black Caucus members have already stated that they will not attend the president’s State of the Union address. They include Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.).
    Some CBC members are concerned about Congress’ largest caucus not being unified in protest, whatever form the protest may take. Other members wanted to make sure serious issues are highlighted and expressed concerns about the protest taking attention away from serious policy discussion. But in the age of former reality TV star turned President Donald Trump, others say that the best response is to fight fire with fire.
    With protests in the air and in the streets around the first anniversary of the start of the Trump presidency, the timing of any protest the CBC may undertake on the night of the State of the Union is likely to receive serious media attention.

    Regarding Rep. Green’s impeachment attempts, which House leadership is in opposition of, Green pointed out that Trump, “has by his statements brought the high office of president of the United States in contempt, ridicule, disgrace and disrepute; has sown discord among the people of the United States; has demonstrated that he is unfit to be president; and has betrayed his trust as president of the United States to the manifest injury of the people of the United States and has committed a high misdemeanor in office.”
    Rep. Green’s form of protest was a legislative one. On the night of the State of the Union, we are likely to see a more theatrical display.
    Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent journalist, political analyst and contributor to the NNPA Newswire and BlackPressUSA.com. She can be reached by email at LBurke007@gmail.com and on Twitter at @LVBurke.

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  • Newswire : NAACP and Africa-America Institute announce Alliance

    Partnership includes Pre-K to College Curriculum on the African Diaspora

    By: Malik Russell/ mrussell@naacpnet.org

     

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                                                   Derrick Johnson, NAACP President

    PASEDENA, CA (January 15, 2018)—On Monday, January 15, 2018, the holiday marking the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the NAACP and the Africa-America Institute announced a groundbreaking partnership during the 49th NAACP Image Awards.
    The NAACP will work with the AAI on the development and distribution of a curriculum designed to highlight the accomplishments, achievements and history of Africa and its Diaspora.
    “It’s appropriate that on a day that we honor Dr. King as well as promote positive images of people of color, we announce to the world a partnership that includes a curriculum, learning exchange and a network for advocacy and activism on behalf of those of African descent in the United States and abroad, “said Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of the NAACP.
    “AAI has a long history of academic exchange and educational meetings between Africa and America. Now is an extraordinary time and opportunity to partner with the NAACP and together connect the more than 42 million Afro-descendants with the brilliance of the African history and its contribution to modern civilization,” added Kofi Appenteng, President of the Africa-America Institute.
    The curriculum from the NAACP/AAI Alliance will include content such as Africa’s Great Civilizations, the critically acclaimed series by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Partners and NAACP chapters will benefit from organized screenings and lessons with an early education focus on positive identity formation and a more advanced curriculum that includes studies in social sciences.

    A campaign kick-off will take place in February of 2018 as a part of Black History Month.
    ABOUT THE AFRICA-AMERICA INSTITUTE (AAI)
    The Africa-America Institute is the premier U.S.-based international organization that works to increase the capacity of African individuals and institutions through higher education initiatives, leadership development, professional workforce training, convening activities, program implementation and management.

    ABOUT THE NAACP
    Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities. You can read more about the NAACP’s work and our six “Game Changer” issue areas here.

     

  • Newswire : Poor People’s Campaign Exhibit Opens at the Black History Museum

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    The National Museum of African American History and Culture recently opened the “City of Hope” Exhibition to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Poor People’s Campaign.” (NMAAHC)

    National Museum of African American History and Culture Commemorates 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Crusade in “City of Hope” Exhibition
    Features Never-Before-Seen Images from photographers Roland Freeman, Jill Freedman, Robert Houston, Laura Jones, Clara Watkins and Ernest Withers
    The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture commemorates the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s final human rights crusade in a new exhibition on the “Poor People’s Campaign,” a multicultural coalition that began in 1968 to end poverty. The exhibition, “City of Hope: Resurrection City & the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign,” features rare archival film and new oral histories with people who helped organize the campaign including Marian Wright Edelman and Andrew Young.
    It also features wooden tent panels, lapel buttons, placards and murals created by and used by some of the nearly 8,000 people who occupied the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for nearly six weeks to call the nation’s attention to the crippling effects of poverty for minorities, children and the elderly.
    The museum’s exhibition is housed in its gallery at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History as a partner to the exhibition, “American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith,” which explores the history of citizen participation, debate and compromise from the nation’s formation to today.
    Launching its celebration of King’s birthday, the museum, hosted a media briefing and guided tours of the new exhibition bringing in people who played key roles in building and documenting Resurrection City.
    “With new and recently discovered film and audio footage, images and objects, this exhibition provides a rare look inside the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign and commemorates the legacy of Dr. King’s final campaign for economic justice,” said Lonnie G. Bunch III, founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

    “This exhibition reminds us that despite the unprecedented economic growth in America over the past five decades, there are still many Americans living below the poverty line. Although the Poor People’s Campaign did not achieve its goal of eradicating poverty, it spawned a multiethnic and multiracial movement for economic fairness whose belief in helping America live up to its ideals still inspires to this day. The stories of those who sacrificed so much are found in ‘City of Hope: Resurrection City and the Poor People’s Campaign.’”

    Original sound recordings of musical performances and conversations among campaign participants have been provided by the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The recordings, along with never-seen film produced by the Hearst Corp., show how people lived during the six-week occupation at Resurrection City. Among the film highlights is footage of people traveling in a caravan of mule-drawn wagons from Marks, Miss., to Memphis, Tenn., for King’s memorial service and then on to Washington to participate in the Poor People’s Campaign.

    Background on Poor People’s Campaign and Resurrection City
    In the 1960s, as the United States emerged as a global model of wealth and democracy, an estimated 25 million Americans lived in poverty. From the elderly and underemployed to children and persons with disabilities, poverty affected people of every race, age, and religion. In response, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by King and Ralph David Abernathy, organized the Poor People’s Campaign as a national human rights issue.
    As a multiethnic movement that included African Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Asians and poor whites from Appalachia and rural communities, the six-week, live-in demonstration in Washington attracted protestors nationwide. The campaign leaders presented demands to Congress, including jobs, living wages and access to land, capital and health care. It was the first large-scale, nationally organized demonstration after King’s death. The campaign, the final vision of King’s life, has come to be known as his most ambitious dream.

    About the National Museum of African American History and Culture
    The National Museum of African American History and Culture opened Sept. 24, 2016, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Occupying a prominent location next to the Washington Monument, the nearly 400,000-square-foot museum is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive cultural destination devoted exclusively to exploring, documenting and showcasing the African American story and its impact on American and world history. For more information about the museum, visit nmaahc.si.edu, follow @NMAAHC on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat—or call Smithsonian information at (202) 633-1000.

  • One dead, four injured at Sin City Deciples bikers social event in Eutaw

     

     

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    Mandel Pearson

    In a press conference held Monday, January 16, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation agent Jason Ward confirmed that one person is dead and four others were injured in a shooting early Sunday morning at the Eutaw National Guard Armory. The armory was being rented out for a social event by the Sin City Deciples Motorcycle Club and Greene County Deputy LaJeffery Carpenter. The Sin City Deciples have bases in Birmingham and Anniston.
    The ABI said the shooting took place just before 1:30 Sunday morning at the National Guard Armory. Investigators recovered about 100 shell casings in the parking lot of the armory where the Sin City Deciples MC sponsored an event Saturday night. Other motorcycle clubs present at the social included the Show Stoppers MC which has a base in Birmingham.
    The person killed in the shooting has been identified as 36-year-old Mandel Pearson of Anniston, AL.
    According to Eutaw Police Chief Derick Coleman an argument started inside the building before those involved moved outside. That’s when the shootings happened. The victims were first brought to Greene County Hospital emergency room and stabilized. Two of the victims were then airlifted by helicopter to UAB with life-threatening injuries, and two others were transported by ambulance to DCH with non-life threatening injuries.
    Alabama Law Enforcement Agency says among the injured was an off duty Greene County Deputy, LaJeffery Carpenter, who suffered non-life threatening injuries.
    Members of the Showstoppers Motor Club were also present at the social event at the armory.

    This club, based in Avondale, AL, was founded in 2002 and members wear red and black with a jester logo.
    Eutaw Mayor Raymond Steele stated that it is always sad to lose a life by violence. “The city sends its condolences to the family of the man killed and lifts prayers for all the those injured,” he said. Mayor Steele also remarked that there has never been such an unfortunate incident as this at the armory facility.
    “ I plead with young people in particular to put down your weapons. Deal with your disagreements in non-violent ways. Try to resolve your differences without weapons.,” Steele said.
    According to Wikipedia, Sin City Deciples is a “one-percenter” outlaw motorcycle club that started in Gary, Indiana in 1966. Sin City prides itself on being open to all men, regardless of race or color. But most importantly is known for its historical roots as a club that was founded by and started as an African American Club, but allowed membership of all races of men that meet its strict guidelines to join…thus for breaking the mold of the historical 1% outlaw tradition of racism.
    Outlaw bikers refer to their organizations as “one-percenter” motorcycle clubs (MC) rather than gangs. The term “one-percenter” originated from a statement made by the American Motorcycle Association in response to a motorcycle rally held in 1947 in Hollister, California, that turned violent. The American Motorcycle Association stated: “99% of the motorcycling public are law-abiding; there are 1% who are not.” Outlaw (or one percenter) can mean merely that the club is not chartered under the auspices of the American Motorcyclist Association, implying a radical rejection of authority.
    The clubs are also known for serving a large number of charity organizations.
    A high percentage of military veterans have joined the club, as well as doctors, lawyers, and other corporate Americans. As with any 1% outlaw club there is much secrecy surrounding members, and its requirements to join. However it has been noted that the brotherhood of the Sin City Deciples is one of the tightest knit outlaw motorcycle clubs in existence, making Sin City have a great deal of mystic around its exact numbers and requirements
    Members are required to ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles and pride themselves on the tight knit brotherhood and unity they have developed over years, and decades of riding with each other from state to state. With charters that span from coast to coast, and active charters in almost every state in the United States and in Europe, they are one of the oldest and largest outlaw clubs in existence. Exact membership is unknown, however it has been rumored that they have thousands of active members.

     

  • MLK celebration in Greene County

    Pictured : Mrs. Katie Jones Powell, retired Sumter County Schools Superintendent, was keynote speaker at the Educational Seminar focused on Greene County High School juniors and seniors, sponsored by the Alabama Civil Rights Freedom Museum and held at New Peace Baptist Church on Friday, Jan. 12, 2018. This event was part of the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday celebration.
    Rev. Joe N. Webb was keynote speaker at the Unity Breakfast held at the Eutaw Activity Center on Jan. 15, 2018, honoring Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.’s birthday.
    Dr. Cynthia Warrick, President of Stillman College in Tuscaloosa brought the message at the Godly Women of West Alabama Religious Freedom Rally Celebration, held Jan. 15, 2018 at the William M. Branch Courthouse. The event recognized many women who have contributed to building a just and free society.
    Men and Women in the West Alabama Region were honored for their roles in building community and participating in the struggles for justice, equity and freedom. The awards were presented by Mr. Spiver Gordon and the Alabama Civil Rights Freedom Museum at the Martin L. King, Jr. Program held at the William M. Branch Courthouse in Eutaw, Monday, Jan. 15, 2018

    The Alabama Civil Rights Museum, ANSC and other groups sponsored the annual Greene County weekend celebration of Martin Luther King’s Birthday. Spiver Gordon, President of the Museum presided at the programs.
    On Monday the annual birthday breakfast was held at the Eutaw Activity Center, followed by a march and caravan to the William M. Branch Courthouse in Eutaw.
    Rev. Joe Webb, Pastor of New Generation Church, was the guest speaker at the breakfast and challenged the audience to get involved in helping each other and the community instead of sitting on the sidelines complaining, back-biting and finding excuses for inaction.
    At the Courthouse, Dr. Cynthia Warrick, President of Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, gave the keynote address in a program honoring the role of “godly women in the struggle for human rights”.
    A group of men from Greene and surrounding counties were honored at the breakfast and a group of women at the Courthouse.