Greene County Democrat

Month: April 2018

  • SPOT students honor seven Trail Blazers

     

    The Greene County Children’s Policy Council, after school tutorial and mentoring programs, held their annual Trail Blazers Awards Program Friday, April 20, 2018 at the Eutaw Activity Center. This year’s theme: Celebrating Achievement and Pride honored seven foot soldiers of the local Civil Rights Movement.

    Mr. Will Little (posthumously) was presented by Ivan Peebles and John Foster. Ms. Yvonne Washington was presented by Jamia Noland and Alkeria Cook; Mrs. Mildred Black and Mr. Lucius Black (posthumously) were presented by Kaden Jones and Victoria Jones; Mrs. Rosie B. Alford Edwards (posthumously) was presented by Courtney Davis and Talia Hawkins; Ms. Lovella Murray was presented by Lataursa Jones and Anya Jones; and Ms. Ethel Spencer was presented by JaMayiah White and DeMarius Cockrell.
    Each year the SPOT students (Strategically Preparing our Teens) interview and present their research on individuals in the Black Belt region who played a role in the Civil Rights Movement. This program is a culmination of the students’ research for the 2017- 2018 school term.
    Judge Lillie Jones Osborne, Chairperson of the Children’s Policy Council, stated she sat in on some of the interviews, and she was amazed at the stories shared. One of her students who interviewed Mrs. Mildred Black stated that after he heard her story he was definitely going to vote once he got old enough. This experience gave him an appreciation of the people who sacrificed so much, some even giving their lives for that right to vote.
    In 2001, the Education Committee identified the need for a tutorial program to improve students’ achievement and performance levels. Judge Lillie Jones-Osborne, chairperson of the Greene County Children’s Policy Council raised limited funding and implemented an after-school tutorial program.  Ms DeShayla Steele served as mistress of ceremony. Mrs. Wanda Hawkins
    rendered the music. SPOT Students recited “I Have A Dream.” Mr. Jeremy Rancher Children’ Policy Council member blessed the food.

  • Newswire : Black male hero disarms man at Tennessee Waffle House, who murdered four with AR-15 rifle

     

    By Frederick H. Lowe, Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

    jamesshawjr.jpg
    James Shaw Jr. is suddenly a national hero after disarming a man with an automatic rifle who had already killed four people.

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – After watching WGN television news in Chicago on Sunday show mugshot after mugshot of black men either under arrest or wanted by police, it was exciting to see a photo, not a mugshot, of James Shaw, Jr., a 29 year-old black man who successfully wrestled away an automatic rifle from a nearly naked white man after he had shot to death four individuals, including three African Americans, on Sunday at an Antioch, Tennessee, Waffle House restaurant.
    The killer, later identified by police as Travis Reinking, 29, who was raised in Morton, Illinois, ran away but police captured him without incident in the woods behind the restaurant on Monday.
    Reinking shot to death two people outside Waffle House before walking inside and firing his AR-15 rifle, then pausing to reload. The dead were identified as Taurean C. Sanderlin, Akilah Dasilva, Joe R. Perez and DeEbony Groves. Police charged Reinking with four counts of murder. No bond was set.
    Reinking also wounded two others.
    When Reinking paused his firing, Shaw rushed him and wrestled the gun away from him before throwing it over the restaurant’s counter.
    Shaw had been hiding in the bathroom when Reinking fired a bullet through the bathroom door.
    “I think that’s when I became alert about the situation and was like, there’s kind of no running from this. Kind of like a fish in a barrel type thing and I’m going to have to try to find a flaw or a point in time where I can make this work for myself,” Shaw Jr. explained on Good Morning America on Monday morning.
    “I was completely doing it just to save myself,” Shaw Jr. told reporters at a news conference, the BBC reported. “I did save other people, but I don’t want people to think that I was the Terminator or Superman or anybody like that. I figured if I was going to die, he was gonna have to work for it.”
    Reinking and Shaw then ran in opposite directions.
    Shaw created a GoFundMe campaign to help the Waffle House victims and their families. The fundraising page, which GoFundMe verified for MONEY as legitimate, says simply:“My name is James Shaw Jr. I am creating this page to help the families of the victims from the shooting that took place at Waffle House in Antioch, TN. Please take the time to donate as all of the proceeds will be given to the families. Thank you again for your generosity and blessings!
    Thus far, the website has raised more than $109,000.
    Shaw, who works for AT&T, is being hailed as a hero. The Tennessee Legislature honored him today, but President Donald Trump hasn’t called him although the White House in a press briefing praised his courage.
    Shaw did what Trump said he would have done in another situation.
    Trump claimed he would have rushed into Marjory Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida, and disarmed Nikolas Cruz who fired an AR-15 rifle, murdering 17 students on February 14.

  • Newswire : Former First Lady Barbara Bush Laid to Rest Black Caucus Chair: She ‘Championed the Cause of Literacy’

    barbarbabush-presidentsfirst ladies.jpg Former Presidents and First Ladies attend Barbara Bush’s funeral

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – First Lady Barbara Bush was laid to rest on Saturday, April 21. Former Presidents George H. W. Bush, her husband, George W. Bush (her son); Bill Clinton and Barack Obama attended the services, held at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston. First Lady Melania Trump and former first ladies Laura Bush, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Michelle Obama also attended. President Donald Trump did not attend he said, to prevent the distractions of a presidential presence, such as security. The group posed for a photograph, released by the White House after the funeral.

    Upon the death of Mrs. Bush, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressman Cedric L. Richmond (D-La.), released the following statement on the passing of former First Lady Barbara Bush:

    “Barbara Bush was not only the matriarch of an American political dynasty but the matriarch to many throughout the country – one who raised a family of national leaders, including a president and a governor. As First Lady, Barbara Bush championed the cause of literacy and understood, as the members of the Congressional Black Caucus understand, that education is the pathway out of poverty. The Congressional Black Caucus sends our thoughts and prayers to the Bush family as they mourn the loss of a wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. We join the nation in our appreciation of Barbara Bush’s public service.”

  • Newswire : Alabama Arise: Tell Gov. Ivey: Don’t kick thousands of parents off Medicaid !

    Gov. Kay Ivey is planning to ask the federal government for permission to make Alabama’s bare-bones Medicaid program even more stringent, harming thousands of low-income parents who work at home taking care of dependent children. The state’s Medicaid work requirement proposal creates a no-win situation for parents living in deep poverty: They lose coverage if they don’t get a job AND if they .

    Parents and caretakers of children can’t qualify for Alabama Medicaid if they earn more than 18 percent of the federal poverty level – or about $312 a month for a family of three. Working 10 hours a week at minimum wage puts a parent over this income limit, yet the plan would make them work 35 hours a week and lose their coverage. Medicaid is one of the only protections many of these Alabamians have.

    Besides harming the targeted families, the plan would hurt the state budget, which affects everyone. Keeping track of who’s working, who’s not working, who’s looking for work and who’s exempt is a massive undertaking that Medicaid is not equipped to handle. The major new administrative costs will reduce funding available for vital human services like mental health and child protection.

    A required public comment period for the new plan produced around 800 comments, the vast majority of them opposed to the work requirement. But Medicaid intends to send the proposal to Washington in a couple of weeks. Governor Ivey is the only one who can put the brakes on this cruel and costly plan, and a public outcry can help make that happen.
    Please call the governor’s office today at 334-242-7100 and tell her: Don’t kick thousands of parents off Medicaid. Withdraw the work requirement proposal!

  • Newswire : Obama to deliver 16th lecture in South Africa

    Obama and Mandela
    Obama and Mandela

    Apr. 23, 2018 (GIN) – Former president Barack Obama will deliver the annual Nelson Mandela memorial lecture at a 4,000-capacity arena in Johannesburg in July.

    Obama met with Mandela in 2005 and eulogized him at his death five years ago, saying “(Mandela) makes me want to be a better man.” The lecture marks 100 years since the birth of the anti-apartheid icon.

    Under the title “Renewing the Mandela Legacy & Promoting Active Citizenship in a Changing World,” Obama’s speech will focus on working across ideological lines and resisting oppression and inequality.

    Obama is likely to address growing intolerance in a world where extremist views are finding a mainstream platform in western countries including the United States, France and Germany.

    Sello Hatang, head of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said the foundation had been seeking someone with “an Africa heritage” to deliver an address that will “deal with issues of democracy” facing the world today. “We thought who can (better) represent the legacy of Madiba than the person who we believe took the baton when he became president of his own country,” Hatang said.

    Hatang told the AFP news service that Mandela was “elated” when Obama was elected in 2008 “because he saw it as a moment in American history”.

    Benjamin J. Rhodes, a former speechwriter for Mr. Obama who still advises him, said the former leader views this as his most important speech since leaving the White House, one that will set the tone for his post-presidency. Mandela was a beacon to Mr. Obama, inspiring what he once said was his first “act of political activism” — a speech he gave as a student at Occidental College for the anti-apartheid movement.

    “Where the current administration seems to have forgotten about Africa (or just insulting it), Obama is still looking to the continent as a key future player,” observed the online news site Quartz. He will also use his visit to South Africa to launch his new program, Obama Foundation Leaders: Africa.

    The five-day program will begin after the lecture and include 200 young Africans, the Obama Foundation said. Obama’s lecture will be at the Ellis Park Arena on July 17, a day before Mandela’s birthday.

  • Eutaw City Council meeting aborted before conducting any business

    The Eutaw City Council attempted a meeting on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, but the meeting was aborted shortly after it was opened. Prior to the council getting into its business, Councilman LaJeffery Carpenter requested to place additional items on the agenda. He made reference to a list of items he said he brought to the Mayor the previous week. Mayor Raymond Steele responded that Carpenter’s list was out of order. “I have asked council members to come in to talk with me about their concerns and suggestions and Councilman Carpenter did not do that,” Steele said.
    In his comments, Steele explained that most of the items on Carpenter’s list are administrative concerns. Carpenter responded that these are concerns that the Mayor refuses to address administratively. Councilman Carpenter moved to amend the agenda and have his list added. Councilperson Sheila Smith offered the second and the motion passed.
    Councilman Joe L. Powell asked the Mayor to state where on the agenda the added items would be placed. Mayor Steele responded that he would proceed with the original agenda and the council could then deal with the other items as they saw fit. Powell repeated his request of where the added items would be placed on the agenda and Mayor Steele repeated his same response. “ This city council just does not want to work with me,” Steele stated.
    According to Councilman Powell, “ When a council members asked to have something placed on the agenda it should be put on the agenda.”
    Councilperson Smith rose with the response that “Communicating and working together is a two-way approach. Mayor, you have to make an effort as well to work with us.” Councilperson Smith apologized to the audience as she proceeded to walk out of the council meeting.
    Amidst the back-and-forth of some council members and the mayor, Councilperson LaTasha Johnson stated: “We cannot have this kind of conduct,” and moved to adjourn the meeting. There was a second and a vote and the council members and mayor rose to depart.
    Councilperson Johnson clarified that she wanted to close the meeting because it was becoming a waste of time. “ We started the meeting arguing and I felt that we were not going to accomplish anything. Arguing and arguing get us nowhere,” she said.
    No official business of the Eutaw City Council was conducted that evening.
    Councilpersons Johnson and Powell agree that the work sessions could help the council and mayor work better together and support scheduling those again.
    Some of the items Councilman Carpenter wants on agenda for the entire council to address include the following: All city owned vehicles should have municipal tags; Usage of city vehicles and/or equipment for personal use should be terminated; City personnel policy should be updated and changed; Charges on city credit card should be approved by the council; Council members should receive copies of employees timesheets; All employees must be paid out of payroll account; Only city employees, mayor and council should have access to City Hall; Specific pay raise increase for designated employees; Allow Greene County Ryder’s Club to use city park; Purchase council members shirts for municipal conference; Executive session for good name and character.

  • Commissioner Tennyson Smith thanks the community

    tsmith

    I would like to thank you for the overwhelming support and confidence in me as your commissioner for District two. I will continue making your priorities my priorities and in working with you, I hope to improve our county. Thank you for allowing me to serve for another term as your County Commissioner. It is a real privilege and pleasure to be able to represent your interest in such a remarkable county for another four years. Please feel free to contact me if I can help you in any way. 
    I will continue to work hard to improve District Two and Greene County while making your voice heard. Greene County is a wonderful place to live and bring up children. We will face serious challenges over the coming year that I am sure we will overcome.  I would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to get involved. A county such as Greene is only as vibrant as its residents make it. I have traveled throughout District 2 and listened to the concerns of the people from all walks of life and I share your concerns, common sense and values.
    It has been a pleasure to serve the residents of District Two and Greene County. It is gratifying to be a part of the county government and I would like to thank the residents of District 2 and Greene County for trusting in me to serve as your County Commissioner.
    Sincerely,
    Tennyson Smith
    Commissioner
    District Two

  • School board takes further steps to initiate Virtual Learning Program

    At its regular meeting held Monday, April 16, 2018, the Greene County Board of Education took further steps to initiated the Greene County Schools Virtual Learning Program. Ms. Rebecca Coleman was approved as Coordinator of the Virtual Learning Program which will begin as a pilot with individuals who have dropped out of school between 9th and 12th grades. It will also target students currently enrolled who are at risk for dropping out of school.
    The Virtual Learning Program is an online program and participants must have access to the internet, such as through the public library, public housing developments and other sites of public, private and non-profit entities. According to Superintendent James Carter, the system is currently accepting applications from interested individuals.
    For more information on the process, individuals may contact Dr. Carter, through his secretary Ms. Sara Hall, at the central office. A Greene County Virtual Learning Committee will also assist with the application process.
    In other business the board approved the following personnel items:
    Employment of Ms. Jacqueline Raby as school nurse for the Greene County School System;
    Employment of Ms. Rebecca Coleman as Coordinator of the Virtual School Program.
    Additional service contracts for Russell Rivers as assistant football coach, Greene County High School for 2018-2019 academic year (separate contract).
    The board approved the following administrative service items.
    * Negotiate with TCU and others to reimburse school board for replacement of high school gym floor.
    * Present counter offer to Town of Boligee for purchase of former Paramount Jr. High School plus designated acres.
    * Retain Attorney H. Lewis Gillis to prepare documents for sale of former Carver Middle School property.
    * Approved contract for engaging caterer for GCHS Prom.
    One instructional item was approved by the board.
    * School System will begin receiving applications for the Virtual School Program.

  • Newswire : With Winnie gone, ANC loses its grip

     

    Winnie Mandela.jpg
    Winnie Mandela

    Apr. 16, 2018 (GIN) – As Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was lovingly laid to rest with full state honors, her beloved country was being buffeted by published reports of a massive diversion of monies from the most vulnerable people, to whom she dedicated her life, to the wealthy.

    Among the victims of the apparent looting of government funds are Black farmers in the Eastern Cape. Reporters from the Saturday Dispatch found that promised lands were abandoned, unproductive and derelict.

    In Vrede, in the province of Free State, a dairy project meant for Black farmers was skimmed of $21 million in public funds. A family with close ties to former President Jacob Zuma took over the government-backed project.

    Prosecutors say only about 1 percent of the money invested by the province actually went into dairy farming. Leaked emails indicate that some of the money was sent to the United Arab Emirates and put into accounts registered to the Guptas, close friends of President Zuma. The money then made its way back to South Africa through a maze of bank transfers, according to spreadsheets, logs and an invoice in the email trove.

    The black farmers who were supposed to be beneficiaries of the project ended up receiving nothing — an outcome that, to many, symbolized the corruption that flourished under the ANC.

    In his state of the nation address, President Cyril Ramaphosa promised to resurrect the economy and create jobs, adding “This is the year in which we will turn the tide of corruption in our public institutions.”

    A onetime anti-apartheid labor leader, Mr. Ramaphosa went into business in the late 1990s and quickly became one of the richest men on the continent, with a fortune now estimated at $450 million.

    Perhaps the biggest unprosecuted crime in the country, however, is a multi-billion dollar arms deal that included advanced weaponry such as warships, fighter aircraft and new submarines to “counter military threats.”

    European arms dealers had long been preparing for this. With the extensive use of bribes – estimated at one billion dollars – they proceeded to sell weapons that the country did not need and could not afford.

    With the stepping down of Jacob Zuma and his immunity lifted, the former president must now face corruption charges over the $2.5 billion arms deal.

    Winnie Madikizela-Mandela had opposed the excessive spending on weapons.

  • Newswire : Kendrick Lamar wins the Pulitzer Prize for Music

    By Frederick H. Lowe, Northstar News Today
    Kendrick Lamar.jpg

    Kendrick Lamar

    Kendrick Lamar made history on Monday, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his 2017 Rap album “DAMN.” Lamar is the first non-jazz and non-classical musician to win the Pulitzer.
    The Pulitzer Committee called “DAMN” “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.” He is the first ‘rapper’ to win the prestigious award.
    He released the album August 14, 2017. Last year, “DAMN” was Billboard’s best-selling album. However, it lost out in the 2018 Grammy awards for album of the year to Bruno Mars’ “24 Karat Magic.”
    The 30-year-old Lamar was born in Compton, California to parents who moved to California from Chicago. He is worth an estimated $18 million, according to his website.