I am Kashaya Cockrell and I am a candidate for Re-Election to the Greene County Board of Education District # 2 in the Democratic Primary Election scheduled for May 24, 2022. As you are aware, the coronavirus has caused disruptions in our school system. When the numbers rose in positive tests in the schools and in the community, we had to offer the academic program virtually, but through “God’s Grace” we’ve made it thus far, with no child lost due to this unforeseen pandemic. I am devastated that we have lost staff members. I am still praying for their families. We have to stand together and continue to pray. God will help us to move forward. We are taking all protocols available in keeping everyone safe. I am dedicated to working to provide the best educational preparation for our students. I have children in the Greene County School System, and as I work for their progress, I work for the progress of all children in the system. I am asking you to go to the polls on May 24, 2022 and vote for me Kashaya Cockrell District #2 Greene County Board of Education. I will love to continue to serve you and to be a voice for our children. Please be safe. Thank You.
By Stacy M. Brown,NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
For several years Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has picked up the mantle to lead efforts to create a commission to study reparations for African Americans, and now the Democrat from Texas and others believe they finally have the votes for passage in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“This has been a 30-plus year journey,” Congresswoman Jackson Lee declared. “We had to take a different approach. We had to go one by one to members explaining this does not generate a check.”
Congresswoman Jackson Lee said this week that there’s now enough votes in the House for passage of the historic piece of legislation.
If the measure passes and ultimately becomes law, it will create a commission that would hold hearings with testimony from those who support and oppose the idea.
“Reparations is about repair and when you repair the damage that has been done, you do so much to move a society forward. This commission can be a healing process. Telling the truth can heal America,” she said.
If the Senate doesn’t join the House in passing the bill, the congresswoman said she and others would push President Biden to sign an executive order to create the commission. The White House didn’t immediately respond.
Congresswoman Jackson Lee added that there has never been another time in which she has garnered so much support and momentum for H.R. 40, the so-called reparations legislation that focuses on truth, racial healing, and transformation.
Congresswoman Jackson Lee recently reflected on the long-overdue redress to African descendants of slaves. She also praised the resiliency of Black Americans. “I want to give credit to the giants that were and are Black Americans. They are giants,” Congresswoman Jackson Lee declared.
“I want to give credit to the everyday mom and dad who get up every day and get to work and provide for their family. I’m going to give those who came up on the farms or stayed on the farm and raised nine and ten and twelve children,” she reflected.
The Congresswoman continued, “I want to give them the honor that they deserve, and that is to recognize the insurmountable odds that some of them had and how they continue to plant seeds of respect and dignity in their children.
“Has anyone addressed the question of slavery and its comprehensive impact on Black Americans in this country? This is what H.R. 40 will do.” While the bill doesn’t place a monetary value on reparations, it does focus on truth, racial healing, and transformation. The bill would fund a commission to study and develop proposals for providing reparations to African Americans.
The commission’s mission includes identifying the role of federal and state governments in supporting the institution of slavery, forms of discrimination in public and private sectors against freed slaves and their descendants, and lingering adverse effects of slavery on living African Americans and society.
Congresswoman Jackson Lee, who sits on numerous House committees, including the Judiciary, Budget, and Homeland Security, has made the reparations legislation her top priority during the 117th Congress.
“I think if people begin to associate this legislation with what happened to the descendants of enslaved Africans as a human rights violation, the sordid past that violated the human rights of all of us who are descendants of enslaved Africans, I think that we can find common ground to pass this legislation,” Congresswoman Jackson Lee pronounced.
“Can anyone imagine that we’ve never gotten a simple, effective, deeply-embedded, and well-respected apology?”
The Congresswoman is further encouraged by the support of the most co-sponsors (166) in the bill’s history, which dates back decades to former Democratic Rep. John Conyers Jr., of Michigan, who first introduced the legislation in 1989. In an earlier NNPA interview, White House Senior Advisor to President Biden and Director of the Office of Public Engagement Cedric Richmond sounded an urgent tone about the administration’s commitment to ensure racial justice, accessibility, and equity concerning Black America.
Richmond told the Black Press that the administration supports Congresswoman Jackson Lee’s H.R. 40.“We do support a commission and H.R. 40; we know we can’t wait. We have to start acting now,” Richmond declared. “We don’t need a study to tell us that systemic racism is out there. We don’t need a study to tell us that redlining in Black communities has been treated a lot differently.”
Richmond continued:“We don’t think the Black community should have to wait on a study, we need to deal with systemic racism right now and, yes, we support the commission, but it’s not going to stop us from acting right now.”
Judge Katanji Brown Jackson introduced at the White House, flanked by President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris
By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Contributor
For the first time in American history, a Black woman has been nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. By selecting Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Feb. 25, President Joe Biden completed his pledge to select a Black woman for the court for the first time in history. A Black woman has never served on the U.S. Supreme Court since it was created in 1789 — over 232 years ago. Since then, only two other Black persons have served on the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall, who was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967, and Clarence Thomas, who was appointed by President George H. W. Bush in 1991 amid significant controversy. In over two centuries, 114 justices have served on the Supreme Court and 108 of them have been white men. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That federal court is seen as a feeder for nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Miami, Florida. She attended Harvard University for college and law school and was the editor of the Harvard Law Review. She began her legal career as a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer. In what may have been a clue that Judge Jackson would be nominated, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia broke with tradition on Feb. 24 and issued an opinion on a Thursday. That scheduling change was noted by the media since the court typically only issues opinions on Tuesdays and Fridays. Only one other woman of color has served on the Supreme Court, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor of New York, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009. Three other women have served on the Supreme Court: Sandra Day O’Connor, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981; Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993; Associate Justice Elena Kagan, who was appointed by President Obama in 2010; and Associate Justice Amy Barrett who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020. In 1958, just 3 percent of law school students were women. In 2020, women made up 54 percent of law students in the United States. The 51-year-old District native, who shares two children with her husband Patrick Jackson, worked in civil and criminal appellate litigation in both state and federal courts for Morrison & Foerster LLP. Judge Brown Jackson also served as an assistant federal public defender in the appeals division of the Office of the Public Defender in D.C. She will be the first public defender to serve on the Supreme Court. She will also be the first defense attorney since Thurgood Marshall to serve on the high court. Though the selection represents a historic moment in American history, the court will maintain its 6-3 conservative edge as it tackles high-profile and controversial cases, including gun rights, religious liberty, and abortion. “Judge Katanji Brown Jackson will fight for African Americans and other communities of color. We haven’t had this on the Supreme Court since Justice Thurgood Marshall,” said National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. With a 50-50 Senate, Democrats do not need Republican help to confirm Judge Jackson. Democrats can accomplish the historic confirmation with their 50 votes and Vice President Harris breaking a deadlock. Three Republican senators – Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Susan Collins of Maine – supported Judge Jackson when the jurist earned confirmation to the appellate court.
TOPSHOT – Vice President-elect Kamala Harris delivers remarks in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 7, 2020, after being declared the winners of the presidential election. (Photo by Andrew Harnik / POOL / AFP) (Photo by ANDREW HARNIK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Cabinet Secretaries to Join Her in Pilgrimage to Selma
Selma, AL – Vice President Kamala Harris is confirmed to speak in Selma at the Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge this Sunday afternoon, March 6th. Harris is the first woman elected Vice President, the first African American elected Vice President, and the first Asian American elected Vice President. Vice President Harris has been to Selma in the past as a U.S. Senator and was the keynote speaker at the 2018 Martin & Coretta King Unity Breakfast at Wallace Community College Selma.
“When U.S. Senator Harris spoke at the Martin & Coretta King Unity Breakfast in 2018, I introduced her and predicted she would be our first woman President. She is our first woman Vice President,” said Hank Sanders, Co-Founder of the Bridge Crossing Jubilee and Co-Founder and Board Member of the Selma to Montgomery March Foundation.
Harris, who is the Biden Administration’s lead on voting rights, will be speaking during the 57th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the Selma to Montgomery March, which led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. “These are critical times for democracy in these United States. This is a critical year because of the extensive attacks on the right to vote throughout the country. This year is more important for voting rights than any previous year since 1965,” said Sanders.
Vice President Harris will be joined by members of President Joe Biden’s cabinet, including Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, and Deputy Secretary of Veteran Affairs Donald Remy.
Following her speech, the Vice President will march across the Bridge with Foot Soldiers from 1965’s Bloody Sunday and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March as well as national Civil Rights and Voting Rights leaders. These events are part of the Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee, which is the largest annual civil rights/voting rights gathering in the nation and possibly the world. Tens of thousands attend every year with more than 100,000 attending on one Bloody Sunday. It is a pilgrimage for so many from throughout the nation and across the world.
National leaders attending this year’s Jubilee and Martin & Coretta King Unity Breakfast will also be participating in the full Selma to Montgomery March to conclude with an 11:00 a.m. rally at the Alabama Capitol on Friday, March 11th. These leaders are each taking a day of the March and include:
▪ SCLC President and CEO Dr. Charles Steele (Sunday)
▪ Repairers of the Breach President and Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign Bishop William Barber and Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis (Monday)
▪ Rainbow PUSH Coalition Founder and President Rev. Jesse Jackson (Monday)
▪ The Transformative Justice Coalition Founder and President Barbara Arnwine, Esq. (Monday)
▪ National Action Network Founder and President Rev. Al Sharpton (Tuesday)
▪ Black Voters Matter Co-Founders LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright (Wednesday)
▪ National AFL-CIO President Liz Schuler and AFSCME President Lee Saunders (Thursday)
▪ The NAACP Legal Defense Fund President and Director-Counsel Sherilynn Ifill (Friday)
▪ President and CEO of National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and Convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable Melanie Campbell (Friday)
Other organizations from across the country will be joining these groups during part or all of the 2022 Selma-to-Montgomery March. The theme of the 2022 Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee is “Return to the Bridge! Fight for the Vote!” and the theme of the 2022 Selma to Montgomery March is “Fight for the Vote!”
