Greene County Democrat

Category: Community

  • African Union blasts Trump rule barring African muslim immigrants

    african-union-leader

    Outgoing Commissioner Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of the African Union

       Jan. 30, 2017 (GIN) – An outraged African Union recalled the kidnapping of Black Africans as it considered the controversial new US anti-immigrant rules. After forcibly bringing Africans to the U.S. as slave labor, noted the AU, Washington now slams the door on Muslim immigrants entering the U.S.

    “It is clear that globally we are entering very difficult times,” cautioned outgoing AU Commissioner Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, speaking at a recent two-day summit in Addis Ababa of the 53 member states.

    “The very country to which many of our people were taken as slaves during the transatlantic slave trade has now decided to ban refugees from some of our countries.”

    Just before the weekend, President Donald Trump suspended all US refugee programs and banned immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, three of which are AU members.

    The executive order signed by Mr. Trump specifically bars Libyans, Somalians and Sudanese from travelling to the US. It also blocks visas for citizens from four Middle Eastern countries – Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran.

    All US refugee programs are frozen for 120 days, and the flow of Syrian refugees to America is ended indefinitely.

    The new UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, speaking at the AU’s summit in Ethiopia, commended African countries for opening their borders to refugees and people fleeing violence while in other parts of the world, including the developed West, they are closing borders and building walls.

    He praised African nations for being among the world’s largest and most generous hosts of refugees.

    AU Summit proceedings began with the swift election of Chadian Foreign Minister Moussa Faki Mahamat, 56, as the new chairperson of the AU Commission, beating four other candidates.

    Faki won in a final battle against his Kenyan counterpart Amina Mohamed after seven rounds of voting. The Kenyan government praised Ms. Mohamed, once the odds-on favorite, for waging a “valiant race”.  Faki takes on the role as his country’s President Idriss Deby Itno hands over the rotating presidency of the AU to Guinea’s Alpha Conde.

    A former prime minister, Faki has been at the forefront of the fight against Islamists in Nigeria, Mali and the Sahel and has promised “development and security” will top his agenda as chief of the 54-member continental bloc.     Faki said he dreams of an Africa where the “sound of guns will be drowned out by cultural songs and rumbling factories” and pledged to streamline the bureaucratic AU during his four-year term in office.

     

  • Rev. William Barber tells Black press: “Bowing down is not an option

    By Freddie Allen (Managing Editor, NNPA Newswire)

    revbarber1_mwc_fallen_web120.jpgRev. William Barber

                Reverend William Barber, the president of the North Carolina state chapter of the NAACP and leader of the Moral Mondays movement, delivered a rousing keynote address to open the 2017 Mid-Winter Conference of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA).

    The theme of the conference was “Strengthening Black-owned Newspapers through Training, Innovation and Technology.” The NNPA partnered with General Motors, Chevrolet, Ford Motor Company, Reynolds American Inc. (RAI), and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to host the conference; Volkswagen, Ascension, Coca-Cola, and the American Association for Cancer Research supported the event as sponsors.

    During his speech titled, “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?” Barber tackled voter suppression in the aftermath of Shelby v. Holder, White evangelicalism and the current political environment in the age of “alternative facts.” Noting that President Woodrow Wilson played the White supremacist propaganda film “Birth of a Nation” in the Oval office in 1911, Barber said that Trump’s ascension and election is not an anomaly in American history.

    “This is not the first time that White supremacy has occupied The White House. This is not the first time that America has elected a racist egomaniac,” said Barber, reminding the audience that President Wilson, a former college president, played “Birth” to signal that Reconstruction was over. “Education doesn’t necessarily get racism out of you.” To a chorus of “Amens,” Barber said that the one thing that we have to first decide to do in this moment is that bowing down is not an option.

    Recognizing that he was addressing a room full of journalists and publishers, Barber pitched ideas for a number of articles and commentaries. “Somebody has to unpack ‘so-called’ White evangelicalism that is illogical malpractice and heresy,” said Barber. “We’ve got to have some papers that write and do some investigative work to connect the money to White evangelicalism to the policies of extremism and racism, because some of our own folk are sending money to some of these TV White evangelicals.”

    Barber said that the loss of the full protections of the Voting Rights Act and voter suppression were two of the most underreported stories during the last election cycle. “Long before any Russian hack, the American electoral process was hacked by systemic racism and fear,” said Barber. “The Southern Strategy is alive and well.”

    Barber acknowledged that civil rights leaders and Democrats could have voiced louder criticism about the lack of work done in the U.S. Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act. “Democrats talked more about David Dukes than they did about voter suppression and the Voting Rights Act being dismantled,” said Barber. He said that they were 868 fewer voting places across the nation; those closures disproportionately affected Black voters.

    “Voter suppression has been proven, voter fraud has been disproven. The lie about voter fraud is a distraction from the truth about voter suppression, because voter suppression is about thievery. You scratch a liar, you’ll find a thief,” said Barber. “Trump won because of the voter suppression that went on in the Black community.”

    After delivering a brief history of fusion politics, a time when poor Whites and Blacks worked together to achieve political power in the South following the Civil War, Barber questioned why so many poor, White people today cast votes for lawmakers that oppose establishing living wage standards, better healthcare and more educational opportunities for low-income families.

    The North Carolina pastor noted that there are 18.9 poor White people in the United States, about eight million more than the number of poor Black people, though Black people experience poverty at higher rates than Whites.

    Barber said that exploring the real reasons why so many poor Whites vote against their own self-interest, would make for a great investigative report.

    Returning to the theme that today’s political environment in America is nothing new, Barber told the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who he described as “three millennials from the Bible days,” that liked to write and Nebuchadnezzar, “a maniacal egomaniac who loved to tweet out his own news,” loved to build towers and invited people to come to his towers to bow down.

    When Nebuchadnezzar commanded that everyone bow down to his image and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused, the king threatened to throw them into the furnace. “He didn’t know they already had a fire. They came from people who had been through the fire,” said Barber. “They remembered how the lord had dealt with pharaoh. They remembered how David dealt with Goliath.” Barber said that the three young leaders had a fire in them, because they sung the songs of their ancestors.

    “Can we just make a decision, Black folks? Can we just make a decision, publishers? Can we just make a decision, civil rights…that bowing down is not an option?” Barber implored. “I gotta suspicion that it’s going be some fiery times. I gotta suspicion that it’s gonna get hot. I gotta suspicion that Nebuchadnezzar is gonna do some rough stuff.”

    Barber implored the publishers, journalists and activists in the room to go into the proverbial fire standing up, because help won’t come, if you go in the fire bowing down. “If you go in the fire standing up, God can transform the fire and the same fire that was meant to destroy you, can become a fire of deliverance!” Barber shouted.

    The crowd roared, delivering Barber a standing ovation. The Moral Mondays leader continued: “Bowing down is not an option! Standing down is not an option! Looking down is not an option! Breaking down is not an option! We’ve been through worse before.” Barber exclaimed. “We’ve been through slavery. We’ve been through Jim Crow. We’ve been through the Trail of Tears and we’re gonna stand up in this moment!”

    The next day at the conference, Barber committed to writing a regular guest column for the NNPA Newswire that will be distributed throughout the NNPA’s network of 211 Black-owned media properties and will reach an estimated 20 million readers in print and online.

    “Somebody has to write from the perspective of crisis, even if the crisis doesn’t end immediately,” Barber explained. “Somebody has to make sure that there is a witness that [the Black Press] didn’t go along with it. So we have to do that.”

  • Emmett Till’s accuser admits it was all a lie

    emmett-till

    By Stacy M. Brown (The Washington Informer/NNPA Member)

    More than six decades after the horrific, racially-motivated murder of Emmett Till, the White woman who accused the Chicago teenager of verbally and physically accosting her in Money, Miss., in 1955, has admitted she lied, according to a new book.

    Till had allegedly whistled at and groped Carolyn Bryant, a 21-year-old White woman, while at a country store in the small town.

    After the encounter, Roy Bryant, Carolyn’s husband, and J.W. Milam tracked young Emmett down, kidnapped him, tortured him, shot him, and then tied his battered body to a cotton gin fan using barbed wire and dumped him in the muddy Tallahatchie River. Later, the two men were acquitted of the murder by an all-White, all-male jury after an hour’s deliberation. Till’s brutal killing and photos of his open casket at his funeral helped spark the Civil Rights Movement.

    During the trial, Carolyn Bryant testified that Emmett, who was 14, had made physical and verbal advances toward her, a sensational claim that increased tensions surrounding the case. She testified that Emmett had grabbed and threatened her inside the store – and that he had used an “unprintable” word when he told her he had been intimate “with White women before.”

    But according to a 2007 interview, newly revealed in the book, “The Blood of Emmett Till,” Carolyn Bryant admits that it never happened.

    “That part’s not true,” she told writer Timothy Tyson, according to “Vanity Fair,” though she claimed she could not recall what happened the rest of the evening at her husband’s country store, where Emmett stopped by briefly on Aug. 24, 1955, to buy two cents worth of gum.

    Till was shot in the head and was found with barbed wire wrapped around his neck; one of his eyes was gouged out. “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” she is quoted as saying. Bryant’s testimony was out of the earshot of the jury, but helped to frame the case publicly.

    “I was just scared to death,” she said in court. The two killers later admitted their guilt, after their acquittals.

    Emmett Till’s murder became the flashpoint in the American Civil Rights Movement. Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmett’s mother, had even insisted on an open casket at his funeral, leading to photographs of his battered corpse being spread across the country, which helped focus public attention on what was happening in the heart of the country.

    In 2004, the FBI reopened the case to see if any accomplices could be hauled to court, but a grand jury decided three years later that there was insufficient evidence to pursue charges.

    The young Carolyn Bryant went into hiding after the murder trial — divorcing and marrying twice more — and remained mum on the case until she gave the interview with Tyson, the “New York Post” reported.

    Bryant is now known as Carolyn Bryant Donham. Donham told Tyson that she “felt tender sorrow” for Emmett’s mother, who died in 2003, but Tyson doesn’t mention if Donham expressed guilt or apologized.

    Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks has said she thought about Emmett when she refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., a few months after his death.

    The shocking crime was memorialized in the arts and literature; in Nobel laureate Toni Morrison’s play “Dreaming Emmett,” a Langston Hughes poem, and a song by Bob Dylan.

    The whereabouts of the now-82-year-old Donham are unknown.

    The Washington Informer is a member publication of the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Learn more about becoming a member at http://www.nnpa.org.

  • NAACP president Brooks, 10 more activists, arrested again in sit-in outside Sessions’ office in Mobile

    By: Melanie Eversley, USA Today

    Cornell Brooks and Jeff Sessions

     

    NAACP president and CEO Cornell Williams Brooks and 10 other activists spent about three hours in jail Monday after staging a repeat sit-in outside of the Mobile, Ala., office of U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Republican who is President Trump’s pick for attorney general.

    The group, charged with criminal trespass, is due back in court in Mobile on March 6, Brooks told USA TODAY. Monday’s protest came about four weeks after Brooks and other NAACP officials staged a similar sit-in at Sessions’ office in an attempt to compel the senator to remove himself from the attorney general nomination process. The civil rights organization opposes the conservative Republican for his opposition to the Voting Rights Act and for other stances that the NAACP believes work against its human rights mission.

    “I think it’s clear that this administration is picking a fight with the American citizenry and the citizenry is making it clear that we’re not backing down; we’re not relenting,” Brooks said.

    Brooks and five other NAACP officials were to appear in court in Mobile on misdemeanor criminal trespass charges for the Jan. 3 sit-in outside of Sessions’ office. But upon learning that the prosecutor did not want to proceed, they went back to Sessions’ office to protest again. Staffers closed the office before they arrived, Brooks said..

    The group wanted to head back to Sessions’ office as a matter of taking responsibility for their actions, the NAACP president said. “In the same way that the Senate has a responsibility (to carry out the confirmation process) … we have a responsibility to make our voices heard through civil disobedience,” he said. “We’ve already made phone calls; we’re writing letters. That which is left to us is breaking the law and going to jail.”

    Sessions spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores acknowledged that the charges were dropped on Sunday. The building manager attempted to block the group on Monday from entering but they were able to enter the building anyway, sitting down in front of the entrance to Sessions’ office.

    About one hour into the sit-in , Mobile police arrested Brooks and 10 others, packed the NAACP officials and local protesters into a police van and took them to the police station for booking, said Quincy Bates, an NAACP spokesman.

    Sessions’ Mobile office was closed Monday, Isgur Flores said. At about 4:30 p.m. ET, the group had just been booked and was being taken to the Mobile city jail, police department spokeswoman Charlette Solis said. They were released about three hours later, Brooks said.

    Isgur Flores responded via e-mail, saying, “We look forward to Senator Sessions nomination being voted out of committee tomorrow and receiving bipartisan support on the floor later this week.” In the past, Isgur Flores has pointed out that Sessions has endorsements and support from black state officials in Alabama.

    Sessions has made statements that hint he might rollback advances the Obama administration has made against alleged police misconduct, that he believes the Ku Klux Klan is “OK,” and that he supports broad immigration reform, according to civil rights advocates.

     

  • Superintendent Carter gives overview of school improvement plan

    Since his tenure as Superintendent of Greene County Schools, Dr. James H. Carter, Sr. has focused on creating a culture of caring and commitment which results in academic and career achievement and readiness for all students. Although the Alabama State Department of Education has recently listed two of Greene County’s schools on the failing schools list, this was not the driving force for Dr. Carter’s plan of initiating different and more intense approaches for reaching student achievement goals.
    According to Superintendent Carter, “ Noting the need to advance academically and remove Robert Brown Middle School and Greene County High from the failing schools list, each school has created an instructional plan of action that provides solutions necessary to enhance progress on the summative assessments provided by the Alabama State Department of Education.
    “The implementation of these plans of action will be monitored and assessed periodically for the purpose of improving student achievement. Now, the expectation is that teachers will formulate professional learning communities and incorporate strategies that engage all students.
    Further, students should receive more open-ended questions that encourage critical thinking, exposure to various types of reading passages, more math problem-solving questions, experiments in STEM and science, and hands-on learning experiences in all subject areas,” he stated.
    Superintendent explained that new initiatives often take time to grow the commitment and buy-in of all the components, “ Every school has its own narrative. Many factors contribute to the overall narrative such as stakeholders, students and teachers’ engagement, academic data, the trends and issues impacting the school and the kinds of programs and services that each school implements to support student learning. These variables indicated embody the school’s culture, but also exemplify how well the professional learning community works together,” he said.
    Dr. Carter explained that his role is to assist with enhancing the school system’s overall academic culture. “I am aware that this mission cannot be an individual stance. I am continuously promoting professional development and collaboration among parents, students, leaders and educators. Even now, I am organizing safe parameters to merge communities and organizations, collect data, formulate action steps, enhance trust, and stimulate conversations,” he said.

  • Questions remain on Jeff Sessions’ role in prosecuting Michael Donald’s Klan lynching in Mobile in the 1980’s

    L to R: Michael Donald and Jeff Sessions

    News Analysis by: Zack Carter and John Zippert

    President Donald Trump has nominated his early supporter, Alabama U. S. Senator, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, for the position of Attorney General of the United States.
    Questions remain about Jeff Sessions position on civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights, hate crimes, criminal justice and many other issues that will face Sessions if he his confirmed as the nation’s chief prosecutor and law enforcement official.
    The Democrat previously published in our December 28, 2016 issue an extensive statement by the Alabama New South Coalition and the SOS Movement for Justice and Democracy in opposition to Sessions nomination (see http://www.greenecodemocrat). This statement concentrates on Sessions role in the selective and unsuccessful prosecution of the “Marion Three” in 1985/86 as the beginning of a national Republican effort of voter suppression that continues to this day.
    We have recently seen paid TV ads advocating the confirmation of Sessions as U. S. Attorney General in which he proclaims himself, “a champion of civil rights and an advocate of criminal justice”.
    In this story, we look back at Sessions’ role as U. S. Attorney for the Southern District, based in Mobile, in the notorious case of the Klan lynching of Michael Donald in Mobile from 1981 to 1989.

    The lynching of Michael Donald – March 20, 1981

    On March 20, 1981, Michael Donald, a 19 yr. old African American trade school student was found hanging from a small ornamental “popcorn” tree on an old residential street, across the street from where several Klansmen lived. Michael’s body was crumpled from beatings and his neck slashed. The brutally slayed young man was hanging hideously about a mile from Mobile’s City Hall and the Courthouse – where a KKK cross had been burned on the lawn the same night. The same courthouse where the recent trial of an African American, Josephus Anderson, ended in a hung jury – he was on trial for killing a white policeman, and claimed it was in self-defense.
    Over time, it was established that four Klan members participated in the killing of Michael Donald. They were Bennie Jack Hayes, a local Klan leader, his son Henry Hays (age 22 at the time of the lynching), James Knowles (age 17) and Frank L. Cox (age 25) Hayes son-in-law, who supplied the gun and the rope for the crime.
    From the Court records, Knowles confessed to the crime and according to the record:

    “… Henry Hays and Knowles got a rope, which they tied into a hangman’s noose, and a gun from fellow Klansmen. [Knowles testified it was Frank Cox]. The two then set out to look for a black man. They randomly found Michael Donald, pulled alongside him in their car, and asked for directions. They forced him into the car at gunpoint. Knowles made Donald empty his pockets; Knowles’s trial testimony indicates he wanted to be sure the victim was unarmed.”
    Hays found a desolate area and parked; all three men got out of the car. Facing Hays and Knowles (who was holding the gun), Donald jumped Knowles in an attempt to escape. After a struggle, Hays and Knowles forced Donald to the ground. Hays retrieved the noose, and the two of them put it around Donald’s neck. Hays dragged Donald while Knowles beat him with a tree limb; and when Hays’s hands began to hurt, they switched. When Donald collapsed, the two men dragged him, face first, across the ground. Autopsy reports showed Donald probably died from asphyxiation during this time. Nevertheless, Henry Hays slashed Donald’s throat. Donald’s body was found later that morning, hanging from a tree on Herndon Avenue.” (http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-11th-circuit/1304129.html)”

    According to testimony by Assistant U. S. Attorney, Thomas Figures, an African-American attorney, who was working in Sessions office, made to the Senate Judiciary Committee in its 1986 hearing on Sessions nomination to become a Federal District Judge, Figures says that Sessions was reluctant to take up the Michael Donald lynching case.
    Based on pressure from Michael Donald’s family, their attorney, State Senator Michael Figures (Thomas Figure’s brother), work by FBI investigators and local law enforcement, Sessions changed his mind. Sessions says he then pushed for Henry Hayes and James Knowles to be tried in state courts, where they could receive the death penalty, because at that time there were no provisions for the death penalty in Federal cases.
    The testimony of Thomas Figures and four other Assistant U. S. Attorneys was instrumental in causing the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986 to refuse to confirm Sessions for a Federal judgeship.
    Figures testified to examples of his former boss’s alleged racial insensitivity before the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying Sessions had called him a “boy” on several occasions and had once told him that “he believed the NAACP, the SCLC, Operation PUSH, and the National Council of Churches were all un-American organizations teaching anti-American values.” On one occasion, when Figures upbraided Sessions’ secretary over what he felt was an inappropriate personal comment she made to him, he said Sessions had summoned him to his office and admonished him to “be careful what you say to white folks.”
    In their investigation of the Michael Donald case, local law enforcement found that the three men Knowles, Hays and Cox were regular users of marijuana. This prompted Sessions classic and often repeated statement, “ I used to respect the Klan, until I found out that many of them smoked pot.” An FBI agent confirmed hearing Session’s remark as well, albeit the FBI agent felt it was ‘just parlor humor’. But we all know that jokes, especially at the expense of others, usually reveal what is in a person’s heart!
    In 1983, James Knowles was sentenced by a local Mobile Court to 99 years in state prison; Henry Hays was sentenced to death for murdering Michael Donald. After routine appeals, Henry Hays was the first white person executed in Alabama for murdering a Black person.

    What happened to Bennie J. Hays and Frank Cox?
    There were four people involved in the Michael Donald lynching. We have accounted for two, what happened to the other two – Cox and Bennie Hays. And what was Jeff Sessions role in their prosecution?
    Sessions, who was reluctant to handle the case, turned the prosecutions over to Mobile D. A. Chris Galanos for local action. In 1985, Galanos indicted the two – Bennie Hays and Frank Cox for “conspiracy to commit murder”. When the case went to trial Mobile Circuit Judge Zoghby had to dismiss the case because conspiracy has a three-year statute of limitations and the case was filed after three years had passed. Bennie Hays died during the trial and Cox walked free.
    Sessions has never been asked why he didn’t pay closer attention and supervision to the case and allowed the local D. A. Galanos to seek an indictment for conspiracy after the time had expired. Was this action deliberate on Sessions part? Did he allow the indictment on a lesser charge when he knew the statute of limitations had run? Does this call into question his sensitivity and skills as a prosecutor? What will this mean on other critical cases if he is confirmed as Attorney General?
    Meanwhile Attorney Michael Figures assisted by the Southern Poverty Law Center brought a civil lawsuit against the Klan on behalf of Michael Donald’s mother. In 1987, they won a million dollar judgment against the United Klans of America and forced them to sell their office in Tuscaloosa with the proceeds going to the Donald family. The civil case also brought out more evidence against the perpetrators.
    In 1989, Frank Cox was found guilty of murdering Michael Donald and sentenced to 99 years in state prison. Cox was released after only 11 years in 2000. Knowles was released in 2010 after 25 years in prison. What role did Jeff Sessions play in the early release of Frank Cox, who supplied the gun and the rope for Michael Donald’s lynching, has he ever been asked?
    In addition to Jeff Sessions insensitivity on the murder of Michael Donald, we have many other instances where he showed little concern for the conditions of Black and poor people.
    Jeff Sessions was the only Gulf Coast Senator to vote against Senator Richard Shelby’s bill for supplementary assistance to victims of Hurricane Katrina.
    Paul Nelson, a 4th generation fisher from Alabama’s Gulf Coast and commended by a Mobile County’s administrator for for his key role in getting 301 homes rebuilt with Katrina CDBG funds said: “Senator Jeff Sessions did nothing for the people he represents who were devastated by Katrina! So how can he be trusted to represent justice for all in our courtrooms.”

    Zack Carter is a community organizer who helped bring national attention to unjust Katrina and BP recovery policies.
    He was trade union activist in Mobile during the 1980’s and advocated for Labor to speak out against the Klan lynching of Michael Donald.. John Zippert is Co-Publisher of the Greene County Democrat.

  • Same police officers that she fired, that were rehired, involved in case Hattie Edwards, former Eutaw Mayor, arrested for groundless charges

    hattie-edwards

    Former Eutaw Mayor Hattie Barnette Edwards was arrested, charged and arraigned by the city on Monday, January 23, 2017. Mayor Edwards is charged with Obstruction of Government Operations and Disorderly Conduct. The charges stemmed allegedly from separates incidents which occurred the day of the Eutaw Mayoral run-off election, October 4, 2017 and May 13, 2016.
    Reportedly, on Oct. 4, the local police were questioning an individual (s) in the Branch Heights community when Mayor Edwards arrived on the scene. The police asked her to remove herself from the scene and Edwards asserted that as Mayor she had the authority to inquire into the situation.
    On May 13 of 2016, Officer Clayton attempted to arrest a citizen in Eutaw on a warrant which had already been executed. Mayor Edwards brought this to the attention of the Chief of Police and the arrest was thwarted. Reportedly, this also relates to Edwards ‘Obstruction of Government Operations.’
    Approximately, one week following the Oct. 4 incident, Mayor Edwards dismissed three Eutaw police officers, Robert Clayton, Lonnie Glynn and Rodriquez Jones for insubordination and lack of respect for the Office of the Mayor. All three were subsequently rehired by Mayor Raymond Steele when he took office in November.
    Mayor Edwards reported that Clayton approached her after his dismissal in October and made what she considered to be threatening statements. She subsequently file charges against Clayton. No reports have been issued indicating his arrest.
    On December 19, 2016, Eutaw police officer Robert Clayton filed a complaint against Edwards and secured a warrant from the City Magistrate for her arrest.
    Edwards stated that she was out of town when the warrant was issued and upon her return, she went to city hall to ‘turn herself in’. According to Edwards she was immediately taken into custody, transported to the county jail, processed, placed in an orange prison jumpsuit and jailed. “I was not allowed to sign my own bond, nor was my aunt and other acquaintances allowed to post a property bond. My aunt had to secure cash to pay my bond of $185,” she stated. Edwards explained, that is not the usual procedures followed by the city. A person arrested by Eutaw police, with similar charges, is usually processed at city hall and allowed to sign his/her own bond.
    Edwards was also directed to appear in Municipal Court at 5:00 p.m. on the same day as her arrest. Shortly before the Court was to begin, a group of community persons were denied entrance to City Hall. Eutaw police officers who blocked the entrance stated that only persons on the docket could enter the building, but they allowed other media personnel to enter. It was apparent they were trying to keep out supporters of Hattie Edwards. On the insistence of local persons that this was a public facility and the public should not be kept out, the officers finally relented and allowed the community to enter Eutaw City Hall.
    Eutaw City Judge William Nick Underwood then continued Edwards’ case until Monday, March, 27, 2017. According to Edwards no apparent reason was given for this delay.
    Edwards also claims that she was never allowed to have a copy of the detailed complaints against her.
    Prior to press time, several attempts were made by the Democrat staff to contact Eutaw Mayor Raymond Steele who could hopefully provide clarity regarding these seemingly groundless charges brought against Hattie Edwards.

     

  • John Gore, lawyer who defended racial gerrymandering picked to head DOJ Civil Rights Division

     

    By: Lee Fang, The Intercept

    John Gore who has worked to defend laws that critics say are designed to weaken the voting rights of African-Americans and other minorities, was selected by President Donald Trump to serve as a senior civil rights official at the Department of Justice.

    Gore’s new role as Trump’s choice for deputy assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department is notable because he will lead the division that oversees civil rights laws, including voter suppression issues. Trump and his nominee to lead the Justice Department, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, are strong supporters of voting restrictions such as voter identification.

    The appointment of Gore represents a dramatic break from the the civil rights legacy of the outgoing Obama Justice Department, which has filed suits against voter restrictions in Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina, and other states. Under Obama, the civil rights division was restructured to take on more cases, with former Attorney General Eric Holder describing the team as the agency’s “crown jewel.”

    In stark contrast, Gore has worked to defend Republican redistricting laws in Virginia, South Carolina, New York, and Florida — including maps that opponents say were drawn to maximize Republican seats in Congress and frequently employed a strategy of packing African-American voters into a single district to dilute their voting power in neighboring districts.

    In Florida and Virginia, Gore also intervened on behalf of Republicans to defend new voter ID laws, rules civil rights group have assailed for reducing participation rates among African-Americans.

    In Virginia, for example, Gore was one of the main attorneys working to defend a 2011 Republican map that moved black voters from four different districts into Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District, a majority African-American district held by a Democrat that encompasses the areas around Richmond, Hampton Roads, and Newport News. The strategy appeared designed to weaken Democratic chances in the four neighboring districts, all held by Republicans, by lowering the number of African-Americans, who tend to vote for Democratic candidates.

    A brief filed by the local NAACP argued that the map’s “high concentration of African-American voters” represented a “racial gerrymander” that violated voters’ due process rights. The GOP legislature argued that politics, not race, was the motivating factor in drawing the boundaries.

    Federal courts overturned the GOP map, creating new borders that added African-American voters to the 4th Congressional district, which was previously represented by a white Republican. In 2016 the district for the first time elected an African-American Democrat.

    In 2015, a resident of Virginia challenged the state’s newly passed law requiring a photo identification to vote, arguing that because minority groups were less likely to have a photo ID, the law “disproportionately suppresses the vote of African-Americans and Latinos in Virginia.”

    A legal team from the law firm Jones Day, including Gore, filed an amicus brief in support of the voter ID law. The brief claimed that although the voter ID law might lead to a “relative shortfall in minority participation,” the true difference was attributable to “different levels of electoral interest or underlying socio-economic disparities,” and therefore the state’s actions were legal.

    In December 2016, a federal appeals court upheld the photo ID law, ruling that “there was no evidence to suggest racially discriminatory intent in the law’s enactment.”

    As Buzzfeed reported, just hours after Jones Day announced that Gore would be leaving for the administration position, the Justice Department moved to delay a hearing sought by the Obama administration to challenge the Texas voter ID law, one of the strictest in the country. The Justice Department noted that it sought a delay “because of the federal government’s change in administration, which took place on January 20, 2017.”

    On Monday, during his evening meeting with congressional leaders, President Trump reiterated the false claim that millions of undocumented people voted in the last election, costing him the popular vote.

     

  • Peaceful exchange of power takes place as Trump prepares to take oath of office by shaking Obama’s hand.

    inaughandtohand.jpgPresident Obama shakes hands with President Trump on stage at inauguration. Roy Lewis/Trice Edney News Wire

     

     

                   (TriceEdneyWire.com) – President Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States Jan. 20, during a peaceful exchange of powers with America’s first Black President Barack Obama. Trump assured a unified America despite never apologizing for leading one of the most hate-filled campaigns in recent history.

    “We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people. Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come,” Trump told the crowd. The Bible tells us, ‘How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.’ We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity. When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.”

    The speech was met with applause and chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” by the vastly White audience – a reversal from the two inaugurations of eight and four years ago, when throngs of Black people packed in to witness the historic inaugurations of President Obama. The Trump inauguration, though well attended with crowds stretching from the steps of the U. S. Capitol back to the Washington Monument, did not draw as many people as the Obama inauguration, based on close observations of the crowd by this reporter and Black press photographers who attended all three ceremonies.

    More than 60 Democratic members of Congress decided to skip the inauguration; including Black Caucus members U. S. Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). Lewis contends he does not see Trump as a legitimate president given the involvement of Russian email hacking in order to help him get elected, according to confirmation by intelligence agencies. Lee and others refused to attend because of protest for Trump’s vitriolic conduct during the election.

    Still President Obama had promised a “peaceful exchange of powers”, a tenet of American democracy. Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, were also in attendance with their wives. Former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who battled Trump vigorously to win the presidency, smiled a lot and appeared stately during the procession and ceremony.

    “Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power, and we are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent,” Trump said. He repeated promised to “make America first” in his proposed national and international policies, legislations and executive orders. He also promised to uplift “inner cities”, a well-known euphemism for the Black community.

    “Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves. These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public,” Trump said. “But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. We are one nation – and their pain is our pain.  Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success.  We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.”

    Trump’s words are lofty, but his actions have not matched what he has said. So far, he has nominated an all-White cabinet; except Dr. Ben Carson who will head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He has also appointed former White supremacist advocate Steve Bannon as a top advisor and nominated former Klan sympathizer Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general. He has appointed Omarosa Manigault to assist him with public liaison, but it remains to be seen what will come from a meeting she and other aids had with Black organizational representatives.

    Meanwhile on Saturday, the day after the inauguration, more than a million women packed the streets of Washington and other major cities around the U. S. making demands on a string of key issues important to women, Blacks and other minorities. Civil rights leaders have taken a wait and see posture while putting pressure on the Trump administration through protest.

    Led by Rev. Al Sharpton, they started that pressure during a march one week before the inauguration. On Inauguration Day, National Urban League President/CEO Marc Morial emailed a statement essentially promising to continue marching to correct social ills that were prevalent 50 years ago.
    “My own predecessor as head of the National Urban League, the legendary Whitney M. Young, was one of the organizers of that march and delivered his own stirring speech that day. He spoke of the need for Black Americans to do “some more marching:” …from dangerous ghettos to safe, unrestricted neighborhoods…from poverty wages to skilled, family-sustaining jobs…from the cemeteries of early graves to health centers from overcrowded, inadequate classrooms to fully-equipped, professionally staffed and integrated schools,” wrote Morial. “And there we were, marching for those same things a half-century later, marching under the motto, “We shall not be moved.”

  • Women’s March inspires millions to demand justice in the Trump Era

    By Brittany Webb 

    womens-march-aahistorymuseum Throngs of women lined D.C. streets for the Jan. 20 women’s march. Estimated at close to a million, This photo shows activists wrapped around the new National Museum for African American History and Culture. PHOTO: James Zimmerman/Trice Edney News Wire

     

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – A sea of pink hats, signs proclaiming “Black Lives Matter”, gay-rights flags and posters with all sorts of demands of justice filled the crowd at the Women’s March on Washington Jan. 20.

    Millions of women of all races and nationalities were joined by men in the nation’s capital and around the world to defend the human and civil rights, honor and dignity of people – and some to protest the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, which many view as a threat to human rights progress.

    “We march to declare we are ready for the fight. We are here to declare that we are America. We will stay awoke and we will not be moved,” said Black Women’s Roundtable Convener Melanie Campbell in her speech to the DC crowd, which was so packed that they could not march to the White House as planned. “We march for Black women who voted 94 percent for Hillary Clinton, who by the way won three million votes over her opponent…We march, even for the 53 percent of White women who voted for that other guy, to reflect and join us, all of us, moving forward to break that glass ceiling to elect the first woman president of America and to select a Black Woman to the Supreme Court in our lifetime.”

    Celebrities like Madonna, Alicia Keys, Maxwell, Janelle Monae and Jidenna joined political figures, commentators and activists like Campbell, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, CNN’s Van Jones; NAACP Chair Roslyn Brock and activist Angela Davis to support and energize women who are determined to fight for equality.

    The DC crowd was vastly White. But a strong contingency of Black women participated and spoke during the rally. “We stand in solidarity,” said Brock of the NAACP. “To declare that women’s rights are human rights. We send a message to our new government that we will not stop until women enjoy equal status. Throughout the history of this nation, women have worked to enjoy full civil rights. In 2008, 2012 and 2016 Black women exercised the right to vote larger than any other group in this nation,” she said as the crowd cheered.

    Because the marches, which also took place in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and other cities in the U. S. around the world the day after the Trump inauguration, activist Angela Davis declared the demonstration to be a part of American history.

    “At this very challenging moment in our history, let us remind ourselves that we, the hundreds of thousands, the millions of women, trans people, men and youth who are here at the women’s march, we represent the powerful forces of change that are determined to prevent the dying cultures of racism, heteropatriarchy from rising again,” Davis said.

    Despite the march being geared towards the rights of woman, Davis left the mark of Black people on the hearts of the crowd when she addressed the roots of the nation. “The freedom struggles of Black people that have shaped the very nature of this country’s history cannot be deleted with a sweep of a hand,” Davis said. “We cannot be made to forget that Black lives do matter.”

    Amongst the sisters were men who were present in the name of their sisters, mothers, wives, girlfriends and women alike. One of those men was CNN commentator Van Jones. “With every breakdown, a breakthrough is possible, and today, because of you, something beautiful is being reborn in America,” Jones said. “Something beautiful is being reborn right here, and right now.”

    For some women, it was refreshing to see men standing in solidarity with the people who society deems to be less than compared to them. “To see men fighting the good fight alongside us is humbling,” Alyssa B. of Philadelphia said. “It gives us hope and a sense of us not having to do it alone. It’s the definition of humanity.”

    Though the D.C. women could not march to the White House as planned, President Trump still got the message. He tweated the next day, “Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn’t these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly.”

    Actually, there were few celebrities spotted in the crowd of marchers, except entertainers on the stage. As protesters gathered from cities across the nation, one D.C. native took to the stage to demand one thing from government on behalf of women.

    R&B singer Maxwell serenaded the crowd with his hit single “This Woman’s Work,” dedicating it to the late Sandra Bland, who was found hanging in July 2015 in a Waller County, Texas jail cell three days after a contentious arrest that started with a stop for an alleged traffic signal violation. Authorities ruled her death a suicide, but the family disputed that claim. Her family was awarded a settlement of $1.9 million in the case.

    Black women who joined in the march said the need for solidarity between women activities at the point in history is clear. “Black women benefit when a women’s rights agenda – equal pay, affordable child care and health care, and access to education, among other things – is embraced,” said columnist and economist Dr. Julianne Malveaux, former president of Bennett College for Women. “It was refreshing to see so many White people carrying Black Lives Matter signs.”

    While the Woman’s March on Washington is over, the fight for women’s rights, human rights and religious rights continues. And while fear keeps some from standing on the front lines, singer Janelle Monae urges protestors to keep choosing to fight for freedom. “Continue to embrace the things that make you unique even if it makes others uncomfortable,” Monae said. “You are enough, and whenever you feel in doubt, whenever you want to give up, you must always remember to choose freedom over fear.”