Greene County Democrat

Category: Community

  • Black Belt Folk Roots Festival – August 27-28 in Eutaw Annual festival strengthens community bonds

    By: Carol Prejean Zippert

     

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    Months before the tent goes up on the old courthouse square in the center of town, inquiries have steadily poured in seeking confirmation that the annual Black Belt Folk Roots Festival will fill those grounds again on the fourth Saturday and Sunday of August.
    The calls about the festival are a reminder of how the community has taken ownership of this special event. The festival dates are an automatic imprint on the minds and hearts of so many. Local groups plan class reunions, family reunions, vacation time and other summer events on the week end of the festival. The Black Belt Folk Roots Festival itself has become a grand reunion.
    In is 41st year one may ask what is still so attractive about this festival; what is so compelling about this festival?IMG_7373.JPG Is it the array of handmade crafts such as theme designed quilts, baskets of pine needles, bullrush grass and corn shucks, hand-bottomed chairs, wood carvings, leather works and uniquely deigned jewelry? Is it the aroma of the foodways expressed on the grounds calling attention to the soul food dinners, fried fish, chicken, and pork skins, a range of barbeque meats, Polish sausage and bear burgers? The attraction may also be the homemade sweet treats including cakes, pies, funnel cakes, preserved fruits, sno’ cones and homemade ice cream churned on the spot.
    Perhaps the festival crowd returns to be once more enthralled by the ole timey blues music that dominates the sounds of the festival on Saturday. The musicians sing and strum stories of struggle, hardship, loss, pain and perseverance. The ole timey gospel stage that follows at Sunday’s festival brings reassurance that a people’s strong faith, commitment and sacrifice defines how we made it over. The spirit of the gospel music brings out the church in the crowd.
    Most significant, the festival brings together people to see people, to hear people, to touch people and strengthen a community bond they already share.
    The folk artists featured at the festival include craftspersons such as Odessa Rice, Mary Hicks, Martha Kimbrough, Eloise Jeter and Meloneal Hobson.
    Blues artists who return each year include Clarence Davis, The Liberators, Little Jimmie Reed (Leon Atkins), Russell Gulley, Davey Williams and Lemon Harper and others. Sunday’s gospel music is shared by The Echo Singers, the Echo Juniors, The Webb Gospel Singers, The Golden Gates, The Mississippi Traveling Stars, Son of Zion Gospel Duo, New Generation Male Chorus, Mrs. Eddie Mae Brown and more.The two day festival, held on the old courthouse square in the center of town in Eutaw, AL, is open to the public free of charge, The 2016 schedule is Saturday, August 27 from 11:00 a.m to 6:00 p.m.; Sunday August 28 from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
    The festival is produced by the Society of Folk Arts & Culture. It was started in 1975 by Jane and Hubert Sapp who were part of the Miles College Eutaw Extension Program in an effort to document, preserve and celebrate the history, culture and traditions of the region. For more information contact Carol P. Zippert at 205-372-0525; carolxzippert@aol.com

  • What difference will Obama’s plan to bring power to Africa make?

    By: BBC Africa News

    Obama at solar expo

    President Obama talks with African solar AFP

    In February US President Barack Obama signed an agreement to bring electricity to 50 million people in sub-Saharan Africa by 2020. Neil Ford asks, even if this is possible, how many will still be left in the dark?
    Perhaps the most remarkable things about the Electrify Africa Act of 2015 are that it commits the US to increased foreign aid at a time of economic uncertainty and cuts through sharp political divisions.The Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ed Royce, worked with Democrat Eliot Engel for two years to drive the bill through Congress.
    The act commits the US government to supporting President Obama’s Power Africa initiative. Although headlined as a $50bn scheme, the US authorities will contribute just $7bn.
    Other governments, development agencies and private sector companies are expected to provide the remainder in public-private partnerships.This will be difficult to achieve during a global economic downturn.
    Even if it succeeds in its aim of bringing electricity to 50 million Africans by 2020, more than 10 times that number will still be without power.
    So the Power Africa initiative is not a magic bullet, but it has at least highlighted Africa’s power supply problems.
    It is easy to take electricity for granted. Most African homes lack fridges and electric cookers but even a single electric light bulb can bring security and allow children to do their homework after dark.
    Mobile phones encourage economic growth but the lack of electricity makes recharging them yet another hurdle to be cleared.
    According to the latest World Bank data, 35% of sub-Saharan Africans have no access to electricity.
    This is a far lower figure than in any other region.
    The next lowest rate is 22% for South Asia, while all five North African countries claim 100% coverage.
    Most Africans use wood and kerosene for fuel, causing deforestation and thousands of fatal accidents every year.
    The 35% figure masks huge variations, with electrification rates ranging from 5% in South Sudan up to 100% in Mauritius.
    Connection rates in rural areas are typically worse than 10%. Most of those with electricity at home live in cities, supplied by grids that were developed in colonial times but which have failed to expand with urban growth.
    Even many of those connected to the grid suffer from unreliable supplies. So those who can afford them, buy their own expensive diesel fired generators.
    While South Africa relies on coal-fired plants, most African countries depend on large hydro schemes to generate electricity.
    Yet unreliable rainfall means that hydroelectric production varies even during a good year and is even worse – as at present – during an El Nino event.
    The main problem is a lack of revenue. Most consumers are unable to afford to pay a commercial rate for electricity.
    This prevents power utilities from earning enough money to pay for new generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure; generation capacity to produce electricity; transmission to move it across big distances; and distribution to get it into people’s homes and businesses.
    Either people need to become richer, or power needs to be cheaper.
    Luckily, a solution may be at hand. The price of photovoltaic (PV) solar power panels is falling, while solar cells are becoming more efficient, so PV is becoming a cost-effective option. Such off-grid solutions avoid the need for expensive transmission and distribution infrastructure.
    Power Africa is already supporting very small-scale solar PV. It has awarded part-funding to 28 off-grid projects, along with the technical support that small-scale developers often lack. Many more will now follow suit.
    Most of these projects involve solar PV or biomass, which involves using agricultural waste as a power generation feedstock.
    Power Africa describes the first kWh people gain access to as the “the most valuable” because it provides at least a single source of electric light and the ability to charge mobile phones and radios.
    With its commitment to providing “cleaner power generation”, many of the on-grid ventures backed by Power Africa also involve renewable energy.
    In some cases, it is directly funding generation projects, such as the 152 MW Sarreole wind farm in Senegal. More often, it will supply technical support and dedicated advisors.
    It has already helped Ghana to tap its newly discovered gas reserves for thermal power production by providing regulatory advice.
    New projects will be identified as more of the funding is made available.
    It may be that a single grand scheme cannot solve Africa’s power problems but Power Africa can help provide local solutions, one at a time.

  • Black students ejected from Trump rally in GA.

    Jennifer Jacobs, The Des Moines Register

    Students at Valdosta

    VPC Police officers outside Donald Trump’s rally Monday evening at Valdosta State

    About 30 Black students were escorted out of a Donald Trump rally in Valdosta, Georgia. Hear some of the students tearfully describe what happened. 

     

    VALDOSTA, GA. — There are different accounts of who made the decision to eject approximately 30 Black students who say they were standing silently at the top of the bleachers at Donald Trump’s rally here Monday evening.
    Late Monday night, a Trump spokeswoman denied that the incident at Valdosta State University’s campus was initiated “at the request of the candidate” or the presidential campaign. A spokesman for the Secret Service contradicted the students’ statements that federal agents led them out of the building, saying Trump staff and local law enforcement officials were in charge of handling protesters.However, Valdosta Police Chief Brian Childress tried to clear up the confusion Tuesday morning, telling USA TODAY that he personally went to speak to the Trump campaign staff and the local law enforcement officers helping with security to confirm who ordered the students out, and to ask why.
    “These folks were told to leave the PE complex by the Trump detail,” Childress said.
    The police chief said he thinks the Trump staff made the right call — and it wasn’t a racial issue.
    Trump had rented the venue, so “he had the right to tell folks he didn’t want to be there, that they had to leave. I’m not campaigning for anyone. That’s not what I do. But in this case, I support them,” Childress said.
    The sight of the students, who were visibly upset, being asked to leave the grounds created a stir at a university that was a whites-only campus until 1963.
    The young people said they had planned to sit in silent protest, but were escorted out by security officials before the presidential candidate began speaking. The incident was recorded on video by several attendees.
    “We didn’t plan to do anything,” said a tearful Tahjila Davis, a 19-year-old mass media major, who was in the group of Valdosta State University students, many of whom were wearing all black, that was removed. “They said, ‘This is Trump’s property; it’s a private event.’ But I paid my tuition to be here.”
    Brooke Gladney, a 22-year-old marketing and business management major, said: “The only reason we were given was that Mr. Trump did not want us there.”
    After this story was published Monday evening, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an email: “There is no truth to this whatsoever.” She said “the campaign had no knowledge of this incident.”
    Trump has been regularly heckled by protesters at his campaign rallies, but tensions have increased after he came under fire on Sunday for not immediately condemning support from a prominent white supremacist.
    Earlier Monday, some black students at another Trump campaign rally, on the campus of Radford University in Virginia, were led out by security officers after they began chanting: “No more hate! No more hate! Let’s be equal, let’s be great!”
    Trump’s two campus rallies took place just one day before high-stakes Super Tuesday, when 11 states hold GOP contests, including a collection of southern states. Trump is poised to lock down enough delegates to give him a sizable — and possibly insurmountable — lead over his GOP rivals.
    Robert Hobak, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said agents were reportedly in the area where the Valdosta students were standing inside the venue, but they would have been simply monitoring. Escorting protesters out of rallies is “not our function,” he said. It’s up to the host committee, campaign staff and local law enforcement to handle, he said.
    “This happens sometimes that people will confuse us with other law enforcement,” Hobak said Tuesday morning.
    Several other Valdosta students scattered in smaller groups throughout the audience inside the rally said before Trump’s speech that they intended to sit in silent protest, without causing any disruption. They followed through on that. Only one person, who was white, was ejected for protesting during Trump’s remarks.
    Among the group of 30 to 40 asked to leave, at least one was white, and several of them committed violations that could have led to their arrest if police hadn’t shown restraint, Childress said.
    “What I resent is now some of these folks are going around saying it was a black issue. That’s total nonsense,” he said. “I personally asked why were these folks told to leave and the reason was: they were being disruptive. The Trump staff said they were using profanity. The F-bomb is one word that was used. You can’t be in there using profanity. That violates Georgia law.”
    Some of the students could have been arrested for disorderly conduct or for criminal trespass for arguing with the Trump detail when they were asked to leave, Childress said.
    Once the students were outside, a combination of local law enforcement officials, including Valdosta police, took over, he said.
    Some of the young people who’d been ejected “tried to jump back in line and cut in front of folks who were waiting – and that was a very long line – and that made some of the folks in line upset. At that point, we were told they needed to leave the complex,” the police chief said.
    There were roughly 7,000 spectators inside the venue and about 3,000 more outside, he said.
    “We didn’t have a single arrest. I think that shows great restraint,” Childress said.