Greene County Democrat

Category: Crime

  • Newswire: Cop who killed Eric Garner fired at last

    Garner’s Last Words, ‘I Can’t Breathe’, Became National Outcry Against Policy Brutality

    By Hazel Trice Edney

    Person holding a protest sign about Garner

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – Daniel Pantaleo, the New York City cop who held Eric Garner in an illegal choke hold as he pleaded, “I can’t breathe”, was finally fired and stripped of his pension benefits this week – five years after Garner’s plea became a protest chant and rallying cry for thousands against police misconduct, profiling and brutality across the nation.
    “As Mr. Garner balanced himself on the sidewalk on his hands and knees, Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado found that Officer Pantaleo ‘consciously disregarded the substantial and unjustifiable risks of a maneuver explicitly prohibited by the department.’ She found that during the struggle, Officer Pantaleo ‘had the opportunity to readjust his grip from a prohibited chokehold to a less-lethal alternative,’ but did not make use of that opportunity,” Commissioner James O’Neill said at a press conference on Monday.
    He continued, “From the start of this process, I was determined to carry out my responsibility as Police Commissioner unaffected by public opinions demanding one outcome over another. I examined the totality of the circumstances and relied on the facts. And I stand before you today confident that I have reached the correct decision…In this case, the unintended consequence of Mr. Garner’s death must have a consequence of its own. Therefore, I agree with the Deputy Commissioner of Trials’ legal findings and recommendation. It is clear that Daniel Pantaleo can no longer effectively serve as a New York City police officer.”
    They were the long awaited words of activists across the country as well as Garner’s family, which includes five children and Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, who has become a familiar face as she fought for justice for her son who was 43.
    In response to O’Neill’s announcement, Carr told reporters she is not finished. She says there are other New York officers who were present but did nothing to prevent her son’s death who should also be fired. The viral video of the killing shows several other officers at the scene.
    “We have other officers that we have to go after. You have heard the names. We know the wrongdoing that they have done,” Carr said. “So I would like the press to put it out there, show the pictures, say the names, do the roll call because they all need to lose their jobs.”
    “But I’m still out here, I’m out here for the long run. You come out here against me, I’m out here,” she said. “And you cannot scare me away. Yeah Pantaleo, you may have lost your job, but I lost a son.”
    Garner said the words 11 times, “I can’t breathe”, before collapsing on the sidewalk in Staton Island July 17, 2014. Pantaleo and other officers had approached him for selling loose cigarettes on the street.
    After the police press conference, activist Al Sharpton, president/CEO of the New York-based National Action Network, spoke alongside Garner’s family, saying the firing is to be commended, but it is “nothing to celebrate because Pantaleo will go home a terminated man but this family had to go to a funeral.”
    Sharpton says he will continue to press for a law banning chokeholds instead of there being just a departmental policy against them.
    Monday’s announcement comes nearly two weeks after Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado, who oversaw Pantaleo’s departmental trial last May and June, recommended that Pantaleo be fired, in part, because she said he was “untruthful” during his interviews with investigators about Garner’s death. She wrote in a report obtained by the New York Times on Sunday that Pantaleo’s denials that he used a choke hold were “implausible and self-serving”.
    The report also said that Pantaleo’s “use of a chokehold fell so far short of objective reasonableness that this tribunal found it to be reckless — a gross deviation from the standard of conduct established for a New York City police officer.”
    Medical experts testified that the pressure place on Garner’s neck by Pantaleo “caused internal hemorrhaging in Mr. Garner’s neck and was a significant factor in triggering the acute asthma attack which contributed to his death,” Maldonado wrote.
    Garner’s daughter, Emerald Snipes, also at the press conference, vowed not to stop fighting for justice – not only concerning her father – but concerning what has become an epidemic of high-profiled police injustices again Black people around the nation.
    “It took five years for the officer to be fired,” Snipes said. “I will do everything in my power to never see another Eric Garner.”
    Pantaleo’s lawyers say they will appeal the firing decision, perhaps keeping the case alive for more years. Regardless, O’Neill is hoping for a peaceful outcome after the long wait.
    “Today is a day of reckoning but can also be a day of reconciliation,” he said. “We must move forward together as one city, determined to secure safety for all – safety for all New Yorkers and safety for every police officer working daily to protect all of us.”

  • Newswire : OP-ED: Jamestown to Jamestown: commemorating 400 years of the African Diaspora experience

    By Derrick Johnson, NAACP President and CEO

    Derrick Johnson


    History commonly and most often points to late August in the year 1619 when some “20 and odd Negroes” originating from Angola arrived in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia as the first documented enslaved Africans to land in what is now the United States. This nation and its wealth was built through forced labor and the very existence of Black men and women.
    It’s truly ironic that as this country celebrates 400 years of democracy, the Black community is still fighting for equal rights, justice and freedom.
    The century that followed emancipation saw the creation of policies that discriminated against black people and largely excluded them from wealth building, creating an inherited disadvantage for future generations. This is why the idea of reparations, brought forth during the Civil War era, has continued to be a topic of grave concern for the NAACP.
    On a daily basis, we grapple with domestic terrorism and state sanctioned violence in the guise of white supremacy — all under the watch of one of the most racist administrations since the Jim Crow era. Along with his xenophobic policies, President Donald Trump is doing all he can to punish immigrants and alienate Black Americans, using hateful tweets and chants of “Send her back,” as a rallying cry for his base. At NAACP’s annual convention, our delegates voted unanimously to call on the House to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
    We can’t and won’t whitewash or glorify this experience — but it has made us stronger and more resilient than ever.
    We know from the incredible Black voter turnout in the midterm elections that African-Americans are not only the most critical voting bloc, but the most powerful when we are encouraged to participate actively in our Democracy.
    Next week, the NAACP, will embark on a historic and spiritual journal to commemorate the 400-year anniversary of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. More than 200 African-Americans will pay homage to the strength, power and resilience of our people.
    In our journey from Jamestown, Virginia to Ghana, we will not only retrace the footsteps of our ancestors through the slave dungeons and along the shores where the enslaved had their last bath before their trek to the western world – we will also immerse ourselves in the vibrant culture and join leading government and business leaders to learn more about business, development and investment in Ghana.
    Through this experience, we hope to actualize the healing and collective unity so many generations have worked to achieve in ways which bring power to our communities in America, Africa and throughout our Diaspora.

  • Bicentennial Traveling exhibit coming to Greene County

    Making Alabama. A Bicentennial Traveling Exhibit presented by Alabama Humanities Foundation made its long-awaited debut in Montgomery Mach 5, displaying 200 years of Alabama history and beyond. The exhibit opened in the capitol in the Old Supreme Court Library and will be on display through March 30 before going on a 19-month tour, which will include an exhibition in Greene County at Eutaw National Guard Armory from August 16, 2019 – August 28, 2019.
    The public is invited to the opening reception Monday, August 19 at 4:30 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. at the Armory.
    This impressive display blends artistic collages, interactive computer tablets and an audio medley of song and spoken word to tell the story of Alabama – from becoming a territory to achieving statehood. It also conveys a message of “Hope” in its presentation about the future.
    Beginning in April, the exhibit will be on tour for 19 months, traveling to all 67 of Alabama’s counties. Four exhibits have been built, and they will travel the state concurrently so that all counties will be able to experience this historic event in that time period.
    Organizers say AHF was a natural choice for coordinating the traveling exhibit with decades of experience through its partnership with the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street traveling exhibit.
    “Just like the Smithsonian, where not everyone has the opportunity to view a Smithsonian exhibit in Washington, not everyone can make it to Montgomery to see Alabama Department of Archives and History’s unparalleled ‘Voices’ exhibit,” said AHF Executive Director Armand DeKeyser. “What we are putting together gives them that opportunity.”
    In addition, host communities are assembling their own historical exhibits and collateral programming and activities to showcase their own history and put their signature on this event.
    “It’s amazing what these communities are planning to celebrate their history and the 200 years of Alabama as a state,” DeKeyser said. “We are honored to be able to be a part of this epic undertaking, and we look forward to the next 19 months as it makes its way through towns and cities across our state.”
    In Greene County, plans for the local exhibit and activities include: an open reception on Monday, August 19, 2019 the public is invited.
    “It just is a feel-good opportunity to mix and mingle and learn where we come from and how Alabama is progressing and changing,” said Mayor Raymond Steele, City of Eutaw.
    “This Bicentennial celebrates the state and the many accomplishments achieved. In addition, it also represents hope for a bright future of America’s finest citizens,” stated Danny Cooper, Chairman of the Greene County Industrial Development Authority and founding member of the Eutaw Garden Club and Downtown Revitalization Committee.
    “For us, hosting this celebration exhibit represents the significant role the people of this beautiful west Alabama community, situated in Alabama’s Black Belt, played in the growth and development of our great state,” said Eutaw Area Chamber of Commerce President, Beverley Gordon.
    Special thanks to the Greene County Commission.
    To learn more about this statewide exhibit and scheduling, go to: MakingAlabama.org.

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    About the Alabama Humanities Foundation

    Alabama Humanities Foundation mission is to foster learning, understanding and appreciation of our people, communities and cultures. As the independent, state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the AHF supports and offers programs that will enhance the minds and enrich the lives of Alabamians.

  • Newswire Zimbabwe suffers economic decline

    drought conditions in rural Zimbabwe

    Aug. 12, 2019 (GIN) – It’s hard to believe how far Zimbabwe has fallen since former President Robert Mugabe was ousted in a military-backed coup.

    Power cuts now leave citizens without electricity from dawn to long after dusk. Gas is too expensive so families cook on firewood. Bread is unaffordable. Drought has caused failed harvests. And rising inflation has eaten up pensions, leaving the elderly unable to retire with dignity.

    Outside Harare, the humanitarian need is greater. The United Nations says more than five million people – almost a third of the population and almost entirely in rural areas – will be in need of food aid. “This year we have more hungry Zimbabweans than ever before,” said Eddie Rowie, the World Food Program’s country director.

    Obert Masaraure, the leader of a union that represents rural teachers, said his 30,000 members had been reduced to “paupers”.

    “The learners are walking to school on empty stomachs. They are collapsing in class because they are so weak. The teachers can’t pay for their own children’s education. But people are looting millions,” he said.

    It is more than a year and a half since Robert Mugabe was removed in a military takeover, and a year since his former right-hand man, Emmerson Mnangagwa, took power after a contested election. Mugabe, 95, has been receiving medical treatment in Singapore since April, an official statement revealed last week.

    Most in Zimbabwe hoped that the transition would lead to a change in fortunes for a country once deemed self-sufficient in maize and a major exporter of beef.

    Mnangagwa promised democratic reform, a wave of new investment and the prospect of better relations with foreign powers. At rallies, the 77-year-old Zanu-PF loyalist spoke of his country being “open for business” and promised good days ahead.

    But exports hit the skids and a terrible drought ended food self-sufficiency. In this week’s NewsDay Zimbabwe, an editorial relayed the author’s emotions. “Some of us feel sad that 39 years after independence – and as we honor this week thousands of our fallen heroes who sacrificed their lives so that the indigenous people regain control of their land – the country is failing each year to feed itself.

    “Our gallant brothers and sisters who shed their blood for this land must be turning in their graves – this is definitely not what they hoped for; that we should be going about with begging bowls for food alms in a land of plenty.”

    Meanwhile, on the occasion of Heroes Day, opposition leader Nelson Chamisa said demonstrations would soon begin against the ruling Zanu PF to protest the failing economic situation in the country.

  • Newswire : Congresswoman Maxine Waters Statement on Capital One Data Breach

    Congresswoman Maxine Waters

    WASHINGTON – Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, issued the following statement on a data breach which exposed account information of over 100 million Capital One customers.
    “This data breach shows that it’s not just big technology companies and credit reporting agencies like Equifax that are vulnerable to hacking and data breaches – big banks are vulnerable targets as well. As this is not the first incident in which Capital One’s customer data was exposed, we need to understand what bank regulators have been doing to ensure that this bank, and other banks, have strong cybersecurity policies and practices. We must also understand what bank regulators are doing to ensure strong oversight of third-party technology providers that banks work with.
    “As we learn more about this incident, I plan to work with my colleagues and take action in the Financial Services Committee on legislation to improve oversight of the cybersecurity of financial institutions.
    “This massive data breach also underscores how important it is that the consumer credit reporting bills that the Financial Services Committee recently passed become law so that any consumer affected by a data breach is not further harmed. Among other things, the bills the Committee passed ensure that consumers can get a free copy of their credit score, provide better tools for victims of fraud, and make it easier for consumers to get errors on their reports corrected.”
    On July 11 and July 16, the Financial Services Committee passed a series of consumer credit reporting bills, including:

    H.R. 3642, the “Improving Credit Reporting for All Consumers Act,” introduced by Representative Alma Adams (D-NC)
    Rep. Adams’ bill addresses burdens consumers experience when removing errors from their consumer reports, including by providing a new right to appeal the results of initial reviews about the accuracy or completeness of disputed items on the report. The bill empowers consumers by clarifying injunctive relief is available to ensure reporting errors are actually fixed when a consumer is harmed.
    H.R. 3618, the “Free Credit Scores for Consumers Act of 2019,” introduced by Representative Joyce Beatty (D-OH)
    Rep. Beatty’s bill directs the nationwide CRAs to give consumers free copies of their credit scores that are used by creditors in making credit decisions, as determined by the Consumer Bureau, or if not practicable, educational credit scores whenever consumers obtain their free annual consumer reports. A consumer can get their free credit score once a year, and they can get a free credit score if they have reason to believe that their file contains inaccurate information due to fraud.
    H.R. 3622, the “Restoring Unfairly Impaired Credit and Protecting Consumers Act,” introduced by Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
    Rep. Tlaib’s bill would, among other things, establish the right to free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services if a consumer is a victim of identity theft, fraud, or a related crime, or harmed by the unauthorized disclosure of the consumer’s financial or personally identifiable information.
    H.R. 3614, the “Restricting Use of Credit Checks for Employment Decisions Act,” introduced by Representative Al Lawson (D-FL)
    Rep. Lawson’s bill would generally prohibit employers from using credit reports for employment decisions, except when a credit report is required by local, state, or Federal law or for a national security clearance.
    H.R. 3621, the “Student Borrower Credit Improvement Act,” introduced by Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)
    Rep. Pressley’s bill would remove adverse credit file information relating to defaulted or delinquent private education loans for borrowers who demonstrate a history of timely loan repayments for these loans. The bill would require repayment plans be affordable and reasonable, and permits reasonable interruptions in the consecutive repayment periods for those facing unique and extenuating life events, such as service members who are receiving imminent danger or other special pay duty when deployed.
    H.R. 3629, the “Clarity in Credit Score Formation Act of 2019,” introduced by Representative Stephen Lynch (D-MA)
    Rep. Lynch’s bill would clarify oversight of the development of credit scoring models by directing the Consumer Bureau to set standards for validating the accuracy and predictive value of credit scoring models. The bill would also require the Consumer Bureau to study the impact of having more non-traditional data on consumer reports and the use of alternative data in credit scoring models.

  • Newswire: Coalition pressuring Twitter to shut down White Supremacist accounts

    By Barrington M. Salmon

    (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)

    White House with flag at half staff to honor victim of racially motivated violence

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – A coalition of racial justice and civil rights organizations, based in Charlottesville, Va., has launched a campaign to force Twitter to respond to widespread concerns that Twitter allows White supremacists to flourish on its platform.
    The Change the Terms Coalition was deliberate in timing the launch on the eve of the second anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville that led to the murder of activist Heather Heyer on August 12, 2017. The 32-year-old paralegal civil rights activist, was struck and killed by 22-year-old James Fields, a Neo-Nazi White supremacist who drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters. Fields is serving a life sentence plus 419 years for the murder.
    The announcement also comes on the heels of two mass shootings that killed at least 31 people in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio August 3rd and 4th respectively. The massacres have exacerbated the group’s concerns about racially motivated attacks fueled by inflammatory online hate. They say President Donald Trump is fueling the violence and called for an uprising against it.
    “Donald Trump has legitimized violence and it’s time for people to stand up,” said Jessica J. González, co-founder of Change the Terms and vice president of Strategy and Senior Counsel at Free Press.
    The coalition, which held a press conference by phone August 7, is demanding that Twitter ban White supremacists and adopt model corporate policies.
    “White supremacists fundraise, recruit and normalize the murder of marginalized people,” said González. “We’ve been working with Big Tech to accept our demands. But Twitter is slow to change. It’s the only platform that has failed to commit to banning White supremacists. David Duke, a former grand wizard of the KKK, is one there as is Richard Spencer and key organizers.”
    Richard Spencer is a widely known neo-Nazi and president of the National Policy Institute, a White Supremacist Think Tank. Spencer was the leader of the torch-lit march in Charlottesville the evening before the death of Heather Heyer.
    The Change the Terms Coalition includes more than 55 human-rights, civil-rights and digital-rights groups. They include Free Press, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Center for American Progress, Color of Change, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, MediaJustice, Muslim Advocates and the National Hispanic Media Coalition. It has called on Twitter and other online companies to develop more comprehensive policies to disrupt hate and racism on their platforms and has also urged these platforms to adopt the model corporate policies that Change the Terms has developed.
    “When Twitter gives well-known White supremacists a platform, even after they have been deemed too extreme by Facebook and YouTube, their company becomes complicit in normalizing racism and the hateful acts inspired by it,” said González, vice president of strategy and senior counsel at Free Press and co-founder of Change the Terms. “Twitter must tell White supremacists they cannot rely on the platform to espouse harmful rhetoric, intimidate, and plan more attacks.”
    Brandi Collins-Dexter, senior campaign director of Color of Change, agreed.
    “From Charlottesville two years ago to El Paso this week, we’ve seen the tragic outcomes of White nationalism spreading on Twitter, made even more dangerous every time Trump is allowed to tweet his bigoted rhetoric,” she said. “White nationalists use Twitter every day to harass Black people and users from marginalized communities, to build power and organizational strength, and to amplify violent ideologies in this country. It’s time for Jack Dorsey and Twitter’s leadership to get over their fear of conservative backlash and fully stamp out discrimination on the platform. Our civil rights should not be negotiable.”
    Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever, president of the diversity consultant firm, Incite Unlimited, cites statistics which illustrate the danger White extremism poses:
    According to the most recent FBI data, the number of hate crimes in America has increased three years in a row, jumping about 17 percent in one year alone.
    The number of White supremacist groups in America has soared 30 percent in the last four years.
    White supremacists account for nearly three out of four murderous terrorist acts in the U.S.
    Counties that hosted a Trump rally during his run for president in 2016 have subsequently experienced a 226 percent jump in hate crimes.
    “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the correlation between the political rise of Trump (his campaign run in the primaries, the general election and his time in office), his specific policy negligence around white terrorism, the white supremacist language he infuses in his rhetoric on a daily basis, and the rise in white nationalist violence that has ensued,” Jones-DeWeever said. “When we refuse to speak this truth, we fuel white terrorism. We not only allow it to exist, we also allow it to thrive.”
    González, who moderated the August 7 conference call, said Twitter is a space that allows key White nationalist influencers to operate. Reportedly, there are at least 100,000 verified accounts of racists and White extremists who are sophisticated and organized.
    “There are 173,000 tweets, 4,000 per white supremacist account and twitter has not removed them,” González said. “Twitter talks a good game while vile, racist extremists continue to spew hate. Latinos have been targeted because of Donald Trump. People are scared to go to school, grocery store, other places because of the color of our skins.”
    González said Latino communities including where she lives have been profoundly affected by the shooting in El Paso on August 3. Patrick Crusius, a 21-year-old White man drove more than six hours from Dallas to El Paso “to kill Mexicans.”
    González said fear has increased exponentially among her friends, family and neighbors and in Latino communities since the killer, who admitted that he is an anti-immigrant white nationalist and Trump supporter, opened fire in a Walmart, killing 22 people and wounded dozens of others.
    The coalition notes that a range of Unite the Right organizers and associated White-nationalist influencers continue to benefit from their presence on Twitter. This includes key rally organizers like Richard Spencer, Evan McLaren and Tony Hovater; so-called alt-right podcasters and YouTubers who broadcast live from the rally like Faith Goldy and Mike Peinovich; and figureheads of hate like former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, who attended and broadcast from the deadly rally, and continue to enjoy unfettered use of their Twitter accounts.
    Twitter, for its part, released a statement last week saying that it is researching whether white supremacists should be banned or allowed to continue operating on its platform. Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, legal and public policy said in published reports that the research aims to understand the effectiveness of both removing such individuals, as well as allowing them to remain online to be debated by others.
    Gadde said in an interview with Motherboard that Twitter is working with academics to see if it can be confirmed that “counter-speech and conversation are a force for good” and “can act as a basis for de-radicalization,” which is Twitter’s current position. She also added that Twitter has seen evidence on other platforms that radical viewpoints can change through an exchange of ideas.

  • The Freedom Ride for Voting Rights reaches Washington, D. C. on 54th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act

    The Alabama New South Coalition and the SaveOurselves (SOS) Coalition for Justice and Democracy sponsored the ‘Freedom Ride for Voting Rights’ starting from Selma on Saturday, August 3 and going through five states to reach Washington, D. C. on August 6, 2019, the 54th anniversary of the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA).
    The bus ride by sixty people joined by two additional carloads of people was coordinated with the national LiftOurVote Campaign to increase awareness of voter suppression and the fight to restore the pre-clearance sections of the VRA as well as support a national effort for voter registration, education and mobilization for the upcoming 2020 elections.

    The Freedom Ride made stops in each state along the way holding rallies and meetings with local groups to promote voting rights and support the Voting Rights Advancement Act (HR4) which will restore the preclearance provisions of Sections 4 and 5 of the VRA which were stripped from the act by the Supreme Court in the Shelby vs. Holder case of six years ago.
    The Freedom Ride stopped in Montgomery, Alabama on Saturday morning for a rally in front of the Alabama State Capitol. Later in the afternoon, a rally was held at the Beulah Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia because the Georgia state officials wanted a high price for police protection for a rally at the Courthouse. The group spent the night in Columbia, South Carolina.
    On Sunday morning, the freedom riders visited a memorial on the SC State College at Orangeburg to three Black students who were killed by State Troopers in the 1980’s while conducting a non-violent protest trying to desegregate a bowling alley. The memorial honors Henry E. Smith, Samuel Hammond Jr. and Delano B. Middleton.
    The riders attended a church service at the Charity Missionary Baptist Church in North Charleston, SC pastored by Rev. Nelson B. Rivers III. The church congregation welcomed the freedom riders and applauded the group. The next stop was the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC where the nine parishioners were shot down during a prayer meeting.
    The group spent the night in Raleigh, North Carolina and held a morning rally at the State Capitol. From Raleigh the bus traveled to Jamestown, Virginia to see the place where slavery was initiated in North America in 1619, 400 years ago. From Jamestown, the freedom bus made its way to Richmond, Virginia for another state Capitol rally. From Richmond, VA the bus traveled to Washington D. C.
    On Tuesday, August6, 2019 in Washington, D. C., to commemorate the 54th anniversary of passage of the VRA, the freedom riders held two rallies, one at the U. S. Supreme Court and one in front of the nation’s Capitol to dramatize the demands of the trip and to support the theme of the ride that “every issue is a voting issue”. On Wednesday, the freedom riders will participate in a National Planning and Strategy Conference on Voting Rights before returning home to Alabama.

  • Newswire : Unexpected struggles in the fight against Ebola

    By Global Information Network

    Health educator shows Ebola fighter

    The battle to knock out the Ebola virus should have its eyes on the goal. Instead, politics and a divisive struggle between two drug makers has interfered. A key health minister in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has resigned in protest.
    In his resignation letter, Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga condemned President Felix Tshisekedi ‘s takeover of the country’s Ebola response, removing him as head of the Ebola response team.
    He also criticized what he described as outside pressure to roll out a second experimental Ebola vaccine.
    Oly Ilunga Kalenga defended the work of his ministry, saying it had communicated daily on the situation in the ongoing outbreak “to reassure and show the world that the country is managing this epidemic.”
    But on Saturday, Tshisekedi’s administration announced that direct supervision of the Ebola response was being placed with a team of experts under the direction of Jean Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, director-general of the DRC’s National Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR) and a microbiologist at the University of Kinshasa’s medical school. Tamfum has studied Ebola and responded to outbreaks for more than 40 years.
    The change in leadership came days after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Ebola outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. “There is no sign of this epidemic slowing down. We therefore welcome the DRC President’s bold decision to change strategy and bring the Ebola response under his direct supervision,” Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said in a statement.
    Since August 2018, the DRC has recorded more than 2,500 cases of Ebola and, among them, more than 1,700 deaths.
    In his resignation letter, Kalenga attacked efforts to launch trials of an experimental vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson (J&J) in the country. A Merck & Co. vaccine is already in use there.
    Groups backing the use of the J&J vaccine include the Wellcome Trust, Doctors Without Borders, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), WHO, J&J, and NIBR.
    But there are important differences from Merck’s vaccine that have to be taken into account, he said. Made from a live, replicating virus, Merck’s vaccine mounts protection against Ebola in about 10 days. While the J&J immunization appears to raise the body’s defenses for the long-term, it’s administered in two shots, about two months apart.
    “We have developed a vaccine for a time of peace,” said Paul Stoffels, J&J’s chief scientific officer. He worked in clinics in poor African communities in Congo and elsewhere for years before coming to the company.
    How much, if any, protection a person gets from the first shot before getting the second isn’t clear. Ensuring people are fully vaccinated with the two-shot regimen would be challenging among mobile populations, especially in people fleeing conflict, and could stoke suspicions.

  • Newswire: Homes of Harriet Tubman, Langston Hughes among sites to be reserved by 1.6 million grant

    By The Oakland Post

    Harriet Tubman’s home in Auburn, NY


    The National Trust for His­toric Preservation recently announced that $1.6 million in grants will go towards its African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund to pro­tect 22 Black sites and orga­nizations.
    The grants—which were provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation—will financially support the orga­nization’s African American fund which was designed to bring unsung narratives about the Black experience to the forefront by protecting and restoring places that are embedded in the fabric of Af­rican American history. The funds will go towards project planning, capacity building and programming.
    The non-profit trust has been dedicated to preserving Black sites throughout the country and the organization is furthering its mission to ensure that these landmarks are conserved.
    Amongst the 22 sites that were selected are the African Meeting House in Boston which is known to be the old­est Black church in Amer­ica; Mississippi’s Emmett and Mamie Till Interpretive Center which was created in memoriam of the teen who was tragically murdered; Harriet Tubman’s former home in Auburn, New York; Langston Hughes’ former house in Harlem; the home of Negro League Baseball star Satchel Paige in Kansas City, MO; the Wright Build­ing in Florida which was a grocery and general store for African Americans that featured Black vendors and The Emanuel African Meth­odist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., which was the site of the racially moti­vated 2015 shooting of nine black parishioners.
    “The recipients of this funding shine a light on once lived stories and Black cul­ture, some familiar and some yet untold, that weave togeth­er the complex story of Amer­ican history in the United States,” Brent Leggs, Execu­tive Director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, said in a state­ment.
    “Beyond saving important African American heritage sites, the Action Fund is help­ing Americans understand more deeply who we are as a nation,” said Mellon Foun­dation President Elizabeth Alexander. “We applaud the ongoing work of the Action Fund in calling greater atten­tion to the diversity of Ameri­can history and lifting up narratives that have been too long neglected or forgotten.”
    The Action Fund has grant­ed a total of $2.7 million since its launch in November 2017.
    News about the grants comes shortly after the orga­nization launched a campaign to preserve songstress Nina Simone’s childhood home. The campaign was backed by Issa Rae, Talib Kweli, Maher­shala Ali, John Legend and other stars.
    Aside from its work to protect historical Black land­marks, the nonprofit has been focused on diversifying the preservation industry. In an effort to develop career path­ways for the next generation of aspiring preservationists of color, the organization creat­ed a program that gives young African Americans first-hand experience with the restora­tion of landmarks.

  • Newswire: Nearly 100 percent of Trump funds designed to help farmers went to white farmers

    By Paola Rosa-Aquino

    Black Farmer

    President Trump has made a big deal out of his admiration for farmers, calling them “some of the most incredible people in our country,” and “patriots.” But, based on newly acquired data on federal subsidies from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, his administration may not have been thinking of all farmers — mostly just the rich, white ones.
    According to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by New Food Economy, the Trump administration funneled 99.5 percent of funds from its approximately year-old Market Facilitation Program, the largest current source of federal farm subsidies, to white farm operators.
    Trump announced the MFP last summer as a means of softening the blow of the ongoing trade war with China, allocating $12 billion in direct payments to growers. As of May 15 of this year, the USDA had disbursed more than $8.5 billion from program to farm operations, primarily to soy, corn, wheat, cotton, and sorghum growers, Reuters reports.
    According to a Department of Agriculture census, there were around 45,000 black farmers in the U.S. in 2017; compare that to nearly 1 million black farmers in 1910. Even though most farmers today are white (3.2 million, or 95 percent of farmers), Black farms tend to be smaller and generate less income compared to white farms.
    It’s not yet clear if farmers of color applied to the program at the same rate as their white counterparts, but the distribution of funds still reveals disparities between white and black farmers in certain regions. In Mississippi, for instance, where 38 percent of the state’s population is black, about 14 percent of farms have a black principal operator, according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture; however, only 1.4 percent of the $200 million in MFP funds distributed to farmers in the Magnolia state went to black operators.
    The funding disparities didn’t just have to do with race: According to a new reportreleased on Tuesday by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, the vast majority of MFP funds went to the wealthiest 10 percent of recipients — the country’s biggest and most successful farmers.
    “It seems as though many have turned a deaf ear to America’s small farmers and black farmers alike,” said John Boyd, founder and president of the Black Farmers Association, when he testified before the House Committee on Financial Services earlier this month.
    “Anytime the government gets involved, when they say it’s going to be a speedy payment to farmers, it’s always last for African American farmers, it’s always last for Latino farmers, for small-scale farmers, and for women farmers,” he said.
    The USDA did not respond to Grist’s request for comment.
    For the many U.S. farmers whose crops’ primary market is China, having access to federal subsidies to help them deal with the country’s trade wars is a make-or-break benefit. Growers already deal with a plethora of issues, such as falling farm income and commodity prices, rising debt and floods that disrupt crop growth. And suffice to say, it’s not just white farmers who are suffering.
    The USDA has a long history of discrimination against farmers of color. A 1994 report commissioned by the department itself said “minorities received less than their fair share of USDA money for crop payments, disaster payments, and loans.
    “For many years, the USDA systematically favored white farmers by denying or delaying loans to Black farmers,” wrote Scott Faber, senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group, in the organization’s latest report.
    And as to the latest on the MFP: Last week, President Trump unveiled plans to greenlight $16 billion as part of the second year of the program. About $14.5 billion of those funds will be in the form of direct payments to growers.