Greene County Democrat

Category: General News

  • Singleton introduces bill to change Greene County bingo amendment

    Bobby Singleton

    Senator Bobby Singleton

    State Senator Bobby Singleton recently submitted a bill to change Constitutional Amendment 743 regulating bingo in Greene County. The proposed amendment to our current amendment was referred to the State Senate’s Local Legislation Committee.
    Singleton’s amendment would make significant changes to the current operation and regulation of electronic bingo in Greene County.
    First, the amendment would clarify and specifically allow electronic bingo in Greene County “on any machine or device that is authorized by the National Gaming Regulatory Act by 25 U. S. C. Section 2701, and which is operated by any Native American tribe in Alabama”. This would legalize any electronic bingo machine or device, which was approved by the Federal government for use in Indian casinos, to be used in Greene County.
    Second, the amended bill limits bingo gaming to a licensed racetrack in Greene County where pari-mutuel wagering is currently legal. The only facility in Greene County currently meeting this criterion is Greenetrack. While not stated, it would seem that this change would restrict electronic bingo to one facility – Greenetrack – in Greene County. The future operation of other bingo halls in Greene County is unclear and would possibly depend upon a “sub-license” from the one recognized racetrack in Greene County.
    Third, the amended bill provides for a state gross receipts tax (4%) and a local gross receipts tax (8.5%) on gaming revenues at the racetrack operating bingo. These taxes would be levied on the gross revenues, which are defined as the total amount of money played on the electronic machines less the value of prizes and winnings paid to the players. The gross figure would be determined before costs of operating the bingo facilities were applied.
    The current bingo parlors in Greene County have never publically revealed their gross revenues, so the public does not know what this taxing formula will produce in revenues and whether those amounts are fair. There is also a formula, in the amended bill, for distribution of the 8.5% monthly local wagering tax, with 1.5% retained by the Greene County Gaming Commission (created by the bill) for its operations; 1.5% to the Greene County Commission; 1.5% to the Greene County Commission for distribution to municipalities, based on population; 2% to the Greene County Board of Education; 1% to the Greene County Hospital and Nursing Home; 0.5% to the Greene County Firefighters Association; 0.25% to the Greene County Industrial Board; 0.25% to the Greene County Ambulance Service; 0.75% to the Greene County Housing Authority; and 0.75% to the new Greene County Gaming Commission for distribution to nonprofit organizations that provide services to residents of Greene County.
    There is also a “local bingo game vendor tax of 4%, which is levied on the gross revenues collected by bingo game vendors from leases or revenue sharing agreements with a racetrack”. This vendor tax will be shared between the Greene County Sheriff’s Department and the Eutaw Police Department, based on population ratio.
    Fourth, a five person Greene County Gaming Commission is created to “implement, regulate, and administer bingo gaming” in the county. This Commission would replace the current role of the Sheriff of Greene County in regulating and distributing the proceeds of electronic bingo gaming in the county.
    The five member Greene County Gaming Commission would be named as follows: one appointed by the Governor of Alabama; one by the U. S. House Representative for the Seventh Congressional District (now Terri Sewell); one by the State Senator for the 24th District (currently Bobby Singleton) and two by the State House of Representatives delegation for Greene County. The members of the Gaming Commission will serve five-year terms and be subject to the regulations of the Alabama Ethics Commission. They should all live in the 7th Congressional District and at least two must be residents of Greene County.
    This proposed legislation is now in the Senate Local Legislative Committee. It would have to be approved by this Committee, the full Alabama State Senate, the Alabama House of Representatives and signed by the Governor. Once passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor it would be subject to a Constitutional Amendment vote by the people of Greene County. If the Local Legislation were opposed by any one legislator, it would then also have to be voted on as a Constitutional Amendment by all of the people of Alabama.

  • NAACP president: Trump ‘kind of Jim Crow with hairspray and a blue suit’

    By Ashley Young, CNN

     

    NAACP President William Cornell Brooks

    NAACP President
    Cornell William Brooks

    (CNN)NAACP President Cornell William Brooks on Monday condemned Republican front-runner Donald Trump and said he represents a “kind of Jim Crow with hairspray and a blue suit.”
    “The fact of the matter is this is hateful. It is racist. It is bigoted. It is xenophobic. It represents a kind of Jim Crow with hairspray and a blue suit,” Brooks told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room.” “Let’s not underestimate what we’re dealing with.  This is a very, very ugly moment in America.”
    But Brooks said he doesn’t hold anything against
    Americans who support Trump. “I don’t blame the people –- American citizens — for their economic anxieties and a sense of desperation. The fact that their grasping at straws and they grasped onto a bigoted, demagogic  billionaire speaks to their desperation, not necessarily his appeal or the strength of his platform,” he said.
    CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment, with no response.
    The billionaire’s rallies have turned increasingly violent in the past week as supporters have clashed with protesters. Trump was forced to cancel a rally in Chicago over the weekend and was given a scare when a protester rushed the stage Saturday.
    And a former Breitbart reporter filed an assault charge against Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, alleging he yanked her violently from Trump last Tuesday.
    “The fact of the matter is he’s engaged in rhetoric that represents a kind of apologetics, if you will, of violence,” Brooks said.
    Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina said Monday they are weighing whether to press charges against Trump for inciting a riot during that rally where the protester was sucker punched by a 78-year-old white man. Trump has said he is considering paying the legal fees for the supporter charged with assault.
    Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks flatly rejected the premise of the investigation into Trump’s role in the violent altercation.”It is the protesters and agitators who are in violation, not Mr. Trump or the campaign,” Hicks said Monday in a statement.
    Hicks added that Trump’s speech was “extremely well thought out and well received” and instead focused on the role of protesters, who she said “in some cases … used foul language, screamed vulgarities and made obscene gestures, annoying the very well behaved audience.”
    Brooks believes Trump’s behavior is “contemptible” but will “leave that for the prosecutors in North Carolina to determine.” He added there “absolutely” is a racial aspect to business mogul’s increasingly violent rallies.
    “When you call Mexicans rapists, when you use code words like ‘thug,’ where you suddenly can’t distance yourself from the Klan. The fact of the matter is we’ve been in this ugly movie before. In the 1920s the Klan combined an anti-immigrant sentiment in the country with a kind of un-American patriotism with a venue of Christianity,” Brooks said.
    Blitzer pointed out that Trump eventually did disavow the Klu Klux Klan.

  • 21st Century youth presents prelude music at Unity Breakfast

    alfonzo

    21st Century Youth Leadership Movement (21C) participated in the annual Bridge Crossing Commemoration and Jubilee held March 4-6, 2016 in Selma, AL.  21 C Chapters represented included Greene County, two chapters in Wilcox County, Macon County, Tallapoosa County, Lee County, Dallas County and New Orleans Chapter.
    The youth participated in the Jubilee Parade; the Turn up Youth Summit; the Freedom Flame Awards Gala; the Martin & Coretta Scott King Unity Breakfast as well as the Jubilee Festival. They also were part of the thousands in the commemorative march from Brown’s continuing Chapel across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
    Muhammad Ali, a junior at Brooker T. Washington High School in Tuskegee, represented 21C at the Unity Breakfast as the youth voice bringing remarks on unity and the role of youth leaders. The 21C Leaders also provided the prelude music at the Sunday morning Unity Breakfast which consisted of the original leadership inspiring songs created at the various leadership training camps by Attorney Faya Rose Toure and 21st Century youth.

  • Washington D. C. ‘Big Chair Chess Club’ holds day of fun

    By Sam P.K. Collins
    Special to the NNPA News
    Wire from AllEyesOnDC.com

    chessdc_bwashington
    Ricky Norman, manager of the Big Chair Chess Club (center), shows two youngsters how to play chess during Chess Fun Day at the groups Deanwood location in Washington, D.C.(Ben Washington/AllEyesOnDC.com)

    For young, Black men living in Washington, D.C., the game of chess provides an opportunity to develop critical thinking skills that prove essential in avoiding common pitfalls. It also allows them to revel in each other’s company and enjoy friendly competition.  Last weekend, chess connoisseurs of various ages gathered for an afternoon that included chess matches, trash talking, and exchanges about strategy. The event, touted as “Chess Fun Day” attracted dozens of men from across the D.C. metropolitan area that converged on the Big Chair Chess Club in Northeast, Washington, D.C. for the festivities.
    “We wanted to bring some enlightenment about chess and its history. Our black community should know that it’s something to do,” Ricky Norman, manager of the Big Chair Chess Club, told AllEyesOnDC during the daylong gathering on Saturday, Feb. 27.
    Since its 2003 inception by convict-turned-chess teacher Eugene Brown, the Big Chair Chess Club has been instrumental in helping at-risk District students change their lives for the better. The nonprofit organization’s mantra “[T]hink before you move” draws parallels between navigating the chessboard and making prudent life decisions. Norman said chess can be a tool for self-improvement, helping young people increase discipline and focus.
    “For me, chess can be very personal. I get people who come in [the Big Chair Chess Club] and want to compare themselves to others. It’s about doing the best you can and improving. Some people say chess makes you think. I say that this game gives you an opportunity to think. That’s when the epiphany comes,” said Norman, a 54-year-old Northeast resident.
    Since chess Grandmaster champion Bobby Fischer popularized the game in the 1950s, people of various ages around the world have taken to the chessboard at home, in school, recreation centers, and during tournaments. Research has confirmed the benefits of playing chess, including brain stimulation, prevention of Alzheimer’s, and an increase in problem-solving skills.
    Under the direction of the Big Chair Chess Club, students from Kimball Elementary School in Southeast have won seven city championships. School administrators also noted behavioral changes in students who participated in the extracurricular program. Years later, Norman and his colleagues are carrying on that legacy from the confines of Big Chair Chess Club’s Deanwood-based abode.
    Throughout much of Saturday afternoon, men occupying the chess boards in the clubhouse stared attentively at the white and black pieces as old school R&B tunes blared from loudspeakers. Shortly after stepping through the doors of the Big Chair Chess Club, guests watched ongoing matches while nibbling on snacks and chatting amongst one another. Photos of historic and contemporary black figures lined the walls. Stacks of the instructional material also sat on wooden tables.
    For Germantown, Maryland resident James Washington, Chess Fun Day would be an experience for the entire family. That afternoon, he and his wife watched as Norman showed his grandchildren how to move each of the pieces on the board. His son Ben, an ardent chess player, gleefully recorded the short session.
    “My grandchildren been exposed to chess at home before but it’s great to see how enthusiastic they are playing with a professional. Even though they may not know all of the rules, they’re blessed with the basics,” said Washington, 60. “Everyone has to deal with the game of chess at their own level. It’s the same thing with life. The children need to deal with what they can understand and grasp it so they can progress. It’s all about the decisions you need to make for your next steps.”
    Local chess coach and the longtime Big Chair Chess Club member Doc said learning the game opened up many doors for him in his social and professional life. Since Brown taught him chess at Kimball more than a decade ago, Doc has imparted his knowledge on young black men seeking mentorship.
    “I often see students who don’t want to play sports but love chess. Some of them get proactive, picking up books from the library. They get excited about the game and don’t want to lose,” Doc, a chess coach at Eagle Academy Charter School in Congress Heights and Washington Yu Ying Charter School, a Chinese immersion center near the National Cathedral in Northwest, told AllEyesOnDC.
    “In this game, they get the mental challenge they don’t receive in school. This is where they learn life lessons including outlining and contingency planning. I see what the game does and the type of people it attracts. It takes a lot of mental fortitude to play an hour and a half of chess,” Doc added.
    Anthony Womack, a chess player of eight years and one of the organizers for the event, shared similar thoughts. He revealed his plans to introduce chess to his students after watching “Life of King,” a movie about Brown starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. On Saturday afternoon, he played several games of chess and chatted with elders about their life experiences.
    “I just wanted to feel the spirit and ambiance of being around other chess players. This game is a meeting of the minds,” said Womack, founder of MisUnderstood, a Halifax, Virginia-based life skills training program for young men. “No matter what’s going on in life, amazing things happen when you push those pieces on the board. Folks say black people don’t play chess and it’s a challenge but I learned a lot from the game.”
    Womack continued: “After playing, I understood that you have to be prepared to move with life’s changes and pick up a new strategy.”

  • Black Lawyer argues Mississippi’s flag represents racial discrimination; battle over Confederate flag continues

    By Lawyers Herald Staff Writer

    State of Miss flag

    Mississippi state flag which includes the Confederate flag.

    Voters will decide whether to replace the state’s old flag, which sports the Confederate battle cross, with a new flag that would have 20 white stars on a blue square. A Mississippi lawyer sued Governor Phil Bryant for flying the state flag, an emblem tantamount to hateful government speech against himself and African American residents of Mississippi’s rights.Carlos Moore alleged that the current flag contains a Confederate emblem with a racial discriminatory purpose to subjugate African-Americans to second class status and promote the notion of white supremacy. Thus, his constitutional rights have been violated along with all African American citizens of the state.
    Moore stated in his complaint, which was lodged before the jurisdiction of Southern Mississippi U.S. District Court, that time is of the essence for the removal of the current state flag from all public display on public lands and adoption of a non-discriminatory state flag. He also emphasized that there was a recent mass killing by a young white supremacist who was a Confederate battle flag sympathizer and militant. Mississippi is the only state that incorporates the Confederate emblem flag into its state flag.
    Moore said that he invoked some of the same language from the Obergefell v. Hodges case, which the U.S. Supreme Court solidified to legalize same-sex marriage nationally.
    “Such case is the law of the land, and if it applies to same-sex couples, and they’ve got the right to be respected; surely African Americans have the right to be respected too,” Moore said in an interview.
    However, Republican Bryant, who recently issued a proclamation naming April as Confederate Heritage Month, has said voters should decide whether to keep the flag used since 1894.
    He said that he will rely on a landmark case filed in the mid-1990s in Georgia. A black resident of Atlanta sued over the design of Georgia’s flag, which then displayed the same Confederate battle emblem that’s still on the Mississippi banner.
    In such lawsuit, it argued that the flag was racist because the Confederate emblem was added in 1956 to defy school desegregation rulings. U.S. District Judge Orinda D. Evans ruled in January 1996 that she would not make Georgia stop flying its flag because: “There simply is no evidence in the record indicating that the flag itself results in discrimination against African-Americans.”
    In a report by The Oregonian, House Speaker Tina Kotek stated, “After attempting again this week to reach out to leadership in both the Mississippi House and Senate, I now believe it is time for us to act. We should remove the Mississippi flag.”
    Constitutional law expert Matt Steffey said that there are some issues with Moore’s legal claims.
    “The 14th Amendment is not usually read to be concerned with symbolic matters, and the flag is by definition a symbol,” Steffey said. “And while the lawsuit attempts to tie this to violence, at least in a courtroom, there’s no way to establish that.”

  • 51st anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday March’ draws thousands to Selma

    Edmund pb

    “This is not only a celebration and commemoration of the past but a continuation of the movement and a statement of the struggle for racial, social, political and economic justice that still face us,” said Faya Rose Toure on Sunday at the pre-march rally on the steps of Browns Chapel Church in Selma, Alabama.
    There were 40 events during the March 3-7 weekend that comprise the Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma, to commemorate the 51st anniversary of the marches on Bloody Sunday and subsequent marches in 1965 which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.There was a Saturday breakfast to honor footsoldiers of the movement, a parade, a beauty pageant, a Sunday Unity Breakfast, Freedom Flame Banquet, golf tournament, numerous workshops and presentations on history and current struggles. At the Unity Breakfast, Congresswomen Terri Sewell presented a replica of the Footsoldiers Gold Medal, recently awarded by Congress to participants in the 1965 marches, to Hank and Faya Rose Sanders. The Sanders have developed the Bridge Crossing Jubilee and Museum over the past three decades to help people to understand the history of the voting rights struggle in America and continue to work to preserve these basic democratic rights for all people. They said they would place the medal on exhibit in the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma.
    Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina was the keynote speaker at the Unity Breakfast. Clyburn said, “If we fail to learn the lessons of history, then they will repeat. We are seeing some similarities now in our Presidential election to the elections in Germany in 1932, when a demagogue was first elected to office and then became a fascist dictator.”
    “Things that happened before can happen again. Things do not happen in a linear fashion. They go one way and then swing back another way. The people must be ready to intervene and participate in the process.
    “Last year, we were here with a bi-partisan group of 100 Congress people and the President for the Fiftieth Anniversary but the Voting Rights Advancement Act has not had a hearing and not moved one inch since last year. People will show up for the celebration but not the work,” said Clyburn.
    He urged the audience especially young people, not to give up. “Most of us have a resume which lists only the things that went right – not the times that things didn’t go as planned.
    I ran for Congress, three times and lost. I did not win until the fourth time. Many people said three strikes and you’re out, but those are baseball rules. There are no numerical limits on trying in life,” said Clyburn.
    The names of many young Black people killed by police in the past year came up as rallying calls for actions at various times during the weekend. The case of Gregory Gunn who was shot five times, last month, by police in Montgomery was mentioned in the criminal justice workshops. Rev. Kenneth Glascow of The Ordinary People’s Organization (TOPS) introduced the mothers of Christopher Jerome Thomas of Dothan, Alabama and Cameron Massey of Eufala, Alabama. Glascow led a “backwards march” across the bridge, before the larger march, to call attention to the inequities in the justice system and the unresolved pending cases of police violence and misconduct toward Black people.
    In a Saturday workshop at the Center for Non-violence, Truth and Reconciliation, the speaker was Bryant Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative. He spoke about his life experience of working to represent and exonerate prisoners on death row in Alabama. He equated the current killing of young Black men with the prior era of lynching in the South between Reconstruction and the end of World War II. He said over 400 Black people were lynched around the South. His organization is in the process of placing historical markers at the places where these lynchings occurred.
    On Sunday afternoon about 10,000 marchers, including a large contingent of members from Alabama Masonic Lodges and their auxiliaries participated in the reenactment march from Browns Chapel Church through Selma and across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. A post march rally was held in the Memorial Park on the east side of the bridge.

  • Clinton and Trump win Alabama and Greene County; Zippert elected to Greene County School Board – District 1; Runoff in District 2 – Madelyn Thomas and Kashaya Cockrell

    Hillary Clinton, Gregory Griggers, Carol P. Zippert, Madelyn Thomas, Kashaya Cockrell

    Yesterday on “Super Tuesday” in the Democratic Primary election, Hillary Clinton led the state with 309,928 (78%) to Bernie Sanders with 76,399 (19%). In Greene County, Clinton garnered 2716 (90%) votes to 213 for Bernie Sanders (7%).
    In the Republican Primary, Donald J. Trump led the field with 371,735 (43%) of the votes. Cruz was a distant second with 180,608 (21%), Rubio with 159,802 (19%), Carson 87,517 (10%) and Kasich 37,500 (4%) rounded out the field.
    In Greene County, Trump led as well with 147 (54%) of the total 273 Republican votes cast in the primary.
    In the 17th Judicial Circuit District Attorney contest that serves three counties – Greene, Marengo and Sumter, incumbent Gregory Griggers was reelected with 6,873 (56.5%) votes to 5,281 (43.5%) for Barrown Lankster. Griggers carried all three counties. In Greene County, Griggers received 1439 votes to 1237 for Lankster.
    Carol P. Zippert was elected to the Greene County Board of Education in District 1. Zippert received 376 (62%) of the votes to 235 (38%) for challenger Kiasha Underwood Lavender. Zippert carried the Courthouse, Mantua Knoxville and the Absentee Box. Lavender led in Union and Jena precincts.
    In District 2, for the Greene County School Board there was a five person race which resulted in a run-off between Madelyn Thomas with 138 (27.7%) votes and Kashaya Cockrell with 113 (22.7%). Latoya “Mimi” Pelt received 102 (20.5%), Brandon Meriwether 76 (15.3%) and Robert “Coach” Kimbrough 69 (13.8%). The run-off is scheduled for Tuesday, April 12, 2016.
    In the race for U. S. Senator, incumbent Richard Shelby was nominated in the Republican primary and Ron Crumpton was nominated over Charles Nana in the Democratic primary.
    In the vote on the Constitutional Amendment to allow district attorneys and circuit clerks to participate in the state retirement system, it was passed in Greene County by a vote of 2,254 (82%) for; 492 (18%) against. Statewide this amendment was approved 679,956 (63%) to 402,060 (37%).

  • Greenetrack sets up guarantee fund to assist Greene County Health System with payroll

    Greenetrack

    Pictured L to R: Greenetrack Boardmember Toice Goodson, Sr., Greenetrack
     CEO Luther ‘Nat’ Winn, Jr., GCHS boardmember John Zippert,  GCHS
    boardmember Shirley Isaac  and Greenetrack Boardmember Jimmy Pasteur

    At a press conference on Friday morning at Greenetrack, Greenetrack CEO, Luther ‘Nat’ Winn Jr. and several board members presented the Greene County Health System (GCHS) with two checks totaling $150,000. These funds will be used to establish a guarantee fund in the Merchants and Farmers Bank to insure that the GCHS can meet its bi-weekly payroll, even when payments from Medicaid, Medicare and other health payers are delayed. The GCHS has 200 full and part-time employees.

    The Greene County Health System, which includes the Hospital, Residential Care Center (nursing home) Physicians Clinic, Home Health Services, Rehabilitation Services and other health care benefits was represented at the presentation by Board members – Shirley Isaac and John Zippert. GCHS board members thanked the officials of Greenetrack for their concern and support.
    In early April, according to Elmore Patterson, GCHS CEO, the health system experienced some difficulties in meeting a payroll because its Medicaid payments were delayed until later in the month. GCHS board members and Medicaid itself made loans and advances to assure that the payroll was met.
    Luther Winn Jr., CEO of Greenetrack learned of these problems and agreed to assist by placing funds in a guarantee account to assure that the payroll could be met on a timely basis.
    Luther Winn, Jr., CEO of Greenetrack and a member of the Greene County Industrial Authority, felt compelled to step in and assist.  “Greenetrack is committed to the Greene County community. As in the past, we have done what we could to improve the quality of life for every resident here,” said Winn, “and we cannot afford to lose our hospital.”  Winn went on to say that the Industrial Authority actively seeks new businesses for the area and without a hospital, he fears that businesses definitely will not consider coming to Greene County.
    Winn informed the GCHS that Greenetrack was receiving $75,641.07, mostly in coins, back from the State of Alabama, in connection with litigation concerning the first raid on Greenetrack in 2010. These funds were awarded back to Greenetrack by Special Circuit Judge Houston Brown, in a summary judgment on February 3, 2016, in a hearing in Greene County. The case also involves over 800 electronic bingo machines seized by the state in the same raid.
    The coins were in Greenetrack’s vault but the State of Alabama, who seized them, could not prove that these funds were derived from illegal gambling activities and thus agreed to return them.
    Greenetrack’s Board of Directors agreed to match the State’s funds with an additional $75,000 to create a $150,000 guarantee collateral fund in Merchant and Farmers Bank to back-up the GCHS’s payroll account. If the GCHS has to draw upon this account to support payroll, it will have to replace the funds before drawing on the account again. “This will insure that the GCHS’s employees will never miss a paycheck,” said Winn.
    Shirley Isaac of Forkland and GCHS Board member said  “ We are grateful to Mr. Winn and Greenetrack for their support and confidence in the hospital, nursing home and other services. This will surely help us to meet our responsibilities to our hardworking and dedicated staff.”
    John Zippert, another GCHS Board member said, “ We appreciate what Mr. Winn and Greenetrack have done to help the GCHS but it is up to us as citizens of Greene County to do our part and use the facilities, health personnel and services available at the hospital, residential care center and physicians clinic.”
    “We have 20 beds in the hospital, 70 beds in the nursing home, 3 doctors and 2 nurse practitioners at the clinic, a full lab, new X-ray machine, women’s health center with mammography, physical, occupational and speech therapy services, home health services and many other health services at our facilities. There is no reason to go to Tuscaloosa, Demopolis or elsewhere for medical and health services unless you are referred by GCHS. If we don’t use our facilities and staff, we will surely lose them,” said Zippert.
    Elmore Patterson, GCHS CEO said, “We welcome this support from Greenetrack. We hope that we will also secure some regular monthly funding from Sheriff Benison’s bingo rules which will help us meet the costs for serving so many people in the county who cannot afford healthcare and those with Medicare and Medicaid whose reimbursements do not meet the full cost of providing care.”

  • National, State and Local policy makers headed for Black Political Convention in Gary

    By Hazel Trice Edney 

     

    Mayor Johnny Ford of Tuskegee and Mayor of Gary Indiana,

    Karen Freeman-Wilson

     

     

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – As the U. S. presidential candidates prepare for national conventions and congressional campaigns remain in full throttle, the National Policy Alliance, a coalition of 16,000 Black elected and appointed officials and more than a million Black policy makers has organized a National Black Political Convention to be held June 9-12 at the Genesis Convention Center in Gary, Ind.

    The event is a follow up to a historic gathering convened in 1972 by then Gary Mayor Richard Hatcher.

    “The Gary Convention was perhaps the single most important political event for Black America held during the last century,” Tuskegee, Alabama Mayor Johnny Ford said in an interview this week. “With that Gary Convention came the inspiration and motivation that led to the election of more Black elected officials than any time since reconstruction.”

    Although he is founding co-chair of the National Policy Alliance, Ford says there will be no top leader. Other convention convenors are former Gary Mayor Richard Hatcher, original convenor in 1972; current Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson; and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, the son of poet and activist Amiri Baraka, an original convenor in 1972.

     

    According to NPA Executive Director Linda Haithcox, speakers will include Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan; Chicago Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.); Dr. Lezli Baskerville, president/CEO, National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education; NAACP Senior Vice President Hilary Shelton; Dr. E. Faye Williams, National Chair of the National Congress of Black Women; Flint, Michigan Mayor Karen Weaver; and Spencer Overton, president/CEO of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

    “We have no one leader. We don’t have a Martin Luther King. We don’t have a Malcolm. We have diversified if you will, whereby all of us have leadership roles,” Ford said.

     

    Some national leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., who had originally planned to attend, had to cancel due to Friday’s memorial services for boxing champion Muhammad Ali, organizers said.

     

    The main purpose of the gathering will be to establish a Black agenda that will result in equality and justice, Ford said.

    “The challenges facing the African-American community today are even greater than they were 44 years ago,” Ford said. “This convention is being held now because, If not now, when? If not us, who?”

    Ford listed issues including “high unemployment, crime in our communities, the need for better education, quality and affordable and accessible health care, the need to develop our infrastructures in the Black community” as being key to a Black agenda.

    These are issues being dealt with every day by state and local officials. “So, that’s why we who are closest to the people are providing the leadership.”

    Ford acknowledged that while the issues are similar to 1972, the modes of communication are different. For example, there was no Internet back then. This gathering will take full advantage of the new media, he said.

    “While this convention is not as well known or will be as big as the one that took place 44 years ago where more than 10,000 delegates came together and adopted a call for action, the African-American community in this country and even internationally will be able to be a part of this convention by [live] streaming – thanks to the Internet.”

    Regardless of who shows up, Ford says the significance of going back to Gary 44 years later is powerful because of the historic impact the convention made then.

    “Gary precedes glory,” he said. “Gary is a significant and historic return to a place that is sacred in the sense that it was at Gary that we shaped a national agenda. It will be at Gary that we will return to shape a 2016 national agenda.”

    Ford said he does not expect everyone to agree on everything. But where there is agreement will come the Black agenda, he said. “And that will be the agenda that we will present to the national Democratic Party, the national Republican Party and the nation and the world.”

     

    The Black agenda “will be revisited in the fall” during national, state and local elections, Haithcox says. “This agenda will be something that can be utilized in every state, county and city.”

  • CBC members worry proposed FCC rule could hurt Black media companies

    By Lauren Victoria Burke (NNPA News Wire Contributor)

    Congresswoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY)Congresswoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY)

                In an unpredictable, disruptive media environment featuring new ways for consumers to receive video content over Wi-Fi, apps and live streaming, established media companies are bracing for a future driven by big tech and consumer choice with new profit models.

    It happened in the newspaper industry. It happened in the music industry. It happened in the book publishing industry. And now it’s happening slowly, but surely in broadcasting as a host of new entrepreneurs are set to arrive on an increasingly competitive scene.

    In February, Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), moved to free consumers, who are now collectively paying $20 billion every year, from buying or renting a set-top box for cable TV. The FCC wants to “unlock the box” and allow others to provide video content such as Google and Apple.

    The move would be a shakeup of the status quo. The technology around video-on-demand is clearly changing as seen in companies such as YouTube, Hulu, TiVo, Kweli.tv, Netflix and Ustream. On April 15, President Obama signed an executive order backing Wheeler’s efforts to open the cable set top box.

    “The cost of cable set-top boxes has risen 185 percent while the cost of computers, televisions and mobile phones has dropped by 90 percent,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said on the issue.

    Last week on Capitol Hill, Congressional Black Caucus Chair G.K. Butterfield and Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) announced a new Congressional Caucus on Multicultural Media that will “focus on the state of diversity and inclusion in the media and in the telecommunications industry.”

    Clarke said that the potential harm that the proposed FCC rule could do to multicultural media companies is very real. She suggested delaying action on the proposed rule, “until the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) complete their prospective studies on the impact on multicultural media under this proposed rule.”

    Clarke and Butterfield were joined by TV One CEO Al Liggins and BET Networks Executive Debra Lee at the press event announcing the new caucus. Both Clarke and Butterfield serve on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

    “While we must be open to the rising cultural expectations to make programs available on-demand or through streaming services, we also have to balance these interests with the assurance that we are not pitting the few diverse programmers out there against each other or allowing some to pick winners and losers,” Butterfield said.

    The phrase, “few diverse programmers” is an understatement. African Americans own less than 1 percent of all TV properties and less than 2 percent of radio as reported by Pew Research.

    “We think that the marketplace is robust enough as it is and [the proposed FCC rule] is unnecessary,” said Liggins. “We believe competition should be there, but we believe it should happen in an app form which protects all the rights and the license agreements that we’ve made with the existing paid TV providers.”

    Butterfield expressed concerns that the FCC’s plan to “unlock the box” might risk the progress in diverse programming that television audiences have seen in recent years. Despite that progress, minority-owned media companies represent a minuscule portion of all broadcast media and many Black media company owners are pushing for the FCC change, saying that the status quo has done little to affect the ownership disparity.

    On a conference call an hour after Reps. Clarke and Butterfield announced the new caucus, Peggy Dodson, the CEO of the Urban Broadcasting Company offered an alternative view and supported the FCC “unlocking the box.”

    “We’re about creating a producing urban content, but that content has to be searchable, it has to be found and it has to be monetized,” Dodson said. “The genie is out of the box. The hourglass has been turned over. I think what is being missed between Comcast and Time Warner fighting with Google and thinking that Google is going to take over, is the minority-owned producers and content creators. We’re being swept under the rug. We need diversity. We do not own anything.”

    Dodson continued: “Opening the box is inevitable. It is the answer. It’s happening. We can’t stop it. People are choosing what platforms they want to see programing on and how they want to see it and when they want to see it. Everyone can make money.”

    Dodson said that she’s not trying to put TV One or anyone else out of business. “That is not my goal. My goal is to have the opportunity to monetize and have people see the content on a platform that is searchable and that can be monetized,” Dodson added.

    Clifford Franklin, CEO of GFNTV, said that he was shocked to hear the comments from BET and TV One. “It’s shocking to me to see the comments from BET and TV One because they know this has been a very anti-competitive situation that we’re in. At the end of the day we have to disrupt this industry,” Franklin told reporters.

    “We’ve been inundated with baboonery and thugs and anti-social behavior and some of that has come from our urban channels,” Franklin added. “We need a lot more diversity of thought from our content creators. They have pretty much been shut out of the game.”