Greene County Democrat

Category: history

  • The Black Lives Matter Movement’s political moment

    By: Atlantic Monthly Magazine

     

    Protestors yell as they are escorted out as U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Radford
    Protestors yell as they are escorted out as U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Radford, Virginia February 29, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Keane – RTS8ND6

    Political conventions have always attracted political protests, and the history of Black organizers protesting at major party conventions stretches back decades. Mass protests led by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, then-Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee leader and current Representative John Lewis, and activist Fannie Lou Hamer at the 1964 Democratic Convention helped bring the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into existence and hasten the exit of white conservatives from the Democratic Party.
    The 1968 Democratic Convention was upended by mass protests and riots from a collection of counterculture and civil rights groups, including anti-war demonstrators, black nationalists, and the nonviolent remnants of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign. The surveillance, protests, and a political plot at this convention captured the fraught racial climate of the United States in the wake of King’s death and the ensuing riots.
    With the 2016 Democratic and Republican conventions approaching, America’s mood is perhaps not quite as tense as it was after the anti-black violence of the 1964 Freedom Summer or the fear and destruction of the 1968 King riots. But it is still characterized in part by anger from black activists. Donald Trump’s campaign has fomented protests from black organizers across the country, and his racist posturing has led to renewed calls for protests against the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Black Lives Matter, a movement that dominated headlines last year in protests against police violence, has always been political, but the conventions provide much more direct avenue to electoral politics. Black activism could be a major force in shaping or disrupting the agendas of both parties.
    Will the Democrats’ gathering in Philadelphia look anything like its 1964 or 1968 predecessors? Prominent activist and member of Campaign ZERO DeRay Mckesson stated that he expects organizing in Philadelphia to reflect young black disillusionment over Clinton’s candidacy and the Democratic platform, as well as the precedent set by a recent sit-in in Congress led by Lewis. Philadelphia activists affiliated with Black Lives Matter have confirmed their intent. Erica Mines of the Philadelphia Coalition for REAL Justice—known for challenging Bill Clinton about his crime bill at a rally in April—says her group and other black activists in the area will have a presence at the convention in late July. “We definitely plan on having a protest,” Mines told me.
    The issues this time around aren’t solely the criminal-justice demands that Black Lives Matter and associated organizations like the Coalition for REAL Justice have made in the past. Mines told me she and fellow protesters are following Philadelphia’s strong tradition of activism and movements like Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign, which his successor Ralph David Abernathy  led at the 1968 convention after King’s assassination. They are pressing some very Philadelphia-specific issues, in keeping with the decentralized and local nature of many black protest movements.
    According to Mines, the most important issues are “economic development, housing, poverty, jobs, and the lack of funding in Philadelphia.” One policy specific to Philadelphia was a new regressive sugar tax passed by the city council that can add as much as a dollar charge to packs of soda. “We have this new sugar tax that’s not a good tax at all,” Mines said. It “falls on the backs of the poor and disenfranchised communities.” Philadelphia activists have also forged an identity that echoes the city’s history of radical black activism. A 1985* incident in which police helicopters dropped bombs on black activists in the radical MOVE organization shapes how groups there operate. “We are in direct relationship and solidarity with the MOVE Family,” Mines told me. That means protesting at the convention to free MOVE activists such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of murder in 1981 but who many black activists view as a political prisoner.
    The plans in Philadelphia echo a familiar history of black protests at the Democratic conventions. But will that same spirit of protest also spur Black activists at the Republican Convention in Cleveland? The people planning it certainly think so. Planners in Cleveland have used much of the $50 million event grant from Congress on surveillance of black protesters and have purchased a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) for use in crowd control. The original anti-protest rules for the Cleveland convention were so strict that liberal and conservative grassroots joined forces to defeat them in court. But Cleveland-area groups affiliated with Black Lives Matter would not go on the record about any specific plans.
    Black activism could be a major force in shaping or disrupting the agendas of both parties.
    Their reticence to go on record reflects a fear of surveillance among black organizers. After numerous protests in Cleveland in 2015, FBI officials intimated that they were closely surveilling the city’s activists. The Secret Service has also rolled out a muscular intelligence apparatus in Cleveland in advance of the convention. While most of their efforts are dedicated to addressing threats of terrorism, law-enforcement officials are also monitoring the social-media activity of Black Lives Matter activists.
    Despite the increased security, black protesters will almost surely show up. Cleveland became a center of black organizing against police brutality after police killed Tamir Rice in 2014. The city has also been the target of a Justice Department probe into police brutality. The first major Black Lives Matter conference was held in Cleveland last year, marred by an incident in which a transit officer pepper-sprayed demonstrators.
    Not all black protesters who show up in Cleveland or Philadelphia will be working for the same exact goals. Shanelle Matthews, the director of communications for the Black Lives Matter network, said the organization does not publicize direct action in advance, and the conventions do not have a blanket significance nationally. “Because we’re decentralized and all of the chapters work autonomously, to each of the chapters in their regions [conventions] mean something different,” Matthews said. Some chapters or affiliates that choose to protest might focus on police violence. Others may focus on economic justice. Still others may focus on environmental justice.
    This is a critical summer for Black Lives Matter as an organization and a broader movement—as Matthews notes, it is “still in its infancy.” Local activists are seeking to build their advocacy networks and figure out what causes and methods make sense for them. Both conventions will provide opportunities for Black activists to make their mark on electoral politics, if they are so inclined. “I think this is a time for us as black and brown people in this country to really understand what it means to be part of the democratic process,” Mines told me. “It is a pivotal time for us especially for the DNC and Philadelphia historically. Understanding this is the birthplace of democracy and this is a once in a lifetime thing, we have to get our issues addressed.”
    While these activists will undoubtedly draw from the legacies of 1964 and 1968, the thoroughly decentralized, intersectional Black Lives Matter movement may well add something new to the history of protests and conventions. After months of being overshadowed by the election, Black protesters will likely make headlines again in July.

  • Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, legendary Tuskegee Airman, dead at 94

    Written By Charise Frazier

     

    Roscoe Brown Jr, Tuskegee Airman

     Roscoe Brown Jr. with model of ‘Red Tail’ fighter plane

    Roscoe_Brown1

    Roscoe Brown, as a Tuskegee Airman

     

    Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, a legendary World War II hero and member of the historic Tuskegee Airmen, died over the weekend in New York, NBC4 reports. He was 94 years old.
    Brown flew in 68 combat missions for the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots in U.S. history, but he was also committed to public service as an educator and university leader. He was part of the longest mission flown by the air force in World War II, traveling over 1,500 miles from Italy to Berlin to take down a slew of German jets.
    In a 2011 interview with NBC 4, Brown spoke fondly of his time as a pilot in the military.“I didn’t understand the brutality of the Civil War, but when I was a Tuskegee Airman, I knew that I was good, I knew that I had to challenge the system, and I loved to fly,” he said.
    Following World War II, Brown received his Ph.D. in education and taught at New York University, CBS New York reports. He held a lifetime commitment to public service as an educator.
    For 17 years he was president of Bronx Community College and was also a professor at CUNY’s Graduate Center where he held the position as director of the Center for Urban Education Policy.
    For many years he hosted a segment titled “African-American Legends,” on CUNY’s public affairs channel. CUNY released a statement on Monday paying homage to Dr. Brown:
    “It is with great sadness that we mourn the passing of Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr, former President of Bronx Community College, who served his country with great distinction in World War II as one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen and later as a leading champion for civil rights. During his 17 years of exemplary service as president, Dr. Brown intensified the College’s outreach to New York City’s economic and educational institutions through partnerships with business and industry.  With his leadership, new programs were developed in high growth professions in the fields of health, technology and human services
    Dr. Brown was also very physically active — he participated in the New York City Marathon nine times, and enjoyed two hometown teams, the Jets and the Mets. But, during the winter he fell ill and had a pacemaker installed at Montefiore Medical Center, according to NBC 4.
    “If he wasn’t as healthy and in such great shape, he probably wouldn’t have made it through this,” Brown’s physician, Dr. Daniel Sims, told NBC 4 New York. “Most 94-year-olds are not this active, but Dr. Brown is just remarkable,” he said.
    Brown’s family posted a thank you message to supporters on Monday:
    Brown’s message of resilience to young people in a 2011 interview with NBC 4, spoke wisdom and insight. He told reporter Tracie Strahan the following:
    “My message to young people is to keep on working. You’ve got to be better, you’ve got to be disciplined, you’ve gotta believe. And if you believe you can overcome, you can overcome. That’s the story of the Tuskegee Airmen.”
    Rest in power, Dr. Brown.

  • A radical idea to compensate Black homeowners harmed by racial bias

    By Emily Badger , Washington Post

    Graphic for housing story

     

    Homes in Black middle-class neighborhoods, like the one where Natalie Y. Moore grew up on the South Side of Chicago, typically don’t gain value over time the same way homes in mostly white middle-class neighborhoods do.

    The people who live there are penalized for biases built into the housing market. White home buyers seldom consider neighborhoods with even a modest black population, and so housing demand is much lower in those communities. That drives down prices and muzzles appreciation. It means that homeownership simply isn’t as good of a deal in neighborhoods that are even slightly black.

    Moore, a public radio reporter writing in her new book, “The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation,” quotes an idea from Emory University law professor Dorothy Brown on how to partially remedy this: “Why don’t we say no one gets a mortgage interest deduction unless they live in an integrated neighborhood?” Brown told her. “We realize you’re taking a penalty in the market, and we want to compensate you by lowering your taxes.”

    And Brown’s radical proposal to implement the idea: Let’s extend the mortgage interest deduction only to homeowners who live in neighborhoods that are at least 10 percent black.

    I was intrigued by this as a thought experiment so I shared the book excerpt on Twitter, where it prompted some broad discussion. Could we use the tax code to foster integration? Would doing so just reward gentrifiers? Would Brown’s formula mean that most black homeowners would get the tax break?

    Decades of official government policy, lending practices and silent preferences have sorted blacks and whites into separate housing markets in America. They have enabled whites to build wealth through homeownership, across generations, in ways that compound the racial wealth gap in America. And in this divided housing market, black wealth was destroyed at a much higher rate during the housing bust.

    The home mortgage interest deduction, meanwhile, further distorts the housing market, piling benefits on the rich and encouraging people who were already well-off to buy even bigger homes. So why not restructure the deduction — which needs doing anyway — to recognize some of housing’s racial disparities?

    I called Brown to talk through her idea more. To my surprise, she is actually not interested in nudging people to live in more integrated neighborhoods. She’s not sure integration in itself is a worthy goal.

    “Every time I presented this paper, someone said, ‘Oh you’re encouraging integration,’ ” Brown says of the 2009 paper in which she first floated the idea. “I said, ‘No I’m not.’ I’m basically compensating people who live in more than 10 percent black neighborhoods. Some of those are racially integrated. Some of those are not.”

    She is more interested in making it up to people who are harmed by biases in the housing market than getting us to behave in ways that would overcome those biases. As a scholar, she primarily writes about the race and class implications of federal tax policy. The mortgage interest deduction disproportionately benefits whites because they’re much more likely to be homeowners. But she realized that white homeowners disproportionately benefit even relative to black homeowners because housing is worth so much more to whites.

    “There’s a market penalty –– I call it an appreciation gap – in any home in a neighborhood with more than 10 percent black [population],” she says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a white homeowner or a black homeowner. If you’re in a neighborhood that’s 10 percent black, that home isn’t going to appreciate the same way it would if you picked it up and moved it to an all-white neighborhood. I found that fascinating.”

    Tax policy, she figured, should disrupt that pattern, not exacerbate it. As a practical matter, that would mean that black homeowners in all-black neighborhoods would get the deduction. It would mean that white, Hispanic, Asian and black homeowners in neighborhoods that are 10 percent black would get it, too (a similar penalty doesn’t appear to be associated with Asian and Hispanic residents). Whites with few blacks in their neighborhood would not.

    Does that sound like social engineering, like government picking winners and losers unfairly? “Right now, a subsidy only for homeownership – there’s no rent deduction – benefits whites, period, full-stop. Because most whites are homeowners,” Brown says. “We’ve got social engineering right now in the code, and people are fine with it because they’re winning. And all I’m saying is you’re already winning in the market. You don’t need to also win in the tax subsidy.”

    She’s also skeptical her idea would prompt gentrification into black neighborhoods by wealthier whites. The mortgage interest deduction just isn’t that generous.

    “I just don’t see this proposal, if it became law tomorrow, causing lots of white people to run out to buy houses in majority-minority neighborhoods,” she says. “That flies in the face of all the research out there showing that whites don’t want to live in diverse neighborhoods.”

    Of course, there is roughly zero chance of her proposal becoming law tomorrow. But the mere idea — and sometimes it’s just worth throwing them out there — raises real questions about why homeownership hasn’t equally benefited blacks, and how government policy has helped make that so.

  • US Supreme Court in 4-3 vote upholds affirmative action at University of Texas

    By: David Smith in Washington and Alan Yuhas in New York, The Guardian

    The principle of affirmative action for African American and Hispanic people seeking access to higher education received a boost on Thursday when the supreme court upheld a controversial program run by the University of Texas.

    In a 4-3 ruling, the court decided that the university’s scheme, which considers race as part of its admissions process, is constitutional. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case because she worked on it while serving in the justice department.

    Most students are admitted to the University of Texas through a scheme that guarantees slots to Texans who graduate in the top 10% of their high school classes. But for a quarter of its intake, it considers race as one factor among many, a formula supported by the Obama administration.

    Justice Anthony Kennedy warned that though the Texas program is constitutional it may still be the subject of future scrutiny by the courts.

    “The Court’s affirmance of the University’s admissions policy today does not necessarily mean the University may rely on that same policy without refinement,” he wrote. “It is the University’s ongoing obligation to engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection regarding its admission policies.”

    The ruling strengthens affirmative action programs around the country, making them more likely to survive discrimination suits.

    Kennedy wrote that universities deserve “considerable deference” in how they run themselves, “but still, it remains an enduring challenge to our nation’s education system to reconcile the pursuit of diversity with the constitutional promise of equal treatment and dignity”.

    Universities and states can be “laboratories for experimentation”, he said, citing UT Austin as a school that could serve as an example to others. But his commendation came with an order to continuously re-evaluate whether “changing demographics have undermined the need for a race-conscious policy”.

    Justice Samuel Alito took the remarkable step of reading his dissent from the bench – an act reserved only for when justices, usually decorous even in defeat, passionately disagree with a ruling. After Kennedy read the conclusions of his 20-page ruling, Alito read his 50-page dissent in its entirety.

    “UT’s crude classification system is ill suited for the more integrated country that we are rapidly becoming,” Alito said. “If an applicant has one grandparent, great-grandparent, or great-great-grandparent who was a member of a favored group,” he asked, “is that enough to permit UT to infer that this student’s classroom contribution will reflect a distinctive perspective?”

    This system of self-identification, Alito argued, “is an invitation for applicants to game the system”.

    In a separate dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas repeated his view that the constitution outlaws any use of race in higher education admissions.

    Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton welcomed the ruling, calling it a “win for all Americans”.

    “Having a student body with diverse experiences and perspectives breaks down barriers, enriches academia, and prepares our young people to be leaders and citizens in our increasingly diverse country,” she said.

    Arguments at last December’s hearing focused on whether the university can be justified in using race as a factor and showed a clear split between conservatives and liberals.

    Abigail Fisher, a white woman from Texas, claims she was deprived of a place at the university because of her race. Bert Rein, representing Fisher, argued that the “top 10%” program was sufficient to bring in Hispanic and African American students and said the university could adopt other measures to diversify its student body without explicit reference to race.

    Texas said the “top 10” program alone was not enough and it needed the freedom to fill out incoming classes as it saw fit. Gregory Garre said on behalf of the university that minority enrolment dropped at top public universities in California and Michigan after they ended consideration of race.

    “If this court rules that the University of Texas can’t consider race, we know exactly what will happen: diversity will plummet, especially among African Americans,” Garre said. “Now is not the time and this is not the case to roll back student-body diversity in America.”

    But during oral argument, Alito said the university was engaging in “terrible stereotyping” by suggesting there was something “deficient about the African American students and the Hispanic students who are admitted under the top 10% plan”.

    It is unclear what impact the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia in February ultimately had on the opinion.

    Scalia might have swayed the moderate Kennedy away from such a strong affirmation of race-conscious admissions. In at least three past cases on related issues, Kennedy had sided against affirmative action programs. Scalia at the very least could have deadlocked the decision 4-4. The conservative justice had made his opinion on the case known in December, when he suggested that black students might benefit from the end of affirmative action.

    “There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school, where they do well,” he said during oral arguments in December.

    The court first heard Fisher’s case in 2012 but the case ended inconclusively and was sent to a lower court for review. The federal appeals court in New Orleans twice upheld the Texas admissions program and rejected Fisher’s appeal.

    Fisher’s case was conceived by Edward Blum, an opponent of racial preferences. Blum also is behind lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina that aim to eliminate any consideration of race in college admissions.

    The Supreme Court has previously allowed affirmative action in limited cases though it has said it wanted to phase it out because it was a form of racial discrimination.

    Such programs date to the 1960s, when they were first used to try to reduce racial segregation, but strict quotas were ruled unconstitutional by the court in 1978. Since another test case in 2003, race may now only be used as a factor if it can be shown to be essential in creating educational diversity in class.

    Eight states ban the use of race in public college admissions: Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report

  • Democrats end House sit-in protest over gun control

     

    By Deirdre Walsh, Manu Raju, Eric Bradner and Steven Sloan, CNN

    John Lewis with Terri Sewell

    Congressman John Lewis and colleagues including Congresswoman Terri Sewell (AL-7) as part of sit-in on House floor;

     John Lewis crossing bridge 1965

     John Lewis crossing Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma 1965   Washington (CNN)

    Democrats decided to end their day-long sit-in protest on the House floor over gun control Thursday, June 23, 2016.

    Rep. John Lewis, who launched the sit-in Wednesday morning that eventually drew 170 lawmakers, lit up social media, and infuriated House Republicans — but spurred no legislative action — said the fight was not over.

    “We must come back here on July 5th [when Congress returns to session] more determined than ever before,” Lewis said.

    “We are going to win,” he told supporters on the Capitol steps after the sit-in was halted. “The fight is not over. This is just one step of when we come back here on July the 5th we’re going to continue to push, to pull, to stand up, and if necessary, to sit down. So don’t give up, don’t give in. Keep the faith, and keep your eyes on the prize.”  He also tweeted, “We got in trouble. We got in the way. Good trouble. Necessary Trouble. By sitting-in, we were really standing up.”

    Lawmakers said that during the July 4th break, they would take the issue to their districts.”We are going back to our congressional districts — we are going to engage our constituents on this subject, and we will not allow this body feel as comfortable as in the past,” Rep. Jim Clyburn said. “On July 5, we will return, and at that time we will be operating on a new sense of a purpose.”

    Republicans had earlier tried to shut down the sit-in, but the Democrats’ protest over the lack of action on gun control lasted for more than 24 hours. House Democrats were looking for votes to expand background checks and ban gun sales to those on the no-fly watch list.

    In the middle of the night, the House GOP had sought to end the extraordinary day of drama by swiftly adjourning for a recess that will last through July 5.

    The Republican move was an effort to terminate a protest that began Wednesday morning in reaction to the massacre in Orlando when Democrats took over the House floor and tried to force votes on gun control. But throughout the morning Thursday, 10-20 Democrats, including House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi for much of the time, remained on the floor.

    At one point, a police officer told the Democrats that they would be conducting a daily security sweep. “I’d ask that you clear the floor while that happens,” the officer said.

    Pelosi responded: “That’s not going to happen” and the security check then took place involving five agents and a dog as the House Democratic leader continued speaking, undeterred. Pelosi said the sit-in would continue “until hell freezes over.”

    House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday accused the Democrats of throwing the House into “chaos” and threatening democracy. He said Republicans were looking at all options to stop the sit-in, if the Democrats continued it.

    Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, also criticized the protest and said it was a setback to her efforts to build bipartisan support for her legislation that would ban gun sales to people on a list of possible terrorists.

    “It is not helpful to have had the sit-in on the House side because that made it partisan, and I’ve worked very hard to keep this bipartisan, so that setback our efforts somewhat,” she said of her bill, which won support from a majority of senators Thursday but fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance.

    Although Republicans leaders had shut off House cameras, Democrats continued Thursday morning to livestream their activities on the floor. Rep. Mark Takano plugged his phone into an external power source, set it on top of a chair facing the podium, and was streaming on his Facebook page even though he’d left the chamber to appear on CNN’s “New Day.”

    The sit-in became a social media happening. Tweets sent by Reps. Scott Peters and Eric Swalwell with Periscopes were viewed over 1 million times and the hashtags #NoBillNoBreak and #HoldTheFloor were tweeted over 1.4 million times, according to Twitter.

    Shortly after 8:00 a.m. Florida Rep. Ted Deutch gave an impassioned speech on the floor.”I am tired, I am cold, and I am hungry. Let me remind everyone watching how privileged I am to be tired, cold, and hungry,” he said. “These are feelings that I am privileged to have because so many will never feel that again,” referring to victims of gun violence.

    Overall, more than 170 Democrats took part in the sit in over the 24 hours, lawmakers said.

     

     

  • SCLC Names International Headquarters after President Charles Steele, Jr.

    By George E. Curry
    Editor-in-Chief
    EmergeNewsOnline.com
    Charles Steele Jr.

     

    ATLANTA – The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Atlanta-based civil rights organization co-founded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has named its international headquarters at 320 Auburn Avenue, N.E. in honor of Charles Steele, Jr., its current president and CEO.
    Steele, a former Alabama state senator from Tuscaloosa, AL served from 2004-2009 as its sixth president since the founding of SCLC in 1957. When he assumed office, the organization could not pay its utility bills and was nearly $2 million in debt.
    Fred Shuttlesworth, the leader of the Birmingham, Ala. civil rights struggle and a former SCLC president, had written off his organization as dead, saying: “Only God can give life to the dead.”
    When he took over, a confident Charles Steele answered that criticism directly, saying, “Well, I talked with God as well and he said he was not coming, but he sent me.”
    And the record appears to support his godly assertion.
    Steele said within three years, he had raised approximately $20 million – half in cash and the other half through in-kind contributions.
    Having accomplished his primary mission, Steele decided to return to his life as a businessman in 2009. But his “retirement” would be short-lived.
    In 2014, Steele was asked by the board of directors to give up his full-time private consulting business to return as president to an organization again on the verge of financial collapse.”Dr. Steele has returned as president because of a very important need at this point which is fundraising and fund development. That’s a primary responsibility of the president, and he has excellent skills and contacts in that arena to help us maintain our financial stability,” Board Chairman Bernard LaFayette, Jr. said at the time.
    After Steele’s 5-year stint, SCLC went through a series of leadership changes. The charismatic president and fundraiser was succeeded by Rev. Howard W. Creecy, Jr., who served from 2009-2011, when he died accidently while still in office. Issac Farris Jr., a nephew of Dr. King, was dismissed in 2012 after serving less than a year as president. He was followed by civil rights icon Rev. C.T. Vivian, who agreed to serve on an interim basis until SCLC could select a new president.
    For stability, SCLC turned again to a reliable face.
    Steele, the only person who has ever served twice as president of the storied civil rights group, has been widely recognized for raising most of the $3.5 million to erect the 2-story building on Auburn Avenue and providing the leadership to resurrect the troubled organization.
    The building, which opened in 2007, carries the official name: “SCLC International H.Q. – Charles Steele, Jr. Bldg.” A marker is prominently displayed above the front entrance of the building.
    “Here is a president who, for the first time, made it possible for SCLC to own its own headquarters,” said LaFayette, the SCLC board chairman. “This is not just a building, it’s an international headquarters named to emphasize our international thrust.”
    Steele said he was deeply touched by the decision to name the building in his honor.
    “I could go on forever without the personal recognition,” he said in an interview. “But to put my name on the building gives respect to all of the people who supported me, especially my family. It’s a blessing from God and the expression of gratitude says that my work has not been in vain.”

  • GAO report: Segregation increasing at some U. S. schools

    By Lauren Victoria Burke (NNPA News Wire
    Contributor)

    A recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the segregation of African American and Hispanic students nationwide is getting worse.
    In particular, a notable increase in segregation among K-12 public schools was pointed out in the study. The study also found that charter schools may often take students from public schools and enroll them into less diverse schools. The study also found that Hispanic students were “triple segregated” by economics, race and language barriers. The report was released on the 62nd anniversary of the landmark decision in the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which declared that segregated schools were unconstitutional.
    On May 16, a judge in Cleveland, Miss., found that schools in the town were just as segregated as they were a half-century ago. “The delay in desegregation has deprived generations of students of the constitutionally guaranteed right of an integrated education,” U.S. District Judge Debra Brown wrote.
    At a press conference on Capitol Hill, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), House Education and Workforce ranking Democrat Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), and House Judiciary ranking member Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) along with Reps. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) spoke on the issue.
    Reps. Conyers, Butterfield and Scott will author a bill that would require schools to “designate at least one employee” to work on complying with diversity requirements. “The percentage of schools where 75 percent of students are both low-income and Hispanic or African-American has increased from 9 percent in 2001 to 16 percent in 2014,” Rep. Conyers said.
    The report also found that schools that were segregated offered fewer courses in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) related fields and college preparatory classes. “Segregation in public K-12 schools isn’t getting better. It’s getting worse, and getting worse quickly,” Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia said.
    Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted that, “There are 6,727 highly-segregated schools in our nation, where one percent or less of the school population is white. #BrownVBoard.”
    In a statement about the report, National Urban League President Marc Morial said that the findings in GAO report confirm “that the promise of Brown remains a promise that has gone largely unfulfilled.” Morial continued: “In too many communities, students of color are now more segregated with less access to equitable educational opportunities than in decades prior.”
    NAACP Legal Defense Fund Director Sherrilyn Ifill said that the report shines a light on worsening education inequities that that cannot be divorced from our nation’s legacy of racial discrimination that has perpetuated racial and socioeconomic isolation. Ifill said: “It is our imperative on the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education to ask, ‘How will we act to address current disparities like resource inequities and discriminatory discipline practices?’”
    Lauren Victoria Burke is a political analyst who speaks on politics and African American leadership. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke.

  • Supreme Court rules for Black Georgia death row inmate

    By Lawrence Hurley

     

    scotus-elites_2

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday effectively overturned a Black man’s 1987 conviction for murdering a white woman, rebuking Georgia prosecutors for unlawfully excluding Black potential jurors in picking an all-white jury that condemned him to death.

    635881246232894643-AP-Supreme-Court-All-White-Jury

    Timothy Foster

    The 7-1 ruling handed a major victory to Timothy Foster, who is 48 now and was 18 at the time of the 1986 killing of Queen Madge White, a 79-year-old retired schoolteacher, in Rome, Georgia. Prosecutors, however, still could seek a new trial.
    Black convicts make up a disproportionately high percentage of death row inmates in the United States. Opponents of capital punishment assert that the American criminal justice system discriminates against Black defendants. During jury selection, all four Black members of the pool of potential jurors were “struck” by prosecutors, meaning they were removed from consideration. Prosecutors gave reasons not related to race for their decisions to exclude them.
    Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the ruling, said prosecution notes introduced into evidence that shed light on the jury selection “plainly belie the state’s claim that it exercised its strikes in a ‘color blind’ manner. The sheer number of references to race in that file is arresting.”
    The notes showed that the prosecution marked the names of the black prospective jurors with a “B,” highlighted them in green and circled the word “Black” next to the race question on juror questionnaires.
    The prosecution gave reasons for excluding potential Black jurors including that they “did not make enough eye contact” during questioning and were “bewildered,” “hostile,” “defensive,” “nervous” and “impudent.”
    Roberts said prosecutors “were motivated in substantial part by race” when two of the potential jurors were excluded. Two such strikes based on race “are two more than the Constitution allows,” Roberts added.
    The Supreme Court ruled in 1986, the same year as this murder, that it is unconstitutional to take race into account when excluding potential jurors.
    Prosecutors said Foster broke into the elderly woman’s home in the middle of the night, broke White’s jaw, sexually assaulted her, beat and strangled her, and stole items from her house. Foster later confessed to killing White, according to court papers.
    At the time of the trial, Foster’s legal arguments regarding jury selection failed. But in 2006 his lawyers obtained access to the prosecution’s jury selection notes, which showed that the race of the Black potential jurors was highlighted, indicating “an explicit reliance on race,” according to Foster’s attorneys.
    According to court documents filed by Foster’s lawyers, the lead prosecutor said of his exclusion of the potential black jurors: “All I have to do is have a race-neutral reason, and all of these reasons that I have given the court are racially neutral.”
    Foster’s lawyer, Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights, said the legal challenge would not have succeeded without the notes. “This discrimination became apparent only because we obtained the prosecution’s notes which revealed their intent to discriminate. Usually that does not happen. The practice of discriminating in striking juries continues in courtrooms across the country,” Bright said.
    The Supreme Court’s ruling threw out a Georgia Supreme Court decision rejecting Foster’s claim about prosecutorial misconduct in jury selection, meaning a state court will now reverse his conviction.
    The sole dissenter in the ruling was the court’s only Black justice, Clarence Thomas. Thomas said the case should have been sent back to state courts to determine whether Foster’s claim could proceed.

  • National Urban League’s 40th report on the “State of Black America” shows deep inequality

    By Stacy M. Brown (NNPA News Wire Contributor)

    images-2

    Mark Morial,
    President of National Urban League

    In 1976, then-President Gerald Ford delivered the annual “State of the Union Address,” virtually ignoring the plight of African-Americans and Latinos.
    That drove Vernon Jordan, then-president of the National Urban League, to commission his own report. Now, 40 years later, the “State of Black America” report is a prominent tool that continues to show just where African-Americans, Latinos and other minorities stand in the United States.
    National Urban League President Marc H. Morial said that it’s clear, that much needs to be done.
    “As we observe the 40th anniversary of the State of Black America, the similarities in the nation in 2016 and that which, then-National Urban League Executive Director Vernon Jordan documented in 1976 are disheartening,” Morial said on Tuesday, May 17, at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., during the unveiling of the 40th annual report. “Our nation was struggling to overcome the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Pressure was building to slash social services for the poor, who were demonized and characterized as swindlers. Communities were rocked by hostility and violence triggered by legal challenges to the social status quo,” Morial said.
    As with every economic downturn, communities of color bore the brunt of the decline, Morial noted. Black Americans remained nearly twice as likely as Whites to be unemployed and, since 1976, the Black unemployment rate has consistently remained about twice that of the White rate across time, regardless of educational attainment.
    “The household income gap remains at about 60 cents for every dollar. Black Americans are only slightly less likely today to live in poverty than they were in 1976,” he said.
    On the criminal justice front, Morial said Jordan, who served as president of the National Urban League from 1971 to 1981, noted that Blacks were underrepresented in law enforcement in 1976.
    “The City of Chicago is an example: with a population that is 32.7 percent Black, it has a police force that is only 16 percent Black,” he said. “Today, in hundreds of police departments across the nation, the percentage of Whites on the force is more than 30 percentage points higher than in the communities they serve.”
    Morial spoke fervently about how Blacks were once considered by law to be just three-fifths of a human.“That’s about 60 percent and, if you’re looking for a way to measure how far we’ve come, in 2004 we introduced the equality index and in 2016 that number is 72.2 percent,” he said.
    The report’s bottom line is that African-Americans and Latinos continue to fall way behind Whites in key economic areas, including household income and unemployment rates.
    The State of Black America examined economic data for 70 metro areas for Blacks and 73 for Hispanics and found that there were no regions in the United States where Blacks were more likely to be employed or make more money than Whites.
    Like Blacks, Hispanics in all regions were consistently paid less than Whites though, on average, the gaps between White household income and Hispanic household income were smaller than those between Whites and Blacks, the report found.
    “This is the remaining issue of civil rights and economic justice in America,” Morial said.“This economic gap between Blacks and Whites, which is a component of the gap between rich and poor and working class people in America is a continuing problem.”
    In 2015, nationally 6.6 percent of Hispanics and 9.6 percent of Blacks were unemployed compared with 4.6 percent of Whites.
    The report revealed that African-Americans are doing about the same as they have in previous years as the nation rises out of the Great Recession, which still is surprising better than they did when the first State of Black America report was released in 1976.
    The National Urban League’s equality index is based on collected data from federal agencies including the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Center for Education Statistics, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With full equality with Whites in economics, health, education, social justice and civic engagement set at 100 percent, the National Urban League said this year’s equality index for Blacks stands at 72.2 percent, compared with last year’s 72 percent. For Hispanics, it’s 77.8 percent compared to last year’s rate of 77.3 percent.
    Since 1976, fewer Blacks live in poverty – 29 percent in 1976 compared with 27 percent now. More Blacks have graduated high school and college – 28 percent in 1976 and 33 percent today for high school, and 6 percent four decades ago versus 22 percent today for college. Life expectancy of African-Americans has increased from 68 in 1976 to 75 today. Homeownership and voting, however, continue to be major obstacles with 43 percent of African-Americans owning a home compared to the 43.7 percent that owned homes in 1976.
    Voting is down considerably as 48.7 percent of African-Americans cast ballots in 1976 compared with just 39.7 percent today.
    For the second year in a row, California’s Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metroplex is the best for Blacks when it comes to income equality compared to Whites. An African-American worker makes 76 cents to every dollar a White worker makes in those cities, the highest ratio in the nation. For Latinos, Honolulu is the most promising for income equality: Hispanics make 80 cents for every dollar made by Whites.
    Washington, D.C., and its suburbs are where Blacks, Whites and Hispanics have the highest median household income. Whites make $109,460, Hispanics make $66,523, and Blacks make $66,151.The cities with the lowest Black unemployment rate are Oklahoma City and San Antonio at 8.3 percent. The city with the lowest Hispanic unemployment rate is Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a 4.6 unemployment rate.
    Morial has put out the call for a major commitment from the government to rebuild the nation’s urban communities called the “Main Street Marshall Plan.” He’s seeking $1 trillion over the next five years committed to several programs including universal early childhood education, homeownership strategies, high-speed broadband and technology, and a $15 per hour federal living wage indexed to inflation.“While education is crucial, education alone is not going to solve the economic gaps in the country,” Morial said.
    To view the full report, visit http://www.stateofblackamerica.org.

  • African American museum designed with emotions in mind

    By Peggy McGlone , Washington Post

    Slave shackles

    Small shackles from the 1800s are among the artifacts that will be on display at National Museum of African American History and Culture. (Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)

    They are heartbreakingly small, these rough-hewn iron shackles with openings that are just 21/2 inches in diameter. They are menacing, too, their five-pound bulk disturbingly heavy for the tiny wrists they confined. Despite their small size, they deliver a gut punch by summoning the horror and humanity of the slave trade in a way that no history textbook could ever do. The shackles are among the thousands of items that will be on view at the National Museum of African American History and Culture when it opens Sept. 24. These artifacts will tell stories of slavery, Reconstruction, segregation and the civil rights movement. Museum officials anticipate tears, sighs and even some anger as visitors proceed through the galleries.
    The visitor experience has been a priority from the beginning, addressed in the design of the building, the organization of exhibitions, and the text and videos that supplement the displays. And now, with less than six months to opening, the effort turns to the front lines, to the staff and volunteers who will interact with visitors.
    “Not a lot of (other institutions) are taking on, head on, one of the most difficult things society is facing today, which is the history of our country and how that impacts today,” said Esther Washington, the museum’s director of education. “The idea of letting people sit with a little bit of discomfort is something we have to do because of the stories we have in the museum.”
    Louise Lawrence-Israëls knows firsthand about the difficulty of talking about race, identify and social justice. The 73-year-old Bethesda resident is a volunteer at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where for 22 years she has encountered a range of responses, from shock to tears to surprise. The work is exhausting — though she doesn’t notice until she gets home after a day of tours or talks.
    “It is not tiring for me when I’m doing it. It’s uplifting,” she said. “It’s so important that you can make an impact on people. People just don’t know. It’s baffling how little they know.”
    Lawrence-Israëls was a “hidden child” who was not sent to the camps. She says visitors reveal their emotions by grabbing her arm or taking her hand, and they often ask personal questions (“Do you still believe in God?” is a common one). “They can’t believe anyone has survived that,” she said. “It’s too much for them.”
    Officials with the African American museum turned to their colleagues at the Holocaust museum and the National September 11 Memorial Museum for advice. They are among some 200 museums in the United States that focus on difficult subjects, from the Holocaust to terrorism to World War II, according to the American Alliance of Museums. Their experts say a critical first step is acknowledging the difficulty of some of the exhibitions and the conversations they will prompt.
    “There’s no such thing as harder, or hardest. There’s just hard,” explained Sarah Pharaon of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, a network of memorials, museums and historic sites. “This is history that is personal, and creating an atmosphere that allows for people to share their personal truths is vital.”
    Design is also critical. Many museums have incorporated spaces for reflection and quiet. The Holocaust museum, for example, includes spaces on every floor and a Hall of Remembrance. The 9/11 museum places its more challenging exhibits in alcoves that can be bypassed and has spaced early exits along the gallery.
    “There are visitors who don’t want to have the whole experience. They’ve had enough,” said Clifford Chanin, the 9/11 museum’s vice president of education and public programs. “We’re allowing visitors to make choices within our choices.”
    Smithsonian Secretary David J. Skorton praised the African American museum for anticipating the need for visitors to decompress. “The sensitivity of the designers, especially director Lonnie Bunch, the thinking that went into it, even includes some contemplative space, so after being face to face with areas of tragedy or challenge, there is a space for someone to reflect,” Skorton said.