The Greene County Democrat

Category: Newswire

  • Newswire: Legendary Civil Rights Icon C.T. Vivian dies at 95

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior Correspondent
    @StacyBrownMedia


    Rev. C. T. Vivian receiving medal from President Barack Obama


    The Rev. C.T. Vivian, the legendary civil rights activist who marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has died. Rev. Vivian was 95.
    Vivian reportedly suffered a stroke earlier this year, but his family said he died of natural causes.
    “He has always been one of the people who had the most insight, wisdom, integrity, and dedication,” said former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, a contemporary of Vivian who also worked alongside King.
    “The Reverend Dr. C.T. Vivian was one of my strongest mentors in the Civil Rights Movement,” National Newspaper Publishers Association President Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., stated.
    “Rev. Vivian, like Martin Luther King, Jr, and Joseph Lowery was a visionary theologian, genius, and a leading force in the tactical and strategic planning of effective nonviolent civil disobedience demonstrations. C.T. has passed the eternal baton to a new generation of civil rights agitators and organizers. ”
    In a statement emailed to BlackPressUSA, the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks expressed their condolences. “The Atlanta Hawks organization is deeply saddened by the passing of Civil Rights Movement leader, minister, and author, Dr. Cordy Tindell “C.T.” Vivian. The City of Atlanta and the entire world has lost a distinguished icon whose leadership pushed the United States to greater justice and racial equality for African Americans,” team officials wrote in the email.
    “To inspire the next generation, Vivian founded the C.T. Vivian Leadership Institute in Atlanta, with the intent to create a model of leadership culture in the city that would be dedicated to the development and sustainability of our communities.”
    They continued: “Vivian also started Basic Diversity, one of the nation’s first diversity consulting firms, now led by his son, Al, who has been a great partner to our organization. We are grateful for Dr. Vivian’s many years of devotion to Atlanta and thankful that we had the opportunity to honor and share his legacy with our fans. The entire Hawks organization extends its most sincere condolences to the grieving family.”
    Rev. Vivan was active in sit-in protests in Peoria, Illinois, in the 1940s, and met King during the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott — a demonstration spurred by Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white rider. The 13-month mass protest drew international attention.
    Rev. Vivian went on to become an active early member of the group that eventually became the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, according to his biography. Like King, Vivian was committed to the belief that nonviolent protests could carry the day.
    “Some thoughts on the Reverend C.T. Vivian, a pioneer who pulled America closer to our founding ideals and a friend I will miss greatly,” Former President Barack Obama wrote in a statement. “We’ve lost a founder of modern America, a pioneer who shrunk the gap between reality and our constitutional ideals of equality and freedom.”
    Rev. Vivian was born in Boonville, Missouri, on July 30, 1924. He and his late wife, Octavia Geans Vivian, had six children.
    With the help of his church, he enrolled in American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville in 1955. That same year he and other ministers founded the Nashville Christian Leadership Council, an affiliate of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, according to the National Visionary Leadership Project. The group helped organize the city’s first sit-ins and civil rights march.
    By 1965 Rev. Vivian had become the director of national affiliates for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference when he led a group of people to register to vote in Selma, Alabama.
    CNN memorialized Rev. Vivian, noting that, as the county Sheriff Jim Clark blocked the group, Vivian said in a fiery tone, “We will register to vote because as citizens of the United States we have the right to do it.”
    Clark responded by beating Vivian until blood dripped off his chin in front of rolling cameras. The images helped galvanize more comprehensive support for change.
    Vivian also created a college readiness program to help “take care of the kids that were kicked out of school simply because they protested racism.”
    “I admired him from and before I became a senator and got to know him as a source of wisdom, advice, and strength on my first presidential campaign,” Obama stated.
    “I’m only here to thank C.T. Vivian and all the heroes of the Civil Rights generation. Because of them, the idea of just, fair, inclusive, and generous America came closer into focus. The trails they blazed gave today’s generation of activists and marchers a road map to tag in and finish the journey.”

  • Newswire: Rep. Terri Sewell: John Lewis left the fight to protect voting rights for us to finish

    John Lewis’ steady and persistent voice reminded us that the vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in our democracy. We must protect it.


    By: Terri A. Sewell, Op-Ed in USA Today

    Terri A. Sewell


    Congressman John Lewis was a beacon of light, hope and inspiration throughout his life. To be in his presence was to experience love, whole-hearted and without exception. He remained until his passing a faithful servant-leader, whose righteousness, kindness and vision for a more equitable future inspired all who were blessed to know him. Though he was so often met with hatred, violence and racial terrorism, it never permeated his being. While Congressman Lewis has left this earth, his legacy fighting for equality and justice lives on.
    Now, to honor John, our nation and our leaders must unite behind the cause most dear to him: voting rights. We must restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to its full strength so that every American, regardless of color, is able to make their voice heard at the ballot box.
    Lewis’ voice has been consistent over the years. He reminded us that the vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in our democracy. He dedicated his life to ensuring that all Americans were able to access that most fundamental right, and we owe it to him to ensure that his life’s work was not in vain.
    We have seen increased efforts across the nation to make it more difficult to vote. Since the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, legislatures across the country have implemented proven discriminatory practices like strict voter ID laws, closures of polling places, gerrymandered districts and voter roll purges, disproportionately impacting Black Americans. While Republican lawmakers have defended the laws as necessary to protect against voter fraud, their cries — and fear mongering — is based on myth. Widespread voter fraud is not a legitimate threat to our democracy, but voter suppression is.
    H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act, would serve as an antidote to the Supreme Court’s Shelby ruling, putting the teeth back into the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that Lewis and so many other “foot soldiers” marched, bled and gave their lives for. It is languishing now in the Senate in Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s desk.
    Reflecting on Bloody Sunday during his last speech on the Selma bridge in March, Lewis said, “Our country is a better country. … But we have still a distance to travel to go before we get there.”
    In memory:Honor John Lewis with a Senate vote on the voting rights he fought for his whole life.
    Lewis knew that progress was elusive, that it had to be won and fought for every generation. He also firmly believed that the best days of our nation lie ahead of us. We must continue to call upon his unwavering optimism. As he would say: Never give up. Never give in. Never give out. Keep the faith and keep your eyes on the prize. And vote.
    Restore the Voting Rights Act — for John Lewis, and the country he loved so deeply.
    Rep. Terri A. Sewell, D-Ala., is the first Black woman elected to Congress from Alabama. Follow her on Twitter: @RepTerriSewell

  • Newswire: John Lewis, an American hero and moral leader, dies at 80

    By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

    John Lewis



    Born in 1940, in Troy, Alabama (Pike County), John Lewis, the son of a sharecropper, helped to lead America out of an era of racism. Through his activism and bravery, Lewis carried the moral authority that few other leaders in U.S. history could claim.
    On July 17th he died in Atlanta on the same day that another civil rights legend, Rev. C.T. Vivian, passed away. Lewis was 80 years old. In December 2019, Lewis announced he had stage four pancreatic cancer.
    The famous March 7, 1965 video of Lewis being attacked along with 600 other marchers by Alabama State troopers near the Edmund Pettus Bridge is an often reviewed turning point in American social and cultural history. The footage from Selma of ‘Bloody Sunday’ shocked the nation and the world as Blacks in the United States struggles against government authority for basic rights and respect.
    The violent confrontation led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was signed by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965.
    The 1965 Selma march was led by John Lewis. Lewis was perhaps the last remaining voice of moral authority from the civil rights era. Voting rights remains a challenge in the U.S. Lewis was on the front lines of that effort which was resisted by white racists in the South attempting to stifle Black voting power for decades. Lewis’ efforts and the increase in Black voting registration of African Americans in the South changed U.S. politics forever. The power of Black voters was first seen nationally with the election of President Jimmy Carter in 1976.
    Lewis was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s. SNCC was one of six groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington and fought to end racial segregation in America. SNCC launched the Mississippi Freedom Summer campaign for voting rights. The effort was met with violence, murder but it resulted in some of the most historic and consequential changes in the law for human rights in America.
    John Lewis was the last living speaker at the historic 1963 March on Washington. At 23, Lewis was the youngest speaker to stand behind the same podium Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his historic, “I Have a Dream” speech.
    Lewis’ speech was altered by Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph and James Foreman because Lewis’ original draft was critical of President Kennedy. Lewis was viewed as too radical by Randolph in particular and Lewis was critical of the civil rights bill he believed did not go far enough to protect African Americans against police brutality.
    “It is true that we support the administration’s civil rights bill,” Lewis said to the crowd of thousands at the March on Washington.
    “We support it with great reservations, however. Unless Title III is put in this bill, there is nothing to protect the young children and old women who must face police dogs and fire hoses in the South while they engage in peaceful demonstrations. In its present form, this bill will not protect the citizens of Danville, Virginia, who must live in constant fear of a police state. It will not protect the hundreds and thousands of people that have been arrested on trumped charges. What about the three young men, SNCC field secretaries in Americus, Georgia, who face the death penalty for engaging in peaceful protest?” the young Lewis said.
    In 1986, Lewis was elected to Congress where he became the conscience of the Congress who regularly delivered emotional speeches and moral authority on the House floor.
    U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who announced Lewis’ death, wrote, “Rep. John Lewis: hero, champion and challenge to conscience of the nation. Your visit with the newest voices for justice at the Black Lives Matter mural with Muriel Bowser was wonderful and iconic. Thank you for that final public statement in furtherance of a more perfect union.”
    On June 7, appearing thinner but remaining spirited, Lewis visited the street mural in large yellow letters that reads BLACK LIVES MATTER placed by the Mayor of the District of Columbia. The appearance would be one of his last in public.
    After the death of George Floyd, Lewis said, “It was so painful, it made me cry. People now understand what the struggle was all about. It’s another step down a very, very long road toward freedom, justice for all humankind.”
    “John Lewis was a titan of the civil rights movement whose goodness, faith and bravery transformed our nation. Every day of his life was dedicated to bringing freedom and justice to all,” Pelosi wrote on social media on July 18.
    “This is a horrible loss for the nation. Words do not seem to properly convey the loss. Serving with him in Congress has been an honor, and we will all miss him and his moral leadership at this time,” wrote Education and Workforce Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) on twitter.
    “We are deeply saddened by the passing of John Lewis. His life-long mission for justice, equality and freedom left a permanent impression on our nation and world. The NAACP extends our sincerest condolences to his family, and we send prayers of comfort and strength to all,” declared the NAACP on social media.
    Lewis received every honorary degree and award imaginable from national and international organizations who recognized his moral authority and commitment to peace and non-violence. In 2011, Lewis received the highest civilian honor in the U.S. from President Obama, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
    Details of how Lewis will be honored will be revealed in the coming weeks.

  • Newswire: Former Liberian leader joins panel investigating the global response to COVID – 19

    Ellen Johnson Sirleaf


    July 13, 2020 (GIN) – The World Health Organization has announced that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia’s former president, and Helen Clark, New Zealand’s former prime minister, are to head a panel to review the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
    Mmes. Johnson Sirleaf and Clark will head the newly formed Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. The announcement follows the Trump administration’s formal notification to the U.N. on Monday of its withdrawal from WHO, which won’t take effect until July 6, 2021 with a possibility of reversal by a new administration or changed circumstances.
    Mrs. Sirleaf led Liberia during the Ebola epidemic that began in 2014, when more than 11,000 people were infected with the virus and died. New Zealand has been lauded as a success story for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
    The World Health body’s chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said it was time to reflect and to strengthen collaboration in order to contain the pandemic. “Through you, the world will understand the truth of what happened and also the solutions to build our future better as one humanity,” the AFP news agency quoted Dr Tedros as saying.
    “I cannot Imagine two more strong-minded, independent leaders to help guide us through this critical learning process to help us understand what happened — an honest assessment and to help us understand also what we should do to prevent such a tragedy in the future,” the world health leader said.
    The World Health Organization (WHO) has been under pressure for some time to review its handling of the pandemic. It has faced criticism, most notably from the United States, that it was slow to respond to the initial outbreak in China; the evaluation announced by the WHO will look not just at the WHO’s response, but at the response of individual countries as well.
    According to WHO’s announcement, the panel will operate independently and they will choose other panel members as well as members of an independent secretariat to provide support. They are expected to deliver an interim report in November and a “substantive” report to the World Health Assembly — the WHO’s governing body — at its 2021 meeting next May.

  • Newswire: NNPA salutes Attorney Benjamin Crump and The Crump Law Firm in Memory and Honor of the Family of George Floyd

    Attorney Benjamin Crump

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior Correspondent

    The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) paid tribute to civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump and his law firm while honoring the family of George Floyd, during the NNPA’s Annual Convention, July 8, and July 9, 2020.
    The Virtual Convention marked the 80th anniversary of the NNPA and 193 years of the Black Press of America.
    Crump has earned recognition as a freedom fighting lawyer who doesn’t hesitate to defend the life and legacy of African Americans harmed by police violence and racially motivated acts. He currently represents the families of Ahmad Arberry, George Floyd and other Black men and women unjustly victimized by law enforcement.
    “I salute the Black Press of America and the NNPA on the 193rd anniversary of the Black Press and the 80th anniversary of the NNPA,” Crump states.
    “The family of George Floyd and the families of all the Black American victims of racist police murders and violence appreciate the support the Black Press has provided. I thank you for this award.”
    The NNPA presented Crump with its Trailblazer Award for his work fighting for freedom, justice, and equality. Floyd’s family was also honored at the virtual conference.
    “When you are on the front line fighting for the rights of our people in the courts and in the streets of America, it means a lot for the Black Press to always be there as the strong, trusted voice of Black America. Thank you NNPA Chair Karen Carter Richards and NNPA President Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.,” Crump says.
    In addition to Crump, the Black Press presented Trailblazer Awards to Chuck D of Public Enemy, MC Lyte, legendary Supremes singer Mary Wilson, and Reggae Icon Ziggy Marley.

  • Newswire: Supreme Court rules most of Oklahoma is Indian territory

    By Frederick H. Lowe, BlackmansStreet.Today

    Map of Oklahoma, showing Indian territory



    Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring 3 million acres of land Indian Territory in Oklahoma traces its history back to Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forcibly removed from their native lands in Alabama and Georgia so hundreds of thousands of acres could be given to white farmers.
    The explusion is known as “The Trail of Tears,” which involved the relocation of estimated 100,000 Native Americans, forcing them to relocate from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. Historians estimated that as many as 15,000 men, women and children died on their way to the first Indian reservations. The Trail of Tears was more than 5,043 miles. The tribes driven off their land were Cherokee, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Choctaw, mixed race people and African slaves.
    The U.S. Supreme Court in a 5 to 4 decision in a case titled McGirt v. Oklahoma ruled that a large swath of land in Oklahoma, including Tulsa, remained part of the reservation even after Oklahoma became a state.
    “Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law. Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government at its word,” Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. Gorsuch was joined in his opinion by Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Beyer.
    Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh voted against the ruling.
    “On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise. Forced to leave their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama, the Creek Nation received assurances that their new land in the West would be secured forever,” Gorsuch wrote.
    Following the ruling, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation issued the following statement.
    “The Supreme Court today kept the United States’ sacred promise to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of a protected reservation. Today’s decision will allow the Nation to honor our ancestors by maintaining our established sovereignty and territorial boundaries. We will continue to work with federal and state law enforcement agencies to ensure that public safety will be maintained throughout the territorial boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.”
    Muscogee (Creek) Nation is the fourth largest Indian Tribe in the country. After the Civil War, the Creek Nation, whose members fought both for the Confederacy and the Union, freed black slaves under a new treaty in 1866 with the federal government.
    The former slaves, now known as Creek Freedmen, settled in Tulsa , Oklahoma’s Greenwood District, where they established a significant concentration of black-owned businesses known as Black Wall Street. In one of the nation’s worst race massacres, whites destroyed Black Wall Street and murdered 300 of its residents burning their homes and businessness.
    In 1979, Creek Freedmen were forced out of the tribe. Lawyers for Creek Freedmen filed a lawsuit to get them re-admitted to the tribe. In 2018, Creek Freedmen filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court against the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Principal Chief James Floyd, the United States Department of the Interior and Secretary Ryan Zinke. The lawsuit alleged that under Article 2 of the Creek Treaty of 1866 between the United States and Muscogee Creek Nation that Freedmen and their descents regardless of blood status shall enjoy all the rights of Native citizens. The lawsuit charged the Muscogee Creek Nation and its federal benefactors perpetuated race-based discrimination against the Creek Freedman.
    In May 2019, a lawsuit from the descendants of black slaves who were once owned by members of the Muscogee Creek Nation and who are seeking citizenship in the tribe has been dismissed, with a federal judge ruling that they should go through the tribe’s own legal process first. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., dismissed the Muscogee Creek freedmen descendants’ lawsuit this week seeking citizenship in the Creek Nation the Tulsa World reported.
    The lawsuit charged that the Muscogee Creek Nation has spent the last four decades denying citizenship to the Creek Freedmen by rewriting its tribal constitution and citizenship regulations with the blessings of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
    The titled case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court involved Jimey McGirt and Patrick Murphy. Murphy, a Creek Indian, had been convicted of murdering George Jacobs in rural Oklahoma. His lawyers argued the federal government could prosecute him, but federal law barred Murphy from being sentenced to death because he was an Indian.
    McGirt, a Seminole Indian, was convicted in a state court of sex crimes against a child within the Creek nation. His lawyers argued that only federal authorities are entitled to prosecute him, not state officials.
    Andrew Jackson forced Indians from their land before he was elected the nation’s seventh president from 1829 to 1837. U.S. Congressman Davey Crocket of Tennessee vehemently opposed Andrew Jackson for forcing Indians off their lands. This was never mentioned once on Walt Disney’s television show.
    Jackson, Mississippi, is named in honor of Andrew Jackson. Recently, the City of Jackson has either removed or plans to remove his statute, placing it in a less prominent location.

  • Newswire : Black and Brown people make up two-thirds of US coronavirus deaths below age 65, a new study found

    By; Aria Bendix , Business Insider
    Black and Hispanic people represent nearly two-thirds of US coronavirus deaths among people under 65, a new CDC report found. The report looked at more than 10,000 coronavirus deaths recorded from February to May. The results highlight the way disparities in the healthcare system have caused communities of color to get hit harder in the pandemic.
    Since the start of the pandemic, the coronavirus has disproportionately affected communities of color in the US.
    An April report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one-third of the nation’s hospitalized COVID-19 patients in March were Black — despite the fact that Black Americans make up just 13% of the population.
    As coronavirus cases have spiked across the country, this disparity has only deepened. A new CDC report found that Black and Hispanic patients represented nearly two-thirds of coronavirus deaths among those younger than 65. The researchers looked at data from more than 10,000 coronavirus patients whose deaths were reported from February 12 to May 18, and found that more than one-third of deceased patients under 65 were Hispanic and another 30% were Black.
    White people, meanwhile, represented around 40% of US coronavirus deaths of all ages and 55% of coronavirus deaths among patients ages 85 and older. That’s more than any other race, but white people make up a far larger portion of the US population: around three-quarters.
    The fact that most young people dying of COVID-19 in the US are people of color highlights the racial disparities at play in the pandemic.
    In an interview with Business Insider, Surgeon General Jerome Adams attributed some coronavirus outbreaks among communities of color to “social determinants of health.” Black and Hispanic people, for instance, are more likely to hold service-industry jobs that increase their risk of exposure. Black Americans also account for 17% of frontline employees, despite making up 12% of the US workforce, according to a study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
    In addition, Black people more likely to have preexisting medical conditions that make them vulnerable to severe health outcomes.
    “Health disparities have always existed for the African-American community,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US’s leading infectious disease expert, said in an April White House press briefing. The reason the coronavirus hits Black communities hardest, he added, has to do with the prevalence of “underlying medical conditions — the diabetes, the hypertension, the obesity, the asthma.”
    These conditions aren’t primarily driven by biology or genetics but by structural factors like unemployment, household density, limited access to fresh food, and neighborhoods that lack clean water or have high exposure to allergens and mold.
    “There are also factors that we don’t measure, and those include things like structural racism,” Adams said. “We have to acknowledge that these things are occurring and that they are occurring to people in many cases because of the color of their skin.”
    Patients of color face barriers to testing and quality care
    The CDC study found that most deaths from February to April were recorded in three areas with significant outbreaks: New York City, New Jersey, and Washington state.
    Dr. Uché Blackstock, a part-time emergency medicine physician in central Brooklyn, saw the influx of patients in March. Almost as soon as the first cases arrived in New York City, Blackstock said, she began to worry that Black and Hispanic communities would be the ones most heavily impacted.
    By mid-March, she said, her patients were mostly people of color. Data from the New York State Department of Health suggests that about 34% of New York City’s deceased coronavirus patients were Hispanic and another 28% were Black. Each group makes up about a quarter of the city’s population.
    Blackstock said she mentioned the changing demographics to her staff: “Do you notice the patients look like us now?”
    “We actually had to close [urgent care] sites that were in mostly white affluent neighborhoods because the volume of patients actually went down,” Blackstock told Business Insider. “They started having to move staff and providers over to sites that were in predominantly Black or Latino neighborhoods.”
    Blackstock said one of the main reasons for these outbreaks is that patients of color are less likely to have access to quality healthcare. Black adults are uninsured at nearly twice the rate of white adults, according to US Census data. Many Black patients may also be hesitant to seek medical care in the first place.
    “We’re seeing that Black patients were less likely to be tested even when they did present to a hospital that had testing or a facility that had testing available,” Blackstock said. “We also know that when Black patients do present to the hospital with coronavirus, they usually are sicker.”
    Blackstock said one of her recent coronavirus patients, an elderly Black man, told her he would rather stay home than face discrimination in the emergency room. Another patient, a young Black woman, expressed a similar concern.
    Blackstock recalled their conversation: “I had so much personal protective equipment on that she looked at me and she said, ‘I just want to make sure — are you Black?’ I said yes. She said, ‘OK, good, because I just want to make sure that I’m listened to.”

  • Newswire: Cuba’s two pandemics: The Coronavirus and the US Embargo

    By Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, Al Jazeera

    Cuban doctors mobilize for service in the pandemic


    The Trump administration is trying to hinder Cuba’s efforts to tackle the coronavirus emergency at home and abroad.
    As soon as the first cases of COVID-19 were detected in Cuba, our country mobilized all its resources to contain the spread of the virus.
    Our healthcare workers go door to door checking people for possible symptoms. Those with symptoms are transferred to specially designated centres to receive treatment, mostly with medication developed by Cuba’s own pharmaceutical and biotech industry. The medical examinations and treatments are all provided free of charge.
    As of June 20, 85 people have died of COVID-19 in Cuba. Our mortality rate of 3.9 percent is very low compared to the rest of the world. We reached the peak of the disease on April 24, but we are still encouraging people to respect physical distancing, isolation and sanitary measures.
    Internationally, Cuba has responded to requests for collaboration from more than 20 countries, mainly in Latin America and the Caribbean, but also in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
    Cuba has a long history and tradition of international solidarity with other countries in the health sector that dates back to the 1960s, when we started sending healthcare workers to help other countries. From then on, more than 400,000 Cuban doctors and health professionals have provided services in 164 countries. We have helped strengthen local healthcare systems, provided services in remote areas and trained doctors.
    Based on this long experience, in 2005 Cuba decided to create the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade to respond to natural disasters and serious epidemics across the world. Since then, this brigade of over 7,000 doctors, nurses and other health specialists has provided services in more than 20 countries.
    We sent doctors and nurses to staff 32 field hospitals after the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. We sent a medical team to Indonesia in 2006 after the devastating tsunami. We sent more than 1,700 health workers to Haiti in 2010 after the catastrophic earthquake and the ensuing cholera epidemic. In 2014, we sent brigades to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone to combat Ebola.
    Even Samantha Power, former US President Barack Obama’s UN Ambassador, praised Cuba for its outstanding role in the fight against Ebola.
    We even had brigades ready to assist Louisiana after New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Katrina but the US government rejected our cooperation.
    Assisting others has always been part of who we are as a country and part of the ethical training Cuban doctors and health professionals receive.
    In response to the current pandemic, Cuba has dispatched 28 contingents of the Henry Reeve Brigade to help 26 countries. This is in addition to the more than 28,000 Cuban doctors, nurses and health professionals who were already overseas before the pandemic.

    Unfortunately, Cuban doctors and the Henry Reeve Brigade, in particular, have come under increasing attacks by the Trump administration, which has gone so far as to falsely accuse Cuba of human trafficking through its doctor program.
    It is a shame that the United States government has been trying to discredit Cuba’s international assistance, including using pressure and threats against countries to force them to cancel these medical cooperation agreements.
    They have even tried to pressure governments to reject Cuba’s help during the coronavirus pandemic. They claim the Cuban government is exploiting these doctors because in the case of countries that can afford to provide monetary compensation, a portion of it is kept by the Cuban government.
    However, working overseas is completely voluntary, and the portion the Cuban government keeps goes to pay for Cuba’s universal health system. It goes to purchasing medical supplies, equipment and medication for Cuba’s 11 million people, including for the families of the doctors who are providing their services abroad. This is how we are able to provide free, high-quality healthcare for the Cuban people.
    Instead of exacerbating conflict during a pandemic, our countries need to work together to find solutions. For years, Cuba has been developing pharmaceuticals and vaccines to treat different diseases, from psoriasis and cancer to heart attacks. Now we are helping patients recover from COVID-19 with Interferon Alfa2b Recombinant, one of 19 medications being developed or under clinical trial in Cuba by our biotech and pharmaceutical industries to treat different stages of COVID-19. Globally, we have received more than 70 requests for pharmaceuticals developed by Cuba.
    This would be a clear avenue for Cuba-US cooperation but unfortunately, the Trump administration is wasting this opportunity by dismantling the limited progress made by Cuba and the US during the Obama administration.
    President Trump strengthened the 60-year US blockade against my country, implementing 90 economic measures against Cuba between January 2019 and March 2020 alone. These measures have targeted the main sectors of the Cuban economy, including our financial transactions, tourism industry, energy sector, foreign investments – which are key for the development of the Cuban economy – and the medical cooperation programmes with other countries.
    These unilateral coercive measures are unprecedented in their level of aggression and scope. They are deliberately trying to deprive Cuba of resources, sources of revenue and income needed for the development of the Cuban economy. The effects of these measures are being felt in Cuba, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The blockade is stopping Cuba from getting much-needed medical supplies. For example, if more than 10 percent of the components in the medical equipment or medications we want to buy are of US origin, then Cuba is not allowed to purchase them.
    In addition, the US has imposed restrictions on banks, airlines and shipping companies to stop Cuba from receiving materials that other countries are donating or sending to Cuba.
    In April, the Alibaba Foundation of China tried to donate masks, rapid diagnostic kits and ventilators to Cuba, but the airline contracted by Alibaba to transport those items to Cuba refused to take the goods because they were afraid the US would sanction them.
    A ship recently arrived in Cuba with raw materials to produce medications but it decided not to unload because the bank involved in the transaction decided not to make the payment out of fear it would be sanctioned by the US government.
    So this is why we say we are suffering from two pandemics: COVID-19 and the US blockade. For that reason, it is so important that people of goodwill around the world continue to raise the demand to end the blockade of Cuba and to forcefully assert that these are times for solidarity and cooperation, not sanctions and blockades. In the meantime, Cuba, as a country that understands the value of solidarity, will continue to do our best to stop the spread of coronavirus at home and globally.

  • Newswire: Breonna Taylor’s family claims no aid was offered after she was fatally shot

    By: Stephanie Guerilus, The Grio

    Breonna Taylor

    Breonna Taylor’s family is not only holding the Louisville police responsible for her death but they are now alleging that medical aid wasn’t offered to the young woman after she was fatally shot eight times.

    The bombshell claim was made Sunday in a new 31-page legal filing by the family of Taylor, The New York Times reported. It is their belief that the EMT technician suffered in agony for up to six minutes during what they believe was a “botched” raid in March.

    “In the six minutes that elapsed from the time Breonna was shot, to the time she died, we have no evidence suggesting that any officer made entry in an attempt to check and assist her,” Sam Aguiar, the family’s lawyer, said in an interview. “She suffered.”

    Taylor died on March 13 during a botched drug raid that she was not the target of. Taylor, who worked at two local hospitals, was shot as police were serving a ‘no-knock warrant’ related to a narcotics investigation.

    Kenneth Walker, Taylor’s boyfriend, called 911 to report someone was breaking into their apartment. As police fired on the couple, Walker returned fire and Taylor was shot eight times. She died at the scene.

    Walker was arrested at the scene for attempted murder but the charges against him were later dropped. No narcotics were found in the home and her family filed a lawsuit against the three police officers involved in the shooting.

    Officials with the city have pushed back against the suggestion that she was left to die, insisting it is a “gross mischaracterization.”

    The coroner who performed Taylor’s autopsy stated that Taylor experienced life ending injuries and any intervention on the 26-year-old would have been in vain. She believed that Taylor died “less than a minute,” after being shot. “Even if it had happened outside of an ER we couldn’t have saved her,” Dr. Barbara Weakley-Jones said.

    The filing also declared that Taylor’s death was due to gentrification and not a drug raid gone wrong. It was alleged that Mayor Greg Fischer wanted the land Taylor lived on for redevelopment and officers were tasked with clearing out the area.

    “People needed to be removed and homes needed to be vacated so that a high-dollar, legacy-creating real estate development could move forward,” Taylor’s family said.

    The mayor denied the “outrageous” allegations through his spokeswoman Jean Porter. “They are insulting to the neighborhood members of the Vision Russell initiative and all the people involved in the years of work being done to revitalize the neighborhoods of west Louisville.”

  • Newswire: Statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass vandalized in Rochester, New York Park

    By Nina Golgowski, Huffington Post

    Frederick Douglass



    A statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass was ripped from its base in an upstate New York park over the weekend, authorities said, prompting concerns that the act may have been revenge for the nation’s ongoing removal of Confederate monuments.
    The vandalism in Rochester’s Maplewood Park took place sometime on Sunday, police said. The day marked the 168th anniversary that Douglass, speaking in Rochester, gave one of his most famous speeches condemning slavery.
    The statue was found at the brink of the Genesee River gorge, approximately 50 feet from the pedestal where it had stood. Its base and left hand were damaged, and there was no graffiti or any other markings left by the perpetrators, who remained at large as of Monday afternoon.
    An investigation into the incident is ongoing, police told HuffPost.
    The statue’s removal came as anti-racism protesters across the country have toppled or petitioned for the removal of statues and other memorabilia that commemorates the former Confederacy. The motive for removing Douglass’ statue was not immediately clear, however.
    Douglass was born a slave in Maryland and, after securing his freedom, dedicated his life to abolitionism and social reforms.
    In Rochester on July 5, 1852, he delivered one of his most famous speeches, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” which called out the hypocrisy in Americans celebrating independence when there were still slaves among them.
    “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim,” Douglass proclaimed.
    The statue in Maplewood Park was one of 13 in Rochester that honored Douglass’ life and long-time residence in the city. The Maplewood Park holds its own historical significance, as it often served as the final stop for escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad, the secret network of routes and safe houses that slaves used to reach free states and Canada, according to the National Park Service.
    Carvin Eison, a leader of the project that brought the Douglass statue to the park, told the Democrat and Chronicle that the statue’s damage is beyond repair but that another will take its place.
    He questioned whether the destruction may be related to the removal of other monuments across the country, in a possible act of “retaliation.”
    “They can topple over this monument, they could go topple over all of them, this monument will still stand because the ideas behind it are bigger than the monument,” he told local news station WROC.
    Rev. Julius D Jackson Jr., whose historically Black fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha, led a march to Douglass’ gravesite in Rochester on Sunday, also said he wouldn’t be surprised if the act was done out of retaliation.
    “We’ve been down this road before,” Jackson told WROC, citing the 2018 vandalism of another Douglass statue in the city. “I would like to believe it’s not that, it was just some kids. But it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s some retaliatory, something going on.”
    Two college students were charged for the 2018 incident. Both reportedly apologized for what happened and blamed alcohol, not racism, for fueling the act.