The Greene County Democrat

Category: Newswire

  • Newswire : HBCU funding blocked by Senate Education Chair

    By Charlene Crowell

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – Each year as families beam with pride at seeing a son, daughter or another relative graduate from college, that achievement is nearly always the result of a family’s commitment to higher education. And when these institutions are among the more than 100 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), that pride is magnified by the history of how our forefathers overcame what once seemed to be insurmountable challenges.

    According to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, between 1861 and 1900 more than 90 HBCUs were founded. From the first HBCU, Pennsylvania’s Cheney University, established in 1837, ensuing years led to even more educational opportunities that today include institutions spread across 19 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

    So when federal legislation is blocked that would extend and preserve funding for HBCUs, such actions are not only an affront to today’s college students, but also to a history that has led to only 3% of the nation’s colleges and universities educating nearly 20% of all Black graduates. The success of HBCU graduates is even more noteworthy considering that 70% of students come from low-income families.

    On September 26, the damaging action taken by Tennessee’s Senator Lamar Alexander, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee blocked HBCU funding. Even worse, Senator Alexander made this move just days before funding was set to expire on September 30.

    The bill sponsored and introduced on May 2 by Alabama Senator Doug Jones and co-sponsored by South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, was named the FUTURE Act,an acronym for Fostering Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources Act. It began with bipartisan and bicameral support to extend critical HBCU and other minority-serving institutions (MSIs) funding through 2021 for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.

    “Alabama is home to 14 outstanding HBCUs that serve as a gateway to the middle class for many first-generation, low-income, and minority Americans,” stated Sen. Jones. The FUTURE Act will help ensure these historic schools and all minority-serving institutions continue to provide excellent education opportunities for their students.”

    Senator Scott agreed, adding “We all have a role to play in making the dream of college a reality for those who wish to pursue their education. The eight HBCUs in South Carolina have made a significant impact in our communities, creating thousands of jobs which translates to over $5 billion in lifetime earnings for their graduates.”

    By September 18, a total of 15 Senators signed on as co-sponsors, including eight Republicans representing the additional states of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Dakota, and West Virginia. Other Democratic Senators signing on represented Arizona, California, Connecticut, Minnesota, Montana, Virginia and West Virginia.
    On the House side, two North Carolina Representatives, Rep. Alma Adams and her colleague Mark Walker introduced that chamber’s version that quickly passed in just two days before Alexander’s actions on the Senate floor.

    So why would the HELP Committee Chair oppose a bill that had such balanced support – in both chambers as well as geographically and by party?

    “Congress has the time to do this,” said Sen. Alexander on the floor of the Senate. “While the legislation expires at the end of September, the U.S. Department of Education has sent a letter assuring Congress that there is enough funding for the program to continue through the next fiscal year.”
    Alexander concluded his comments by using his remarks to push for a limited set of policy proposals that would amend the Higher Education Act piece by piece.

    His comments prompt a more basic question: Why is it that Congress has failed to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA) for so many years?

    Competing HEA legislative proposals with different notions have been bandied about since 2014. Most of these ideas were variations of promises for improved access, affordability, and accountability, simplified financial aid applications and appropriate levels of federal support.
    Yet for families faced with a financial tug of war between rising costs of college and stagnant incomes, Congress’ failure to act on higher education translates into more student loans, and longer years of repayment.

    The same day as Senator Alexander’s block of the bill, Wil Del Pilar, vice president of higher education at The Education Trust, a national nonprofit that works to close opportunity gaps that disproportionately affect students of color and students from low-income families, reacted with a statement.
    “The reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA) is of vital importance to millions of students who currently struggle to afford college, lack adequate supports while enrolled, and are underserved by a system that perpetuates racial inequity,” said Pilar. “Students need a federal policy overhaul that addresses these issues and acts to close racial and socioeconomic equity gaps, and they can’t afford to wait any longer.”
    .
    Charlene Crowell is the Deputy Communications Director with the Center for Responsible Lending. She can be reached at charlene.crowell@responsiblelending.org.

  • Newswire : Senate passes Jones amendment to fund Heirs’ Property Program

    Sen. Doug Jones speaking on floor of the Senate

    WASHINGTON – By a vote of 91-1, the Senate passed an amendment on Monday, October 29, 2019, introduced by Senator Doug Jones (D-Ala.) to help heirs’ property landowners secure a clear title for their land. The amendment to the FY2020 Agriculture Appropriations bill includes $5 million to fund a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) program Senator Jones was able to include in the 2018 Farm Bill. His provision authorized the Farm Service Agency to make loans that will help families resolve heir’s property ownership and succession issues.
    The Federation of Southern Cooperatives and the Rural Coalition worked on helping to frame the language for the heirs property sections of the 2018 Farm Bill which were introduced in a bi-partisan effort by Jones and Senator Tim Scott (R – SC).
    Senator Jones took to the Senate floor immediately before the vote to encourage his colleagues to support the amendment. Copies of his statement are available on his werbsite.
    Heirs’ property is land that has been informally passed down within families, often for several generations when the original owner fails to make a will. This can lead to costly legal complications and prevent landowners from qualifying for federal assistance. Heirs’ property is predominantly owned by African American farmers and producers and an estimated 60-percent of minority-owned land is projected to be heirs’ property.
    Challenges associated with heirs’ property status are the leading cause of involuntary land loss among African Americans. Landowners of heirs’ property also cannot qualify for USDA loans necessary for farming, receive disaster relief funding, or use their land as collateral in private lending. More background on heirs’ property and the amendment are on the Senator’s website
    Over the past year, Senator Jones has led a bipartisan effort in the U.S. Senate to help these landowners gain fair access to federal programs and to make it easier to resolve legal issues that result from their heirs’ property status. In addition to the re-lending provision, Senator Jones also secured a provision in the 2018 Farm Bill to help heirs’ property owners obtain a USDA farm number, which is key to accessing assistance from the agency’s programs.
    More information on Heirs Property and an upcoming national confertence is also available at the Federation of Southern Cooperatives website at http://www.federation.coop.

  • Newswire: Kremlin hosts first Russia-Africa Summit in push for influence and business

    Putin with African leader

    Oct. 21, 2019 (GIN) – Some 43 African leaders are expected to converge on the Black Sea city of Sochi this week for the first summit with the Russian leader as he moves to build allies and strategic partnerships in a new political landscape around the world.

    President Vladimir Putin sweetened the invitation on Monday saying that Moscow could offer help without strings, unlike the exploitative West.

    The summit is scheduled to run from Oct. 23-24.

    “We are not going to participate in a new ‘repartition’ of the continent’s wealth; rather, we are ready to engage in competition for cooperation with Africa, provided that this competition is civilized,” Putin told Russia’s Tass news agency Sunday.

    Russia hopes to host such summits every three years, with foreign ministers meeting annually, said Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is the co-chair this time.

    Over the years, the former Soviet Union explored ties with Angola and Ethiopia and more recently the Central African Republic where ties with former president Michel Djotodia led to the arrival of Russian military and civilian trainers.

    Until the death of Stalin in 1953, the Soviet Union showed very little interest in Africa. But Soviet leaders, beginning with Nikita Khrushchev, were excited by the enthusiastic young Black Africans who first came to Moscow for a major youth festival in 1957. Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University was established in Moscow in 1960 to provide higher education to Third World students. It became an integral part of the Soviet cultural offensive in nonaligned countries.

    With the decline of socialism in Russia and most Africa countries, Russia is now focused on military cooperation agreements which have been signed with at least 28 African countries, the majority in the past five years, often using counterterrorism as a basis, according to an analysis published in August by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

    Moscow can’t bring as much to the table in terms of investment, humanitarian aid or even soft power but its assistance is free from conditions linked to human rights concerns, making Russia an attractive business partner for other countries chafing from Western sanctions.

    One of them is Zimbabwe, whose President Emmerson Mnangagwa met with Putin in Moscow early this year and praised Russia for standing by during his country’s long period of isolation. “You, as a senior brother, can hold my hand as I try to develop Zimbabwe,” Mnangagwa said, according to the Kremlin’s report. Putin is a decade younger than him.

  • Newswire : Bullet-proof monument rededicated for Emmett Till

    Three previous monuments were destroyed

    By Frederick H. Lowe, BlackmansStreet.Today

    Emmett Till
    The new bullet-proof monument for Emmett Till

    The Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Mississippi, on Saturday dedicated a bullet-proof sign honoring Emmett Till. The 500-pound sign replaces three others that either had been shot up by racists, including by members of a frat from the University of Mississippi, or had been thrown into a river.
    Three Ole Miss frat brothers, posing with smiles and guns, shot up one of the signs. They were members of Kappa Alpha Order, whose spiritual founder is U.S. Civil War traitor General Robert E. Lee.
    Two men carried the shot-up sign and placed it at the base of a Confederate statue on the University of Mississippi campus.
    Relatives of Emmett Till attended the ceremony to see the sign installed in Graball Landing on the banks of the Tallahatchie River where Till’s bloated and beaten body was discovered after it unexpectedly floated to the water’s surface.
    Till, a 14- year-old from Chicago, was spending the summer of 1955 with relatives in Money, Mississippi, where his mother believed he would be safe from Chicago gangs.

    But two white men who brutally beat him and shot him in the head in what some call a lynching. J.W. Milam and his half-brother, Roy Bryant, murdered Till. The teenager’s lifeless body, which had been weighted down so no one would ever find it, was thrown like a bag of garbage into the Tallahatchie, a 230-mile long river that flows through Mississippi.

    Jet magazine, whose editor and founder was John H. Johnson, published a photo of the open casket, showing Till’s face disfigured beyond recognition. His teeth were missing, one eye was hanging from its socket and one ear had been severed. Mamie Till, his mother, who insisted on the open casket so people could see what had happened to her son, leaned over the casket, and wept uncontrollably.

    But even in death, Till did not find peace. His mother buried her son in Burr Oak Cemetery, an African American-owned cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. Investigators discovered Till’s casket had been desecrated along with others in a scheme to resell burial plots.

    The first sign that notified visitors this was where Till’s body was discovered was thrown into the Tallahatchie. The next two signs were riddled with bullets. These incidents occurred over 11 years.
    The new sign is heavy and sleek. It is made of thick AR500 steel and sheathed by an acrylic panel.

  • Newswire: Judge temporarily blocks Florida law restricting voting by ex-Felons, who could not pay fines, fees and restitution

    By Michael Wines, New York Times

    Florida cannot prevent people with felony convictions from registering to vote if they cannot pay fines and other costs stemming from their convictions, a federal judge ruled on Friday, temporarily blocking a state law that civil rights’ groups have called an unconstitutional “poll tax.”
    The ruling was a rebuke to the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, and its Republican controlled Legislature. Legislators had enacted a law requiring the fine and fee payments this year after voters resoundingly approved an amendment to the State Constitution that restored voting rights to as many as 1.5 million former felons.
    The law was widely seen as an attempt to suppress voting by the former felons, many of them African-Americans or Hispanics who appeared likely to support Democrats.
    The injunction technically affects only 17 plaintiffs in the suit challenging the law, all of whom said they lacked the money to pay costs stemming from their convictions. But the principle behind the ruling applies to all people convicted of felonies and will require the state to change its repayment policy if it stands, said Julie Ebenstein, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.
    Evidence in the lawsuit indicated that roughly four in five felons who have completed their sentences had unpaid fines, court costs or restitution to victims of their crimes. “People can’t be disenfranchised for outstanding legal financial obligations that they are unable to pay” she said. “Even though the ruling applies only to the individual plaintiffs, the process is obviously problematic” regardless of whom it is applied to.
    Voting rights advocates who sought Friday’s ruling hailed the injunction as a crucial step toward limiting the Legislature’s effort to restrict access to the ballot. The decision is “a critical step towards ensuring that the voting rights of other people with felony convictions are not trampled on by Florida officials,” Leah Aden, the deputy director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said in a statement. “We will continue to fight for full relief for Florida voters who must not pay to vote.”
    Florida officials had no immediate response to the ruling by Judge Robert L. Hinkle of the United States District Court in Tallahassee. The state could challenge the injunction in a higher court, change the law when the Legislature convenes next year or postpone action until a trial in the lawsuit, now scheduled for April, produces a definitive ruling on the law’s legality.
    Floridians restored the voting rights of felons who had completed their sentences — except those convicted of murder or sex offenses — in a referendum last November that passed with the backing of nearly 65 percent of voters. The Legislature sought to blunt the effect of the vote by passing a law that included any court-imposed financial obligations linked to a felony in the definition of “sentence.”
    The legislators went even further by specifying that those obligations included fines and other costs that had been converted to civil liens, a common court practice applied to costs that felons are unable to pay. Civil liens cancel the criminal nature of the obligations, converting them to ordinary debts like loans or credit card purchases.
    By requiring people with felony convictions to pay legal obligations before registering to vote, the lawsuit’s plaintiffs had argued, Florida legislators had effectively created a modern version of the notorious poll taxes used to disenfranchise African-Americans during the Jim Crow era. The United States Constitution’s 24th Amendment did away with the practice, stating that the right to vote in a federal election could not be denied for failure to pay “any poll tax or other tax.”
    In his ruling, Judge Hinkle, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, left open the question of whether the repayment provisions were in fact a poll tax. He noted that the drafters of the constitutional amendment approved in November had indicated to the state Supreme Court that fines and other court costs were indeed considered part of a sentence, but he said that it was up to Florida courts to decide whether the amendment approved by voters required their repayment.
    In any case, the judge said, it was clear that states have the right to deny voting privileges to people who can afford to pay such costs but choose not to.
    But Judge Hinkle said the law was equally clear that Florida cannot refuse to restore a former felon’s voting rights simply because the felon is unable to pay legal debts. In fact, he wrote, a 2005 ruling in the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit involving a Florida felon who was unable to pay restitution stated that “access to the franchise cannot be made to depend on an individual’s financial resources.”
    The state can investigate whether a former felon’s claim of poverty is legitimate, the judge wrote, and can establish a process for deciding whether and how voting rights should be restored. But “what the state cannot do,” he wrote, “is deny the right to vote to a felon who would be allowed to vote but for the failure to pay amounts the felon has been genuinely unable to pay.”
    Under the preliminary injunction, the judge wrote, the 17 former felons who are plaintiffs in the case can seek to regain their voting rights by proving to the state that they are unable to pay their legal debts.
    “When an eligible citizen misses an opportunity to vote, the opportunity is gone forever; the vote cannot later be cast,” he wrote, adding: “Each of these plaintiffs have a constitutional right to vote so long as the state’s only reason for denying the vote is failure to pay an amount the plaintiff is genuinely unable to pay. The preliminary injunction is necessary to prevent irreparable harm to any such plaintiff.”
    Micah Kubic, the executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Florida, hailed the ruling. “The court’s decision is clear: The right to vote cannot be denied to anyone based on their inability to pay,” he said in a statement. “The state must create a clear and unencumbered process that provides Florida’s returning citizens the ability to vote. This is an important win for our democracy.”
    Shelley Fearson, Coordinator of the Alabama New South Coalition, said, “We have similar rules in Alabama, where former felons trying to get their voting rights restored face high fees, costs and restitution, which stops them for getting their voting rights back. We will be watching this legal case in Florida to see how it can be used to correct similar problems here in Alabama.”

  • Newswire : Congressman Elijah Cummings dies at 68

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent
    @StacyBrownMedia

    Cong. Elijah Cummings


    The Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and a titan of the U.S. Congress, Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD-7), died early Thursday morning. He was 68.
    Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, the congressman’s wife and chairman of the Maryland Democratic Committee, said Cummings died at 2:45 a.m. at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Mrs. Cummings said her husband’s death resulted from complications concerning longstanding health challenges.
    Recently, and in increasingly rare sightings of the congressman, Cummings was seen using a walker. He underwent an undisclosed medical procedure, and his office expected that he would only miss about one week of work.
    “He was an honorable man who proudly served his district and the nation with dignity, integrity, compassion, and humility,” Mrs. Cummings said.
    Cummings obtained his bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Howard University, serving as Student Government President and graduating Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law.
    The recipient of 13 honorary doctoral degrees, Cummings dedicated his life of service to uplifting and empowering the people he was sworn to represent, according to his biography.
    He began his career in public service in the Maryland House of Delegates, where he served for 14 years, becoming the first African American in Maryland history to ascend to the position of Speaker Pro Tem.
    Since 1996, Cummings has represented Maryland’s 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cummings was committed to ensuring that the next generation has access to quality healthcare and education, clean air and water, and a strong economy defined by fiscal responsibility. Children “are the living messages that we send to a future we will never see,” he often said.
    In addition to the contributions he made to improve the lives of all Americans, the congressman was a passionate advocate for his beloved Baltimore, where he was born and raised.
    Earlier this year, President Donald Trump disparaged the city – particularly parts of Cummings’ district — labeling the city as a “rodent-infested mess where no human being would want to live.”
    Cummings immediately responded: “Those in the highest levels of government must stop making hateful, incendiary comments that only serve to divide and distract the nation from its real problems, including mass shootings and white supremacy.”
    “Those in the highest levels of the government must stop invoking fear, using racist language and encouraging reprehensible behavior,” Cummings added.
    “He was a champion of the people, a soldier and a warrior for his city, the state, and the nation,” said Baltimore Times Publisher Joy Bramble. “Elijah Cummings made Baltimore and all of those who came across better.” The congressman told a local reporter that he and Trump had just one face-to-face conversation since the president took office in 2016.
    “I said, ‘Mr. President, you’re now 70-something, I’m 60-something. Very soon, you and I will be dancing with the angels. The thing that you and I need to do is figure out what we can do – what present can we bring to generations unborn?”
    His last act in Congress came on Oct. 8, when he joined three others from a bipartisan group to introduce legislation called “The Family Asthma Act.” The bill seeks to expand federal, state, and local efforts to improve care for individuals with asthma.
    “Long live the freedom-fighting spirit of Brother Leader Congressman Elijah Cummings,” National Newspaper Publishers Association President, Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., said. “On behalf of the Black Press of America, we extend our heartfelt condolences to Mrs. Cummings and to the Cummings family.

  • Newswire : Love’s Truck Stop and Travel Center opens October 24

    • The Love’s Truck Stop and Travel Center at Exit 40 on Interstate 20/59 opens for business on Thursday morning, October 24, 2019 at 7:00 AM. The business provides full service for parking, fueling and servicing 18 wheeler trucks. The travel center will provide gas, food and a convenience store to persons driving along the Interstate or coming on county roads. The center will have three fast-food restaurants – Hardee’s, Chester’s Chicken and Godfathers Pizza. Love’s has hired more than 70 full and part time staff, many from Greene County, to operate the business.

  • Newswire: Black News Channel (BNC) TV launches in America

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent
    @StacyBrownMedia

    NNPA President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. (pictured at right), Former Republican U.S. Congressman J.C. Watts, chairman of BNC (left) and Jacksonville Jaguars owner, Shad Khan, who is a primary investor in the new network (center).

    In a joint teleconference broadcast live from the Four Season’s Hotel in New York’s Financial District, the Black News Channel (BNC) and the National Newspaper Publishers Association announced the official launch date and time for the nation’s first 24-hour, 7-days a week all-news TV channel that will focus on African American news.
    The new channel promises to inform, educate, and empower nearly 50 million African Americans now living in the United States.
    The potential for the network appears almost limitless.
    BNC will immediately have the potential to reach 33 million households daily in all the major media markets across the nation.
    Combined with the millions of readers who consume information from NNPA’s Black-owned newspapers and media companies each week, the BNC could quickly become the top destination for all who want to consume African American news on TV and on mobile devices.
    BNC, which officially launches at 6 a.m. on Friday, November 15, 2019 has agreements with Charter Communications, Comcast and DISH TV. The network already has commitments for carriage in major African American hubs like Atlanta, New York City, Chicago, New Orleans, Houston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington, DC, Baltimore and Los Angeles.
    Tallahassee, Florida, houses BNC’s headquarters, and the network will have news bureaus around the country, including Washington, D.C. and New York City.
    Former Republican U.S. Congressman J.C. Watts is chairman of BNC, which is backed financially by business mogul and Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan.
    “This platform will create a venue for the African American community to have a dialogue to talk about news, education and cultural things,” stated Watts, who added that the network has been in the planning stage for many years.
    “I had an afro when I started this,” Watts referenced.
    “It’s especially important to have the Black Press of America join us in this venture. I bet most people don’t realize that there are 223 African American-owned newspapers in the NNPA, and that’s content for us,” Watts stated.
    “We suffered a big blow with the loss of Ebony and Jet, publications I grew up reading. But I still read the Black Press in Oklahoma City, growing up.”
    NNPA President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., who participated in the teleconference, said the NNPA’s partnership with the BNC is a profound win-win for Black America.
    “This year marks the 192nd year of the Black Press of America. Black Americans striving for excellence in all fields of endeavor give life to our culture that attracts and impacts all people. We set trends for ourselves and others,” Chavis stated.
    “We’re not a cursed people, and we are a blessed people. We continue to strive for excellence, and to have Shad Khan announced as a primary investor for the launch and sustainable development of the BNC is of major significance,” Chavis noted.
    Kahn told NNPA Newswire that the decision to back BNC was easy once he looked at the mission and the business model.
    “I am a big believer in the fact that we have a number of communities, obviously especially the African American community, who are underserved,” stated Kahn, a magnate in the auto equipment industry.
    In addition to the Jaguars, he owns the Fulham Football Club of the English Football League, All Elite Wrestling, and the Four Seasons Hotel Toronto.
    “I hope that as time goes on, this becomes a bridge to connect all the cultures, including obviously south Asian. But I do believe there is an undeniable calling for everything the Black News Channel will deliver to African American television audiences, who have historically been underserved in an era where networks have otherwise successfully targeted news to specific demographic groups and interests. My decision to invest is an easy one because we get to answer that calling,” Kahn explained.
    Both Watts and Kahn promised that BNC will give a voice to the varied experiences of African Americans and will not just tell a segment of the story but will tell the entire story.
    “We will inform, educate, inspire, and empower the African American community,” Watts added.
    BNC will have three primary anchor teams who will host the network’s evening newscast, morning newscast, and mid-day D.C. Today Live broadcast. In addition to primary anchor teams, BNC also will have high-profile expert contributors who will add commentary and information to each newscast.
    The network will work with historically Black colleges and universities to ensure that all African Americans have a voice.
    A BNC correspondent will examine life on the HBCU campuses and explain why the experiences students have at these institutions of learning are so meaningful in the cultural development of many students’ lives. The weekly one-hour program will focus on what is happening at HBCUs that is good, positive, and uplifting.
    Additionally, one of the many topics will include Sickle Cell Diseases, the blood disorder that disproportionately affects African Americans.
    Veteran TV anchor Kelly Wright, who will host a 6 p.m. show on BNC, said his inaugural program would include a segment on the NNPA’s missing black girls national series.
    That series spotlights the more than 424,000 African American women and girls who have gone missing in the United States over the past half-decade.
    “We’re not looking to be Republican or Democrat. There will be current affairs, but we are culturally specific to the African American community. MSNBC, Fox News, CNN may have African American faces on their news shows, but they are not necessarily covering the community from a cultural perspective,” Watts stated. “We’re not looking to be left or right. We will be authentic and true to enriched and diverse African American experience.”

  • Newswire: Civil Rights activist and ‘Me Too’ founder’ Tarana Burke to receive Harvard Kennedy School’s Gleitsman Award

    Tarana Burke

    Cambridge, MA: Tarana Burke, civil rights activist and founder of the global ‘me too.’ movement for survivors of sexual assault, has been chosen as this year’s recipient of Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership Gleitsman Award. The annual award honors Burke for her leadership of the global fight for survivor justice and her decades-long campaign to heal individuals and communities affected by sexual violence.

    “Tarana’s work is visceral and fearless. In bringing attention to systemic failings and individual acts of courage and organizational support, Tarana has created a groundbreaking campaign that’s shaped our media and policy worlds in a truly profound way,” said Amb. Wendy R. Sherman, professor of the practice of public leadership and director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School. “She reminds us that there is indeed a lot of work to be done in our own communities, including Harvard. But with ‘me too.’ she has fundamentally changed the conversation at institutions and in households around the world.”

    The Gleitsman Award and $125,000 prize are given annually by the Center for Public Leadership to an individual or team whose leadership in social action has improved the quality of life in the United States and across the globe. Previous Gleitsman recipients include Malala Yousafzai, U.S. Representative John Lewis, Nelson Mandela, and Gloria Steinem.

    The award will be presented to Burke at a public event at Harvard Kennedy School on Friday, December 6. In addition to the public award ceremony, Boston community organizations and Harvard students and faculty will come together for a day of resource-sharing.

    “Accepting the 2019 Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award fills me with so much gratitude and humility,” said Burke. “It is an absolute honor to be in the company of such monumental changemakers who would be doing the work of justice, regardless of recognition and acclaim. I speak for all sexual assault survivor leaders when I say that we share that same fire. I dedicate this award to them, and I thank those who nominated and selected me for this esteemed recognition.”

    A three-time survivor of sexual assault, Burke spent her teenage years committed to raising awareness and support for young Black women and other women of color from low-wealth communities who survived sexual assault. She launched ‘me too.’ in 2006, more than 10 years before the movement had its catalytic moment in 2017. Building on her early activism work with girls in Alabama and her organization Just Be, ‘me too.’ has amassed a community of advocates at the forefront of creating solutions to interrupt sexual violence. At the cornerstone of the movement’s empowerment-through-empathy approach is a steadfast commitment to putting survivors at the front of its healing and advocacy work.

    Formerly the senior director of Girls for Gender Equity, Burke continues to travel internationally, linking people and communities with organizing resources and research that will shape the next phase of ‘me too.’

    Burke was awarded TIME’s Person of the Year in 2017 and in 2018 delivered her TED Talk “Me Too is a Movement, Not a Moment.” Burke contributes regularly to national media on current events and her memoir is scheduled for release in summer 2020.

  • Newswire: Forth Worth, TX police officer charged with murder in shooting Atatiana Jefferson in her home

    By BlackmansStreetToday

    Atatiana Jefferson

    Aaron Dean, a Fort Worth, Texas, police officer who shot to death a Black woman during what was supposed to be a wellness check, has resigned from the police department.

    Interim Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus named Dean and announced his resignation this morning during a Monday morning news conference. Later in the day, Dean was arrested and charged with murder in the shooting death of Atatiana Jefferson .

    Dean shot to death Atatiana Jefferson, 28, on Saturday by firing a gun through the bedroom window of her mother’s home. Jefferson died at the scene. Kraus said he intended to fire Dean, but he submitted his resignation. Dean faces criminal charges as well as possible civil rights violations and “no longer has the protections of state civil service law,” Kraus said.

    The department had placed Dean on administrative leave following the shooting. Dean had been a member of the Fort Worth police department since April 2018.

    Dean never identified himself as a police officer and he never knocked on Jefferson’s door to learn if she was okay, Kraus said.

    Jefferson was playing video games with her nephew when the deadly shooting occurred. A neighbor called the police to make a wellness check because the front door was open.
    Lee Merritt, the attorney for the Jefferson family, said the door was left open to cool down the house.

    Jefferson graduated from Xavier University in New Orleans, with a BS degree in biology and was planning to apply for medical school.