That’s the new mantra at the United Nations as the spread of the deadly Ebola virus in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo now appears almost unstoppable.
In an effort to bolster efforts to contain the growing outbreak that has killed more than 1,200 people in 10 months, United Nations officials on Thursday named David Gressly as the emergency Ebola response coordinator.
Gressly will oversee the coordination of international support for the Ebola response and work to ensure that an enabling environment — particularly security and political — is in place to allow the Ebola response to be even more effective,’ according to a statement from the World Health Organization.
The drive to rein in the deadly virus has been hampered by attacks on treatment centers by armed groups operating in Congo’s lawless east as well as by distrust among local residents, many of whom view the disease as a conspiracy.
In addition, the WHO announced it discovered holes in its ring vaccination program, which thwarted efforts to track down and vaccinate all exposed people.
“Somehow we have to catch up with the outbreak and break the transmission chain very quickly,” Congolese Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga said, adding that a new approach was already been used in a few remote villages.
Meanwhile, as the second-largest Ebola outbreak continues to spread, health officials say it’s likely to reach the populous city of Goma. Once there, the risk of it spreading beyond the Democratic Republic of Congo to Rwanda, South Sudan, or Uganda increases. … ‘I wouldn’t say (the spread to Goma) is inevitable, but it’s highly probable,’ said Ray Arthur, director of the Global Disease Detection Operations Center at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By Stacy M. Brown,NNPA Newswire Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia
NNPA delegation to observe Malawi elections
LILONGWE MALAWI, AFRICA —May 22, 2019 — Late Wednesday, Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) head, Dr. Jane Ansa, continued to urge the international media and local stakeholders to hold off from announcing premature election results. The country’s activated election system received praise for the peaceful way its 6.9 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday.
With lines in some places that stretched as far as the eye could see – and after many voters walked several miles to participate – the process had some noting that the Western world, including the United States, could learn a lesson from Malawians in Democracy.
“After the election, life has to continue … we are brothers and sisters,” said Augustine Suwedi Chidzanja, an election official in the Salima Central District, which is about 90 minutes from Lilongwe.
In a meeting with National Newspaper Publishers Association President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., who headed an independent African American Election Observers Team, Chidzanja said he was surprised to learn that many Americans aren’t allowed to vote if they have a felony criminal record.
“Prisoners here in Malawi do vote,” he said, as an assistant observed that he didn’t see a deterrent that would keep Americans in prison from returning to prison upon release because “all their rights” have been taking away.
“We are living in Malawi and we think that the United States is the No. 1 Democracy, but what [I now understand] leaves a lot to be desired,” said Chidzanja, who also noted that while America has a two-party system, Malawi has 51 political parties.
The top three presidential candidates in Malawi’s 2019 Tripartite elections – Incumbent Peter Arthur Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Dr. Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), and Vice President Saulos Chilima of the United Transformation Movement (UTM) – each cast their vote in their respective villages.
Mutharika, 78, voted in Thyolo; Chakwera, 64, voted in Malembo; and Chilima, 46, cast his ballot in Lilongwe.
The first election results numbers authorized by MEC showed Chakwera in the lead with 533,217 votes (37.65 percent), Mutharika at 524,247 (37.01 percent), and Chilima at 293,978 (20.76 percent).
Malawi operates a first past the post system, which means whoever comes out on top regardless of the percentage will be declared winner – in contrast, America’s Electoral College System allows for someone to win the presidency even if they lose the popular vote.
“It is pleasing to note that polling appears to be underway in all the areas where we have observers, meaning materials have been delivered and polling staff were ready,” said European Union Elections Observer Mission (EUOM) Chief Miroslav Poche. The EUOM deployed more than 80 staff members at polling stations across the country.
It’s believed that the voter turnout may have exceeded 90 percent. “We salute the people of Malawi for their historic voter turnout and exhibition of true Democracy for all of the people,” Chavis said.
“Multi-party elections don’t exist in the United States of America, yet here in the heart of Africa in Malawi and in other nations across the continent, there are, in fact, successful multi-party elections that provide a wide diversity of political opinions for all those who vote,” Chavis said.
The NNPA president and CEO also said it’s his intention to invite officials from Malawi to observe the 2020 elections in the United States. “Maybe Americans can learn something from Africans about how to fully embrace and practice democracy for all without voter discrimination or suppression,” Chavis said.
Chidzanja indicated that he’d relish the opportunity to observe the U.S. election.
“We will keep in touch as brothers and sisters after this,” Chidzanja said. “We are brothers and sisters no matter how many parties there are. There’s a lot to be done and, after the elections, life continues, so think of Malawi as your home,” he said.
U. S. Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), center, introduces a Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys.
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Nearly five years after Daniel Pantaleo, a New York City policeman, recklessly choked Eric Garner to death, he is just now facing prosecution at a disciplinary trial that may—or may not—lead to his firing. The officers who stood idly by during the incident that was just one of a series of needless police killings of African-American men and boys, will likely not have to pay for their inaction.
It is this casual disregard for the safety and well-being of Black males that led Congresswoman Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) to create the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys Caucus. Co-chaired by Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Cedric Richmond (D-La,), and Lucy McBath (D-Ga.), the caucus publicly introduced at a press conference last week legislation to establish an advisory body that will examine the societal inequities that adversely affect this demographic.
They were joined by several other lawmakers, representatives of national organizations, and Tracy Martin, father of slain teenager Trayvon Martin. In addition, dozens of boys who are members of the 5000 Role Models of Excellence Project mentorship program Wilson founded 25 years ago traveled to Washington from Miami and Jacksonville to participate in the event.
“We are here because we acknowledge a tragic truth: All too often, Black males in America are treated as their own class of citizen. They are rarely given the benefit of the doubt. They are labeled delinquent, not rowdy. They are hardened criminals, not misguided youth,” Wilson said. “Their very existence is often seen as a threat.”
The Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys Act of 2019 calls for a bipartisan commission to be housed within the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ office. Led by a staff director, its 19 members would include appointees from the Senate and the House, the Congressional Black Caucus chairperson and five CBC members, as well as representatives from federal agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Duties include examining homicide rates, arrest and incarceration rates, poverty, violence, fatherhood, mentorship, drug abuse, death rates, disparate income and wealth levels, school performance at various grade levels, and health issues.
One year after their first meeting, members will be required to produce an annual report that includes recommendations to address these issues. In addition, the report, which will be publicly available, will be submitted to the president and cabinet secretaries, Congress, and the chairs of the appropriate committees of jurisdiction.
Rep. Jeffries noted in his remarks that while African-Americans have made “tremendous progress,” there is still a long way to go.
“We understand that when America catches a cold, the black community often catches a fever. When the black community catches a fever, it’s young black men and boys at the center of the affliction of economic pneumonia. You can’t continue to ignore realities of this situation, which is why this Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys is so incredibly important,” the New York lawmaker said. “We all recognize that unless we take the time to give our young men and our young black boys the opportunity to be successful, the system will seize the opportunity to give these men and young black boys some [jail] time.”
Jamonza Clark, a sophomore at Miami’s William H. Turner Technical Arts High School, feels blessed to be a part of Wilson’s Role Models program and a strong family unit, but recognizes that there are countless boys who look like him whose futures are very uncertain.
“Many of us live in ZIP codes that don’t have the same resources and opportunities that give our white counterparts head starts in life,” he said. “How are we supposed to get ahead when on the day we are born, we’re already behind?”
Rep. Richmond empathizes with boys and men who are judged by the color of their skin or what they wear. Sports, he said, is the one area where all the rules are the same for everybody, and African Americans excel. “So when we start talking about the game of life and making sure that our young men achieve the success that they should, then we have to look at all of the barriers,” Richmond said.
Rep. McBath, who is serving her first term in Congress, experienced every parent’s worst nightmare when her 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was gunned down at a Jacksonville gas station because his killer thought the music in the teenagers’ car was too loud.
“I was teaching him to stand up against unrighteousness and to stand up in the face of injustice. I was preparing him to take his place in this world at the decision-making table as a powerful young black man. My son, like so many others, was a victim of implicit bias and racism and I feel an obligation in my core to address these issues on behalf of each of the young men that are standing here today full of potential and destined to do great things,” she said, adding that any form of discrimination, “both explicit and implicit” is unacceptable.
Turning to the 5000 Role Models of Excellence students, she continued, “I implore each of you to stand up. You deserve to have a place at the table and decide the course of our world. I believe in all of you. This is what democracy looks like, and this is how we will change our world.”
(Mobile, AL, May 24, 2019) — On May 24, 1860, the slave ship Clotilda left the African city of Quidah (in present-day Benin) — packed with 110 men, women and children whom the King of Dahomey violently kidnapped and sold — headed for Mobile, Alabama.
On the 159th anniversary of that trade, BUDAL-GIE, a Benin delegation sanctioned by a new King of Dahomey, is reviving a long-standing vow to repair past wrongs with plans to revive Africatown, which was founded by a core group from those 110 Africans. This plan and others underway in Mobile are part of a new initiative to leverage the just-announced finding of the Clotilda as first steps toward comprehensive community redevelopment through cultural heritage tourism.
On Wednesday, May 22, the Alabama Historical Commission — with support from the National Geographic Foundation and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Slave Wreck Project and international search teams — announced that it had found the Clotilda slave ship in the Mobile River Delta near Twelve Mile Island. The Clotilda captain and the Mobile plantation owners who financed his voyage to Dahomey sunk the ship there to hide proof of their human cargo because importing Africans for slavery into the U.S. was illegal at the time.
At 2 p.m. Thursday, May 30, the Alabama Historical Commission is hosting a press conference about the Clotilda discovery. The Africatown residents and regional advocates are organizing a commemorative celebration of the discovery because of what it means to the African ancestors, the Clotilda descendants and the community at large.
Finding the Clotilda represents a crucial turning point in Africatown’s ongoing revitalization efforts. Community organizers and their supporters seek political, financial and professional assistance in moving forward with plans to create an international cultural destination ecosystem worthy of Africatown’s unique history.
The search for, and now the finding of, the Clotilda has added even more energy to planning efforts already underway in Historic Africatown and surrounding areas, including: the Africatown CDC’s Welcome Center that is funded by monies from the BP Oil Spill disaster; the proposed new Africatown Connections Blueway project coordinated through the National Park Service; environmental projects by C.H.E.S.S. and the Mobile Environmental Justice Action Coalition; projects of the Mobile County Training School Alumni Association and the Alliance Institute; the Africatown Clotilda Descendants’ initiative; the Dora Franklin Finley African American Heritage Trail of Mobile; and the Benin House Project hosted by BUDAL-GIE at Africatown USA State Park that is located in the City of Prichard, a predominantly black suburb of Mobile.
Another effort is the Africatown International Design Idea Competition, sponsored by M.O.V.E. (Making Opportunities Viable to Everyone) Gulf Coast CDC. It has hired studio|rotan as the professional competition advisor that will program the multi-site design challenge.
The Africatown International Design Idea Competition (AIDIC) acts as a tool that pulls together all of the community initiatives into a single cultural master plan movement. Many past studies and other recent plans for Africatown will be incorporated into an overall architectural design vision with help from a community-based advisory consortium open to all.
One of the competition’s design challenges is to imagine a boathouse for a full-sized replica of the Clotilda, among design ideas for 16 venues at 4 sites. Ultimately, the ideas generated through AIDIC will constitute the Africatown Cultural Mile, a cultural destination system stretching 8 miles from Downtown Mobile, to Historic Africatown, and to the cities of Chickasaw and Prichard. Africatown’s unique history serves as the focal point that connects them all to each other and to the African Diaspora worldwide.
Teams of architects and urban planners across the globe, especially Africa, will be invited to submit their best design solutions for the 16 venues.–
For more information, contact Vickii Howell, President/CEO of M.O.V.E. Gulf Coast CDC, at (205) 5663131 or email requests to info@movegulfcoastcdc.com
Black women made military history on Saturday, as the West Point military academy graduated its class of 2019 with its highest-ever number of female African American cadets. There are 34 Black women cadets graduated from the academy on Saturday, May 25 ― a record high number, the school confirmed to HuffPost. All will receive a Bachelor of Science degree and commissions as 2nd lieutenants in the U.S. Army. “My hope when young black girls see these photos is that they understand that regardless of what life presents you, you have the ability and fortitude to be a force to be reckoned with,” cadet Tiffany Welch-Baker told online publication Because of Them We Canearlier this month. There were about 1,270 cadets in the 2019 graduating class, of which 280 were women ―around 22%, per the school. And there were 189 Black students in the class, around 15%. This racial and gender milestone comes just one year after Lt. Gen. Darryl A. Williams broke barriers as the first black officer to be superintendent and command the academy, founded in 1802. It’s been less than two years since Simone Askew made history as the first Black woman to be named first captain of the corps of cadets, the highest student position at the academy. The first womanto graduate from the academy, Andrea Hollen, was in the class of 1980, and in that same class was Vincent Brooks, the first Black cadet to serve as first captain. Once cadets graduate from the academy, located in New York, they serve on active duty in the militaryfor at least five years.
May 20, 2019 (GIN) – The German Historical Museum in Berlin has announced the return to Namibia of a 15th century artifact known as the Stone Cross of Cape Cross. Namibia has demanded the object’s return since June 2017.
Germany’s State Secretary for Culture and Media, Monika Grьtters, admitted that dealing with the country’s colonial legacy in Namibia had been a “blind spot” for Germany for too long.
The restitution, planned for August, was sparked in part by a 2018 symposium the museum held on the history of the object.
The 11 foot, 1.1 ton cross had been placed on Namibia’s coast by Portuguese explorers in 1486 and was seen as a symbol of the country’s colonial past.
It came into Germany’s possession in 1893, when a sailor discovered it and ordered it removed and returned with it to Germany.
The object was presented to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who used it to serve his propaganda purposes regarding the empire’s naval superiority. The Kaiser also ordered a new cross, emblazoned this time with the German imperial eagle and a German inscription, to replace the original.
The object entered the collection of East Germany’s Museum of German History in 1953, and then the German Historical Museum after reunification. It has been part of the museum’s permanent exhibition since 2006.
The museum acknowledged the “outstanding significance which an artifact like this pillar has to the people of Namibia and the special contribution it can make on site in the future to understanding Namibia’s history.”
The artifact was originally erected by explorer Diogo Cao in 1486 on the coastline of present-day Namibia to signify Portuguese territorial claims, as well as serve as a navigational marker.
Namibia, which was previously known as German South-West Africa, was a German colony from 1884 to 1915.
Germany has been slow to fully acknowledge the darkest chapters of its colonial past, but has recently made steps in that direction. Though the German government announced a planned apology for the genocide of tens of thousands of Herero and Nama men, women, and children between 1904 and 1908, it has refused to pay reparations, pointing to the millions that it has given Namibia in development aid over the years.
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia
When Former President Barack Obama occupied the White House, it wasn’t uncommon to see a myriad of celebrities meeting with the Commander in Chief and First Lady Michelle Obama. Some even called Washington, D.C., “Hollywood East,” because of the popularity of the Obamas even among superstars. Now, one year after launching their production company, “Higher Ground Productions,” the Obamas have officially gone Hollywood. The former president and First Lady have announced seven projects that are scheduled to be developed and released in the years to come. The projects include “American Factory,” a documentary from this year’s Sundance Film Festival that examines the clash of cultures in Ohio when a Chinese billionaire sets up a new factory in the old General Motors plant and hires some 2,000 blue-collar Americans. The film was acquired by Higher Ground Productions in partnership with Netflix, where the Obamas have a content deal. “Crip Camp” is also a documentary acquired by Higher Ground and Netflix, currently in production with support from the Sundance Institute, according to Entertainment Weekly which reported that the film will follow a ramshackle summer camp for disabled teenagers in the early 1970s that helped set in motion the disability rights movement in America. “We created Higher Ground to harness the power of storytelling. That’s why we couldn’t be more excited about these projects,” President Obama said in a statement from Higher Ground. “Touching on issues of race and class, democracy and civil rights, and much more, we believe each of these productions won’t just entertain, but will educate, connect, and inspire us all.” Michelle Obama added: “We love this slate because it spans so many different interests and experiences, yet it’s all woven together with stories that are relevant to our daily lives.” According to Entertainment Weekly, other projects include a non-fiction series based on Michael Lewis’ best-selling book “Fifth Risk,”a damning examination of the Trump administration’s impacton America’s key government agencies; “Bloom,” a period drama exploring the upstairs-downstairs worlds of women and people of color in a post-WWII New York; a scripted anthology series called “Overlooked,” based on the New York Times’ obituary column about people whose deaths were not initially reported by the paper; and a feature film adaptation of author David W. Blight’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.” There is also a preschool series with the title, “Listen to Your Vegetables & Eat Your Parents.” That series is described as taking young children and their families on a global adventure to learn where their food comes from. It’s a project that’s reportedly closely connected with Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative that she spearheaded during her tenure as First Lady to get all Americans more access and education to eating and living healthily.
Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Howard University News Service
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – The Supreme Court is poised to decide if the Trump administration acted improperly when it added a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, following oral arguments in which the court’s conservative majority appeared likely to say that the administration did not.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross Jr. added the question last year, saying it would provide information to better enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Critics have challenged that explanation, saying the real reason for adding the question was to discourage participation by noncitizens and persons living in Hispanic communities.
Judges in three lower federal courts have blocked the addition of the question, but the administration sought a definitive determination by the high court before the court’s current session ends in June, which also is when the Census questionnaires are to be printed.
“In an expanded, 80-minute oral argument [April 23] that exposed huge divisions among the justices, the court’s conservatives didn’t buy arguments that …Ross’ plan was illegal or unconstitutional,” USA Today reported. “They didn’t question his motives or reasoning despite three lower court rulings against him.”
“By the argument’s end,” The Los Angeles Times reported, “it appeared the high court would hand down a 5-4 ruling for the Trump administration…”
At the heart of the dispute is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which was passed after the Civil War, and prescribed how seats in the House of Representatives should be allocated.
Section 2 of the Amendment contains what is called the Enumeration Clause, stating the purpose of the once-every-10-years tally: “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed.” https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv
In the years since, the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that “the whole number of persons in each state” makes no distinction between those who are citizens and those who are not.
When Ross announced the addition of the question last March, he said that the Justice Department had requested the information in order to help it determine if state, local and federal governments were in compliance with the guidelines of the Voting Rights Act.
Judges in the three lower court cases ruled that linking the question to the voting rights measure was only an excuse to inject into the census a question that would discourage many from filling out the questionnaire and result in a less accurate count.
The resulting undercount could lead to a reduction of voting strength and a loss of federal funds to areas with significant Hispanic populations—areas that have voted more Democratic than Republican.
“The Administrative Record is rife with both quantitative and qualitative evidence, from the Census Bureau itself, demonstrating that the addition of a citizenship question to the census questionnaire would indeed materially reduce response rates among immigrant and Hispanic households,” U.S. District Court Judge Jesse M. Furman in New York wrote in January.
Two months later, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco said that “the decision to include the citizenship question was arbitrary and capricious, represented an abuse of discretion, and was otherwise not in accordance with the law.”
Seeborg said Ross “insisted” on adding the citizenship question, even though professional staffers in the Census Bureau warned that including it “would likely result in a significant differential decline in self-response rates within noncitizen and Latino communities and that the requested data could be obtained by other means.”
The third lower court ruling came in late March from U.S. District Court Judge George J. Hazel in Maryland, who said the government failed to properly follow administrative law when it added the question.
“The unreasonableness of Defendants’ addition of a citizenship question to the Census is underscored by the lack of any genuine need for the citizenship question, the woefully deficient process that led to it, the mysterious and potentially improper political consideration that motivated the decision and the clear pretext offered
to the public,” Hazel wrote.
The administration has stood its ground. “Reinstating the citizenship question ultimately protects the right to vote and helps ensure free and fair elections for all Americans,” Kelly Laco, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in the wake of the New York ruling.
The administration has repeatedly asserted that Ross, as commerce secretary, had the authority to add a question to the census and that in all but one census from 1820 to 2000, there was a query about citizenship or country of origin.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is conducting its own investigation of the procedure Ross followed.
“You have testified that you added the question ‘solely’ in response to a December 2017 request from the Department of Justice,” Committee Chairman Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) wrote in a March letter to the secretary, “but the record contradicts your claim, showing that you began orchestrating a campaign to add the citizenship question just days after taking office” much earlier in that year.
The committee issued subpoenas April 2 to Ross and Attorney General William P. Barr for more data on the decision to add the question, and for a deposition by a deputy attorney general in the civil rights division of the Justice Department.
The department responded that it would not comply with the subpoena to depose John Gore, the deputy attorney general unless a department lawyer could be present at the deposition.
Cummings has said that Gore could bring a personal attorney with him, but that “the Committee’s rules—which have been in place for more than a decade under both Republican and Democratic chairmen—prohibit Department of Justice lawyers from attending.”
All 22 Democrats on the committee voted to issue subpoenas. “The Democrats want to interfere with the court case,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the ranking minority member of the committee, complained. “Why don’t Democrats want to know if you’re a citizen of this country or not?” Republican Justin Amash of Michiganwas the only Republican to vote with the majority.
The judge in the San Francisco case pointedly suggested that an intentional effort to produce a less accurate count could be seen as a willful violation of a Constitutional directive.
“[If] the Secretary’s decision to include a question affirmatively interferes with the actual enumeration and fulfills no reasonable governmental purpose, it may form the basis for a cognizable Enumeration Clause challenge,” Judge Seeborg wrote.
The Supreme Court announced shortly after Seeborg’s ruling that it would decide on the Constitutional issues involved in addition to those pertaining to administrative procedure. Judge Hazel, presiding in the Maryland case, rejected claims by the plaintiffs that addition of the question was intended to discriminate against communities of color, and was also a deliberate effort to undercut the Constitutional rights of noncitizens.
The Associated Press has reported that the Census Bureau plans to augment the data it collects next year with information from the Department of Homeland Security on the citizenship status, birth dates, Social Security numbers, and addresses of millions of immigrants, including those who are not citizens.
Analysts in the bureau had told Ross during internal discussions regarding a citizenship question that this information was readily available and more accurate than responses to a question on the Census might be.
“This type of information-sharing agreement is a customary, long-standing practice among federal agencies and is permitted under the law,” DHS spokeswoman Jessica Collins told The Washington Post.
“The information is protected and safeguarded under applicable laws and will not be used for adjudicative or law enforcement purposes,” Collins said.
Nevertheless, some maintain that inclusion of a citizenship question in and of itself could be frightening to some.
“It’s understandable that it’s alarming,” Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former member of a House committee overseeing the Census who has advised some of the groups opposed to the citizenship question, told The New York Times.
“Given the anti-immigration policies of the administration, people who are fearful for their security and their status would see this as another possible effort to harm them.”
Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Black billionaire Robert F. Smith has awarded the class of 2019 at Morehouse College for Men a gift graduating seniors and their parents won’t ever forget.
Smith, founder, and chair of Vista Equity Partners and a philanthropist announced on Sunday that he would pay off student loan debt for all of the 400 2019 graduates, which is estimated to be $40 million.
“My family is going to create a grant to eliminate your student loans,” Smith told seniors during Morehouse’s 135th Commencement address. “You great Morehouse men are bound by only the limits of your conviction and your own creativity.”
After he made the announcement, students chanted “MVP.”
Morehouse College was founded in 1867 in the basement of Springfield Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia. The school moved to Atlanta in 1885. Well-known graduates include filmmaker and actor Spike Lee, actor Samuel L. Jackson, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Forbes estimates that Vista has assets of $5 billion, making Smith the wealthiest African-American man in the U.S. Along with Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates, Smith is part of a group of American billionaires committed to dispersing their wealth to improve the lives of others. Smith urged graduates to help others.
Smith’s decision to pay off the student loan debt followed his earlier announcement that he would donate $1.5 million to Morehouse.
Kirsten J. Barnes, Communications Director for Alabama Senate Minority
In response to the negative reactions to Alabama’s Abortion Ban not only from Alabamians, but worldwide, Sen. Vivian Davis Figures (D-Mobile) took a bold step on Tuesday, May 21, 2019, by introducing a senate bill to repeal the state’s extreme abortion ban.
“There are consequences for every decision we make as legislators, and for every vote we cast there are ramifications,” Sen. Figures said. “However, some of these effects are unintended and I truly believe this has been the case for SB314. I do not believe my Republican colleagues had any idea what the consequences for passing this bill would be.”
Since the passing of the bill, Alabama lawmakers have been inundated with calls from people nationwide expressing their concern that the bill goes too far. Not only have Democrats come out against the bill, put top Republicans such as President Donald Trump, U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, 700 Club Founder Pat Robertson, and Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee Ronna McDaniel have all expressed outrage by the passing of this extreme law which seeks to force women and girls impregnated through rape and incest to carry those babies to term.
“I felt that the least I could do was to offer a bill to repeal HB314 with the hopes that it would help to heal some of the wounds that my Republican brothers and sisters have inflicted on the great state of Alabama,” Sen. Figures said. “Unfortunately this bill is serving as a detriment to the entire state of Alabama in terms of revenues and in terms of healthcare, particularly for women.”
Although, Alabama is known for its increase of visitors during the summer months, but that could change drastically this year.
“I have heard from people all over the country saying they planned a vacation to Alabama’s beautiful beaches, but when this extreme abortion ban was signed into law, they immediately canceled those plans,” Sen. Figures. “If we care about the future and well-being of our state, this law must be repealed.”
