The Greene County Democrat

Category: Newswire

  • Newswire: Southern Poverty Law Center, NAACP, others launch campaign to remove racist symbols in Georgia

    Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Southern Poverty Law Center

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – The Southern Poverty Law Center, a premiere monitor of race hate across America, has joined other advocacy organizations and elected officials in demanding change to a Georgia state law that prohibits local communities from removing Confederate monuments.
    This is the first phase of a broader statewide effort that seeks to empower local communities to determine whether they want to keep Confederate symbols in their public spaces, and – if not – to remove them.
    It joins a national movement in which dozens of Confederate statues and symbols have been torn down in various states. However the issue is still being debated across the nation as thousands of the symbols remain.
    “Although individuals and institutions across the country have made remarkable efforts to stop glorifying the men who fought to divide this nation and maintain slavery, backwards legislation has blocked significant progress in Georgia,” said Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project. “In order to enact real change, the local community must have the ability to speak freely about the racist legacy of these symbols, and how they are still being used as emblems of white supremacy. These symbols should be understood and placed into their historical context in museums. They should not be displayed without the proper frame of reference in public spaces.”
    Four days before the Georgia General Assembly session is set to begin, the SPLC, Georgia and Atlanta NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Georgia Alliance for Social Justice, Moore’s Ford Movement, and Concerned Black Clergy are leading the fight to remove Confederate symbols and monuments by seeking to activate a united South around racial reconciliation.
    The organizations will establish statewide chapters, and are organizing a rally on Saturday, Feb. 2, to strengthen the call for change.
    State Sen. Nikema Williams and state Rep. Renitta Shannon supported the campaign, urging the Legislature to grant local governments the power to decide whether to keep or remove monuments in their public spaces.
    Currently, there are 1,747 Confederate symbols and 722 monuments in the United States, according to Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy, a special report of the SPLC that catalogs examples of monuments, statues, flags, city, county and school names; and other symbols that honor the Confederacy.
    After Virginia and Texas, Georgia has the most Confederate symbols in the country, with at least one in 58 percent of the state’s counties.
    Importantly, there is precedent for wanting to remove these symbols in Georgia. In late 2017, the Decatur City Commission voted unanimously to move a 30-foot-tall obelisk from its city square to another location. However, the city commission was unable to move forward because state law prohibits such monuments from being “relocated, removed, concealed, obscured, or altered in any fashion.”
    Similarly, a 2017 petition to remove a Confederate flag from public display in downtown Kennesaw gained thousands of signatures. That city passed a resolution asking state leaders to “allow local municipalities the ability to determine, in their sole discretion and within the jurisdictional limits,” the ability to determine the fate of the Confederate symbol.
    Georgia’s House of Representatives and Senate drafted legislation in response, seeking to allow local governments to take action involving monuments in their communities. If passed, the legislation would simply move power back to local control and would grant local governments the ability to make and execute decisions about the placement of Confederate symbols. Organizations that made presentations at today’s press conference will support the bill after it is reintroduced in the 2019 legislative session.

  • Newswire: Harris and Booker presidential races stir pride, excitement and high hopes

    By Barrington M. Salmon

    Sen. Kamala Harris
    Sen. Cory Booker

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – Dr. Shiela Harmon Martin said she recently got two very pleasant surprises within days of each other when Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) announced that they are joining the race to become America’s next president.
    Harris, a former San Francisco prosecutor and California attorney general, set off serious buzz after her announcement and African-Americans have been digging into her law enforcement record and perusing her policy platforms and prior statements in order to discover what type of president she might be.
    Dr. Martin, division chair and professor of Political Science at the University of the District of Columbia, said she hopes and expects both Black senators to do well.
    “I hope one of them emerges as the top contender and at a minimum in second place,” Martin said. “African-Americans have been the most loyal constituency to the Democratic Party. I don’t feel that because we had one African-American president we shouldn’t have another one for the next 20 years…Hopefully the Democratic pool will look like America.”
    Because both candidates have been watched by political observers for years, their formal announcements may also impact the strength of the electorate, Martin says. She hopes their candidacies will lead to increased voter registrations and voter turnout in Black communities.
    The announcements of Harris and Booker are already attracting the attention of people from diverse walks of life.
    Rev. Dr. Derrick Harkins, national director of Faith Outreach for the Democratic National Committee who served as a faith issue advisor to the Obama campaign, says both Harris and Booker will sore because of what will prove to be energetic campaigns and their donors and support will be competitive. But Harris’ first move may have given her an advantage. And the number and the excitement of the people who showed up for her Oakland announcement was reminiscent of the Obama enthusiasm.
    “The energy and focus around her announcement was impressive. I haven’t seen that energy and momentum in other people,” Harkins said. “This was important to her and those waiting in the wings.”
    However, political observers agree that no contender – at least not in the near future – will rise to the euphoria of the candidacy of America’s first Black president, Barack Obama.
    “2008 was lightning in a bottle,” Rev. Harkins noted. “The energy, fervor and enthusiasm won’t probably be replicated in our lifetime…We’re in a different place. For them, it will probably be more ‘retail’, pushing people out there. They have to mobilize, organize to make sure people will come out.”
    There is always the down side for both candidates. Because Harris has such a long record, even as a first-term senator, she is already being buffeted by scrutiny and criticism, said political analyst and media commentator Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever.
    “Her challenge is that she has a long and controversial record, I will admit. But she’s being held to an extremely high level of scrutiny,” Jones-DeWeever says.
    Jones-DeWeever also points out that Harris has ties to the ‘system’ that raises a lot of people’s suspicions.
    “I think she needs to lay out her own criminal justice agenda, have a specific speech on this, spell out the issues and detail what she’ll do going forward,” said Jones-DeWeever, who is president and CEO of the consulting firm, Incite Unlimited, LLC. “We have to be careful not to be over-critical and not hold her to a different standard. A lot of people aren’t asking this of other candidates.”
    But, for African-Americans in many quarters, Harris has struck the right chord in the way she entered the race with the announcement on Martin Luther King Jr. Day; her first news conference held at her alma mater, Howard University; and her ability to draw a large crowd to her formal announcement at Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of City Hall in her hometown of Oakland, CA. She also got kudos for her remark in front of her Alpha Kappa Alpha sorors in South Carolina.
    But in walks the popular orator and politician Sen. Corey Booker.
    Kansas City resident and political observer Emily Brown says Booker’s entrance into the presidential fray surprised her.
    “I followed Sen. Booker as mayor. He’s an excellent senator, very strong,” she said. “I was shocked that he’s running but having multiple candidates of color is a very positive thing. I’ve never seen a more diverse group running. We saw that in the midterms. I am concerned but think she’s a strong candidate.”
    Gloria Murry-Ford said she recently met Booker at a fundraiser for former Georgia State Rep. Stacey Adams and left impressed.
    “I took a selfie with him. He’s a very nice, very personable, very smart man,” she said. “I know he’s a Rhodes Scholar but I don’t know a lot about him and I don’t know how he’s doing. They are two powerful Black people. I watched Sen. Harris. I saw the town hall and liked what I saw. I think she’s smart, she’s good, knows what questions to ask and has gotten her message together. She had a great rollout.”
    Murry-Ford, a former CNN reporter and now a communications expert specializing in crisis management and strategic communications in Washington, DC, said she was less than impressed with the junior New Jersey senator’s announcement.
    “Booker’s rollout was light,” she said. “Standing at a chain link fence? Optics is important and his optics weren’t as great. She had a great roll out. It was magnificent. She claimed her blackness. It’s not bad to be black anymore. With him it was a different atmosphere. He’s got to nail down his message, tighten up stuff.”
    Political Scientist Dr. Harmon Martin said she’s confident that Booker and Harris will campaign well, even they deal with the rough and tumble nature of politics and the often coarse and abrasive criticism and attacks that come with it.
    “Hey, cheers to Sen. Harris and Sen. Booker,” she said. “I’m a little biased because she’s my soror. She’s an African-American woman and attended an HBCU. I really like Booker too. He’s an outstanding choice, a good mayor, committed to Black people. I despise when people place a litmus test on whose Black enough. Allow both candidates to do well, and may the best woman win.”

  • Newswire: Abrams blasts Trump, McConnell for ‘power grab’ after State of the Union Address

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent
    @StacyBrownMedia

    Stacey Abrams


    Stacey Abrams may not be the governor of Georgia, but she did make history on Tuesday, Feb. 5.
    After patiently waiting in the wings as President Donald Trump used 90 minutes to deliver what was supposed to be a 45-minute State of the Union Address, Abrams provided a scathing Democratic rebuttal to the president’s highly-scripted speech to Congress on Tuesday, Feb. 5.
    In doing so, Abrams became the first Black woman for either party to deliver a formal response to the State of the Union. Speaking firmly and with a fervor that has earned her the national stage, the former Georgia Gubernatorial candidate said the “hopes of American families are being crushed” by Republican political leadership.
    “In Georgia and around the country, people are striving for a middle class where a salary truly equals economic security,” Abrams said. “But instead, families’ hopes are being crushed by Republican leadership that ignores real life or just doesn’t understand it.”
    The response is a tradition undertaken by a representative of the president’s opposing party, who gives a speech immediately after the State of the Union to rebut claims made in his address.
    According to CBS News, the first rebuttal was delivered by Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen and Rep. Gerald Ford in response to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1966 State of the Union. Since 2011, there have been responses in English and one in Spanish given by a separate speaker.
    The address has usually been given by a member of Congress or a sitting governor, making Abrams an intriguing choice given she doesn’t currently hold a political office.
    Only one other time has an elected official not holding statewide or federal office given their party’s response: Elizabeth Guzman, a Democratic member of the Virginia House of Delegates, delivered the Spanish-language response for Democrats in 2018, CBS reported. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra gave the Spanish address this year.
    However, since losing her gubernatorial bid, Abrams has said she is open to running for political office again. Abrams talked about family values – taught by her parents. In one instance on a cold winter night, her family went looking for her father and when they found him walking along a road, he was shivering and without a coat.
    “He had given his coat to a homeless man,” Abrams said. “I knew he would still be alone when I left him, but I knew you were coming for me,” she said, relating her father’s words. “I hold fast to my father’s credo, we are coming for a better America,” Abrams said.
    Abrams railed against Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the government shutdown. Abrams noted McConnell’s recent verbal assaults on a House Democratic voting rights and an election bill that he has labeled a Democratic “power grab.”
    “Voter suppression is real … we can no longer ignore these threats to Democracy. We cannot accept efforts to undermine our right to vote,” Abrams said. “This is the next battle for our democracy, one where all eligible citizens can have their say about the vision we want for our country,” she said. “We must reject the cynicism that says allowing every eligible vote to be cast and counter is a ‘power grab.’”
    She blasted Trump and McConnell noting the missed paydays and the struggles of more than 800,000 federal workers who could still face another shutdown in just a couple of weeks because Trump wants to build a $5 billion wall on the southern border.
    “Just a few weeks ago, I joined volunteers to distribute meals to furloughed federal workers. They waited in line for a box of food and a sliver of hope since they hadn’t received a paycheck in weeks,” Abrams said. “Making their livelihoods a pawn for political games is a disgrace,” she said.
    Further driving home her point, Abrams continued: “The shutdown was a stunt engineered by the president of the United States, one that defied every tenet of fairness and abandoned not just our people, but our values.”
    Trump, who continues to garner headlines over a myriad of alleged misdeeds, misstatements, and the division that’s enveloped the country since he took office, called for bipartisanship in his address.
    He claimed outstanding records on jobs and the economy and America’s global standing. He also again took credit for low African American and Latino unemployment, saying more people – 157 million – are working now than anytime in the past in America.
    The president also talked about the 300 or so judicial nominees that are in the Senate, ignoring that President Barack Obama’s high court choices were blatantly disregarded by the Republican-controlled Senate.
    Abrams, who was once the Democratic Leader in the Georgia House of Representatives, dismissed those claims. Abrams also firmly rebutted the notion that the Trump administration has the best ideals for the country going forward. “We may come from different sides of the political aisle, but our joint commitment to the ideals of this nation cannot be negotiable,” she said.
    “The Republican tax bill rigged the system against people. Wages struggle to keep pace with the cost of living. We owe more to the folks who keep our country moving.”
    “We know bipartisanship can craft a 21stcentury immigration plan, but this administration chooses to cage people. Democrats stand ready to secure our borders, but we must understand America is made stronger by immigrants, not walls.”

  • Newswire : State of the Union: Trump calls for ‘Choosing Greatness’ as Black leaders say his ‘Racist Rhetoric’ overshadows hope for change 

    By Hazel Trice Edney


    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – President Donald B. Trump’s 2019 State of the Union speech, delivered Tuesday night, following a government shutdown that left many people irreparably damaged, was taken in stride by African-Americans and Democratic leaders who express little hope for change.
    “We meet tonight at a moment of unlimited potential. As we begin a new Congress, I stand here ready to work with you to achieve historic breakthroughs for all Americans,” Trump said in the speech in which he never mentioned the hardships of the historic shutdown which, for weeks, put thousands of Americans either out of work or caused them to work without pay. “Millions of our fellow citizens are watching us now, gathered in this great chamber, hoping that we will govern not as two parties but as one Nation. The agenda I will lay out this evening is not a Republican agenda or a Democrat agenda. It is the agenda of the American people.”
    The lofty words of the President resonated little with Democrats and Black leaders as he ignored the pain of the shutdown for which he initially claimed credit. Besides that, America had heard it all before. Even during his inaugural address, he promised to be President for all the people after which his administration has become one of the most racially and culturally divisive in history.
    Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams pointed to Trump’s sins of omission as the official Democratic respondent to his speech.
    “Just a few weeks ago, I joined volunteers to distribute meals to furloughed federal workers.  They waited in line for a box of food and a sliver of hope since they hadn’t received paychecks in weeks. Making livelihoods of our federal workers a pawn for political games is a disgrace. The shutdown was a stunt, engineered by the president of the United States, one that betrayed every tenet of fairness and abandoned not just our people but our values,” Abrams said.
    Trump’s speech got intense applause from Republicans, especially as he mentioned his quest for a “border wall” which has become widely known as a dog-whistle to his base and a core race issue. As he pushed the need for the wall in the speech, he never mentioned his campaign promise that “Mexico will pay” for the wall.
    “In the past, most of the people in this room voted for a wall, but the proper wall never got built.  I’ll get it built,” he said.
    But, Abrams was clear on how millions of others view the wall. “Democrats stand ready to effectively secure our ports and borders,” she said. “But we must all embrace that from agriculture to healthcare to entrepreneurship, America is made stronger by the presence of immigrants, not walls.”
    Trump laid out some key bi-partisan goals such as research to end childhood cancer and HIV/AIDS as well as successes, including economic gains, infrastructure, and criminal justice reform. Guests in the gallery included formerly incarcerated offenders who he had pardoned under new bi-partisan criminal justice reform. Those guests included Alice Johnson, who had served nearly 22 years of a life sentence as a first-time drug offender and Matthew Charles, sentenced to 35 years for selling drugs now “the first person to be released from prison under the First Step Act,” Trump said.
    Despite the bipartisan highlights in the speech, Black leaders note that his “racist” views and policy omissions far outweigh the positives.
    “Once again the President used the State of the Union as an opportunity to spew the same racist rhetoric, that does nothing but bolster his detachment and disinterest towards the real issues that plague our nation,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “While President Trump rallied for a wall on the border and credited his presidency for lowering unemployment numbers, which he touted after the longest government shutdown in our nation’s history, he conveniently overlooked the voter suppression, over policing, gun violence, and detrimental and xenophobic immigration policies that his administration has instituted that disproportionately affect communities of color.”
    Johnson continued in his statement, “As racism continues to permeate through every level of our society, it’s clear from his failure to protect the right to vote and civil rights for ALL, that this President’s agenda represents nothing but pain and suffering for communities of color, the poor, the LGBT community, women and immigrants. Because of this, the state of our union is not strong.”
    Jim Clyburn, the most powerful Black member of Congress as House majority whip, pointed out that Democrats are ready to work with the President, but their disagreement on the meaning of “greatness” is a major barrier.
    “We welcome his words of comity and are hopeful there will be issues like infrastructure, prescription drug costs, and defeating the spread of HIV where we can find common ground. However, as House Democrats, we know the role we were elected to play and, as my faith teaches me, we know we will be judged on our deeds not our words.
    “The President’s theme tonight was ‘Choosing Greatness,’ but I question how he defines that term. I believe that America is already great, and, like historian Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America, the country’s greatness ‘lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.’ Democrats stand ready to work with the President when possible, but in strong opposition when necessary, to repair our faults so we may become a more perfect union.”
     

  • Newswire: Income inequality fueling backlash and elites across the World are worried

    Winnie Byanyima, Director Oxfam International

         Jan. 28, 2019 (GIN) – The rich are getting richer, businesses are thriving, but it’s hard not to notice that discontent is growing among the expanding poor and middle class and could soon pose a threat to the well-to-do.

     At the exclusive World Economic Forum, an annual event held in Davos, Switzerland, income inequality was the talk among many corporate leaders, and the good jobs being lost to trade and automation.

     “We’re living in a Gilded Age,” said Scott Minerd, chief investment officer of Guggenheim Partners, which manages more than $265 billion in assets. “I think, in America, the aristocrats are out of touch. They don’t understand the issues around the common man.”

     In fact, a new Global Risks Report declares that humanity is “sleepwalking its way to catastrophe” referring to extreme weather, failure to act on climate change, among other threats.

     For the jobless poor, a new buzzword - “upskilling” - was bandied about. Training could help people obtain better jobs in the digital economy, some assert.

     Stephen A. Schwarzman, chief executive of Blackstone, doubled down on the need for digital education which would lessen the inequalities that people have in terms of job opportunities.

     It’s “up to the grown-ups” to make digital upskilling happen in K-12 schools, said Schwarzman, whose net worth is estimated at $13 billion.

     But what most of the elites are uniformly against is a solution to be found in taxing wealth.

     Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, couldn’t disagree more. “We’re in a world where governments do not tax wealth enough, do not tax the rich enough.”

     Billionaire fortunes are spiraling by $2.5 billion daily, according to Oxfam in a new report. The share of wealth held by billionaires increases by $2.5 billion a day, while the share of wealth among the 3.8 billion of the world’s poorest decreases by $500 million a day.

     “Our economy is broken,” said Byanyima, originally from Uganda. “Hundreds of millions live in extreme poverty while huge rewards go to those at the very top.

     Governments are fueling this inequality crisis, she insists. “They are under-taxing corporations and wealthy individuals, while underfunding vital public services like healthcare and education… The human costs are huge, with women and girls suffering the most.”

     Countries cited by Oxfam with the greatest income inequality gap were Nigeria, Brazil, Ghana and Kenya.

     The Forum runs from Jan. 22 to 25. To read the Oxfam briefing paper released this month, visit www.oxfam.org

  • Newswire: The National Park Foundation brings iconic civil rights site into the National Parks system

    The home where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. raised his family with Coretta Scott King will be made accessible to the public for the first time as part of Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, a part of the National Park System. (Katie Bricker Photography for the National Park Foundation)

    By PR Newswire
    The National Park Foundation, National Park Service, and King family have announced that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s home in the historic Vine City neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, will be made accessible to the public for the first time as part of Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, a part of the National Park System.
    The addition of the home helps to tell a more complete story about the King family’s experiences and contributions to our nation’s history. The National Park Foundation purchased the home, via private philanthropy, from the estate of Coretta Scott King on January 8, 2019, and immediately transferred it to the National Park Service. This follows the National Park Foundation’s purchase and transfer of Dr. King’s birth home in late 2018.
    “African American history is U.S. history, and the family home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mrs. Coretta Scott King is a touchstone for us all to better understand our shared heritage,” said Will Shafroth, president of the National Park Foundation. “The acquisition of both Dr. King’s birth home and the family home he shared with Coretta Scott King and their children advances the National Park Foundation’s commitment to telling a more comprehensive American story through national parks. With greater access to Dr. King’s life and legacy, we can learn more about this country’s past and how his work continues to echo through time.”
    “The National Park Service’s dedication to preserving historic properties is unmatched,” said Dr. Bernice A. King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., on behalf of the King family. “We are very pleased to have worked with the National Park Foundation to ensure that the family home that my siblings and I grew up in will be open and available to the public. My brothers and I are honored to have fulfilled my mother’s wish to allow future generations to know the story of our dad as a father, a husband, a minister, and a civil rights leader.”
    “The addition of the homes where Dr. King was born and where he raised his family with Coretta Scott King provides the National Park Service sacred spaces to more fully tell the story of Dr. King’s life and legacy,” said National Park Service Deputy Director P. Daniel Smith. “Thanks to the efforts of the National Park Foundation and the generosity of the King family, these areas are now among the many civil rights sites that are preserved as part of the National Park System and will be accessible to the American people in perpetuity.”
    This article originally appeared in the Charleston Chronicle.

  • Newswire : Donors attempt to save Bennett College by Friday’s deadline

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent
    @StacyBrownMedia

    Historic building on Bennett College campus
    A drive to help raise $5 million and save the accreditation of Bennett College received a boost this week as donations began to pour in ahead of the Friday, Feb. 1 deadline.
    The Papa John’s Foundation and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation of Winston-Salem, each pledged a $500,000 donation to the school, and each said they will recruit additional donors.
    The pledges increased the overall total raised to date to $2.7 million– a little more than half of the $5 million needed.
    “Bennett College has an outstanding tradition of academic excellence for African American women,” said Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, the trade organization that represents 215 African American-owned newspapers and media companies around the country with more than 21 million weekly subscribers.
    “The college is funded by the Presbyterian Church and my great-great-great grandfather, the Rev. John Chavis, was the first ordained African American Presbyterian minister in the United States, and so I appeal to all Presbyterians, to all Episcopalians, to all Methodists, to all Baptists, and to those of all faiths, to help save Bennett College,” Chavis said.
    The privately-owned four-year historically black liberal arts college for women that’s located in Greensboro, was founded in 1873 as a school to educate recently freed slaves and train both men and women as teachers. An integral part of its community since its founding in 1873, Bennett transitioned into a women’s school in 1926.
    Reduced enrollment levels in recent years have sapped the college’s coffers, resulting in budget shortfalls and placing Bennett at risk of permanently losing its accreditation.
    Students, alumni and others associated with Bennett have developed a websitewhere donations can be made and information about the college can be found.
    Using the tagline and hashtag, “Stand with Bennett,” the group also presents evidence that Bennett has made significant gains in addressing its financial stability over the past two years.
    Some of the significant strides made by Bennett to achieve sustainability include:
    · Bennett generated a surplus of $461,038 and had no audit findings.
    · Bennett was approved for a capital loan deferment over a six-year period with a financial benefit of nearly $9 million.
    · Bennett has steadily increased its fundraising from $3.47 million to $4.25 million over a 3-year period.
    · Bennett’s enrollment has been trending upward for 2 years from 409 in 2017 to 471 in 2018.
    · The college’s retention rate is significantly up from 44 percent in the Fall of 2017 to 53 percent in the Fall of 2018.
    · The average GPA of new freshwomen increased from 2.8 in 2017 to 3.2 in 2018.
    · Bennett continues to support mission activities, and academic and student programs.
    ·
    The Editorial Board of the college’s local newspaper, the Greensboro News & Record,said Bennett is raising the money as a show of good faith to an accrediting agency that the college is working, urgently, to address its fragile finances.
    That agency – the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges – has threatened to revoke Bennett’s accreditation because of the college’s tenuous fiscal footing.
    Bennett plans to appeal that ruling in mid-February and began the quick-strike campaign to help make its case, according to the Greensboro News & Record.
    Without accreditation, Bennett would lose eligibility for federal grants and student loans and could be forced to close.
    “We have made the case before for Bennett,” the editorial board wrote. “It is one of only two colleges for African-American women in the nation and it has been an integral part of this community since it was founded in 1873.”
    To donate, visit http://www.bennett.edu/standwithbennett/

  • Newswire: Civil rights museum reoffers honor to Angela Davis

    Angela Davis

    By The Associated Press


            BIRMINGHAM — An Alabama civil rights museum reversed course after a public outcry and reinstated a human rights award to activist Angela Davis that it had previously rescinded, the organization announced Friday, January 25, 2019.
        The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) said in a statement that its board has voted to reaffirm Davis, a Birmingham native, as the recipient of the award and has invited her to personally receive it. The statement said the board has not heard if Davis will accept.
        “Dr. Angela Davis, a daughter of Birmingham, is highly regarded throughout the world as a human rights activist,” Institute President Andrea L. Taylor said in a statement.
        The Birmingham museum sparked protests and criticism earlier this month when it announced that it was abruptly canceling the award to Davis that was supposed to be given at a February gala.
        The board withdrew her award after a local Holocaust education group asked it to reconsider. Davis is an outspoken supporter of a movement criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
        Davis, who turns 75 on Saturday, has spent decades fighting for civil rights. She was an active member of the Black Panther Party, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Communist Party USA.
        Board members on Jan. 14 issued a public apology for the discord that resulted from its decision to rescind the award. They said there said there should have been more conversation with diverse points of view before making the decision.
        In Friday’s statement, the board said its decision to give Davis the award is “in keeping with its commitment to learning from its mistakes.”
        The award is called the Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award. It is named for the late minister and prominent civil rights activist who led demonstrations in Birmingham and across the South.
        Civil rights and community groups were arranging an “alternative award celebration” for Ms. Davis in Birmingham on February 16, after the BCRI withdrew its award. Ms. Davis has not commented on whether she will accept the Museum’s apology and receive the award as originally planned.

  • Newswire : President announces end to Shutdown

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent
    @StacyBrownMedia

    U. S. Capitol with shutdown sign


    The longest government shutdown in American history is over – and President Donald Trump did not get his Wall.
    Trump announced on Friday a short-term deal to temporarily reopen the government. NBC News was the first to report that a stop-gap agreement with congressional leaders will last three weeks, until Feb. 15, and would allow talks to continue over security on the southern border.
    The deal includes no money for his border wall. “In a short while, I will sign a bill to reopen the government for three weeks until Feb. 15,” Trump said in the Rose Garden, according to NBC News.
    “I will make sure that all employees receive their back pay very quickly or as soon as possible.”
    Trump announced the deal 35 days into the longest-ever partial government closure that has left an estimated 800,000 federal employees without pay and created a host of problems.
    On Thursday, the president said that if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., were about to reach a reasonable agreement to end the shutdown, he would support it.
    The shutdown began just before Christmas and has left approximately 400,000 workers home from work without pay, while another 400,000 were required to be on the job without pay. The workers will receive back pay, under the agreement.
    Trump and congressional Democrats have been at a standoff over the president’s demand for $5.7 billion to build his wall along the southern border.
    The news was met with joy from government workers, including the thousands of African Americans who have gone without pay since the shutdown began.
    “Are you serious?” Sharon Clifford, a TSA worker who sought babysitting jobs during the shutdown, told NNPA Newswire. “Thank God,” said Clifford, who said she was visiting her parents in North Carolina to ask for a loan to get her through the end of the month.

  • Newswire : Congo’s Constitutional Court upholds election win for opposition leader

    Felix Tshisekedi
         Jan. 21, 2019 (GIN) – The Democratic Republic of Congo finally has a president. Opposition figure Felix Tshisekedi was declared winner of the presidential race by the DR Congo’s top court on Jan. 20.

     The Constitutional Court said Tshisekedi had won by a simple majority, paving the way for him to take over from the current president, Joseph Kabila.

     The outcome was challenged by runner-up Martin Fayulu who claimed that the election had been stolen and called on the international community to reject the results.

     Election data leaked to some news organizations suggested that he won the vote.

     "I ask the entire international community not to recognize a power that has neither legitimacy nor legal standing to represent the Congolese people," he said of Tshisekedi, declaring himself "the only legitimate president".

     On Sunday, the Constitutional Court dismissed Fayulu's claims as "unfounded" and said he had failed to prove any inaccuracies in the figures, describing his call for a recount as "absurd". The ruling was not unexpected, with the court made up of Kabila's allies.

     Meanwhile, hundreds of supporters of Tshisekedi gathered outside the court holding placards saying "No to interference" and "Independent country" as riot police stood nearby.

     Despite unconfirmed reports that members of Tshisekedi’s camp had strategized with Kabila before the votes were in, the greater part of Congolese seems happy with the "semi-victory," as their main fears have been allayed, according to Israel Mutala, an analyst and editor in chief of the online news site 7sur7.

     "Above all the Congolese feared a third term for outgoing President Joseph Kabila," Mutala told the German news agency DW.

     Observers from other international bodies, including the European Union and the United Nations Organization, complained of irregularities at the polls. The African Union, after initially expressing "serious doubts" about the outcome of the elections, seems more willing to go alone with the accepted candidate.

     Speaking early Sunday, Tshisekedi said the court’s decision to reject claims of electoral fraud and declare him president was a victory for the entire country.

     “It is Congo that won,” said Tshisekedi. “It is not the victory of one camp against another. I am engaged in a campaign to reconcile all Congolese. … The Congo that we are going to form will not be a Congo of division, hatred or tribalism. It will be a reconciled Congo, a strong Congo that will be focused on development, peace and security.”