The Greene County Democrat

Category: Newswire

  • Justice Department reopens Emmett Till murder case

    By Lauren Victoria Burke (NNPA Newswire Contributor)

    Emmett Till

    The U.S. Department of Justice has once again reopened the infamous Emmett Till case. The 1955 murder case was a major turning point in the Civil Rights Movement and one of the most notorious murders in United States history.In August 28, 1955, Emmett Till, who was 14, was murdered in the town of Money, Mississippi by Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam after Bryant’s wife Carolyn alleged that Till whistled at her and groped her. Bryant and Milam abducted Emmett Till from the home of his great-uncle, beat him, shot him in the head and dumped his body in the Tallahatchie River. Till’s body was weighted down by a cast iron cotton gin pulley. Three days later his corpse was recovered from the river. Till’s body was sent to his mother, Mamie Carthan Till, in Chicago. She demanded that her son would have an open casket funeral. The decision would lead to worldwide press attention after hundreds of attendees were given full view of Till’s mutilated corpse. The Black Press, led by Jet magazine, widely covered Till’s murder, featuring several jarring photos. In a Justice Department statement on July 13, the reason given for reopening the Till investigation was related to, “receiving new information.” However, the Justice Department did not detail exactly what the new information was. According to USA Today, the decision was revealed to Congress in a February report, but it is unclear what the Justice Department is prepared to act on. In September 1955, Bryant and Milam were acquitted by an all-White jury after less than 90 minutes of deliberation. Till’s murderers later admitted to the crime in a 1956 interview for LOOK magazine. Bryant died in 1994 and Milam died in 1980. CNN.com reported that, “‘Several interested parties’ asked the Justice Department in 2004 whether any surviving suspects could be prosecuted.” At the time the Justice Department determined that the statute of limitations prevented any federal prosecution, according to CNN.com. “Three years later, a Mississippi grand jury declined to issue new charges,” CNN.com reported. Many have speculated that the reopening of Emmett Till’s death by the Justice Department is related to last year’s publication of the book “The Blood of Emmett Till,” by author Tim Tyson. Tyson’s book revealed that Bryant’s ex-wife, Carolyn Bryant Donham admitted in 2008 that she lied when she claimed Till whistled at her, a tale she would later tell her husband that set off a chain of events leading to Till’s murder. In 1955 Carolyn Bryant Donham was 21 year-old former beauty queen; now, she’s more than 80 year-old and living in North Carolina. The original casket of Emmett Till was donated to the Smithsonian Institution and is now displayed at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. “The story of Emmett Till is one of the most important of the last half of the 20th century. And an important element was the casket,” said Lonnie Bunch, the director of NMAAHC, in a 2009 interview with The Washington Post. “It is an object that allows us to tell the story, to feel the pain and understand loss.” Bunch continued: “I want people to feel like I did. I want people to feel the complexity of emotions.”

    Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent journalist, political analyst and contributor to the NNPA Newswire and BlackPressUSA.com. You can reach Lauren by email at LBurke007@gmail.com and on Twitter at @LVBurke. This article was originally published at BlackPressUSA.com.

     

  • Newswire : Major AIDS conference aims to ‘build bridges’ to places in Africa where epidemic still surges

                         AIDS volunteers attend pre-conference

    July 23, 2018 (GIN) – The International Conference on AIDS – the largest conference on any global health issue in the world – opens this week in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, under the title “Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges” With hundreds of scheduled talks and roundtables, AIDS 2018 has defined its goal as promoting human rights-based and evidence-informed HIV responses tailored to the needs of people living with HIV, displaced populations, gays, people who use drugs, sex workers, transgender people, women and girls and young people–and collaborating in fighting the disease beyond country borders. A two-day event preceding the conference will consider practical solutions to funding effective and efficient HIV and AIDS programs and sustain the results considering declining donor funding. In South Africa, the number of new HIV infections is dropping‚ but there were still 231‚000 new infections in 2017. Condom usage has been decreasing and the number of people having sex before the age of 15 has been increasing, say researchers. The group where new infections are growing at the highest rate is young men aged 14 to 24. In East and Southern Africa, more than half of people dying of AIDS related illnesses were men and boys, although they represent only 46% of those infected with HIV in the region, according to UNAIDS’ 2017 Global AIDS update. Why? Because fewer men than women get tested for HIV, says the U.N. Studies show that in East and Southern African countries, men are significantly less likely than women to have been tested for HIV and therefore do not know their HIV status. As a result, fewer men are on antiretroviral therapy and for those who receive treatment at a later stage, treatment is sometimes less effective. A different picture emerges in Nigeria where according to the recently released Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS report for 2018, there are more women in Nigeria living with HIV- particularly adolescent girls and young women – than men. Nigeria now has 1.6 million HIV-infected women in Nigeria in comparison to 1.3 million men in 2017. Among the announced sessions at the conference is one titled: “We are women with voices, not an HIV diagnosis! Sharing experiences on processes of individual and collective empowerment driven by women’s lives, bodies and creativity’; and the Positive Women’s Catwalk for Power. Keynote speaker at the conference will be Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization on the topic of “Eliminating AIDS epidemics on the road to universal health coverage.” WHO will release several new publications, including on the use of dolutegravir in HIV treatment, HIV testing, HIV drug resistance, key populations and HIV strategic information. Videos of speakers and panels can be seen at http://www.aids2018.org A two-day event preceding the conference will consider practical solutions to funding effective and efficient HIV and AIDS programs and sustain the results considering declining donor funding.

  • Newswire :Nine members of one family drown in Branson, MO boating accident

    Boat captain told them they didn’t need to wear life jackets

    By Frederick H. Lowe

    Members of the Coleman family

    Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – Nine members of a Black family drowned when their tour boat sank on Table Rock Lake July 19 in Branson, Missouri, in 70 miles per hour winds and high waves. The boat was equipped with life jackets, but before the accident the captain told passengers they didn’t need to wear them. The family’s last name is Coleman, and they were residents from the Indianapolis, Indiana, area. The Colemans were among 17 adults and children killed when their duck boat sank in 40 feet of water before finally resting in 80 feet of water. Twenty-nine passengers and two crew members were aboard the boat. Duck boats are six-wheel-drive amphibious modification of the 2½ ton trucks used by the U.S. military during World War II and the Korean War. The boats were operated by Ride the Ducks International, a tourist company founded in Branson in 1977. Ripley Entertainment, which is based in Ontario, Florida, owns the company. Tia Coleman, whose husband, children, sister and cousins drowned, said life jackets were on the boat, but the captain told passengers they didn’t need them. “My husband would want to me to say this—he would want the world to know that on this boat we are on, the captain had told us ‘don’t worry about grabbing life jackets—you won’t need them,’ so nobody grabbed them as we listened to the captain as he told us to stay seated.” So much for sea lore of the captain going down with his ship. He survived. A member of one of the rescue boats tossed Coleman a life jacket and that is how she survived. Tia Coleman said during a news conference that she believed she had died and angels saved her. Members of the Coleman family who drowned are: Angela Coleman, 45; Arya Coleman, 1; Belinda Coleman, 69; Ervin Coleman, 76; Evan Coleman, 7; Glenn Coleman, 40; Horace Coleman, 70; Maxwell Coleman, 2; and Reece Coleman, 9. They were in Branson for a family vacation. Other drowning victims were: Asher Williams, 69, from Missouri; Rosemarie Hamann, 68, from Missouri; Janice Bright, 63, from Missouri; William Bright, 65, from Missouri; Leslie Dennison, 64, from Illinois; Bob Williams, 71, from Missouri; Lance Smith, 15, from Arkansas and Steve Smith, 53, from Arkansas.Missouri Governor Mike Parson, who traveled to Branson, called the accident “a heart-breaking tragedy, and we must all work together to support the victims and their families.” We can help accident victims through gofundme.com/table-rock-cares and Coleman Family Boat Accident and cfozarks.org/donate.

  • Newswire : Rep. Sewell leads bipartisan letter opposing auto tariffs; Senator Doug Jones leads similar effort in Senate

    Congresswoman Terri A. Sewell  and Senator Doug Jones

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Wednesday, Congresswoman Terri A. Sewell (D-AL), Congresswoman Jackie Walorski (R-IN), Congressman Ron Kind (D-WI), and Congressman Mike Kelly (R-PA) led a bipartisan letter, cosigned by 149 Members of Congress, to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross expressing concern with the Section 232 investigation into the import of automobiles and automobile parts.  The letter highlights the auto industry’s importance to American working families and the nation’s economy and the vast network of international suppliers that the industry relies on to stay competitive. Alabama Senator Doug Jones is mounting a similar bi-partisan effort with Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander to oppose tariffs on automobiles and automobile parts. “These tariffs will raise the price of cars to consumers and causes job losses in Alabama. We are particularly concerned that President Trump is using a ‘national defense’ pretext for imposing these tariffs when there are no national defense concerns involved,” said Jones “President Trump’s proposed auto tariffs would drive an estimated 195,000 jobs out of the United States and wreck Alabama’s growing manufacturing base,” said Rep. Terri Sewell. “I’m proud to see Republicans and Democrats standing together in support of auto workers and against the Trump Administration’s reckless and isolationist trade policy. “In my home state of Alabama, the car manufacturing sector provides tens of thousands of workers a skilled job with good wages and good benefits. Rather than endangering those jobs through a trade war with our allies, we need to strengthen our trading relationships to better position U.S. workers in the global marketplace.” Economists estimate that a 25 percent tariff on all foreign automobiles and auto parts would cost 195,000 American jobs. Moreover, if countries chose to retaliate, as they have with recent tariffs, economists say that 624,000 American jobs could be lost. Alabama’s automotive manufacturing sector is approaching nearly 40,000 jobs and motor vehicle exports topped $7.75 billion in 2017.

  • Newswire : Trump’s failure to defend our democracy is a dangerous dereliction of duty

    By Jesse Jackson, News Analysis (TriceEdneyWire.com) –

    Russian President Vladimir Putin came late to the Helsinki Summit with Donald Trump on Monday and spoke first at the news conference afterward. He handed Trump a soccer ball from the World Cup, but he clearly walked away with the trophy for the World Cup of politics, largely because Trump, in a bizarre and unprecedented performance, kept scoring his own goals on Putin’s behalf.I have always supported dialogue and negotiations over conflict and isolation. I believe that good relations with the Russians, a nuclear power, are as Trump would say, “a good thing.” But Trump made it embarrassingly clear that he is more concerned about defending his own besmirched election campaign than he is about protecting American democracy. The president apparently doesn’t understand that it isn’t all about him. Russian interference in our elections — which Trump’s own intelligence appointees warn is ongoing — isn’t just about the “collusion” that the president rushed to deny. It is about subverting our democracy. Trump can howl at the moon denying collusion, but it is simply grotesque that he could not bring himself to warn Putin publicly that continued interference with our elections is unacceptable and would be met with an immediate response. Trump is outraged at the Mueller investigation of possible collusion of his campaign with the Russians, but he seems unmoved by the clear evidence of the subversion of our elections. He didn’t give Putin a red light or even a yellow warning one about future interference; he essentially gave him a free pass.The reality is that a core of our democracy — free elections — is under assault. Given the administration’s failures, foreign interference is likely to spread. The home-grown systematic efforts by right-wing politicians and activists to suppress the vote, to make it harder to register and harder to vote, to purge voters from the lists, to gerrymander election districts to distort the outcome and to open the gates to a flood of unaccountable, secret corporate and private money continue to get more sophisticated. Already experts suggest that Democrats will have to win the national vote by 6 to 8 percent in order to take the majority of the House, largely due to Republican partisan redistricting. Trump is so focused on his own election campaign, so defensive about the legitimacy of his own victory that he has utterly failed to protect our democracy from subversion from abroad or at home. It will be up to the states to make the reforms that are long overdue: automatic voter registration, longer early voting days, voting day holidays, an end to voter purges, nonpartisan redistricting, matching public funds for small donations, mandatory disclosure of all funding sources, returning the right to vote to felons that have served their time and more. The states should be taking measures to protect voting systems from outside interference, including moving back to paper ballots to eliminate the threat of cyber intrusions. What is clear from Trump’s performance in Helsinki is that he won’t lead this effort. He is so fixated on defending himself that he is failing to defend our democracy and our elections. The president should be applauded for meeting with Putin. Hopefully reduced tensions and new impetus for reducing nuclear arsenals will follow. But his failure to defend our democracy both against Russian interference and against domestic subversion is a dangerous dereliction of duty. Republicans in Congress won’t act because they seem to believe that their majorities may depend on suppressing the vote. So, it is up to the states, and to an aroused citizenry, to insist that our election be open, free and fair. The shocking display that Trump put on in Helsinki makes that all the more imperative.

  • Newswire : In South Africa: former President Obama denounces Trump without using his name

    Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

    President Barack Obama in Johannesburg, South Africa

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – Former President Barack Obama spoke at the centennial celebration in Johannesburg, South Africa, of Nelson Mandela’s birth by denouncing President Donald Trump without mentioning his name.  A day after Trump met in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Obama criticized strongmen politics. “The politics of fear, resentment is on the move at a pace unimaginable just few years ago,” Obama told thousands at Wanderers Stadium. The audience gave him a standing ovation. He added that the free press and other values are under threat. Obama noted that there is a loss of shame when political leaders are caught in lies and they double down and lie some more. Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, was elected to office in 1994. He was born July 18, 1918. He was 95 when he died in 2013. Obama praised Mandela’s style of leadership and encouraged the youth to emulate it. “Every generation has the opportunity to remake the world,” Obama said, speaking directly to the youth in the audience. “Mandela said, ‘Young people are capable, when aroused, of bringing down the towers of oppression and raising the banners of freedom.’ Now is a good time to be aroused. Now is a good time to be fired up.” He continued, “And, for those of us who care about the legacy that we honor here today – about equality and dignity and democracy and solidarity and kindness, those of us who remain young at heart, if not in body – we have an obligation to help our youth succeed. Some of you know, here in South Africa, my Foundation is convening over the last few days, two hundred young people from across this continent who are doing the hard work of making change in their communities; who reflect Madiba’s values, who are poised to lead the way.”

  • Bipartisan Senate 2018 Farm Bill turns the tide for historically underserved Farmers and Ranchers

    The Rural Coalition and the National Latino Farmers and Ranchers Trade Association see strong progress for this nation’s African American, Asian Pacific, Latino, and Tribal Farmers and Ranchers and rural communities in the strongly bipartisan Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018, which passed the U. S. Senate in late June by a vote of 86-11. The bill preserves nutrition programs, leaves largely intact conservation and other key programs, and preserves clean water protections. Of great significance to our communities, it makes critical investments in tribal farmers and food systems and programs supporting the nation’s historically underserved, veteran and young farmers and ranchers, improves transparency in credit programs and removes barriers to cultivation of industrial hemp.
    “The Agricultural Improvement Act passed yesterday is a huge step forward,” said Rural Coalition Board Member Rudy Arredondo, President of the National Latino Farmers and Ranchers Trade Association. “We are extremely happy that the Senate Agriculture Committee leaders were able to stay focused on the essentials of as good a bipartisan farm bill as we can get in this political climate.”
    “This bill turns the tide for African American and all other historically underserved farmers and ranchers,” said Rural Coalition Vice Chairperson Georgia Good, Executive Director of the Rural Advancement Fund of the National Sharecroppers Fund, which has worked since 1937 to improve the quality of life in rural communities in the South. We are grateful to Senator Tim Scott (SC) and Doug Jones (AL) for opening a critical new door to allow families of multiple generations operating on inherited land to be allowed in to the programs of USDA that all farmers need to thrive with their bill, S. 3117.

    We further thank Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (KA) and Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow (MI) for their patient and persistent leadership to work with us all to include these bills in a landmark package that values all rural communities and peoples.”
    According to Rural Coalition Chairperson John Zippert of the Alabama Association of Cooperatives, “The Federation of Southern Cooperatives estimates more than 40% of black owned land is in heirs property status ; including the Fair Access Act in this bill enables people in states that have the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property laws to access USDA programs more directly with less red tape.”
    On behalf of our entire Coalition, we also thank Senators Robert and Stabenow, and also Senators Chris Van Hollen (MD), Tina Smith (MN), as well as Senator Jones for their diligent efforts to not only protect but improve the Outreach for Socially Disadvantaged and Veteran Farmers and Ranchers Program (OASDVFR), which has struggled for funding since first authorized in 1990, and since military veteran farmers and ranchers were added in 2014. The Senate bill links OASDVFR with the Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Development Program and strengthens and provides permanent authority to both programs. Under the new bill, the programs would equally share permanent direct funding of $50 million and will be improved with strong peer review processes.”
    “We have been working hard for decades to bring equity to the farm bill in terms of treatment for Black farmers and other farmers of color to build cooperatives and to uplift low-wealth communities. The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 addresses continuing inequities and supports the quality hands-on assistance needed to make sure the 2018 farm bill reaches everyone,” said Rural Coalition Chairperson John Zippert, based in rural Alabama.
    “The passage of the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 out of the Senate with strong bipartisan support shows opportunity for young people to shape the future of their tribal, urban, and rural communities,” said Marc Grignon, Co-Director of Hempstead Project Heart, a Rural Coalition member group. “There are numerous provisions in the legislation passed which open the door for revitalization of the hemp industry to thrive in the United States again. We look forward to the House and Senate producing a conference bill that upholds tribal sovereignty, provides permanent support to beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, and lifts the barriers for the American Hemp Industry.”
    “Everyone in our nation, who cares about a future for farmers, ranchers and rural communities needs to contact your Congressional delegations- and your Representative in particular – to rally behind the much stronger Senate bill as a solid base for a final 2018 Farm Bill.”
    The next step is for the U. S. Senate and House of Representatives to hold a Conference Committee to merge and reconcile differences in the two bills. The Conference Committee is likely to convene in August to produce a final bill for passage in both houses before the end of September when the prior Farm Bill provisions expire.

  • Newswire : After stunning Soccer World Cup victory migrants also rejoice

    M'bappe -French soccer player.jpg
    Mbappe – son of African immigrants played on French team

    July 16, 2018 (GIN) – There’s a festive spirit in France following its second World Cup final in 20 years. For the decisive game, fans had been glued to their sets, including at a Salvation Army shelter where several dozen migrants had watched the match.

    “You can dream in France,” Youssef, a 25 year old from Darfur, Sudan, told the France24 news agency. “If you’re the best, you can be on the team. That’s not true everywhere.” He was referring to the 17 players on the French team who are sons of immigrants. “(Kylian) Mbappé’s dad is from Cameroon and his mother is Algerian.”

    In the second half after Paul Pogba (parents from Guinea) and Mbappé score in quick succession, the room goes wild – up and dancing, hugging, turning over their seats.

    A group of women on one side of the room start up a chant of, “Thank you, Pogba! Thank you, Mbappé!”

    “We are all refugees from somewhere,” reflects Habib from Afghanistan, “but we live here. We’re for the place where we live.”

    Close links between French and African soccer go back some 80 years. Senegalese Raoul Diagne played in the 1938 World Cup and later became a deputy in the French assembly, as well as the first coach of independent Senegal.

    Just Fontaine, whose tally of 13 goals in the 1958 finals remains a World Cup record, came from Morocco and Zinedine Zidane, arguably the greatest French soccer player, was born in Marseille to Algerian parents.

    He was the hero of France’s World Cup-winning team 20 years ago whose success was hailed as a powerful and inspiring rejection of racism in French society.

    Peniel Joseph, founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas in Austin, said the French 4 to 2 win over Croatia was “a victory for Africa and immigrants everywhere.”

    Khaled Beydoun, author of the book “American Islamophobia,” took a less forgiving view, however, in an open letter to France on Twitter.

    “Dear France,” he began. “Congratulations on winning the World Cup. 80% of your team is African (so) cut out the racism and xenophobia. 50% of your team is Muslim (so) cut out the Islamophobia. Africans and Muslims delivered you a second World Cup. Now deliver them justice.”

    “You can’t celebrate and cheer immigrants and minorities on the football field and vilify them everywhere else off of it,” he added.

  • Newswire : Rep. Barbara Lee considers run for Chair of the Democratic Caucus

    By Freddie Allen (Editor-in-Chief, NNPA Newswire and BlackPressUSA.com)
    repbarbaralee_bpw18_2457_fallen_web.jpg
    Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said that she’s seriously considering running for Chairman of the Democratic Caucus, the fourth-highest ranking position in Democratic leadership in the United States House of Representatives.
    “Given where our party is and the direction that it needs to go in…my history and experience demonstrate that I really can help unify the Democratic Party,” Lee said.
    As an example, Lee noted her work leading up to the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. Lee said that she didn’t endorse former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. And it wasn’t because of ideological differences; Lee said that she wanted to help craft the party’s agenda.
    “I helped negotiate a very progressive, very inclusive Democratic Party platform and both sides—the Clinton delegates and the Sanders delegates—thanked me for that,” Lee said, adding that, bringing people together from diverse backgrounds to accomplish common goals is a role that she has played her entire life.
    When it comes to her political career in the U.S. Congress, Lee was instrumental in authoring or co-authoring “every major piece of HIV/AIDS legislation including the legislative frameworks for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria,” during President George W. Bush’s administration.
    According to her official biography, in 2007, Congresswoman Lee worked with a diverse coalition of members to create the “Out of Poverty Caucus” and she has long advocated for legislative action to end poverty.
    As the chair of the Democratic Whip Task Force on Poverty, Income, Inequality and Opportunity, Congresswoman Lee guides more than 100 members of Congress in crafting and advancing legislation to lift millions of American families out of poverty and into the middle class.
    “As a Black woman who has been on public assistance and who has also owned and run a business creating jobs for about 350 people…I think that I can bring a unique perspective to Democratic leadership that can help strengthen the Democratic caucus,” Lee said. “I’m considering running, because I would like to have that perspective at the leadership table to represent a broader and deeper perspective within the country, as chair of the Democratic caucus.”
    Lee said that the Democratic Party must focus on “all of the issues that people care about” including challenges facing low-income and working-class families, racial and economic justice, and criminal justice reform.
    Congresswoman Lee currently serves on the Budget Committee and the Appropriations Committee, which oversees all federal government spending, according to her congressional website.
    “She serves on three subcommittees (State and Foreign Operations; Labor, Health and Human Services, Education; and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs) of the Appropriations Committee and she currently serves as Co-Chair of the Pro-Choice Caucus,” Lee’s biography said.
    As a priority, Lee said that she’s focused on wresting control of the House from the Republican Party during the 2018 midterm elections. The New York Times reported that, “Democrats, who have been sidelined as the House minority party since 2010, need to flip 24 Republican seats while keeping the 194 seats they currently hold.”
    To regain control of the House, Democrats will rely heavily on increasing voter turnout, especially Black voter turnout, during the midterm elections.
    Historically, voter turnout in the U.S. is lower during midterm elections compared to presidential elections. Black voter turnout decreased significantly during the 2016 presidential election.
    According to an NPR article on voting trends in the U.S., “Many analysts say a natural drop-off was expected in the post-Barack Obama era. But the 2016 voter turnout for African-Americans was not just lower than the Obama years, it was even slightly lower than the 2004 election between George W. Bush and John Kerry.”
    Despite the challenges associated with mobilizing voters in a post-Barack Obama era, political analysis shows that energizing Black voters remains critical to the Democratic success at the polls.
    NPR reported that Black voters, particularly Black women, were key to Democratic victories in both the Virginia gubernatorial race and the Alabama senate race in 2017.
    “Black women are the most loyal and the most consistent Democratic voters and we have never been at the leadership table in the history of Congress,” Lee said.
    For many Black voters, that dynamic must change in order for the Democratic Party to remain viable and credible in the Black community.

  • Newswire: Rep. Sewell invites U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley to Alabama to confirm UN study findings on U.S. Poverty

    Rep. Sewell responds to Ambassador Haley’s dismissal of U.S. poverty

    Terri_Sewell,_Official_Portrait,_112th_Congress

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Tuesday, Congresswoman Terri A. Sewell (D-AL) sent a letter to United Nations (UN) Ambassador Nikki Haley, calling on Ambassador Haley to visit Alabama and confirm the findings of a recent study conducted by the UN Special Rapporteur for Extreme Poverty. Rep. Sewell’s letter is in response to Ambassador Haley’s claim that it was “patently ridiculous” for the United Nations to examine poverty in America.

    “It is not ‘patently ridiculous’ to call attention to extreme poverty in America, but it is ridiculous and shameful to disregard it and do nothing,” said Rep. Terri Sewell. “Every day, millions of American families struggle to put food on the table for their families or afford basic necessities like a working wastewater system or primary health and dental care.

    Before Ambassador Haley dismisses the realities of severe poverty in America or families living in extreme distress, she should see for herself the economically marginalized and forgotten communities that struggle under the weight of generational poverty. In Alabama’s 7th Congressional District, the failure of wastewater infrastructure in some rural communities has created a health crisis that should not exist in modern-day America. I invite Ambassador Haley to my district to see firsthand the suffering that I have seen, and the issues that my constituents confront every day.”

    The full text of Rep. Sewell’s letter to Ambassador Haley is available on her website.

    The letter follows a response from Ambassador Haley after Rep. Sewell and Sen. Sanders wrote to the Ambassador urging a plan of action from the Trump Administration for addressing poverty in the wake of the U.N. report exposing poverty in the United States. Rep. Sewell met with Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur for Extreme Poverty during his visit to the United States last year to investigate extreme poverty and make recommendations.