The Greene County Democrat

Category: Newswire

  • Newswire : Poor People’s Campaign Exhibit Opens at the Black History Museum

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    The National Museum of African American History and Culture recently opened the “City of Hope” Exhibition to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Poor People’s Campaign.” (NMAAHC)

    National Museum of African American History and Culture Commemorates 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Crusade in “City of Hope” Exhibition
    Features Never-Before-Seen Images from photographers Roland Freeman, Jill Freedman, Robert Houston, Laura Jones, Clara Watkins and Ernest Withers
    The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture commemorates the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s final human rights crusade in a new exhibition on the “Poor People’s Campaign,” a multicultural coalition that began in 1968 to end poverty. The exhibition, “City of Hope: Resurrection City & the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign,” features rare archival film and new oral histories with people who helped organize the campaign including Marian Wright Edelman and Andrew Young.
    It also features wooden tent panels, lapel buttons, placards and murals created by and used by some of the nearly 8,000 people who occupied the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for nearly six weeks to call the nation’s attention to the crippling effects of poverty for minorities, children and the elderly.
    The museum’s exhibition is housed in its gallery at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History as a partner to the exhibition, “American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith,” which explores the history of citizen participation, debate and compromise from the nation’s formation to today.
    Launching its celebration of King’s birthday, the museum, hosted a media briefing and guided tours of the new exhibition bringing in people who played key roles in building and documenting Resurrection City.
    “With new and recently discovered film and audio footage, images and objects, this exhibition provides a rare look inside the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign and commemorates the legacy of Dr. King’s final campaign for economic justice,” said Lonnie G. Bunch III, founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

    “This exhibition reminds us that despite the unprecedented economic growth in America over the past five decades, there are still many Americans living below the poverty line. Although the Poor People’s Campaign did not achieve its goal of eradicating poverty, it spawned a multiethnic and multiracial movement for economic fairness whose belief in helping America live up to its ideals still inspires to this day. The stories of those who sacrificed so much are found in ‘City of Hope: Resurrection City and the Poor People’s Campaign.’”

    Original sound recordings of musical performances and conversations among campaign participants have been provided by the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The recordings, along with never-seen film produced by the Hearst Corp., show how people lived during the six-week occupation at Resurrection City. Among the film highlights is footage of people traveling in a caravan of mule-drawn wagons from Marks, Miss., to Memphis, Tenn., for King’s memorial service and then on to Washington to participate in the Poor People’s Campaign.

    Background on Poor People’s Campaign and Resurrection City
    In the 1960s, as the United States emerged as a global model of wealth and democracy, an estimated 25 million Americans lived in poverty. From the elderly and underemployed to children and persons with disabilities, poverty affected people of every race, age, and religion. In response, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by King and Ralph David Abernathy, organized the Poor People’s Campaign as a national human rights issue.
    As a multiethnic movement that included African Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Asians and poor whites from Appalachia and rural communities, the six-week, live-in demonstration in Washington attracted protestors nationwide. The campaign leaders presented demands to Congress, including jobs, living wages and access to land, capital and health care. It was the first large-scale, nationally organized demonstration after King’s death. The campaign, the final vision of King’s life, has come to be known as his most ambitious dream.

    About the National Museum of African American History and Culture
    The National Museum of African American History and Culture opened Sept. 24, 2016, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Occupying a prominent location next to the Washington Monument, the nearly 400,000-square-foot museum is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive cultural destination devoted exclusively to exploring, documenting and showcasing the African American story and its impact on American and world history. For more information about the museum, visit nmaahc.si.edu, follow @NMAAHC on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat—or call Smithsonian information at (202) 633-1000.

  • Newswire : Federal Judge orders Trump Administration to keep DACA in place

    By Roque Planas, Huffington Post

     

    FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the DACA program recipient during a rally outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles
    DACA protestors

    A federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration on Tuesday to keep in place the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children from deportation and allows them to work legally, while a lawsuit proceeds.
    The order, signed by U.S. District Judge Williams Alsup, marks a major triumph for immigrant rights groups who have rallied around the program that benefits nearly 700,000 people.
    The preliminary injunction on Trump’s cancellation of DACA requires the Department of Homeland Security “to maintain the DACA program on a nationwide basis on the same terms and conditions as were in effect before the rescission on September 5, 2017” ― including allowing those who already benefit from DACA to apply to renew their status.
    The order does not, however, allow people who have never held DACA protections to apply as new applicants.
    “Dreamers’ lives were thrown into chaos when the Trump administration tried to terminate the DACA program without obeying the law,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) said in a statement. “Today’s ruling is a huge step in the right direction.
    The Trump administration “looks forward to vindicating its position in further litigation,” Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said in a statement.
    “Tonight’s order doesn’t change the Department of Justice’s position on the facts,” the statement said. “DACA was implemented unilaterally after Congress declined to extend these benefits to this same group of illegal aliens.”
    The White House on Wednesday called the judge’s ruling “outrageous,” and Trump, in a tweet, blasted the “court system” as “broken and unfair.”
    “An issue of this magnitude must go through the normal legislative process,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. “President Trump is committed to the rule of law, and will work with members of both parties to reach a permanent solution that corrects the unconstitutional actions taken by the last administration.”
    Before the order, the program was scheduled to begin phasing out on March 5.
    Alsup is presiding over five lawsuits challenging the legality of Trump’s termination of DACA that were consolidated into one in the Northern District of California. The state of California, the Regents of the University of California, the city of San José and several DACA recipients are among those suing in an attempt to preserve the program.
    The lawsuits argue that the White House flouted the process for terminating the program in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and that the cancellation was based on flawed legal logic.
    The Obama administration used executive action to create the DACA program in 2012, allowing undocumented immigrants who arrived as children or young teenagers to apply to work legally in the country and avoid deportation for a renewable two-year period.
    The Trump administration announced in September, however, that it would cancel the program, citing a threat from a coalition of 10 states, led by Texas, to challenge the program’s constitutionality.
    At press time, we learned that the Trump Administration is appealing this decision in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and has asked the Supreme Court for an unusual immediate review the decision.

  • Newswire : Martin Luther King, Jr. was a champion for equity in education

    By Stacy M. Brown (NNPA Newswire Contributor)

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    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, at march in Selma, with children of Rev. Ralph Abernathy
    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s influence on the Civil Rights Movement is indisputable, but his fight for equity in education remains a mystery to some. That fight began with his own education.
    “He clearly had an advanced, refined educational foundation from Booker T. Washington High School, Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University,” said Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr., the founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. “His education in his speeches and sermons and writings were apparent and he wanted us all to have that type of education.”
    King completed high school at 15, college at 19, seminary school at 22 and earned a doctorate at 26.
    “Dr. King laid down the case for affordable education for all Americans, including Polish children—from the ghetto and the barrios, to the Appalachian mountains and the reservations—he was a proponent for education for all and he believed that strong minds break strong chains and once you learn your lesson well, the oppressor could not unlearn you.”
    Rev. Al Sharpton, the founder and president of the National Action Network (NAN), said that NAN works with Education for a Better America to partner with school districts, universities, community colleges, churches, and community organizations around the country to conduct educational programming for students and parents.
    “The mission of the organization has been to build bridges between policymakers and the classrooms by supporting innovations in education and creating a dialogue between policymakers, community leaders, educators, parents, and students,” Sharpton said. “We’re promoting student health, financial literacy, and college readiness in our communities, just like Dr. King did.”
    King was a figure to look up to in both civil rights and academia, Sharpton told the NNPA Newswire.
    “Then, when you look at his values, he always saw education, especially in the Black community, as a tool to uplift and inspire to action,” Sharpton said. “It’s definitely no coincidence that a number of prominent civil rights groups that emerged during Dr. King’s time, were based on college campuses.”
    Sharpton added that King routinely pushed for equality to access to education.
    “Just as importantly, he always made a point to refer education back to character—that we shouldn’t sacrifice efficiency and speed for morals,” Sharpton said. “A great student not only has the reason and education, but a moral compass to do what’s right with his or her gifts. It’s not just important to be smart, you have to know what’s right and what’s wrong.”
    Dr. Wornie Reed, the director of Race and Social Policy Research Center at Virginia Tech who marched with King, said when he thinks of King and education, he immediately considers the late civil rights leader’s advocating that “we should be the best that we could be.”
    “King certainly prepared himself educationally…early on he saw that education played a crucial role in society, but perceived it as often being misused,” Reed said. “In a famous essay that he wrote for the student newspaper at Morehouse in 1947, he argued against a strictly utilitarian approach to education, one that advanced the individual and not society.”
    Maryland Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings, who remembers running home from church on Sundays to listen to King’s speeches on radio, said King had a tremendous impact on education in the Black community.
    “Dr. King worked tirelessly to ensure that African Americans would gain the rights they had long been denied, including the right to a quality education,” said Cummings. “His fight for equality in educational opportunities helped to tear down walls of segregation in our nation’s schools.”
    Cummings continued: “He instilled hope in us that we can achieve our dreams no matter the color of our skin. He instilled in us the notion that everyone can be great, because everyone can serve and there are so many great advocates, who embody this lesson.”
    In support of education equality, civil rights leaders across the country are still working to ensure all students, regardless of color, receive access to experienced teachers, equitable classroom resources and quality education, Cummings noted further.
    For example, the NAACP has done a tremendous amount, across the country, to increase retention rates, ensure students have the resources they need, and prepare students for success after graduation—whether it be for college or a specific career path, Cummings said.
    During his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway, King said: “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.”
    The need for high quality education in the Black community is universal and the route to get there may be different, but education does matter, Jackson said.
    “Dr. King told me he read a fiction and a non-fiction book once a week. He was an avid reader and, in the spirit of Dr. King, today we fight for equal, high-quality education,” said Jackson. “We fight for skilled trade training, affordable college education and beyond.”

  • Newswire : Senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker join powerful Judiciary Committee

    By Frederick H. Lowe


     Sen. Kamala Harris and Sen Cory Booker

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) and Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) yesterday were selected to join the Senate Judiciary Committee, a very powerful committee that plays a key role in considering U.S. Supreme Court, federal appeals court and district court nominations.
    Harris replaces former Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) who resigned from office on January 2 after several allegations of sexual misconduct had been leveled against him. Booker’s appointment was made possible by Democrat Doug Jones’s election to the U.S. Senate following a special election in Alabama. The election gave Democrats another seat in the Senate.
    Harris is the second black woman to serve on the Judiciary Committee. Former Senator Carol Moseley Braun (D-Illinois) was the first. Booker is the first black man to serve on the committee.
    Booker tweeted from @corybooker : “Excited to join the Judiciary Committee. It’ll be my mission to check awful actions by Trump & Sessions; keep working to advance the cause of reforming our broken justice system; and to bend the arc of history closer toward equal justice for all.”
    Harris tweeted from @SenKamalaHarris: “Thrilled to share that I’ve been appointed to the Senate Judiciary Committee. You have my commitment that I will fight for justice on behalf of Californians and all Americans.”
    Republicans still have a one-seat advantage on the committee of 11 to 10. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is committee chair and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) is the ranking Democrat.
    The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies hailed both appointments. “The appointment of Senators Harris and Booker to the Senate Judiciary Committee is another important step in the movement to create a more representative Senate and will have a meaningful impact on how policy is made,” said Spencer Overton, president and CEO of the Joint Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank for black-elected officials.
    The Judiciary Committee has oversight over the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and components of the Department of Homeland Security.
    The committee considers legislation that impacts immigration, criminal justice and intellectual property.

  • Newswire : Read Oprah Winfrey’s Golden Globes Speech

    By GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO, New York Times
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    Oprah Winfrey accepting Golden Globes award

    Oprah Winfrey accepted the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement with a rousing acceptance speech that began as a personal reflection and ended as a call to arms.
    After being introduced by Reese Witherspoon, she acknowledged the significance of becoming the first black woman to win the award, and said she hoped that the raised voices of her fellow actresses might lead to a world in which “nobody ever has to say, ‘Me too,’ again.”
    Here is a full transcript of Ms. Winfrey’s speech:
    Ah! Thank you. Thank you all. O.K., O.K. Thank you, Reese. In 1964, I was a little girl sitting on the linoleum floor of my mother’s house in Milwaukee, watching Anne Bancroft present the Oscar for best actor at the 36th Academy Awards. She opened the envelope and said five words that literally made history: “The winner is Sidney Poitier.” Up to the stage came the most elegant man I had ever seen. I remember his tie was white, and of course his skin was black. And I’d never seen a black man being celebrated like that. And I’ve tried many, many, many times to explain what a moment like that means to a little girl — a kid watching from the cheap seats, as my mom came through the door bone-tired from cleaning other people’s houses. But all I can do is quote and say that the explanation’s in Sidney’s performance in “Lilies of the Field”: “Amen, amen. Amen, amen.” In 1982, Sidney received the Cecil B. DeMille Award right here at the Golden Globes, and it is not lost on me that at this moment there are some little girls watching as I become the first Black woman to be given this same award.
    It is an honor, and it is a privilege to share the evening with all of them, and also with the incredible men and women who’ve inspired me, who’ve challenged me, who’ve sustained me and made my journey to this stage possible. Dennis Swanson, who took a chance on me for “A.M. Chicago”; Quincy Jones, who saw me on that show and said to Steven Spielberg, “Yes, she is Sophia in ‘The Color Purple’”; Gayle, who’s been the definition of what a friend is; and Stedman, who’s been my rock — just a few to name. I’d like to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, because we all know that the press is under siege these days.
    But we also know that it is the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth that keeps us from turning a blind eye to corruption and to injustice. To tyrants and victims and secrets and lies. I want to say that I value the press more than ever before, as we try to navigate these complicated times. Which brings me to this: What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have. And I’m especially proud and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories. Each of us in this room are celebrated because of the stories that we tell. And this year we became the story. But it’s not just a story affecting the entertainment industry. It’s one that transcends any culture, geography, race, religion, politics or workplace.
    So I want tonight to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault, because they — like my mother — had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue. They’re the women whose names we’ll never know. They are domestic workers and farmworkers; they are working in factories and they work in restaurants, and they’re in academia and engineering and medicine and science; they’re part of the world of tech and politics and business; they’re our athletes in the Olympics and they’re our soldiers in the military.
    And they’re someone else: Recy Taylor, a name I know and I think you should know, too. In 1944, Recy Taylor was a young wife and a mother. She was just walking home from a church service she’d attended in Abbeville, Ala., when she was abducted by six armed white men, raped and left blindfolded by the side of the road, coming home from church. They threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone, but her story was reported to the N.A.A.C.P., where a young worker by the name of Rosa Parks became the lead investigator on her case and together they sought justice. But justice wasn’t an option in the era of Jim Crow. The men who tried to destroy her were never persecuted. Recy Taylor died 10 days ago, just shy of her 98th birthday. She lived, as we all have lived, too many years in a culture broken by brutally powerful men. And for too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men. But their time is up. Their time is up. Their time is up.
    And I just hope that Recy Taylor died knowing that her truth — like the truth of so many other women who were tormented in those years, and even now tormented — goes marching on. It was somewhere in Rosa Parks’s heart almost 11 years later, when she made the decision to stay seated on that bus in Montgomery. And it’s here with every woman who chooses to say, “Me too.” And every man — every man — who chooses to listen. In my career, what I’ve always tried my best to do, whether on television or through film, is to say something about how men and women really behave: to say how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere, and how we overcome. And I’ve interviewed and portrayed people who’ve withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning — even during our darkest nights.
    So I want all the girls watching here and now to know that a new day is on the horizon! And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say, ‘Me too’ again. Thank you.”

  • Newswire : Is Donald Trump the worst President on minority issues in 50 years?

    News Analysis by Lauren Victoria Burke (NNPA Newswire Contributor)
    Donald Trump, a man best known as a “birther” with a reality TV show and a real estate empire, who claimed that Mexico was sending drugs and rapists to the United States, was sworn in as president on January 20, 2017. What happened next was predictable and we should expect more of the same in 2018.
    Here are seven decisions from the past year confirming that Trump has been the worst president for African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities over the last 50 years.
    1. Trump picks Jeff Sessions to succeed Loretta Lynch as Attorney General of the U.S. Trump went out of his way to make sure that his administration’s justice policy reflected 1940s America, when he selected Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III as his Attorney General.
    According to a Huffington Post article published in January 2017, Sessions not only supported gutting the Voting Rights Act in 2013, he also has “a record of blocking Black judicial nominees.” Sessions, “unsuccessfully prosecuted Black civil rights activists for voter fraud in 1985―including a former aide to Martin Luther King, Jr.”
    Since, Sessions has taken over at the Justice Department, he has recused himself from an investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election and ordered a review of Obama era police reforms. This is one time where the selection of Rudy Giuliani for attorney general may have actually looked like a more moderate choice.
    2. Trump says “there were very fine people on both sides” at the Charlottesville White nationalists rally, during a Trump Tower press conference. Never mind that one of the largest gatherings of racists in America since the end of the Civil Rights Movement occurred only eight months into Trump’s presidency. Put that aside. Trump’s “both sides” comments on who was to blame for the public street fight in the college town was all anyone needed to understand regarding the thinking of America’s 45th president on the issue of race.
    “I am not putting anybody on a moral plane, what I’m saying is this: you had a group on one side and a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and horrible and it was a horrible thing to watch, but there is another side,” said Trump. “But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.”
    Trump also said, “I’ve condemned many different groups, but not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. Those people were also there, because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue Robert E. Lee.”
    3. Trump calls for NFL owners to fire players over silent protests. Trump said NFL owners should respond to the players by saying, “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, he’s fired. He’s fired!” Just in case you missed it with his comments on Charlottesville, Trump was back again to spoil the start of the NFL season by commenting on players who dared to silently protest racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem. Trump called kneeling during the anthem, “a total disrespect of our heritage,” and a “total disrespect for everything we stand for.” The result was more protests by NFL players who then locked arms on sidelines across the U.S. with many White players and coaches participating.
    Even Rush Limbaugh found himself having issues with Trump on this one. “There’s a part of this story that’s starting to make me nervous, and it’s this: I am very uncomfortable with the President of the United States being able to dictate the behavior and power of anybody,” said Limbaugh. “That’s not where this should be coming from.”
    4. Trump uses an executive order to block travel of refugees from majority-Muslim countries to the U.S. When you have former staffers for Jeff Sessions writing executive orders on immigration policy, you can expect what happened at the Trump White House on January 27, 2017. With absolutely no warning, on the seventh day of his presidency, Trump signed an immigration and travel executive order. This order had Steven Miller’s fingerprints all over it, After a few days of chaos and protests at airports across the nation, federal judges applied an initial smackdown blocking the order. But Trump’s DOJ revised the order to pass some of those legal tests.

    5. Trump launches sham voting commission to investigate “voter fraud.” Since many voting rights advocates agree that Republican-controlled state legislatures cook up the most egregious voting laws, it should have been surprising to no one that former Kansas Attorney General, Kris Kobach, would be a fixture of the Trump Administration. Kobach is the Vice Chairman and “driving force” behind Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Since, he’s spent so much time rooting out voter fraud that is all but non-existent, Kobach was perfect for the job.
    According to the Brennan Center, Kobach was the “driving force behind a Kansas law that included both a strict photo ID requirement to vote and proof of citizenship to register—which has blocked thousands of eligible citizens from the polls” and “has repeatedly made extravagant claims of in-person voter fraud or noncitizen voting with little or no evidence.”
    After Trump kept repeating the falsehood that millions of fraudulent votes were cast in 2016, everyone knew this was coming. Hillary Clinton won 3 million more votes than Trump so a “voting integrity” commission was a given.
    6. Trump pardons Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The Bull Connor of his era, Arpaio was Sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., for 24 years. According to one DOJ expert, Arpaio oversaw “the worst pattern of racial profiling by a law enforcement agency in U.S. history.” Trump was perfectly consistent in his anti-immigrant rhetoric of 2016 in pardoning Arpaio on August 25, 2017 from a conviction for criminal contempt of court. Trump just couldn’t resist another opportunity to give a wink of approval to the right-wing.

    7. Trump nominates Neil Gorsuch to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Instead of nominating a Black woman to replace Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, President Obama picked someone whose nomination no one cared about or would rally around (the instantly unexciting Merrick Garland). With that, the deal was done. The selection of Garland easily allowed the Republican-controlled Senate to ignore Obama’s pick and run out the clock out, opening the door for Trump to select Neil Gorsuch, who has “voted 100 percent of the time with the court’s most conservative member, Clarence Thomas, according to SCOTUSblog,” NPR reported.

    Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent journalist, political analyst and contributor to the NNPA Newswire

  • Newswire : H&M apologizes for ad showing black child model wearing ‘monkey’ hoodie

    By Zlati Meyer, USA TODAY

    H & M logo.jpg
    Woman walking past H & M logo

    International retail giant H&M has apologized for an ad featuring a Black child model wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the phrase “coolest monkey in the jungle.”
    Social media blew up over the photo of a young boy wearing the green hooded sweatshirt, which had racist undertones. The online advertisement for the top was for sale in the U.K.
    “We sincerely apologize for offending people with this image of a printed hooded top,” H&M said in a statement. “The image has been removed from all online channels and the product will not be for sale in the United States.We believe in diversity and inclusion in all that we do and will be reviewing all our internal policies accordingly to avoid any future issues.”
    Everyone from celebrities to social-justice experts to comedians chimed in. Tweets ranged form GIFs of head-shaking to adding the letters S, A and E to the retailer’s name to spell “Shame”.
    “It was a horribly insensitive combination of memes,” said Bruce Turkel, executive creative director of Miami-based firm Turkel Brands. “People will forget. Trouble will happen if they don’t fix their approval process and something like this happens again, because each time it does, this issue will be brought up again.”
    This isn’t the first time the Sweden-based retail chain’s has been criticized for racial and ethnic insensitivity. In 2015, it drew fire after its South Africa division featured no black models. When questioned about the lack of diversity, H&M’s tweeted response suggested that white models conveyed more positivity. And in 2013, H&M pulled feathered headdresses from its stores after Canadian customers complained it made fun of First Nation tribal customs.
    Nor is H&M the only company to blunder. In October, Kellogg’s pledged to replace a racially insensitive drawing on its Corn Pops box after an uproar on Twitter. The sole brown Corn Pop in the artwork was depicted as a janitor. That month, Dove, a Unilever brand, apologized for a Facebook ad it ran for Dove Body Wash, which showed a black woman taking off a brown T-shirt, revealing a while woman. It prompted calls to boycott the company.
    And one week in April saw Pepsi pulling a Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial that some people viewed as belittling the Black Lives movement, while skincare company Nivea pulled an ad for Invisible For Black & White deodorant, which included the tag line “White is purity.”
    Founded in Sweden in 1947, the company now known H&M has more than 4,100 stores worldwide. The initials stand for Hennes & Mauritz.

  • Newswire : Essence Magazine, once again, Black-owned after purchase by Sundial Brands Founder Richelieu Dennis

     

    By Stacy M. Brown (NNPA Newswire Contributor)
    richelieudennis_essence_web120.jpg

    Richelieu Dennis

    In a deal that reestablishes Essence magazine as a totally, Black and independently-owned entity, Sundial Brands founder Richelieu Dennis recently announced the purchase of Essence Communications from Time Inc.
    The Essence Communications deal also comes a week after Dennis was knighted in his native Liberia by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who admitted him into the Most Venerable Order of the Knighthood of the Pioneer with the Grade of Knight Commander. Sirleaf reportedly described Dennis as an “Awesome Hero.”
    “Talk about surreal,” Dennis said in an interview with NNPA Newswire. “I can’t even bring myself to say [knighthood]. It’s been a phenomenal week.”
    Dennis said that the purchase of Essence Communications comes with a deep-seated passion and commitment to making sure that, “we are doing everything we can to leverage the power of the business to impact our community in a positive way and to demonstrate that we can run highly-profitable organizations.”
    Dennis continued: “We can also leverage the impact and the resources that those businesses generate to drive economic empowerment and social justice in our communities for ourselves and by ourselves.”
    Dorothy Leavell, the chairman of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and the publisher of the Crusader Newspaper Group, said that it was good news to hear that ownership of Essence magazine has returned to the Black community.
    “I hope it’s a trend,” said Leavell. “We do need strong Black ownership in our industry, even as I’m expecting that our Black newspapers will prosper in 2018.”
    Leavell also said that she hopes that Black entrepreneurs will see the work and products of the Black Press and “seek to restore some light.” Leavell added: “We need more and more publications that depict us in a positive way and that’s certainly what ‘Essence’ has done in the past and I hope they will continue.”
    While financial terms of the Essence Communications purchase weren’t disclosed, Dennis said he’s not only retaining Essence President Michelle Ebanks, who will continue to run the company, but Ebanks will also join the organization’s board of directors and lead an all-Black executive team at Essence, who will have equity stakes in the business.
    “I’m overwhelmed with gratitude,” Ebanks told the NNPA Newswire. “The ‘Essence’ brand…has always had a special place in the hearts and minds of Black women and entrepreneurs and leaders like [Dennis] recognized ‘Essence’ and its importance and wants to restore it. This has allowed a dream to come true and we couldn’t be happier.”
    Ebanks said that it was an extraordinary and special privilege to be part of an organization that would be responsible for elevating Black women in the industry.
    Dennis said the deal to purchase Essence came together rather quickly after reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about Time Inc.’s intention to sell the company.
    “The stars aligned. We started to think about the implications of what this would mean if ‘Essence’ were truly bought back into the community and the impact it could have on the audience and on the industry to be able to create our content and to monetize our own content,” said Dennis. “There was never a waiver in the commitment on what ‘Essence’ means to our community.”
    Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the NNPA, congratulated Richelieu Dennis for purchasing Essence magazine and for returning this iconic publication to 100 percent Black ownership.
    “This is a very timely and an important milestone for the Black Press in America and throughout the world,” said Chavis. “Essence magazine, under the able leadership of Michelle Ebanks, is a valued treasure of Black America and the NNPA acknowledges, with supportive gratitude, Richelieu Dennis for this significant Black-owned business transaction.

  • Newswire : Dr. Barber ‘surprised’ by Moral Monday fame in Rome

     

    By Cash Michaels. Wilmington Journal
    barber pope visit.jpg
     Bishop William J. Barber II poses with the Vatican guards in Rome during his visit.

     

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – Rome, Italy is over 4,600 miles away from Raleigh, NC. But when it came to “Moral Mondays,” the massive yet peaceful demonstrations held in North Carolina’s capital city, and led by the former president of the NCNAACP, no distance was too far as far as admirers attending a recent international conference on labor at the Vatican were concerned.
    “I was …surprised by how many leaders from around the world had been inspired by Moral Monday, the moral revival last year, and the Poor People’s Campaign plans,” Bishop Dr. William Barber, leader of the social justice group, “Repairers of the Breach,” said by text from the Vatican shortly after the visit.
    Dr. Barber was one of 300 participants from around the world attending the conference which addressed the conditions of working people, and the working poor on Thanksgiving. Representing the upcoming Poor People’s Campaign in the United States, Dr. Barber’s social justice reputation from the 12 years he led the NCNAACP preceded him, with an invitation already given him to attend and preach at another world gathering about labor rights and the poor in Liverpool, England next June. He has also been invited to Brazil next year.
    As a birthday present, Dr. Barber took his mother, who had turned 84 the week before, along with his wife and one of his son, all part of an eight-person delegation.
    In an exclusive telephone interview from Washington, DC, Dr. Barber recalled two “long, intense eight-hour days” of deeply committed religious and labor leaders working together. From countries like France, Sudan, England and others, Dr. Barber said he was greeted warmly by all.
    Even the Vatican guards saluted him because of his title of “Bishop.”
    During his presentation at the conference, Dr. Barber said, “Rightfully, the Pope has noted at the start of the twenty-first century that religious leaders must play a leading role in the struggle for justice in dialogue with all social and political actors. We must articulate a way of thinking that brings together the complexity of the current situation and proposes an action strategy for the construction of a just society. Not only is democracy at stake, but the wellbeing of world itself.”
    Later in his remarks, Bishop Barber continued, “I believe Pope Francis’ call for a moral vision of the common good connected to a call for solidarity within the labor union economy and ethos is most important. I join you today as President of Repairers of the Breach and Co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival in the United States. We have identified five areas–five moral diseases that must be addressed if we are to be a people able to address the common good, promote the general welfare, and ensure the common defense, with liberty and justice for all. We must address systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy, and the immoral narrative of extreme religionism.”
    Before he left, Dr. Barber was satisfied with how his presentation was accepted by other religious and labor leaders. “Many of the points that we raised were in the final document produced by the conference as a guide to the way forward,” he texted.
    And what about that much anticipated Thanksgiving Day meeting between Dr. Barber and Pope Francis that was scheduled during the two-day gathering? It got cancelled at the last minute,” Barber says.
    “Up until 4 p.m. yesterday the Pope was scheduled to come and be with us,” Bishop Barber texted last Friday. “[But] we were informed around 4:15 p.m. that due to challenges around his trip to Malaysia, and other world events (like the mosque [terrorist] shootings in Egypt), he had to change [his plans].”
    “[The Pope] sent a personal note to us and a papal letter,” Dr. Barber added. Indeed, Pope Francis walked a fine, and some say diplomatically peril less line during his visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh. Myanmar has cracked down on Rohingya Muslims in what some are calling an “ethnic cleansing.” Reports say villages are being burned and women and children are being raped, as over 600,000 refugees have fled to Bangladesh.
    But before he left Italy, Pope Francis issued a letter at the conclusion of the international conference. In that papal letter, the Pope warned of “the money god” that leads to the exploitation of the working poor globally.
    “Work must serve the human person,” Pope Francis said, not the other way around.” He added that “…every worker is the hand of Christ who continues to create and do good.”
    Even though Dr. Barber wasn’t able to personally meet the Pope as he had hoped, he was able to present one of the Pope’s cardinals with gifts for His Eminence from the United States – a small stone from the home of North Carolina civil rights leader Ella Baker, and sand from the Rio Grande [River] where Barber walked with families traveling to see relatives from Mexico they had not seen in years.
    Beyond the conference, if there was one consolation, Dr. Barber wrote, it was that one of the cardinals [from Ghana] he exchanged personal information with promised to visit with the bishop in North Carolina upon his next visit to the United States.
    Editor’s Note – you can red Dr. Barber’s Vatican presentation at https://thecashjournal.blogspot.com/p/bishop-william-j-barbers.html

  • Newswire: Do you want to accelerate social innovation? Invest in Black women.

    Jerelyn Rodriguez , WOMEN@FORBES
    Black women.jpg
     Black woman working on computer

    Is America just waking up to the fact that #BlackGirlMagic is real?
    A few weeks ago the world was raving about the 98% of Black female voters that prevented Roy Moore, accused of sexually assaulting teens, from taking the Senate seat in Alabama. The next day titles like “black women saved America” took over the internet. But let’s not forget that black women have been trying to save the world for generations and in some cases only lack the resources to realize true impact.
    A report issued last year from DigitalUndivided found that even though women accounted for 30% of all small business owners, they received 4.4% of small business loans. In a recent EdSurge article, Aaron Walker from Camelback Ventures highlights that of venture capital funding, “on average, black women raise $36,000, while White men raise $1.3 million.” The disparities in venture and nonprofit funding are slowing down authentic social innovation efforts tackling society’s biggest problems.
    One example is social innovation taking place in the South Bronx, the poorest congressional district, where nearly 30% of young South Bronx residents are unemployed. To solve this, in 2016, with the support of JobsFirstNYC’s Young Adult Sectoral Employment Project (YASEP), The Knowledge House designed the Bronx Digital Pipeline (BxDP). BxDP is a strategic partnership among ten technology education organizations and higher education institutions offering technology skills training to young people from Bronx. The objective is to connect disadvantaged young people to occupational training customized to employer needs that lead to industry-recognized credentials, entry-level tech jobs, and higher wages.
    Emphasizing technology training and entrepreneurship in the Bronx allows disadvantaged young adults to gain exposure to the technology field, helping close the opportunity gap, and fueling an education to employment pipeline of diverse talent. The Bronx can add value to the technology field by providing a centrally and economically accessible pool of well-trained and well-vetted talent so employers can fulfill their various hiring needs. But absent of resources, will we be able to achieve our vision of alleviating poverty? Will we be able to fulfill the promise to the young people in the South Bronx that armed with proper training they too can take part in and thrive in a growing tech industry?
    It has been challenging to fundraise as a young, female, entrepreneur of color. I get called to share my expertise on how to bring technology to the Bronx. Too often I see investments go to outside experts and entities to lead new projects in low-income communities instead of existing grassroots-driven initiatives. Walker states, “companies and organizations led by people of color make a difference in building better solutions for students who look like them. It’s a lot easier to empathize with your user when you are your user.”
    This is why I was intentional about staff hiring at The Knowledge House(TKH). At TKH 100% of our staff are from or currently reside in the area that we serve, 100% identify as African American/Black, Hispanic/Latino or Asian, approximately 60% identify as female, and 50% are alumni of the program. We believe this makes us innovative because students are being taught by people that look like them and have gone through similar experiences. We are inspired by our students and early results — this year 70% of Knowledge House students have been matched to entry-level technology employment. Noteworthy placements include Barclays, Bloomberg, and NYC Department of Education.
    The ideas and proposals from entrepreneurs of color that could potentially impact the most needy communities are not being valued. If we are being denied the right to serve those that look like us, who is being given the right? Walker said it best, ‘What do we miss out on because we failed to provide the financial support necessary for their ideas to take root and spread?’ If we want social innovation to move forward, funders need to believe in our visions as we have developed and iterated them based on our own experiences.
    Let’s hustle together. Let’s invest in leaders who are bringing social innovation to their community. Let’s celebrate, invest in, and champion #BlackGirlMagic.