Greene County Democrat

Category: Newswire

  • Newswie : With seats of Congressional Black Caucus members under attack, Trump again targets Rep. Ilhan Omar

     Rep. Ilhan Omar (D. MN)

    By Lauren Burke, NNPA Congressional Corespondent

     


    On December 4, during a White House cabinet meeting, President Trump launched into a hateful, racist rant against Congressional Black Caucus member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
    “Those Somalians should be out of here. They’ve destroyed our country. And all they do is complain, complain, complain. You have her – she’s always talking about ‘the constitution provides me with uhhhh,’” Trump ranted, speaking of Congresswoman Omar.
    Trump has targeted Rep. Omar and other members of Congress’s “Squad” before and during his first term in office. Those attacks by Trump included Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Many political observers wonder if Trump’s latest rant was a strategy to deflect from bad economic news. Either way, Trump’s latest racist tirade isn’t new.
    Rep. Omar’s family fled Somalia during a war and then earned asylum in the U.S. in 1995. She became a U.S. citizen at age 17 and has represented Minnesota’s 5th congressional district since 2019.
    In 2019, Trump said that the congressional group nicknamed “the squad” should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.” During his 2024 campaign for the White House, Trump made anti-immigration rants a predictable part of his campaign rallies.
    The Congressional Black Caucus responded to the latest attacks by Trump and other Republicans in an era of brazen anti-Blackness.
    “From the recently leaked texts of Republican officials using the n-word and praising Hitler to President Trump’s comments in the Cabinet Room, it’s beyond clear that the Republican Party’s racism truly knows no bounds,” wrote the Congressional Black Caucus in a press release in defense of Rep. Omar on December 4.
    The attacks heighten the tension of national political discourse. The level of political vitriol would appear to have real-world applications. Great Britain’s paper The Independent exclusively reported on Dec. 8, a serious threat to Rep. Omar. The Congresswoman has had to add personal security to her team in recent years.
    “A 30-year-old Florida man is facing up to a half-decade in federal prison after confessing to posting violent threats on social media that promised to decapitate Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, murder her ‘monkey children,’ then eat the kids ‘for protein,’ according to plea agreement papers reviewed by The Independent,” the Dec. 8 post by the newspaper relayed. The news arrived days after Trump’s attacks, though the matter appeared to be related to comments the Congresswoman may have made after the murder of Charlie Kirk.
    The latest attack on Rep. Omar is only one of a series of pressures on the Congressional Black Caucus. Several members are now facing challenges to their power as several members are facing sudden redistricting changes in states with Republican Governors. These include Missouri, Texas, and Indiana.
    In August, Texas Republicans began the back-and-forth onslaught that became the current partisan redistricting fight. California answered the call by passing a ballot initiative that will likely lead to the elimination of several GOP congressional seats. In Virginia, there is open talk by Democrats of altering the congressional delegation in a way that could produce ten Democrats in the Virginia delegation out of eleven.
    Several members of the CBC, including Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), Al Green (D-TX), Andre Carson (D-IN), Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), and Marc Veasey (D-TX) are dealing with the special challenge of chasing district lines for partisan reasons.
    Rep. Crockett was drawn out of her own district during the GOP-driven map redraw in Texas. On the evening of December 8, Crockett announced she would be running against Republican Senator John Cornyn for U.S. Senate in 2026.
    The race was forced in part by the onslaught of redistricting fights that are likely to get more complicated in the early part of next year.

  • Newswire :Rural America faces the first cut as ACA support hits a high

    By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

    Out across the long stretches of the country—where the roads narrow, the hospitals disappear, and the winters sit heavy—health insurance is not an abstraction. It is a quiet bargain that keeps families from slipping into ruin. That bargain is now on the edge of collapse.
    Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year, and rural Americans stand to suffer most. These subsidies, introduced during the pandemic and extended through 2025, lowered premiums, expanded coverage, and pushed enrollment to historic highs. Without congressional action, the cost of insurance will rise sharply, and the hardest hit will be communities that already live miles from the nearest clinic, where a single medical bill can decide a family’s direction for a generation.
    The math alone tells a story of quiet devastation. Rural counties, according to reporting in the files, saw some of the greatest gains in coverage after the enhanced subsidies took effect. In states that rejected Medicaid expansion, these subsidies became the last remaining thread tying people to affordable care. When that thread snaps, millions will confront premiums that double almost overnight. Families who once paid modest monthly amounts could face bills they simply cannot meet. Hospitals in regions where uncompensated care already threatens survival will be forced closer to closure.
    The Congressional Budget Office projects that without an extension of the subsidies through 2026, the number of uninsured Americans will climb by millions in the first years after expiration. Premiums would, on average, rise by more than 100%. For middle-income families, the return of the so-called subsidy cliff will mean costs that outpace budgets already worn thin by inflation and stagnant wages.
    Yet the geography of the harm is not evenly drawn. Rural communities lean heavily on marketplace coverage. They have fewer employers offering insurance, fewer doctors, fewer mental health providers, and hospitals that operate on margins so narrow they can be undone by a single year of unpaid care. When subsidies disappear, these communities are the first to fall. Their residents are older, sicker, and poorer. Their choices are fewer. Their safety nets are thinner.
    The political battle around them grows louder by the day. Senators Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Susan Collins of Maine have introduced legislation that would extend the subsidies for two years but add new restrictions, including mandatory premiums for all enrollees and an income cap of $200,000 per household. Moreno, in a written statement, accused Democrats of creating a system that favored insurance companies over patients. “I am willing to work with anyone to finally bring down costs for all Americans and hope my colleagues across the aisle will commit to doing the same,” he said.
    Collins said the proposal aims to help families avoid sudden, unaffordable premium increases. A statement from her office said Congress must “pursue practical solutions that increase affordability without creating sudden disruptions in coverage.”
    But rural America, which lives with the consequences of every delay, every stalemate, and every partisan declaration, does not have the luxury of waiting.
    The reporting in the files paints a stark portrait: when insurance becomes too expensive, people delay care, skip treatment, or abandon coverage entirely. High-deductible plans—an alternative promoted by several Republican lawmakers—leave families drowning in out-of-pocket costs. Studies cited in KFF Health News show that patients with these plans often end up buried in medical debt, even when insured, and rural families, with their lower incomes and limited access to providers, are especially vulnerable.
    It is in these regions where the distance between lawmaking and lived experience is measured not in political rhetoric but in ambulance rides, in shuttered emergency rooms, in the unpaid bills that arrive like uninvited visitors at the end of each month.
    And yet, nationwide approval of the ACA is at its highest level since the law was enacted. Gallup’s latest findings show 57 percent of Americans support the ACA, driven by a sharp rise among independents. The survey, conducted as the shutdown ended and Congress prepared for another vote, suggests that the public understands what is at stake. It also shows how deeply the law has become woven into American life, especially in regions where alternatives do not exist.
    But approval alone will not keep rural hospitals open or preserve the coverage gains of the last several years. The national fight now moves toward a deadline that will not wait. When it arrives, rural America will feel it first, and it will feel it hardest.
    As one Gallup passage captures, “Approval has been at or above 50 percent in most years since 2017, but the law was less popular before

  • Newswire : U. S. Supreme Court allows Texas to use racially gerrymandered map for 2026 Midterms 

    Texas legislator holding redistricting map

    By Joe Jurado, NewsOne


    In news that can be filed under “disappointing, but not surprising,” the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling allowing Texas to use its recently redistricted map in the 2026 midterms. 
    According to CBS News, the ruling came after a panel of federal judges struck down the map last month. In the original ruling, the judges found the map unconstitutional, believing it was racially gerrymandered. In an unsigned order, the Supreme Court said it “has repeatedly emphasized that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election,” and the district court “violated that rule here.” 
    “The District Court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections,” the order continued.
    So the Supreme Court’s logic boils down to “it doesn’t matter if it’s wrong, they already did it, so just accept it.” 
    Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan pushed back against the ruling in a written dissent. “The court issued a 160-page opinion recounting in detail its factual findings. Yet this Court reverses that judgment based on its perusal, over a holiday weekend, of a cold paper record.” Kagan wrote. “We are a higher court than the District Court, but we are not a better one when it comes to making such a fact-based decision,” she added. 
    “We won! Texas is officially—and legally—more red,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement celebrating the ruling. “The new congressional districts better align our representation in Washington D.C. with the values of our state,” Abbott added. “This is a victory for Texas voters, for common sense, and for the U.S. Constitution.”
    Texas Democrats were far less celebratory of the ruling, and for good reason. Over the summer, Texas Democrats used every measure at their disposal to block the Texas redistricting effort. They filibustered, fled the state to break quorum, and their efforts even resulted in state Rep. Nicole Collier being held as a political prisoner on the House floor.  
     “The Supreme Court failed Texas voters today, and they failed American democracy. This is what the end of the Voting Rights Act looks like: courts that won’t protect minority communities even when the evidence is staring them in the face,” Texas state House Democratic Leader Rep. Gene Wu said in a statement. 
    The Texas map triggered a nationwide redistricting battle. In July, Abbott called a special session focused on redistricting at the request of President Donald Trump. The GOP controls the House by a narrow margin, with Democrats only needing a net gain of three seats to flip control during next year’s midterms. The Texas state legislature eventually passed a map that added five new districts that favor Republicans. 
    While the Supreme Court is allowing Texas to utilize its redistricted map, the gains made within it have largely been neutralized by California’s redistricting effort. California Gov. Gavin Newsom was the first Democratic leader to throw a counterpunch when he announced the “Election Rigging Response Act “in August. That move triggered a special election last month focused solely on Prop 50, which transfers control of the state’s congressional maps from an independent redistricting committee to the state legislature through the end of the decade. California voters overwhelmingly approved the measure, and Newsom intends to implement a map that directly cancels out the gains made in Texas. 
    Virginia’s Democrat-led General Assembly also announced a surprise redistricting effort last month that aims to create two to three more seats in the House, with Chicago and Maryland also considering redrawing their maps. 
    So while the Supreme Court’s ruling undeniably hurts Democratic voters in Texas, the electoral math for flipping control of the House is still reasonably close.

  • Newswire : From Tulsa to Ghana, Mother Fletcher’s long Journey comes to a close at 111

    By Stacy M. Brown
    Black Press USA National Correspondent

    Mother Viola Fletcher, who carried the memory of Tulsa’s shame and the nation’s unfinished business longer than any other living soul, died on November 24 at age 111. She stood as the oldest known survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the burning of Greenwood, and the attempted erasure of Black prosperity that white mobs tried to silence forever.
    Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols said her death marks a moment of mourning for a city still learning how to reckon with its own truth. “Today, our city mourns the loss of Mother Viola Fletcher, a survivor of one of the darkest chapters in our city’s history,” Nichols stated. “Mother Fletcher endured more than anyone should, yet she spent her life lighting a path forward with purpose.”
    She spent that long life fighting for justice that too many leaders tried to bury along with the bodies from Black Wall Street. In Greenwood, she was a child watching terror reshape a world that had promised her nothing but possibility. For more than a century, she bore witness so the country could never again pretend not to know. “Her legacy will be carried forward with the courage and conviction she modeled every day of her life,” Nichols said.
    Mother Fletcher’s mission reached the halls of Congress when she demanded reparations for survivors and descendants of the massacre. She testified with a steadiness that shamed a nation still unwilling to repair what it helped set ablaze. She reminded lawmakers she had lived through state-sponsored violence and had lived long enough to see the excuses that followed. She co-authored her memoir “Don’t Let Them Bury My Story”  with her grandson, refusing to allow America the comfort of forgetting.
    She left her words in the archives of Oklahoma State University through oral histories that insisted history would not escape the sound of her voice. Her labor began early. During World War II, she worked in a shipyard as an assistant welder. Later, she cleaned houses with a determination that carried her well into her eighties. She built a life out of the ashes she was never meant to rise from.
    The world took notice of her strength. During a 2021 journey to Ghana, she received the title “NaaLamiley,” translated as someone strong enough to stand the test of time. Her vision inspired the Viola Ford Fletcher Foundation, which promotes education, health, and economic opportunity. Community members honored her in ways large and small, including the gift of custom dentures created to recognize her legacy and impact.
    Three years ago, she stood with her brother, Hughes Van Ellis, known as Uncle Red, inside Ghana’s embassy in Washington. She was 108 then. He was 101. Both were sworn in as citizens of Ghana in a ceremony filled with music, dancing children, and the full weight of ancestral return. It was the first time anyone had been sworn in as a citizen inside the Ghanaian embassy. “I’m so grateful to all. I thank you so much for this honor,” Fletcher said before signing her citizenship papers. Her brother echoed her sentiment. “I’m so thankful to Ghana, and all of you,” Ellis stated.
    Oklahoma State Rep. Regina Goodwin attended the ceremony, along with journalist Tiffany Cross and Ambassador Erieka Bennett. Bennett spoke of heritage that surpasses borders. “You don’t have to be born in Africa to be an African,” Bennett declared. “Africa is born in you.”
    Cross spoke of feeling the presence of ancestors moving through the room, a presence made sharper by the endurance of Fletcher and Ellis. Goodwin said their lives proved that the African spirit cannot be broken. “This is what it’s all about,” Cross stated. “The spirit of Africa, its powerful and rich history.”
    Their citizenship ceremony became more than a celebration. It became a reminder that the diaspora carries stories the world still needs to hear, and that the road home is long but never closed. Bennett told the gathering that Ghana opens its doors to all who seek connection. “Welcome home,” she said.

  • Newswire : Fate of Civil Rights Office unknown as Trump continues to dismantle Department of Education 

    By Lauren Burke, NNPA

    A busy news week heading into the Thanksgiving holiday has distracted from a continuing effort by the Trump Administration to relocate, and in some cases end, the U.S. Department of Education. It has long been known that Trump and his policy advisors want to dismantle the department — but the acceleration over the last week has taken some by surprise.
    The U.S. Department of Education was established in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter. It was created to unify and elevate federal efforts to support public schools and protect students’ civil rights. It has also been the department that has amplified the national education policy.
    “The Trump Administration cannot close a federal agency without an act of Congress. Nevertheless, the Trump Administration is intent on breaking the law and dismantling the Department of Education,” Rep. Bobby Scott, the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Education and Workforce, said in a written statement on Nov. 20.
    “Today’s announcement is part and parcel of the Trump Administration’s larger agenda to reduce federal enforcement of civil rights laws and eliminate support for low-income communities. A core function of ED is to protect and defend students’ civil rights,” Rep. Scott added.
    Since taking office again in January, the Trump Administration has made its central focus to dismantle civil rights policies passed in the 1960s. The undoing of civil rights protections and a theme of anti-Blackness is now a cornerstone policy during Trump’s second term in office.
    Trump has reversed the 2015 “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” (AFFH) rule, a civil-rights tool aimed at reducing segregation and racial disparities in housing. Trump has also ended disparate-impact liability in civil-rights enforcement, and in 2025, Trump signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to deprioritize enforcement of “disparate-impact” theory — a legal standard used to challenge policies that, while neutral on their face, disproportionately harm protected groups. Trump has also ended key DEI and affirmative-action programs in federal hiring and rescinded Executive Order 11246 (initially signed in 1965), which required federal contractors to maintain affirmative-action programs to promote diversity in hiring.
    “The federal government must retain its central role in enforcing students’ civil rights, because historically, when states had no federal oversight, we saw segregation of public schools, a refusal to educate students with disabilities, and a lack of resources for low-income communities,” Rep. Scott also pointed out in his Nov. 19 statement.
    At a committee hearing on the morning of November 20, Rep. Summer Lee, who represents parts of Pittsburgh, made a pointed observation. As Republicans held a hearing on career and technical education, Rep. Lee pointed out the irony of the Department of Education being dismantled by President Trump in the background.
    “Republicans can’t simultaneously hold a hearing about how to strengthen students’ skills through career and technical education while also allowing this administration to dismantle the sole agency tasked with expanding the same students’ educational opportunities and protecting their civil rights,” Rep. Lee said.
    One of the remaining mysteries of the Trump Administration’s efforts to destroy the Department of Education is what will happen to the civil rights division within the department. Will the work of the office be destroyed completely or moved to another department in the government? That remains an open question.

  • Newswire : The real story behind Rosa Parks’ Bus Ride and what’s often overlooked

    Rosa Parks sitting on Montgomery bus

    By Shannon Dawson, NewsOne

     

    This wee,, we give thanks to Rosa Parks, who changed the world with her incredible bravery 70 years ago. On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks ignited one of the most significant civil rights boycotts in American history when she refused to surrender her seat at the front of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, a section reserved for white passengers. As the bus grew crowded and the driver ordered her to move to the back, the area designated for Black riders, Parks stood her ground. That single act of defiance helped launch the Montgomery Bus Boycott and transform the national struggle for civil rights.
    We give thanks to Rosa Parks, who changed the world with her incredible bravery 70 years ago. On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks ignited one of the most significant civil rights boycotts in American history when she refused to surrender her seat at the front of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, a section reserved for white passengers. As the bus grew crowded and the driver ordered her to move to the back, the area designated for Black riders, Parks stood her ground. That single act of defiance helped launch the Montgomery Bus Boycott and transform the national struggle for civil rights.
    According to Women’s History, Rosa Louise McCauley was born Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. She attended an industrial school for girls and later enrolled at Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes (now Alabama State University), leaving school to care for her ill grandmother. Growing up in the Jim Crow South, she faced racism and violence firsthand and became involved in civil rights work early in life.
    At 19, she married Raymond Parks, a barber and committed activist. Together, they worked alongside numerous social justice groups, and Rosa eventually became secretary of the Montgomery NAACP. By the time she boarded that bus in 1955, she was already an influential strategist and leader within Alabama’s Civil Rights Movement. She not only resisted unjust treatment that day but also helped coordinate the Montgomery Bus Boycott that followed. Though some tried to reduce her actions to simple fatigue, Parks later made her true motivations clear.
    “People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was 42 No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in,” Parks said about her courageous act at the time.
    That December evening, Parks sat in the bus’s middle section, where Black riders could sit but could be forced to move “on the whim of the bus driver,” her website notes. When the bus filled and a white man was left standing, driver James Blake ordered her row to give up their seats. He warned, “You all better make it light on yourselves and give me those seats.” The others “reluctantly” stood, but Parks—thinking of her grandfather and Emmett Till—felt that giving up her seat “wasn’t making it light on ourselves as a people.” Pushed to the brink of frustration, she refused, recalling in an interview, “I felt that if I did stand up, it meant that I approved of the way I was being treated, and I did not approve.”
    After sliding to the window to wait, two officers boarded and arrested her. 
    The civil rights icon was eventually bailed out by local activist and union organizer E.D. Nixon, with support from white allies Virginia and Clifford Durr, an attorney and social reformer active in Montgomery’s civil rights efforts, according to her website. Although already involved in community activism, Parks would soon become even more deeply embedded in the city’s civil rights movement.
    In July 1955, the Durr’s helped secure a scholarship for her to attend an integration workshop at the Highlander Folk School, an experience that strengthened her resolve to challenge the segregated bus system, Stanford University noted. Around that same time, she also connected with the Women’s Political Council (WPC) of Montgomery, an organization that helped bring her case to the spotlight.
    E. D. Nixon, Parks and Attorney Fred Gray also attracted Rev. Martin Luther King, pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, to help spearhead the efforts of the Montgomery Bus Boycott for civil rights and social justice in America.
    Throughout the movement, WPC members drove carpools, organized mass meetings, and coordinated daily operations. Burks said that “members of the Women’s Political Council were trailblazers” who mobilized Black middle-class women to challenge Montgomery’s segregated systems. Their work came at great personal cost; many members, especially educators at Alabama State College, faced retaliation and ultimately relocated after years of pressure.

  • Newswire : Why Trump’s decision to  downgrade degrees in Nursing and other Professions is a direct threat to Black students’ dreams

    By Mahalia Otshudy, The Root

    The Trump administration is making it significantly harder for graduate students across the country to fund their education and is jeopardizing their future careers by classifying some degrees as “non-professional.” Here is what you need to know about these changes.
    Education Secretary Linda McHanon, former CEO of the WWE, is implementing caps on student loans for degrees now deemed “non-professional,” as part of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill Act,” according to The Independent.
    Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill Act” aims to cut federal spending, including on food benefits and Medicaid, while increasing spending on border and defense initiatives, the BBC reports.
    These cuts include reductions to education funds, which will disproportionately affect Black graduate students. The Education Data Initiative notes that 66% of Black graduate students rely on student loans, compared with 47.4% of white graduate students.
    Denying graduate nursing programs “professional degree” status would exacerbate financial hurdles and systemic barriers for Black nurses, hindering their career advancement and worsening their underrepresentation in leadership, faculty, and the overall nursing profession.
    “Professional degree” students, such as law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and chiropractic students, can borrow up to $50,000 per year and $200,000 over the course of their degree. Students who are not on a “professional degree” course, like physician assistants, physical therapists and nurses, can only borrow $20,500 per year and $100,000 overall, according to USA Today.
    Online, this decision to redefine what is or isn’t a “professional degree” has sparked outrage with folks who cannot believe nursing is not considered a professional degree, especially during a time when there is a national nursing shortage.
    Former occupational therapist and Congressman Tim Kennedy, representing New York’s 26th congressional district, posted a video on X stating that the funding cuts are an attack on the American healthcare system and will hurt communities nationwide.
    “We should be opening doors, not closing them, and making it more difficult for people to help others and become healthcare practitioners,” Kennedy ended his video.
    The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) wrote they are “deeply concerned by the Department of Education’s decision to move forward with a proposed definition of professional degree programs that excludes nursing and significantly limits student loan access… Should this proposal be finalized, the impact on our already-challenged nursing workforce would be devastating.”
    That’s not even taking to account that nursing is a woman-dominated field, with 88 percent of registered nurses being women. Black (male and female) nurses account for the second-largest racial group of registered nurses, with 11.8 percent, a percentage that is growing, according to the healthcare site Magnet ABA therapy.
    The redefinition of “professional degrees” has only further convinced Black folks online that the Trump administration is trying to attack Black people, women especially, and they have posted their thoughts on X.
    “Advanced nursing degrees not being considered a ‘Professional degree’ is a direct shot towards minorities and women and men of color,” wrote one user.
    “Because of the dismantle of The Department of Education NURSING degrees are no longer considered professional degrees….This administration is going to show y’all better than they can tell y’all about how much they hate women and POC,” wrote another.
    Other users posted that this decision has made them want to leave the country, “Removing graduate nursing programs from the professional degree list is really so strange I have to get tf out this country.”

     

     

  • Newswire : Imam Jamil Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) dies in Federal prison at 82; questions remain about his conviction

     H. Rap Brown, as a young Black leader; Imam Jamil Al Amin

    By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

    H. Rap Brown did not wait for permission to define himself. Long before federal agents called him a menace and politicians wrote laws in his name, he was a young man from Baton Rouge who believed the country needed an honest confrontation with its own history. Long before he died at 82 in a federal medical facility in North Carolina, he had already become Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a name he adopted after turning to Islam inside Attica.
    “Violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America’s culture. It is as American as cherry pie,” he said during the height of the Black Power movement.
    Brown grew up fighting his way to and from school. He was sent to a Catholic orphanage for discipline and learned early that resistance required both strength and wit. He earned the nickname “Rap” for his unmatched wordplay on the streets of Baton Rouge. His political direction began with his older brother, Ed Brown, who introduced him to the Nonviolent Action Group at Howard University, where Brown met future movement leaders like Courtland Cox, Muriel Tillinghast, and Stokely Carmichael. Carmichael later described him as a serious and strong brother whose calm presence inspired confidence.
    By 1967 Brown became chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at just 23 and immediately pushed the group to remove the word “nonviolent” from its name. His speeches captured the rage of Black communities across America. He reminded audiences that Black people had waited a century after emancipation for promises that never came. “Black folk built America, and if it don’t come around, we’re gonna burn America down,” he told crowds from college campuses to street corners.
    Federal authorities responded with surveillance and suppression. FBI COINTELPRO documents placed him on a list of four men considered top targets to disrupt. Congress passed the federal anti-riot statute in 1968 and openly called it the “H. Rap Brown Law.” When asked for comment, Brown rejected the idea that a statute could contain widespread fury. “We don’t control anybody,” he said. “The Black people are rebelling.”
    His arrest record grew as law enforcement pursued him across states. In 1971 he was wounded in a police shootout in New York, denied the charges, and was convicted of robbery and assault. He served five years in Attica. That time behind bars reshaped him. The foreword to “Die Nigger Die” describes his spiritual shift as a change rooted in self-discipline and study, noting that he embraced Islam and emerged committed to building a moral path forward.
    After his release, now known as Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, he settled in Atlanta’s West End. He founded a mosque, ran a small store, organized youth programs, and worked to rid the neighborhood of drugs. He preached self-control and responsibility. He explained that the Muslim’s duty began with teaching oneself and then guiding one’s family, adding that successful struggle required remembrance of the Creator along with the doing of good deeds.
    For many in Atlanta, he became a trusted spiritual leader. A local Islamic civic leader called him a pillar of the Muslim community. To law enforcement, he remained the militant figure they had pursued in the 1960s. FBI agents infiltrated his religious circle. The New York Times reported that some investigations began shortly after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
    In 2000 two Fulton County deputies were shot while serving a warrant. One died. The surviving deputy identified Imam Al-Amin. He denied involvement. Federal inmate Otis Jackson later confessed repeatedly and under oath to being the shooter. The Fulton County District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit interviewed Jackson but never moved to vacate the conviction.
    After Imam Al-Amin’s death in federal custody, CAIR and its Georgia chapter renewed their call for justice. CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad issued a statement that read, “To God we belong and to Him we return. Imam Jamil Al-Amin was a hero of the civil rights movement and a victim of injustice who passed away in a prison, jailed for a crime he did not commit.” Awad added that the justice system should reopen the case and clear his name.
    Brown’s life spanned eras of open segregation, mass rebellion, state repression, spiritual transformation, and community leadership. He understood that freedom movements required structure and purpose. In one of his clearest reflections on struggle, he said liberation movements had to rest on political principles that gave meaning and substance to the lives of the masses. “And it is this struggle,” he said, “that advances the creation of a people’s ideology.”
     

  • Newswire : A Black Friday of resistance as Americans push back

    Young Black women shopping in mall

    By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

    Black Friday arrives this year in a country wrestling with the weight of policies that have stripped stability from millions of Americans and placed Black communities at the edge of economic ruin.
    Storefront lights shine as if the nation were whole, yet in living rooms across the country, families count the losses of a political agenda that has torn apart the federal workforce and shattered the financial security of those who once depended on it. Hundreds of thousands of Black federal workers have been removed from their positions since Trump returned to office, and the effect on neighborhoods, schools, and generational wealth has been immediate.
    The crisis facing Black women is even deeper. The National Partnership for Women and Families reports that 265,000 Black women have been pushed out of the labor market since January, and the unemployment rate for Black women has climbed to 7.5 percent, which is the highest in years.  “These numbers are damning and confirm what we’ve long known to be true,” said Democratic Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley.  “Under Donald J. Trump, Black women continue to face a crisis of disproportionately high unemployment. Their systematic pushout not only has dangerous consequences for Black women, Black families, and Black futures. It is also a glaring red flag for the entire U.S. economy.”

    This is the country entering Black Friday. It is why the Mass Blackout movement and the We Ain’t Buying It coalition have stepped forward to reclaim the weekend that once symbolized celebration. Their message calls for shoppers to keep their money, their labor, and their attention away from the companies they believe profit from silence while Black households are battered by economic loss. “No spending. No work. No surrender,” the Mass Blackout coalition announced in its call to action, which accuses the nation’s corporate power structure of thriving while ordinary people struggle to survive.

    The second coalition focuses its attention on retailers like Amazon, Target and Home Depot. Activists accuse these companies of cooperating with or benefiting from Trump’s political agenda. LaTosha Brown, cofounder of Black Voters Matter and a member of the We Ain’t Buying It coalition, delivered her remarks in the coalition’s public statement. “We ain’t buying this foolishness. We’re not buying this racism. We’re not buying the abandonment of DEI. We’re not buying that the wealthiest country in the world cannot take care of its own citizens,” she stated. “If they want to call it Black Friday, let’s show them what a Black Friday really looks like.”

    Home Depot issued its response after activists accused the retailer of working with immigration authorities during enforcement actions. The company stated that it is not notified before such actions occur and that it is not involved in them. Organizers remain unconvinced and continue to include the retailer in holiday boycott plans.
    Amazon has faced scrutiny for working conditions and for the $1 million it contributed to Trump’s inauguration, which boycott leaders cite as evidence of political alignment. The coalition argues that Amazon has benefited from federal policy while workers across the country face tightening hours and declining wages, and its owner, Jeff Bezos, has fully capitulated to Trump.
    Behind all these confrontations sits a larger truth. Black Americans are living through an economic emergency that has been shaped by federal policy decisions targeting the jobs, protections, and historical pathways that built the Black middle class. Analysts at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report that Trump’s agenda has attacked food assistance, health care, and family income supports at the very moment when unemployment among Black women is rising, and Black communities are losing stable federal careers that once offered a route out of poverty.

    Organizers say this Black Friday is not about discounts. It is a line drawn by people who are tired of being told to spend in a country that is stripping away their ability to live. It is a refusal to pretend that holiday lights can hide the harm done to families who have been pushed to the margins of the economy.
    The final word from organizers cut through the noise of the season. “We’re not buying from companies that won’t stand with us,” LaTosha Brown stated. “Our dollars will go elsewhere.”

  • Newswire : Trump’s death threat against six Congress members, for video that explains service-peoples’ right to disobey “illegal orders”, sends Nation into crisis

    By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

    President Donald Trump has again shocked the conscience of the nation with his latest outburst. This time, the president accused six Democratic lawmakers of sedition and declared their conduct “punishable by DEATH” as he reposted calls on social media to “hang them” and demanded their arrest.
    The president’s words landed with a violent weight, particularly as he continues to publicly support and pardon individuals convicted of attacking the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump himself has long faced allegations of encouraging sedition by praising the rioters who erected gallows and hunted his own vice president.
    The president escalated his attacks after the lawmakers, all veterans or former intelligence officers, released a video urging members of the military to refuse unlawful orders. Trump responded with a barrage of posts accusing them of treason and sedition and sharing messages declaring “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD.” In one post, Trump wrote that their behavior was “punishable by DEATH,” calling their message “really bad, and Dangerous to our Country.”
    The six Democratic lawmakers at the center of Trump’s attacks include Sens. Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly, and Reps. Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, Maggie Goodlander, and Chris Deluzio. In a joint statement, they reaffirmed their oath to the Constitution. “No threat, intimidation, or call for violence will deter us from that sacred obligation,” they stated. “This isn’t about politics. This is about who we are as Americans.”

    House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar released a statement that said political violence must never be normalized. “Political violence has no place in America,” they stated. “Donald Trump must immediately delete these unhinged social media posts and recant his violent rhetoric before he gets someone killed.”
    Members of Congress across the country denounced Trump’s language. Representative Norma Torres said the president’s words represented a direct threat to democracy. “The President of the United States is calling for Members of Congress to be executed,” Torres stated. “We will not be intimidated. We will not be silenced.”
    Trump’s accusations arrive as concerns grow about his willingness to issue illegal orders and expand the use of military force both abroad and domestically. A CNN analysis noted that Democrats are responding to a pattern in which Trump has repeatedly floated illegal military actions. The analysis cited his past suggestions involving torture, shooting protesters in the legs, and ordering strikes that violated international law.
    Lawmakers who served in uniform said the president’s charges distort the law. Maine Senator Angus King said the Democratic lawmakers simply reminded service members of a basic principle. “All these people said was common knowledge,” King stated. “Military officers are not required to follow illegal orders. That is simply a statement of fact.”
    The reaction among members of Congress has been swift, wide, and unusually unified. Even Republican Senator Susan Collins condemned Trump’s words. “The president should not be calling for the death of members of Congress because of what they say,” Collins stated. “Such incendiary comments risk sparking political violence.”
    Texas Democrat Al Green, who has repeatedly sought Trump’s impeachment, said allowing this rhetoric to stand threatens constitutional order. “On our watch, we refuse to allow the demise of our democracy,” Green said on the House floor as he renewed his call for impeachment proceedings.
    As the warnings mount, the six lawmakers targeted by the president said they will not retreat from their oath. “In these moments, fear is contagious, but so is courage,” they stated. “We will continue to lead and will not be intimidated. Don’t Give Up the Ship.”