Greene County Sheriff, Jonathan Benison, who is solely in charge of electronic bingo operations, under Constitutional Amendment 743, amended his bingo regulations, effective June 2nd, to provide the Greene County Hospital with 4% of the revenues paid by the four bingo operators to vendors for machines and/or softwear.
The Democrat contacted the Sheriff’s office to determine the amount of money this will generate for the hospital. A spokesperson for the Sheriff said this new regulation would generate $20,000 to $25,000 a month for support of the Greene County Hospital. This amount would meet a request that the Hospital has been making to the Sheriff for over two years to be included in the allocation of bingo funds.
In the amendment to the bingo rules, Sheriff Benison says that it is “standard practice in the industry to pay vendors (those who supply machines and/or softwear) a percentage of their net gross revenues; and further that all bingo operator and/or charities operating bingo in Greene County, Alabama shall henceforth deduct and pay to the Greene County Hospital an amount equal of 4% of the amounts paid to vendors.”
The amendment instructs the bingo operators to pay this 4% of the vendor’s amount, directly to the Greene County Hospital, at the same regular interval – weekly, monthly, yearly – that they pay to the vendors.
In his amendment, the Sheriff points out that “ the vendors provide a valued service but also that they reap the rewards of Constitutional Amendment 743, as provided through the efforts and protection of the Greene County Sheriff’s Department.“Luther Winn Jr., CEO of Greenetrack said this amendment would interfere with the contracts that he has in place with Greenetrack’s machine vendors. He informed the Democrat that he is not favorable to this amendment and will discuss its negative implication’s to his business with the Sheriff. The Democrat tried but was not able to reach other bingo operators and charities, for their opinions on the new amendment, prior to press time.
Winn said he was expanding the number of machines at Greenetrack to the 500 required by the Sheriff and suggested that it would have been better to fund support for the Greene County Hospital through a portion of the new fee revenues, from the additional machines, than from this 4% charge to the vendors.
Elmore Patterson, CEO of the Greene County Health System, which includes the hospital, residential care center, physicians clinic, home health and other services, said “I am pleased to see the Sheriff has included healthcare for Greene County citizens in his plans for allocating resources from bingo operations in Greene County, under Constitutional Amendment 743. These funds will help close the gap in providing care for low income people in Greene County, many of whom cannot afford to pay for quality health care that they need.”
Category: Politics
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Sheriff Benison amends bingo rules to provide Greene Co. Hospital with 4% of monies paid by bingo operators to machine vendors
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National, State and Local policy makers headed for Black Political Convention in Gary
By Hazel Trice Edney
Mayor Johnny Ford of Tuskegee and Mayor of Gary Indiana,
Karen Freeman-Wilson
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – As the U. S. presidential candidates prepare for national conventions and congressional campaigns remain in full throttle, the National Policy Alliance, a coalition of 16,000 Black elected and appointed officials and more than a million Black policy makers has organized a National Black Political Convention to be held June 9-12 at the Genesis Convention Center in Gary, Ind. The event is a follow up to a historic gathering convened in 1972 by then Gary Mayor Richard Hatcher.
“The Gary Convention was perhaps the single most important political event for Black America held during the last century,” Tuskegee, Alabama Mayor Johnny Ford said in an interview this week. “With that Gary Convention came the inspiration and motivation that led to the election of more Black elected officials than any time since reconstruction.”
Although he is founding co-chair of the National Policy Alliance, Ford says there will be no top leader. Other convention convenors are former Gary Mayor Richard Hatcher, original convenor in 1972; current Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson; and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, the son of poet and activist Amiri Baraka, an original convenor in 1972.
According to NPA Executive Director Linda Haithcox, speakers will include Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan; Chicago Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.); Dr. Lezli Baskerville, president/CEO, National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education; NAACP Senior Vice President Hilary Shelton; Dr. E. Faye Williams, National Chair of the National Congress of Black Women; Flint, Michigan Mayor Karen Weaver; and Spencer Overton, president/CEO of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
“We have no one leader. We don’t have a Martin Luther King. We don’t have a Malcolm. We have diversified if you will, whereby all of us have leadership roles,” Ford said.
Some national leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., who had originally planned to attend, had to cancel due to Friday’s memorial services for boxing champion Muhammad Ali, organizers said.
The main purpose of the gathering will be to establish a Black agenda that will result in equality and justice, Ford said.
“The challenges facing the African-American community today are even greater than they were 44 years ago,” Ford said. “This convention is being held now because, If not now, when? If not us, who?”
Ford listed issues including “high unemployment, crime in our communities, the need for better education, quality and affordable and accessible health care, the need to develop our infrastructures in the Black community” as being key to a Black agenda.
These are issues being dealt with every day by state and local officials. “So, that’s why we who are closest to the people are providing the leadership.”
Ford acknowledged that while the issues are similar to 1972, the modes of communication are different. For example, there was no Internet back then. This gathering will take full advantage of the new media, he said.
“While this convention is not as well known or will be as big as the one that took place 44 years ago where more than 10,000 delegates came together and adopted a call for action, the African-American community in this country and even internationally will be able to be a part of this convention by [live] streaming – thanks to the Internet.”
Regardless of who shows up, Ford says the significance of going back to Gary 44 years later is powerful because of the historic impact the convention made then.
“Gary precedes glory,” he said. “Gary is a significant and historic return to a place that is sacred in the sense that it was at Gary that we shaped a national agenda. It will be at Gary that we will return to shape a 2016 national agenda.”
Ford said he does not expect everyone to agree on everything. But where there is agreement will come the Black agenda, he said. “And that will be the agenda that we will present to the national Democratic Party, the national Republican Party and the nation and the world.”
The Black agenda “will be revisited in the fall” during national, state and local elections, Haithcox says. “This agenda will be something that can be utilized in every state, county and city.”
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Obama had some strong words for a gun-store owner who confronted him at a town-hall event in Indiana
By Jeremy Berke, Business Insider
President Obama addresses PBS Town Hall Meeting
President Barack Obama stuck around after a PBS Newshour town hall in Elkhart, Indiana, on Wednesday to answer a few questions.
He had some strong words for a gun-store owner who asked him why he and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, want to supposedly restrict and control the use of guns for the “good guys.”
“First of all, the notion that I or Hillary or Democrats or whoever you want to choose are hell-bent on taking away folks’ guns is just not true,” Obama said. “And I don’t care how many times the NRA says it.”
Obama then claimed there have actually been more guns sold since he has been president than any time in US history. And it’s true: Gun sales — based on the number of FBI criminal-background checks — increased by 65% over the period between 2008 and 2013, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
Obama continued: I just came from a meeting today in the Situation Room in which I got people who we know have been on ISIL Web sites, living here in the United States, U.S. citizens, and we’re allowed to put them on the no-fly list when it comes to airlines, but because of the National Rifle Association, I cannot prohibit those people from buying a gun.
This is somebody who is a known ISIL sympathizer. And if he wants to walk in to a gun store or a gun show right now and buy as much — as many weapons and ammo as he can, nothing’s prohibiting him from doing that, even though the FBI knows who that person is.
“So, sir, I just have to say, respectfully, that there is a way for us to have common sense gun laws,” Obama said. “… but the only way we’re going to do that is if we don’t have a situation in which anything that is proposed is viewed as some tyrannical destruction of the Second Amendment.”
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Obama commutes 348 prison sentences, the most of any President in recent history
Prison Cells
Written By NewsOne Staff
Underscoring his calls for criminal justice reform, President Barack Obama on Friday commuted the prison sentences of 42 people who were locked up as non-violent drug offenders.
The harsh prison terms were doled out under “outdated and unduly harsh sentencing laws,” the White House said in a statement. Most were “small-time drug dealers who received long sentences under a code shaped by the government’s war on drugs,” the report says:
Some were serving life sentences. Held in various prisons across the country, they will be released between October 1, 2016 and June 3, 2018.
Obama has now commuted sentences for 348 people, more than the total amount issued by the previous seven presidents combined.
Obama has called for legislation to reduce sentences and provide alternative punishments for small-time offenders. “There remain thousands of men and women in federal prison serving sentences longer than necessary, often due to overly harsh mandatory minimum sentences,” the White House said.
An estimated 2.2 million people are locked away behind bars in the United States, including “the mentally ill and drug addicts,” who are often people of color.
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CBC members worry proposed FCC rule could hurt Black media companies
By Lauren Victoria Burke (NNPA News Wire Contributor)
Congresswoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY)In an unpredictable, disruptive media environment featuring new ways for consumers to receive video content over Wi-Fi, apps and live streaming, established media companies are bracing for a future driven by big tech and consumer choice with new profit models.
It happened in the newspaper industry. It happened in the music industry. It happened in the book publishing industry. And now it’s happening slowly, but surely in broadcasting as a host of new entrepreneurs are set to arrive on an increasingly competitive scene.
In February, Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), moved to free consumers, who are now collectively paying $20 billion every year, from buying or renting a set-top box for cable TV. The FCC wants to “unlock the box” and allow others to provide video content such as Google and Apple.
The move would be a shakeup of the status quo. The technology around video-on-demand is clearly changing as seen in companies such as YouTube, Hulu, TiVo, Kweli.tv, Netflix and Ustream. On April 15, President Obama signed an executive order backing Wheeler’s efforts to open the cable set top box.
“The cost of cable set-top boxes has risen 185 percent while the cost of computers, televisions and mobile phones has dropped by 90 percent,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said on the issue.
Last week on Capitol Hill, Congressional Black Caucus Chair G.K. Butterfield and Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) announced a new Congressional Caucus on Multicultural Media that will “focus on the state of diversity and inclusion in the media and in the telecommunications industry.”
Clarke said that the potential harm that the proposed FCC rule could do to multicultural media companies is very real. She suggested delaying action on the proposed rule, “until the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) complete their prospective studies on the impact on multicultural media under this proposed rule.”
Clarke and Butterfield were joined by TV One CEO Al Liggins and BET Networks Executive Debra Lee at the press event announcing the new caucus. Both Clarke and Butterfield serve on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
“While we must be open to the rising cultural expectations to make programs available on-demand or through streaming services, we also have to balance these interests with the assurance that we are not pitting the few diverse programmers out there against each other or allowing some to pick winners and losers,” Butterfield said.
The phrase, “few diverse programmers” is an understatement. African Americans own less than 1 percent of all TV properties and less than 2 percent of radio as reported by Pew Research.
“We think that the marketplace is robust enough as it is and [the proposed FCC rule] is unnecessary,” said Liggins. “We believe competition should be there, but we believe it should happen in an app form which protects all the rights and the license agreements that we’ve made with the existing paid TV providers.”
Butterfield expressed concerns that the FCC’s plan to “unlock the box” might risk the progress in diverse programming that television audiences have seen in recent years. Despite that progress, minority-owned media companies represent a minuscule portion of all broadcast media and many Black media company owners are pushing for the FCC change, saying that the status quo has done little to affect the ownership disparity.
On a conference call an hour after Reps. Clarke and Butterfield announced the new caucus, Peggy Dodson, the CEO of the Urban Broadcasting Company offered an alternative view and supported the FCC “unlocking the box.”
“We’re about creating a producing urban content, but that content has to be searchable, it has to be found and it has to be monetized,” Dodson said. “The genie is out of the box. The hourglass has been turned over. I think what is being missed between Comcast and Time Warner fighting with Google and thinking that Google is going to take over, is the minority-owned producers and content creators. We’re being swept under the rug. We need diversity. We do not own anything.”
Dodson continued: “Opening the box is inevitable. It is the answer. It’s happening. We can’t stop it. People are choosing what platforms they want to see programing on and how they want to see it and when they want to see it. Everyone can make money.”
Dodson said that she’s not trying to put TV One or anyone else out of business. “That is not my goal. My goal is to have the opportunity to monetize and have people see the content on a platform that is searchable and that can be monetized,” Dodson added.
Clifford Franklin, CEO of GFNTV, said that he was shocked to hear the comments from BET and TV One. “It’s shocking to me to see the comments from BET and TV One because they know this has been a very anti-competitive situation that we’re in. At the end of the day we have to disrupt this industry,” Franklin told reporters.
“We’ve been inundated with baboonery and thugs and anti-social behavior and some of that has come from our urban channels,” Franklin added. “We need a lot more diversity of thought from our content creators. They have pretty much been shut out of the game.”
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Congressional art contest winner depicts police brutality and protests
By Lauren Victoria Burke (NNPA News Wire Contributor)
CBC art contest winnerCardinal Ritter College Prep High School Senior David Pulphus won this year’s congressional art competition with a painting called “Untitled #1.” The first place winner is from Congressman Lacy Clay’s district (D-Mo.)
Congressional art competition entitled, “An Artistic Discovery,” features a nationwide art contest coordinated by members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The contest recognizes the talents of high school students across America. Over 200 Members of Congress and over 50,000 high schools students have taken part in the popular and competitive program.
Each year, members of Congress put out a call for students to compete in the contest and the resulting work is displayed on the white walls of a long tunnel that connects House Office Buildings to the U.S. Capitol. The work is seen by members of Congress, staffers, lobbyists and the thousands of visitors to the U.S. Capitol complex each year.
Inadvertently, the annual art contest has become a reflection of what’s on the minds of young people in America.
Pulphus’ work is an acrylic painting featuring a downtown street scene with the St. Louis’ iconic arch displayed in the background and three police officers with animal heads, two with guns in hand, and a large group of marchers approaching moving toward the police. The lead marcher carries a sign that says the word “history.” Pulphus’ painting includes several signs, one of which says “Racism Kills,” and another reading “Stop Killing.” On the right you can see man being crucified wearing a graduation cap holding the scales of justice in his hands.
Pulphus,’ “visually stunning acrylic painting on canvas entitled, “Untitled #1” will be displayed at the U.S. Capitol Complex. Pulphus will travel to Washington, DC, courtesy of Southwest Airlines, to unveil his winning entry. The painting portrays a colorful landscape of symbolic characters representing social injustice, the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri and the lingering elements of inequality in modern American society,” read a May 6, release from Rep. Clay’s office.
Rep. Clay represents greater St. Louis and Ferguson, Mo., where in August 2014, Black teenager Michael Brown, Jr., was shot and killed by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson.
During an interview with the NNPA News Wire, Rep. Clay was asked about Pulphus’ work. The Congressman will greet the artist in Washington, D.C. and be present with Pulphus,’ when the painting is presented for display in the U.S. Capitol complex.
“I think that the art work selected for this year — winner of the Congressional art competition has to be the most creative expression that I’ve witnessed over the last 16 years,” Rep. Clay said between votes on the House floor.” I’m very proud of the young man who is the artist responsible for this work he depicts the St. Louis community in the way he envisions it. I respect that and I’m so glad that the judges picked his work number one as the winner.”
Pulphus’ work will travel to Washington, D.C. in a few weeks where he will attend a reception for all of the winners around the country. This year’s first place winner will receive a scholarship, according to Rep. Clay’s office.
The contest is in its 32nd year and this is the 16th year that Congressman Clay has conducted the competition in Missouri’s first Congressional District. Terri Sewell, 7th District Alabama Congresswoman also conducts the art competition in her district which includes Greene and many counties in the Alabama Black Belt.
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Jimmy Carter, seeing resurgence of racism in Trump campaign , plans Baptist Conference for Unity
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN, New York Times
Former President Jimmy Carter, who has long put religion and racial reconciliation at the center of his life, is on a mission to heal a racial divide among Baptists and help the country soothe rifts that he believes are getting worse.
In an interview on Monday, Mr. Carter spoke of a resurgence of open racism, saying, “I don’t feel good, except for one thing: I think the country has been reawakened the last two or three years to the fact that we haven’t resolved the race issue adequately.”
He said that Republican animosity toward President Obama had “a heavy racial overtone” and that Donald J. Trump’s surprisingly successful campaign for president had “tapped a waiting reservoir there of inherent racism.”
Mr. Carter conducted telephone interviews to call attention to a summit meeting he plans to hold in Atlanta this fall to bring together white, black, Hispanic and Asian Baptists to work on issues of race and social inequality. Mr. Carter began the effort, called the New Baptist Covenant, in 2007, but it has taken root in only a few cities. The initiative is expanding to enlist Baptist congregations across the country to unite across racial lines.
Mr. Carter, 91, began treatment last year for cancer that had started in his liver and spread to his brain. He announced in December that doctors had found him free of cancer but that he was still receiving treatments for metastatic melanoma. On Monday, he said he was feeling well.
Mr. Carter, a Democrat who was the 39th president, grew up on a farm in Plains, Ga., where many of his friends were the black children of neighboring farmhands. He was raised a Southern Baptist and was the first United States president to call himself a born-again Christian, bringing national attention to the evangelical movement.
Mr. Carter said the election of Mr. Obama was a hopeful sign, but he added, “I think there’s a heavy reaction among some of the racially conscious Republicans against an African-American being president.”
He said recent reports showing high unemployment and incarceration rates among black people, “combined with the white police attacks on innocent blacks,” had “reawakened” the country to the realization that racism was not resolved in the 1960s and ’70s.
He said Mr. Trump had violated “basic human rights” when he referred to Mexican immigrants as criminals and called for a ban on Muslims’ entering the country.
“When you single out any particular group of people for secondary citizenship status, that’s a violation of basic human rights,” said Mr. Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work with the Carter Center in promoting human rights and democracy in many countries.
Asked why polls showed high support among evangelical Christians for Mr. Trump’s candidacy, Mr. Carter said: “The use of the word evangelical is a misnomer. I consider myself an evangelical as well. And obviously, what most of the news reporters thought were evangelicals are conservative Republicans.”
“They have a heavy orientation to right-wing political philosophy, and he obviously is a proponent of that concept,” Mr. Carter said, referring to Mr. Trump.
He pointed out that the evangelicals in the Southern Baptist Convention had aligned themselves with the Republican Party and organized the Moral Majority, a conservative Christian political group, only in the late 1970s, while he was president. Mr. Carter announced that he was leaving the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000, after the denomination solidified its turn to the right and declared that it would not accept women as pastors.
Mr. Carter founded the New Baptist Covenant by reaching out to black and white Baptist associations, many of which had split many years ago over slavery. Nearly 15,000 people from 30 Baptist associations attended the founding meeting in 2008.
Hannah McMahan, the executive director of the New Baptist Covenant, said the group had been in a “pilot phase” for the last two years. She said black and white churches had formed partnerships, called covenants, in Dallas; Macon, Ga.; St. Louis; Birmingham, Ala.; and Atlanta. But the process is painstaking, Ms. McMahan said, adding, “What this has given me an appreciation for is how deep the divides are, and that this kind of work will not happen overnight.”
The work is especially challenging in this climate, said the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was once a pastor. Ebenezer Baptist is participating in the New Baptist Covenant.
“This is a dark moment in our national conversation,” Pastor Warnock said. “Those of us who understand that we are better together had better raise our voices, because there are others who are trafficking in theater, in paranoia, and they ply the trade of fear as part of their political craft.”
However, he said, “I’m much more fired up than discouraged, because the ugliness of the rhetoric we’re seeing in this election cycle really just brings into sharp focus the ugly underbelly of bigotry that has always been there.”
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The Obama family will live in a 9 bedroom, $5.3 million D.C. mansion after presidency ends
BY LINDSAY KIMBLE
Home Obama family will lease in Washington, D. C.
The Obama family will be served a White House eviction notice come January, but luckily, they’ve already found new digs to lay down roots.
President Barack Obama, wife Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha, will lease the Kalorama, D.C., mansion of Joe Lockhart and Giovanna Gray, according to Politico. The home, which is 8,200 square feet, was built in 1928 and has nine bedrooms, in addition to eight and a half baths.
White House officials, contacted by PEOPLE, had no immediate comment on the story.According to public record, Lockhart bought the mansion in 2014 for $5,295,000. Lockhart, the former White House Press Secretary for President Bill Clinton and current EVP of communications for the NFL, and wife Gray, a Glamour editor, have relocated to Manhattan, Politico reported.
The president announced his plans to stay in D.C. after his term ends earlier this year. The family will stay at least until daughter Sasha, who is a sophomore, finishes high school, Obama said.Before moving into the White House in 2009, the family lived in Chicago, where Obama was an Illinois state senator and where the family still owns a home.
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What difference will Obama’s plan to bring power to Africa make?
By: BBC Africa News
President Obama talks with African solar AFP
In February US President Barack Obama signed an agreement to bring electricity to 50 million people in sub-Saharan Africa by 2020. Neil Ford asks, even if this is possible, how many will still be left in the dark?
Perhaps the most remarkable things about the Electrify Africa Act of 2015 are that it commits the US to increased foreign aid at a time of economic uncertainty and cuts through sharp political divisions.The Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ed Royce, worked with Democrat Eliot Engel for two years to drive the bill through Congress.
The act commits the US government to supporting President Obama’s Power Africa initiative. Although headlined as a $50bn scheme, the US authorities will contribute just $7bn.
Other governments, development agencies and private sector companies are expected to provide the remainder in public-private partnerships.This will be difficult to achieve during a global economic downturn.
Even if it succeeds in its aim of bringing electricity to 50 million Africans by 2020, more than 10 times that number will still be without power.
So the Power Africa initiative is not a magic bullet, but it has at least highlighted Africa’s power supply problems.
It is easy to take electricity for granted. Most African homes lack fridges and electric cookers but even a single electric light bulb can bring security and allow children to do their homework after dark.
Mobile phones encourage economic growth but the lack of electricity makes recharging them yet another hurdle to be cleared.
According to the latest World Bank data, 35% of sub-Saharan Africans have no access to electricity.
This is a far lower figure than in any other region.
The next lowest rate is 22% for South Asia, while all five North African countries claim 100% coverage.
Most Africans use wood and kerosene for fuel, causing deforestation and thousands of fatal accidents every year.
The 35% figure masks huge variations, with electrification rates ranging from 5% in South Sudan up to 100% in Mauritius.
Connection rates in rural areas are typically worse than 10%. Most of those with electricity at home live in cities, supplied by grids that were developed in colonial times but which have failed to expand with urban growth.
Even many of those connected to the grid suffer from unreliable supplies. So those who can afford them, buy their own expensive diesel fired generators.
While South Africa relies on coal-fired plants, most African countries depend on large hydro schemes to generate electricity.
Yet unreliable rainfall means that hydroelectric production varies even during a good year and is even worse – as at present – during an El Nino event.
The main problem is a lack of revenue. Most consumers are unable to afford to pay a commercial rate for electricity.
This prevents power utilities from earning enough money to pay for new generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure; generation capacity to produce electricity; transmission to move it across big distances; and distribution to get it into people’s homes and businesses.
Either people need to become richer, or power needs to be cheaper.
Luckily, a solution may be at hand. The price of photovoltaic (PV) solar power panels is falling, while solar cells are becoming more efficient, so PV is becoming a cost-effective option. Such off-grid solutions avoid the need for expensive transmission and distribution infrastructure.
Power Africa is already supporting very small-scale solar PV. It has awarded part-funding to 28 off-grid projects, along with the technical support that small-scale developers often lack. Many more will now follow suit.
Most of these projects involve solar PV or biomass, which involves using agricultural waste as a power generation feedstock.
Power Africa describes the first kWh people gain access to as the “the most valuable” because it provides at least a single source of electric light and the ability to charge mobile phones and radios.
With its commitment to providing “cleaner power generation”, many of the on-grid ventures backed by Power Africa also involve renewable energy.
In some cases, it is directly funding generation projects, such as the 152 MW Sarreole wind farm in Senegal. More often, it will supply technical support and dedicated advisors.
It has already helped Ghana to tap its newly discovered gas reserves for thermal power production by providing regulatory advice.
New projects will be identified as more of the funding is made available.
It may be that a single grand scheme cannot solve Africa’s power problems but Power Africa can help provide local solutions, one at a time. -
Black students ejected from Trump rally in GA.
Jennifer Jacobs, The Des Moines Register
VPC Police officers outside Donald Trump’s rally Monday evening at Valdosta State
About 30 Black students were escorted out of a Donald Trump rally in Valdosta, Georgia. Hear some of the students tearfully describe what happened.
VALDOSTA, GA. — There are different accounts of who made the decision to eject approximately 30 Black students who say they were standing silently at the top of the bleachers at Donald Trump’s rally here Monday evening.
Late Monday night, a Trump spokeswoman denied that the incident at Valdosta State University’s campus was initiated “at the request of the candidate” or the presidential campaign. A spokesman for the Secret Service contradicted the students’ statements that federal agents led them out of the building, saying Trump staff and local law enforcement officials were in charge of handling protesters.However, Valdosta Police Chief Brian Childress tried to clear up the confusion Tuesday morning, telling USA TODAY that he personally went to speak to the Trump campaign staff and the local law enforcement officers helping with security to confirm who ordered the students out, and to ask why.
“These folks were told to leave the PE complex by the Trump detail,” Childress said.
The police chief said he thinks the Trump staff made the right call — and it wasn’t a racial issue.
Trump had rented the venue, so “he had the right to tell folks he didn’t want to be there, that they had to leave. I’m not campaigning for anyone. That’s not what I do. But in this case, I support them,” Childress said.
The sight of the students, who were visibly upset, being asked to leave the grounds created a stir at a university that was a whites-only campus until 1963.
The young people said they had planned to sit in silent protest, but were escorted out by security officials before the presidential candidate began speaking. The incident was recorded on video by several attendees.
“We didn’t plan to do anything,” said a tearful Tahjila Davis, a 19-year-old mass media major, who was in the group of Valdosta State University students, many of whom were wearing all black, that was removed. “They said, ‘This is Trump’s property; it’s a private event.’ But I paid my tuition to be here.”
Brooke Gladney, a 22-year-old marketing and business management major, said: “The only reason we were given was that Mr. Trump did not want us there.”
After this story was published Monday evening, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an email: “There is no truth to this whatsoever.” She said “the campaign had no knowledge of this incident.”
Trump has been regularly heckled by protesters at his campaign rallies, but tensions have increased after he came under fire on Sunday for not immediately condemning support from a prominent white supremacist.
Earlier Monday, some black students at another Trump campaign rally, on the campus of Radford University in Virginia, were led out by security officers after they began chanting: “No more hate! No more hate! Let’s be equal, let’s be great!”
Trump’s two campus rallies took place just one day before high-stakes Super Tuesday, when 11 states hold GOP contests, including a collection of southern states. Trump is poised to lock down enough delegates to give him a sizable — and possibly insurmountable — lead over his GOP rivals.
Robert Hobak, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said agents were reportedly in the area where the Valdosta students were standing inside the venue, but they would have been simply monitoring. Escorting protesters out of rallies is “not our function,” he said. It’s up to the host committee, campaign staff and local law enforcement to handle, he said.
“This happens sometimes that people will confuse us with other law enforcement,” Hobak said Tuesday morning.
Several other Valdosta students scattered in smaller groups throughout the audience inside the rally said before Trump’s speech that they intended to sit in silent protest, without causing any disruption. They followed through on that. Only one person, who was white, was ejected for protesting during Trump’s remarks.
Among the group of 30 to 40 asked to leave, at least one was white, and several of them committed violations that could have led to their arrest if police hadn’t shown restraint, Childress said.
“What I resent is now some of these folks are going around saying it was a black issue. That’s total nonsense,” he said. “I personally asked why were these folks told to leave and the reason was: they were being disruptive. The Trump staff said they were using profanity. The F-bomb is one word that was used. You can’t be in there using profanity. That violates Georgia law.”
Some of the students could have been arrested for disorderly conduct or for criminal trespass for arguing with the Trump detail when they were asked to leave, Childress said.
Once the students were outside, a combination of local law enforcement officials, including Valdosta police, took over, he said.
Some of the young people who’d been ejected “tried to jump back in line and cut in front of folks who were waiting – and that was a very long line – and that made some of the folks in line upset. At that point, we were told they needed to leave the complex,” the police chief said.
There were roughly 7,000 spectators inside the venue and about 3,000 more outside, he said.
“We didn’t have a single arrest. I think that shows great restraint,” Childress said.