The Greene County Democrat

Tag: Legislative Black Caucus

  • Newswire: OP-ED: 250 Years of America – Progress on the Promise?

    Newswire: OP-ED: 250 Years of America – Progress on the Promise?

    By Delegate N. Scott Phillips, BlackPressUSA

    Let’s be clear, African Americans have done our part, we have fought in every war, built businesses, advanced science, created culture, and strengthened our democracy, often while being denied its full benefits. There has been undeniable progress, but significant challenges still remain.

    As Chairman of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus, I believe this moment calls for our collective vigilance and less complacency. The distance between our founding ideals and our lived reality has narrowed since the civil rights movement, but it has not disappeared. Equity in economic and educational opportunity, access to affordable housing, fair protection under the law, and competent political representation remain unfinished business.

    Maryland has a lot to be proud of when it comes to the political ascension of African Americans in our state. None but the Old Line State can boast that Blacks serve as Governor, Attorney General, State Treasurer, US Senator, Mayors, and County Executives of over 62% of Maryland’s population and a legislative Black Caucus that comprises 29% of the legislature, the largest percentage in the nation. We have made meaningful investments in education, entrepreneurship, criminal justice reform, and community development. 

    The timing of this year’s Independence Day reflection is especially significant as Maryland prepares for Governor Moore to convene a special legislative session on congressional redistricting. Redistricting is far more than drawing lines on a map. It determines whose communities remain whole, and whose interests are represented in the halls of power.

    The Maryland Legislative Black Caucus believes that we have an obligation to ensure that African American voting strength is not diluted and that the hard-fought gains secured through generations of sacrifice are preserved. Fair representation is not about guaranteeing outcomes; it is about guaranteeing opportunity. Every Marylander deserves an equal voice in choosing those who represent them.

    The Maryland Legislative Black Caucus will continue to advocate for policies that expand opportunity, protect civil rights, and strengthen our democracy. We recognize that representation is only the beginning. True progress will be evident in positive measurable outcomes in economic mobility, educational achievement, better public safety, and fair access to justice for every Marylander.

    As we gather with family and friends this Fourth of July, let us celebrate how far America has come but never denying how far we still must go. Patriotism is not measured solely by our willingness to celebrate our nation’s achievements, but also by our commitment to perfecting our imperfect union.

    That is the work of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus and all people of good conscience who lead while serving as educators, mavens of business and industry, faith leaders and community activists; and this task before us cannot be lost amid celebratory parades, commemorative speeches and patriotic celebrations from the city to the shore. It requires us to redouble our persistence, and principled leadership in the pursuit of America’s promise.

    Delegate N. Scott Phillips is the Chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland.

    Read the original article here

    Featured Image: Delegate N. Scott Phillips is the Chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland.

  • Newswire : America watching as top three Virginia officials are embroiled in controversy

    Page from Gov. Northam’s medical school yearbook

    Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press
    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – In the suddenly topsy-turvy world of Virginia politics, one fact is certain: Ralph S. Northam is still Virginia’s governor. He also has no immediate plans to resign, despite the uproar and the torrent of calls for him to quit the office some believe he is no longer fit to hold.
    The sudden reversal of fortune began when Big League Politics, a conservative, Republican-leaning news and opinion blog, posted a 35-year-old yearbook photo that appears under the governor’s name showing two people, one in blackface and the other in a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood.
    The blog indicated that it was tipped off to the forgotten photo published in the 1984 edition of the Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook by a former classmate upset with Gov. Northam’s stance on abortion.
    Struck by an avalanche of criticism, the governor initially issued an apology on Friday, Feb. 1.
    “I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused then and now. This behavior is not in keeping with who I am today and the values I have fought for throughout my career in the military, in medicine and in public service. But I want to be clear, I understand how this decision shakes Virginians’ faith in that commitment,” he stated.
    He pledged to do everything he could to restore the public’s trust in him.
    But at a Saturday, Feb. 2, news conference, Gov. Northam recanted the apology.
    Instead, the 59-year-old genial pediatric neurosurgeon with a reedy voice urged people to trust his word that he was not one of the two people in the photo, a position that began gaining support this week as published reports began surfacing in which former classmates agreed that other students were in the photo.
    Gov. Northam, who also was criticized for dressing up as a plantation owner at Halloween, said at the news conference that he had never seen the photo because he finished medical school and started a residency program with the Army Medical Corps in San Antonio, Texas, and did not purchase a copy.
    The governor also said that while he blackened his cheeks with shoe polish later that year in dressing up like his favorite entertainer, Michael Jackson, to compete in and win a dance contest in San Antonio, he said he was certain the yearbook photo was not his and that he was not one of the two people pictured.
    As the governor fought to clear his name, he gained unexpected relief from the controversy when Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax and Attorney General Mark R. Herring both came under their own clouds.
    Late Sunday, Feb. 3, Lt. Gov. Fairfax, 39, suddenly became embroiled in an equally explosive controversy regarding a sexual encounter at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston with Dr. Vanessa Tyson, now a California university professor. Dr. Tyson now publicly claims Lt. Gov. Fairfax, forced her to perform oral sex after they went to his hotel room.
    Fairfax, a single Columbia University law student at the time, was working on a political campaign.
    By Tuesday, the lieutenant governor had displaced Gov. Northam in the headlines as he sought to defend himself. Lt. Gov. Fairfax insisted the encounter with Dr. Tyson was consensual after Big League Politics also spread the information based on an email the blog said was provided by a Richmond friend of Dr. Tyson, Adria Scharf, executive director of the Richmond Peace Education Center and wife of Dr. Thad Williamson, a University of Richmond professor who has been a top adviser to a potential gubernatorial rival of Lt. Gov. Fairfax, Mayor Levar M. Stoney. A second woman, Meredith Watson, has since accused Fairfax of sexual assault, intensifying the controversy surrounding him.
    Then on Wednesday, Attorney General Herring, 57, who had urged the governor to resign in favor of Lt. Gov. Fairfax, issued an unexpected admission about his own blackface episode.
    Herring said in 1980 when he was a 19-year-old college student, he and friends “dressed up and put on wigs and brown makeup” and went to a party portraying “rappers they listened to at the time, like Kurtis Blow.”
    Herring, who immediately resigned as co-chair of the Democratic Attorney Generals Association, called his actions a product of “our ignorance and glib attitudes” and a lack of “appreciation for the experiences and perspectives of others.”
    He said in the years since, the memory has caused him “deep regret and shame,” though he added that the past conduct “is in no way reflective of the man I have become in the nearly 40 years since.”
    The upheaval has come amid a fast-moving General Assembly session when Gov. Northam is a key player in shaping legislation and Lt. Gov. Fairfax presides over the state Senate.
    Amid the new revelations, Gov. Northam was bolstered by Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox’s public statement Monday that the yearbook photo could not be considered an impeachable offense and the fact that the governor’s aides and members of his cabinet have stuck with him rather than resigning. He is soldiering on.
    On Tuesday, Feb. 5, for example, Gov. Northam quietly signed legislation providing a $750 million package of incentives for Amazon, which plans to open part of its East Coast headquarters in Northern Virginia.
    For those who denounced the governor in the wake of the photo — particularly a wide swatch of elected Democrats near and far — it was simpler when they could take an unforgiving stance solely involving Gov. Northam.
    Take the 21-member Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which has urged the governor to resign and end the turmoil.
    “We amplify our call for the governor to resign,” the Caucus stated Saturday after listening to Gov. Northam’s press conference. “He has irrevocably lost the faith and trust of the people. Changing his story now casts further doubt on his ability to gain that trust.”
    But the Caucus is among many looking for a fallback position with the new revelations involving the two other top Democratic leaders, notably Lt. Gov. Fairfax, who is first in line to succeed to the office if Gov. Northam resigns.
    The Caucus, led by Henrico Delegate Lamont Bagby, did not comment Wednesday on how their members will deal with a governor they have labeled a pariah, but whom they might have to work with. Most of the Richmond legislative delegation also didn’t comment. The only response has come from Delegate Betsy B. Carr, D-69th, who responded on her plan of action with Gov. Northam remaining in office: “As I have always done, I will support and advocate for legislation that helps my constituents and the Commonwealth. I work each and every day to improve the lives of Virginians, and I will continue to do that.”