The Greene County Democrat

Tag: President Harry S. Truman

  • Newswire: Rep. Jim Clyburn will lead House Oversight Committee on Coronavirus

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior Correspondent
    @StacyBrownMedia

    Rep. James Clyburn


    House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina) will chair a newly established oversight panel with broad authority to oversee the federal response to the coronavirus.
    During an exclusive live broadcast, Clyburn told National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided to impanel a committee after she recalled a similar body selected by President Harry S. Truman after World War II.
    “Speaker Pelosi called me several weeks ago, and we got into this discussion about what we need to do and how we needed to make sure that this is done in such a way that it will meet with our vision of making sure that the greatness of this country is accessible and affordable for all,” Clyburn told Chavis.
    “This pandemic has opened up some fault lines in this great country, and primary among them is healthcare. Healthcare is not accessible and affordable to all, and this pandemic has shown that to be the case.”
    Clyburn continued:
    “America’s greatness has always been because it’s been able to repair its faults. Speaker Pelosi said she’d given a lot of thought to what happened as this country was moving toward World War II and Truman told the Senate about the 116 committees who after World War 1 looked at all of the profiteering, the price gauging, and the kind of fraud that these fly-by-night groups had done.”
    Clyburn noted that healthcare and other fraud has run rampant during the current novel coronavirus pandemic and, more than ever, African Americans are being victimized.
    “This pandemic is vising family after family after family. We know from all of the data that it is being visited more harshly and more prevalent among African American communities, and some Latino communities all over the country,” Clyburn stated.
    The new panel is expected to enjoy far-reaching power to investigate how the trillions of dollars already approved by Congress for coronavirus relief are being used, Clyburn added.
    It will be able to issue subpoenas, review America’s preparedness for the crisis, and examine decisions about the crisis within the administration.
    The panel will probe the “efficiency, effectiveness, equity and transparency” of taxpayer funds used to respond to the crisis and will investigate reports of waste, fraud, and abuse of funds being spent, according to the establishing resolution.
    It will also be able to study the economic impact and disparate impacts of the crisis on different communities.
    “This is about transparency and accountability,” stated Clyburn during the live stream titled, “Black America and COVID-19: Saving and Empowering Black Lives.”
    Clyburn also talked with Chavis about the NNPA’s Coronavirus Task Force and Resource Center, the first media-related entity in the United States to declare a “State of Emergency for Black America” as the fatalities among Black Americans have continued to rise alarmingly across the nation.
    Using social media to increase public awareness about COVID-19, the NNPA continues to encourage the use of the hashtags: #SaveBlackLives, and #NNPACoronavirusTaskForce.
    Clyburn, a 14-term U.S. Congressman and the dean of the South Carolina congressional delegation has spent his career working to improve and empower the lives of African Americans. Former President Barack Obama once noted that Clyburn is “one of a handful of people who, when they speak, the entire Congress listens.”
    As Assistant Democratic Leader in the 112th Congress, the number three ranking Democrat in the House, Clyburn is the leadership liaison to the Appropriations Committee and one of the Democratic Caucus’ primary liaisons to the White House.
    He plays a prominent role in messaging and outreach.
    The Clyburn-Chavis interview can be viewed at http://www.facebook.com/blackpressusa.

  • Newswire:  President Truman integrated the armed forces 70 years ago

    By Frederick H. Lowe

    President Harry Truman

    President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order 70 years ago June 26, 1948, desegregating the United States armed forces, which provided more opportunities for Black women and Black men, and my father, Mitchell Lowe, was one of them. Executive Order No.9981 stated that “it is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.” My father served in the Army 21 years, retiring at the rank of Chief Warrant Officer. Black men have fought for this country since its founding. Crispus Attucks, a black man, was killed during the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770, making him the first casualty of the American Revolution. Throughout the nation’s racist history, most blacks were assigned to segregated military units, where they were paid less than white soldiers. Black soldiers duties were mostly limited to cooking and cleaning. Some staff officers resisted Truman’s order, and the military did not become fully integrated until the Korean War (1950 to 1953) when the high number of casualties forced integration, according to the Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri. Truman’s order also established the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and opportunity in the Armed Services. Truman had been mulling integration of the armed services since 1947 when he appointed the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. In 1948, a White House memo indicated the president was ready to do it. The National Democratic Convention that year provided the opportunity when delegates approved a plank calling for desegregation of the armed forces. During a recent presentation and discussion at the Truman Library & Museum broadcast on CSPAN’s “Book TV,” Rawn James Jr., author of “Double V: How Wars, Protest and Harry Truman, Desegregated America’s Military,” said Truman also decided to integrate the armed forces after learning about Isaac Woodard, Jr., a 26-year-old U.S. Army World War 11 veteran who had been brutally beaten by white cops. Woodard, a sergeant, who had been honorably discharged, was riding a bus from Augusta, Georgia to Winnsboro, South Carolina, on February 26, 1946, to meet his wife. When the bus stopped, Woodard asked the bus driver if he had enough time to use the bathroom. The driver of the Greyhound Bus became angry and said no. He and Woodard, who was wearing his Army uniform, got into an argument. When the bus reached Batesburg, South Carolina, Sheriff Linwood Shull and other cops dragged Woodard off the bus and repeatedly jabbed him in both eyes with their police batons, blinding him. The beating was reported to Truman by NAACP leaders in a meeting at the White House on September 19, 1946. Truman was shocked and both opened a Justice Department investigation into the case and promised to create what would become the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, the first national civil rights commission. Another factor that may have influenced Truman’s decision to integrate the armed forces occurred during World War II. Nazis dropped fliers over camps in Europe where black troops were stationed, urging them to join the German army because of the racism and violence they faced in America. “There have never been lynchings of colored men in Germany. They have always been treated decently,” said the Nazi leaflet, dropped on African-American soldiers fighting across Europe.” We now know that more than 4,400 black men, women and children were lynched in 12 Southern States between 1877 and 1950. Another German leaflet said, “Uncle Sam’s colored soldiers are just cannon fodder!” Black men fought for Germany during World War II, but they were native born Germans.