Once Again, Roy Veal's Death Ruled a Suicide: Investigators Call for End to Talk of Lynching

Federal, state and local investigators, as well as a grand jury, have confirmed that the April 21 death of Roy Malcolm Veal was probably a suicide, according to a story in today's Natchez-Democrat. According to another story, civil rights groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Mississippi chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference also endorse the investigators' judgment that the evidence found at the site where Veal was discovered on April 23, along with other evidence, suggests that Veal killed himself because he was depressed.

According to a statement on the Internet from Wilkinson County Sheriff Reginald Jackson, who is, himself, African American:

...Wilkinson County and the State of Mississippi have struggled hundreds of years with race relations. We have endured many lynchings, beatings, and much discrimination. Although things are not what they should be, we are indeed better than we use to be…The citizens of Wilkinson County are very relieved that the years of an ugly past, did not come back to haunt us again. Most blacks and whites here share different views and ideas but we all have one common denominator, which is making Wilkinson County a better place to live.

The Veal family loss did not go without merit because many citizens here were very concerned about his death. They were assured in knowing that I had contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI); the Mississippi Highway Patrol Investigations Department; and the State of Mississippi Crime Lab Forensic Team to assist my department. The Veal family found comfort in knowing that the scene where Mr. Veal’s body had been found was safely secured until all the experts had arrived. All evidence was carefully gathered and handled with the utmost care. As the first black Sheriff of Wilkinson County, I am deeply appalled that some of you would think that my department and I are covering up evidence that suggests Mr. Veal’s death was a lynching. My struggles here have been many, that is why Mr. Veal’s death was handled on both a professional and personal basis.

No matter how much is said nor how much is done; some of you will never accept the fact that this was anything other than a lynching. It appeases me to know that the majority of you have confidence in my leadership to know that I will continue to go that “extra mile” to make sure that no laws were broken. I ask that the medium respect the fact that no lynching occurred in Wilkinson County, Mississippi on April 23, 2004. It is not fair that the Veal family, the citizens of Wilkinson County and the great State of Mississippi will have to once again endure the negative attacks that are placed upon us by media outlets looking for a story. Lastly, I appreciate the outpouring support that I have received from everyone far and near.

Gotta Mention -- if you're on the Vineyard

My buddy Miche Braden is musical director and a featured performer for "Mahalia: A Gospel Musical" at the The Vineyard Playhouse. The show runs until August 14.

Now this is worth paying attention to

Everybody's fascinated with Barack Obama right now, and there's no denying that there is a lot of cause for fascination. But of all the huzzahs I've read in the wake of the likely Illinois Senator-elect's speech at the Democratic National Convention (which you can hear here), none has struck me as more perspicacious than this commentary from Michael Paul Williams. (I had to look the word up to make sure it was what I meant -- I hadn't read or heard that word in a while.)

Anyway, Williams suggested that Obama might do well to remember the experience of Julian Bond another civil rights activist turned state legislator who whose star shone so brightly after the 1968 Democratic convention that many of us were sure we had seen the First Black President. His career since then has been distinguished, but not epoch-making. While noting important differences between the two men and their times, Williams cautionary note can serve to keep us all grounded:

It's certainly tempting to hop on the Obama bandwagon. He's fresh, politically dexterous and charismatic.

But in politics, past is often prologue. Before writing the next draft of history, it's always a good idea to leaf back a few chapters

via NegroPhile

More on Voting Rights and Their Denial

Hungry Blues continues to do an excellent job of documenting the racial implications of the discarding and despoiling of ballots in the 2000 election. Meanwhile, Contrapositive reports on research finding that while black voters were disproportionately purged from Florida's rolls, Hispanics were under-represented among the ranks of purged potential voters. While not going so far as to say that the the discrepancy was deliberate, the author notes that Florida's Hispanics tend to vote solidly Republican.

And the reason for prohibiting international observers is what, exactly?

From the Institute for Public Accuracy:

The St. Petersburg Times reported July 29 that the Republican Party of Florida has urged its supporters to use absentee ballots because "new electronic voting machines do not have a paper ballot to verify your vote." The glossy GOP mailing read: "Make sure your vote counts. Order your absentee ballot today." The mailing included a tear-off absentee ballot request form with a picture of George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, officials from the Election Assistance Commission say that unreliable voting system technology will make it difficult to ensure that everyone's vote will be count this year.

Cause for Celebration

My friend Chuck is the Screaming Writer. Check him out.

And a little child shall lead them...

Rittenhouse Review pays tribute to the short, significant life of Miss Alexandra Scott, 1996-2004

The New Slavery

Past Imperfect: Doing Time

“The fact is that prosecutors are more likely to bring charges against black males than they are against whites suspected of similar crimes,” the prosecutor told me. “The result is that we’re throwing away black boys who are as young as 13 or 14 years old.” We are not speaking of a predatory drug dealers, murderers or rapists who terrorize our communities, but often first-time offenders and non-violent drug users who are swelling the ranks of black men in prison to disastrous proportions....

Ooooh, Snap!

"He's done more to destroy the myth of white supremacy than anyone I know."

Charles Rangel's (D-NY) response on being asked to say something nice about Pres. G.W. Bush, as reported in "Journal-isms"

Now This a Level of Ignorance I'm Not Prepared to Fathom

Bush camp solicits race of Star staffer

President Bush's re-election campaign insisted on knowing the race of an Arizona Daily Star journalist assigned to photograph Vice President Dick Cheney.

The Star refused to provide the information.

Cheney is scheduled to appear at a rally this afternoon at the Pima County Fairgrounds.

A rally organizer for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign asked Teri Hayt, the Star's managing editor, to disclose the journalist's race on Friday. After Hayt refused, the organizer called back and said the journalist probably would be allowed to photograph the vice president.

"It was such an outrageous request, I was personally insulted," Hayt said later.

Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the president's re-election campaign, said the information was needed for security purposes.

"All the information requested of staff, volunteers and participants for the event has been done so to ensure the safety of all those involved, including the vice president of the United States," he said.

Diaz repeated that answer when asked if it is the practice of the White House to ask for racial information or if the photographer, Mamta Popat, was singled out because of her name. He referred those questions to the U.S. Secret Service, which did not respond to a call from the Star Friday afternoon....

via Richard Prince's "Journal-isms"

Todd Steven Burroughs on Mumia: Serious, Pointed Angry Black Advocacy

Todd Steven Burroughs, Ph.D., former newspaper reporter and journalism scholar, says that the works of radical journalist and death row inmate Mumia Abu Jamal have inspired his work in the way that The Autobiography of Malcolm X inspired baby-boomers:

During the years of Ronald Reagan and George Bush The First, many young Blacks unfortunately found current truths in Malcolm's long-uttered words. I was one of them. But although The Autobiography seemed to be about today, it was, in reality, more a defining part of yesterday. In my case, it was literally more high school book report topic than contemporary manifesto.

Then along came "Live From Death Row" and two tapes of Mumia's radio commentaries, all between the beginning of 1994 and the end of 1996...

I was affirmed, if not transformed. I began to understand what the "Black Power" Baby Boomers were talking about, a la The Autobiography.

I had found a book that, as a Black journalist in the mid-1990s, spoke directly to me-in content, in execution and in purpose.

Here was a talented Black journalist not practicing Black "objectivity"-defined, in my eyes, as the art of presenting (and negotiating) Black perspectives in ways that allow Black mainstream journalists to make rent and car payments. Here was someone who apparently did not worry about receiving acceptance from, and credibility with, America's powerful. Here was a Black writer who was clear, and not afraid to raise his voice in an undiluted way....

Burroughs' perspective implicitly endorses W.E.B. Du Bois' argument that, "Agitation is a necessary evil to tell of the ills of the suffering" inflicted by white supremacy. From this perspective, journalism is propagandistic in the sense that it is a form of transactional rhetoric, as opposed to the traditional view of journalism as objective.

The Revelation that is Rhinold Ponder

Rhinold Ponder is an attorney, community leader, editor, and the oldest son of an extraordinary woman named Carrie Ponder. He is also, I'm privileged to say, a friend of mine of long standing. This is one his paintings, "Revelations," which will be on exhibit at Orphas Coffee Shop in Skillman, New Jersey on August 5. Check out his show, buy a book, be inspired.

While We're on the Sexual Healing Tip

I don't know why I'm feeling led down this particular path of information sharing today, but this is from the website of author Lori S. Robinson:

I Will Survive: The African-American Guide to Healing from Sexual Assault and Abuse is a celebration of healing and empowerment. This book grew from Robinson’s own experience as a survivor of sexual violence. She was on staff at Emerge magazine when she was raped in 1995. An article she wrote about her assault and the alleged assault of a college student—for which she won a first place award at the 1998 National Association of Black Journalists annual convention — generated an outpouring of letters from readers affected by sexual violence. Those letters inspired Robinson to write I Will Survive.

Much needed! The Dinah Project

From the website of Rev. Monica A. Coleman:

Sexual violence is rarely discussed in church, despite the rising incidents of rape, sexual assault, molestation and incest. The Dinah Project, which gets its name from Genesis 34 – the rape of Dinah, Jacob’s daughter – was borne out of the author’s decision to start healing through the church after being raped. What resulted is this book and an entire ministry program to assist churches in responding to sexual violence.

The Dinah Project describes programmatic ways in which a local church can respond to the crisis of sexual violence in the community. By sharing the lessons of one church, this book proposes detailed methods for instituting a church program. The Dinah Project provides church activities ranging from providing resources for members to ways to organize a full-time church ministry, and many stages in between. Topics include planning worship services, conducting community education workshops, working with local agencies, establishing a board of directors and holding therapy groups at the church. With checklists, forms and detailed explanations, this user-friendly book guides any interested individual from basic information about sexual violence to tips on budgeting for programs.

DNC Bloggers to Watch

I didn't apply for press credentials to blog the Democratic National Convention because I'll be in Washington for the summer institute of the Visible Knowledge Project. I do plan to blog a bit from there, though.

In the meantime, here are the bloggers I'll be reading:

• Chris Gruber and Ken Quinell from Open Source Politics


• Chris Rabb, publisher of Afro-Netizen


• Jay Rosen, chair of NYU's journalism department, who shares personal insights on his blog, PressThink, but who is also a guiding light for the Blogging of the President and The Revealer.


• 
  The ever-insightul Travis from Rain Storm.


• 
  Jenny Greenleaf's dispatches for American Street on being a delegate.

Cyberjournalist.net has the running list of credentialed bloggers. By the way, Dave Winer has a site that is intended to provide live feeds from the bloggers that have been credentialed.
Not all of the bloggers that I intend to follow are listed there, probably because they don't all have RSS or Atom feed links on their sites.

Utne Reader picked up a story from Progressive Magazine about a troubling phenomenom: homeless college students. The article explains why it's so difficult to document the extent of the problem, and highlights the work of one charity that's trying to help.

New Poll: Blacks Hate Bush, But Aren't Exactly in Love With Kerry

From a new poll sponsored by Viacom siblings BET and CBS News:

Black voters overwhelmingly support Kerry for president, but issued a warning to Democrats: Don't take us for granted. A new BET/CBS News Poll suggests both candidates have work to do before November. Click for the full story and poll results.

Hungry Blues: The Press Ignores Civil Rights Commissioners' Call for Investigation of 2000, 2004 Balloting

I don't have time to explain why now, but check out Ben Greenberg's post on this.

US House Won't Fund "Teaching American History" Program, But Grants Unprecedented Gift to Nixon Library

From the newsletter of the National Coalition for History:

Over the last week or so, House appropriation recommendations were announced for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), including the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), and the Department of Education, including the "Teaching American History" grant program. With a recommended 70 percent cut to the NHPRC and zero funds for the "Teaching American History" initiative, this year the House appears little disposed to support programs that advance history and archives.

On 15 July 2004, the House Appropriations subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies advanced to the full Appropriations Committee its recommendations for NARA. Though exact numbers are embargoed until the full committee meets next Thursday, Hill insiders report that overall funding for NARA is not bad except for the NHPRC. Reportedly, the subcommittee has endorsed the Bush administration's recommendation of only $3 million for the NHPRC. This represents a 70% cut over last fiscal years allocation, which for the first time reached its fully authorized limit of $10 million.

While the subcommittee could not find the funds to enable the NHPRC to operate even at minimum levels, the NCH has learned that House appropriators are prepared to respond favorably to a request for $750,000 by lobbyists representing the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace to provide governmental funding for planning and design of a new 25,000 square foot archive facility to house the Nixon papers in Yorba Linda, California. Such an earmark for a presidential library is without precedent. It violates the spirit if not the letter of the law that
requires presidential libraries to be entirely planned and constructed with
private funds prior to being donated to NARA. History and archive advocates
vowed to defeat the earmark and work for higher numbers for the NHPRC....

Sakia Gunn Developments: Murder Trial Set for November; New Scholarship Announced

According to the website for the Essex County, New Jersey Prosecutor's Office, Richard Mc Cullough will stand trial on November 8, 2004 for the murder of Sakia Gunn, 15, on a downtown Newark street corner in the early hours of Mother's Day, 2003. The killing is being prosecuted as a bias crime and might lead to a sentence of 118 years. According to news reports, the prosecution is unusual under New Jersey bias crime laws.

In another development, Michigan State University student LaJoya Johnson has initiated a new scholarship at her school in Sakia Gunn's honor, and is seeking donations. According to an article in the State News, the new scholarship will benefit student activists of color who lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered. The university expects to begin awarding the scholarship in the spring of 2005.

Johnson has been active in efforts to keep Gunn's memory alive through two online petition drives. The first urged Newark school official to allow a memorial for Sakia; the second urged the death penalty for her accused killer. The Newark public schools held a moment of silence for Gunn and other student murder victims on May 11, 2004, the first anniversary of Sakia's death.

NAACP calls for new trial for Mumia

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People issued a resolution calling for a new trial for journalist-turned-death row inmate Mumia Abu Jamal at the close of last week's 95th national convention in Philadelphia, PA. According to news reports, the resolution comes at a critical time in Abu Jamal's 23-year fight to overturn his murder conviction and death sentence in the Dec. 9, 1981 slaying of Officer Daniel Faulkner, because Jamal's case is about to enter yet another round of appeals through the Third Circuit Court.

Noting disturbing racial patterns in the application of the death penalty in Pennsylvania, the NAACP urged it chapters "throughout the United States and the world to support the international call for Mumia Abu-Jamal to be released from death row," according to an article on Jamal's website. The article also noted that NAACP leaders seemed skittish about bringing the resolution to a vote, and cancelled a panel on the death penalty that was to have included a discussion of Jamal's case. According to this and other news reports, the vote on the resolution went ahead when Pam Africa, a leader of MOVE, the radical back-to-nature religious and political organization, threatened to stage a disruptive demonstration on the day that Sen. John Kerry was to address the convention. Jamal is a member of MOVE, which has had several tragic clashes with police over the last three decades.

However, Counterpunch's Dave Lindorff, author of an investigative book that concluded that Jamal's prosecution was racially biased, argues that the NAACP's timidity also reflects the weakening of Jamal's support organization after years of infighting and legal mismanagement. Lindorff concludes:

"Until Abu-Jamal himself insists on seeking to rebuild a broader coalition, and openly condemns the sniping and character assassination that has been going on in his name outside the prison, he will pretty much be fighting his legal battles alone, with his attorneys and a few highly energetic supporters, but without any mass base.

"Which is pretty unfortunate for him, and also for the many thousands of others on death row and in prison, for whom his case could be a clarion call for reform of a criminally corrupted justice system."

I hate to say this, but, if this was happening in Europe...

The news from Darfur is worse than ever: Reuters reports that black Sudanese women and girls are being wantonly raped and used as sex slaves by the marauding Janjaweed militias. Read the Amnesty International report, "Rape as a Weapon of War." Then do something.

Check out The Revealer campaign forum on religion and politics

Jay Rosen, publisher of the The Revealer, a daily webzine on religion and politics, has an interesting preview and commentary on the Revealer's campaign forum, "In Search of Religion on the Campaign Trail," in his weblog, PressThink. Among the writers whose forthcoming entries to the forum Jay touts is yours truly. My essay is about the likely impact of the current political debate over homosexuality on the black church and black liberation theology. I suggest that the political stakes in the debate reflect a larger and far-reaching contest for the spirutual loyalties of black Christians.

What Progressive Journalists Should Do Now: Focus on Real Problems and Solutions, Not Cosby

W.E.B. Du Bois argued that journalists had a duty to tell of the evils of white supremacy -- not just the overt racism and violence that it fomented, but the internalized racism that caused non-whites to participate in their own destruction. Late in his career, he added to that charge the following prophetic worry about the changing nature of the media:

“Mass capitalistic control of books and periodicals, news gathering and distribution, radio, cinema, and television has made the throttling of democracy possible and the distortion of education and failure of justice widespread."

The failure of justice is increasingly evident in the torrent of recent reporting and analysis of Bill Cosby's charge that too many black parents are failing to do right by their children, and too many black men are failing themselves and their loved ones. While a few news outlets have done a commendable job of trying to initiate constructive conversations that discern truth from hyperbole, they haven't gone for enough.

The major problem that black writers, artists, intellectuals, activists, parents, preachers and teachers face in trying to get control of their families and communities is that the institutions that transmit ideas and values to black youth and adults are perverted by the corporate commodification of blackness. Rather than having their self image and goals shaped by the authority figures in their own homes, neighborhoods, schools and religious institutions, they are being molded by an amoral popular culture that will use anything to sell products.

Right now, that popular culture, which has been driven by an appropriation and caricaturing of African American culture since the days of Stephen Foster, teaches that authentic blackness includes a disdain for formal education, hypersexuality, and mindless,amoral acqusitiveness. This picture of who black people are and what we value is a cynical lie that a few blacks participate in perpetuating, because the corporate marketers figured out that the suburban kids whose dollars fuel hiphop don't want to hear from people with a mentality like Chuck D's:

I didn’t want to rap about ‘I’m this or I’m that’ all the time . . . . My focus was not on boasting about myself or battling brothers on the microphone. I wanted to rap about battling institutions, and bringing the condition of Black people worldwide to a respectable level."

To turn the tide, here are some of the questions I want to see journalists asking:

1. 
   While Kanye West makes fun of people who try to educate themselves, how many college dropouts is he employing? Are the people who handle his legal and business affairs college dropouts?
   


2. 
   What does Lil Kim wear when she meets with her attorneys? Why are she and other artists promoting styles of dress and behavior that lead young people to waste their money on things that will not help them in the job market, or in life?
   


3. 
   We need press coverage of some of the initiatives that have worked and are working! For example, while there is a dearth of black scientists, there are also programs such as the Cooperative Research Fellowship Program and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, which have helped dozens of blacks get Ph.Ds. in mathematics, physics and other scientific and technical disciplines.
   


4. 
   While we're at it, let's make some of those black achievers more visible, and involve them in conversations about the problems in our community. Scientists such as James West have been running successful community-based science education programs for 30 years, but they are never called upon during these discussions.
   
   If Jim West is too "civil rights generation" to be listened to, then how about mathematician William Massey a co-founder of the Conference of African-American Researchers in the Mathematical Sciences.
   
   Still too old? How about young leaders such as Rahsaan Harris?


5. 
   Let's have some reporting on the state of the institutions that some successful blacks have created to reach back into their communities. Where is the Coalition of 100 Black Men these days? Where's BEEP? What about the the various ethnic affinity groups in the nations top corporations? What are they doing to address these problems? What do their successess and failures tell us?


6. 
   Conservatives seem to think they have the answers to the problems Cosby outlined. Between faith-based initiatives, school voucher programs, and the No Child Left Behind Law, conservative approaches have received substantial support over the last several years. If Cosby's charges signify the need for a close examination of what parents are doing, don't they also suggest the need to scrutinize these programs as well? Yet I'm not aware of any comprehensive examination of this type?
   

The next frontier for black people in this country is, indeed, to learn to intelligently and strategically use the substantial resources and opportunities that we have. To do this, however, we have to be able to put everything that we are doing on the table for examination and discussion -- the good, the bad and the ugly. What's more important, we have to be able to have a conversation about how to use our resources to serve our interests. That's what progressive journalists need to be talking about.

Congresswoman: International Monitors Needed for US Elections

Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fl) told a Florida television station that monitors from the Warsaw, Poland-based Office for Democratic Institutions for Human Rights will come to Florida in September to ensure the fairness of the 2004 presidential election. Brown was censured by her Congressional colleagues Thursday night after she called for international monitors by declaring:

"I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said get over it. No we're not going to get over it and we want verification from the world."

A statement on Rep. Brown's website about the censure vote further argued:

Striking my words from the House floor is just one more example of the Republican Party's attempt to try and cover up what happened during the 2000 election and of their activities this year in the state of Florida in preparation for stealing this year’s election as well. What is the Republican Party so afraid of? Let me tell you what I'm afraid of: another stolen election and four more years of the Bush administration. When the words of Corrine Brown are stricken from the floor, so is the voice of her 600,000 constituents in Florida's third congressional district.

Head Negro in Charge

Check out this WBAI interview with author Norman Kelley about his new book: The Head Negro In Charge Syndrome: The Dead End of Black Politics. Kelley argues that since the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, we have not had an effective activist black leader in the United States, and that black folk now lack the social, economic and political organization that's needed to be taken seriously by the powers that be.

via Jonn+Nubian.com

By the way...

More reports and videos from their 2004 members Conference are available, including speeches by Richard Clarke and Daniel Ellsberg.

Hersh Speaks: War Crimes at Abu Ghraib?

Ed Cone has a link to muckraker Seymour Hersh's speech at a recent American Civil Liberties Union Convention in which he went into more detail about the horrific images from the US-run Abu Ghraib prison that have not been made public. Last month, writer Rick Perstein emailed notes from a Hersh speech at the University of Chicago about those images. It's a two-our clip; Hersh begins speaking at 1:12:30. 
 
Before Hersh, there are remarks from Sandra Tsing Loh and director John Sayles.  Loh talked about her controversial firing from National Public Radio because of the failure to edit an obscenity from a taped commentary she made. Sayles showed a clip from a film he made about press self-censorship in the Bush era.
 
Hersh described the Bush administration as similar to a cult with a neo-conservative Utopian vision that has managed not just to induce press self-censorship, but to muzzle the bureaucracy and Congress. 
 
"I don't know what any of us can do to stop it.
 
"This is a sad fact. There is no sovereignty. Potemkin Village, maybe. We're making the pictures and we're believing them now...it's not going to stop the insurgency. ... A year ago, the insurgency was operating in one, two and three man cells and we knew nothing about them. Now they're operating in 10 and 15-man cells and we still know nothing about them...I think the policy is going to be, 'We've got this guy, Allawi, and his government, let's stand him up and see whether we can get through the election.'
 

"Debating about it, ummm ... Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out."

"It's impossible to say to yourself how did we get there? Who are we? Who are these people that sent us there? When I did My Lai I was very troubled like anybody in his right mind would be about what happened. I ended up in something I wrote saying in the end I said that the people who did the killing were as much victims as the people they killed because of the scars they had, I can tell you some of the personal stories by some of the people who were in these units witnessed this. I can also tell you written complaints were made to the highest officers and so we're dealing with a enormous massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there and higher, and we have to get to it and we will. We will. You know there's enough out there, they can't (Applause). .... So it's going to be an interesting election year."

Hersh rapped the press corps for not covering the Justice Department more intensely: "The degradation of the Justice Department has been so total... there are people there that really care about human rights... but if we have the kind of leadership we have, I don't know where we go. ..."
 

"Be terribly aware that we are so disconnected from this leadership that it's not necessarily clear that what you do is going to impact on them, because these are people are really out there. ...It's not the Manson clan, but we really have been taken over, and we have to do something to stop it. Let's hope that we can do it electorally.

 

Neighbors meet to stem violence

A string of attacks in the normally quiet, integrated town in which I live has neighbors worried that bias crimes may be on the rise:

EWING - The recent beating of a white township resident by a group of six black teenagers is considered a bias crime, police told a group of more than 200 residents who gathered at a local church last night to express their support for the victim and their concern about violent acts in the area in the past three weeks.

Police Chief Robert Coulton told those at St. John's Baptist Church that five more suspects have been identified in the July 3 beating of a Somerset Street man.

According to two witnesses, four of them, along with the first suspect arrested Tuesday night, took part in the beating, Coulton said.

The meeting was sponsored by the neighborhood civic group, the Ewing Park-BraeBurn Association. Officials of the group said they called the meeting to discuss their concerns with the police and to send a message to the attackers that people in the neighborhood will not tolerate violence against any of its members, black or white.

Several members of the victim's family, including his wife, mother-in-law and a son, were on hand.

The pews were filled with supporters, black and white, who voiced outrage at the attack and tried to comfort the family with words and hugs.

Rep. Charles Rangel Arrested in Protest Outside Sudan Embassy

Will this be like Haiti and South Africa in the 1980s, which required years of these kinds of protests before policy changes resulted? From Black Enterprise via AP:

2004-07-13
Associated Press



WASHINGTON--U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel was arrested Tuesday outside the Sudanese embassy in a protest over the plight of refugees in that African nation awaiting humanitarian relief.

"When human lives are in jeopardy, there should be outrage," Rangel said at the steps of Sudan's embassy, where he was arrested after standing in front of the door for five minutes.

"This is a small price to pay for the blessings I've received," he said.

Protest organizers said Rangel, a Democrat, will be one of a series of prominent black figures to be arrested in coming days in front of the embassy to bring attention to the suffering of starving Sudanese targeted by roving bands of murderous, mostly Arab horsemen.

Tens of thousands of civilians have been slaughtered in Sudan's Darfur region in the past year and a half, and an estimated 1 million driven from their homes...

U.S. Senate Votes Against Constitutional Ban on Gay Marriage

From Bloomberg News:

July 14 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate blocked an attempt to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, dealing a defeat to President George W. Bush, who made his support for the measure part of his re-election campaign.

Senators voted 50-48 on a preliminary motion to cut off debate and permit a final roll call on the amendment, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. The Republican-led effort needed 60 votes to shut off debate.

``I'm not of the view that we're wasting words here,'' said Senator Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican who supports a constitutional amendment. He said today's vote is ``chapter one'' in a longer debate that could last years.

Sweeping stun guns to target crowds

From New Scientist:

Weapons that can incapacitate crowds of people by sweeping a lightning-like beam of electricity across them are being readied for sale to military and police forces in the US and Europe.

At present, commercial stun guns target one person at a time, and work only at close quarters. The new breed of non-lethal weapons can be used on many people at once and operate over far greater distances.

But human rights groups are appalled by the fact that no independent safety tests have been carried out, and by their potential for indiscriminate use.

Domestic Partnership Day: "Freedom is Indivisible"

Communities throughout New Jersey began registering domestic partners today at their town halls today. Hundreds of same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples over 62 are expected to sign up. The new law affords the couples limited legal protections and benefits, but falls considerably short of the benefits of marriage. In South Orange, administrators opened the village hall at midnight so that people could register as soon as the new law took effect.

Gov. James Mc Greevey signed the Domestic Partnerships Law earlier this year after the bill made a surprisingly easy journey through the state legislature. Yesterday, the Governor held a reception at his official residence to celebrate the enactment of the law. New Jersey is the fifth state to legalize domestic partnerships.

Jersey Pride, Inc. and other allied organizations will sponsor a festival and celebration at a park across the street from the Maplewood town hall. The town's mayor and other legislators who supported the new law are expected to speak at a welcoming ceremony.

The Star-Ledger story quotes my friends Rachelle and Vanessa:

Rachelle Clark, 47, and Vanessa Vann, 43, of North Plainfield arrived at South Orange Village Hall before 10 p.m. and were seated on a brick stoop waiting for officials to begin registering couples.

"It was never a thought not to come tonight," Clark said.

The couple married in a religious ceremony performed by a pastor inside their home in Elizabeth in August 2000.

While the ceremony was meaningful, Vann said, "You just know in your heart it's not legal." Registering under the new law, Clark added, "completes the wedding that we had."

Somewhere, June Jordan is smiling

Thinking of Rachelle and Vanessa, and of other good friends who will be participating in ceremonies today, I amd remind of June Jordan's essay "A New Politics of Sexuality." Declaring, "We must move out from the shadows of our collective subjugation -- as people of color/women/as gay/as lesbian/as bisexual human beings," she added:

I am Black and I am female and I am a mother and I am bisexual and I am a nationalist and I am an antinationalist. And I mean to be fully and freely all that I am!

...Recently, I have come upon gratuitous and appalling pseudoliberal pronouncements on sexuality. Too often, these utterances fall out of the mouths of people who first disdain any sentiment remotely related to homophobia, but who then proceed to issue outrageous opinions like the following:

• That it is blasphemous to compare the oppression of gay, lesbian or bisexual people to the oppression, say, of black people, or of Palestinians.


• That the bottom line about gay or lesbian or bisexual identity is that you can conceal it whenever necessary and therefore, why don't you just do that? Why don't you keep your deviant sexuality in the closet and let the rest of us -- we who suffer oppression for reasons of our ineradicable and always visible components of our personhood such as race or gender -- get on with our necessary, our more beleaguered struggle to survive?

...Freedom is indivisible or it is nothing at all besides sloganeering and and temporary, short-sighted and short-lived advancement for the few.

...If you can finally go to the bathroom wherever you find one, if you can finally order a cup of coffee and drink it wherever coffee is available, but you cannot follow your heart -- you cannot respect the response of your own honest body in the world -- then how much freedom does any one of us possess?

What to Read: Africana.com

Jelani Cobb offers an urgent reconsideration of Frederick Douglass' timeless oration: "What to the slave is the 4th of July?" by asking "What is [this] Nov. 2 to Black America?"

Douglass could not have known that, a century and a half after he gave his incendiary address in Rochester, New York — in the wake of a Civil War and Reconstruction, Great Migrations and a radical civil rights movement that forced the United States to grapple with black humanity — the recalcitrant concerns he spoke of would remain. The issue today is no longer slave or free status, but it is, nonetheless, the question of black people's relationship to the purported democracy of the United States.

On the cusp of its 228th birthday, this country is mired in a seemingly endless occupation of Iraq — despite the return of "sovereignty" to the Iraqi "government." The current Presidential administration has misled the public, squandered international goodwill, authored the most disastrous foreign policy in recent memory, undercut the authority of the United Nations, undermined due process by creating secret military tribunals for civilian offenses, curtailed freedom of speech and spent billions waging war in the name of eliminating a false threat to national security. Add into the equation its contempt for international treaties, hostile ecological politics, its implication in the war profiteering of Halliburton and the damning accusation that the Bush administration deliberately blew the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame as retribution for her husband's criticism of their Iraq policy, and you have a broad pattern of dishonesty and political incompetence. (If Douglass was around today, he would, almost certainly be asking "What to the Iraqi citizen is the 4th of July?")

And the bitter reality is that the disfranchisement of black voters paved the way to all of the above accomplishments.

Meanwhile, Lester Kenyatta Spence explains -- patiently, I might add -- why both the Democrats and Republicans need black folk in leadership amd operational positions in both parties and campaigns.

Marketing savvy behind the success of the United States' most powerful preacher

At the moment, the man who is best positioned to address many of the problems in the black community that Bill Cosby has been so vociferously decrying is Bishop T.D. Jakes. This story from the Chicago Tribune, (via Yahoo!) does a good job of explaining his popularity. An excerpt:

"Our people need encouragement and a structure so they can develop life skills and economic empowerment," said Jakes. "We have to tell men how important it is to be a father to your children because we are in the unfortunate situation where when a man divorces a wife, he sometimes divorces the children. Those issues are relevant to all people, but they are especially important in our community."

Much of his success, according to religious experts, is due to Jakes' ability to mix the secular with the spiritual, appealing to religious conservatives as well as hip-hoppers. He also has mastered a preaching style that is tailored to his audience, whether it be women or men. His "Woman, Thou Art Loosed" conference in 1999 drew 87,500 people, mostly women, to the Georgia Dome, breaking the attendance record previously held by the Rev. Billy Graham...

"He is drawing on people who have a lot more disposable income, and the fact that there are not a lot of vacation spots that market themselves to middle-class African-American families. He pulled everything together to make a family vacation event that combined the imagery of a religious revival and the notion of a family reunion," said Nancy Eiesland, professor of sociology of religion at Emory University."

'The less publicity [Civil Rights] got, the quicker it would go away"

The Lexington Herald-Leader offered a valuable history lesson this past weekend by examining its failure to cover the Civil Rights Movement 40 years ago. The story package includes the first interviews with some of the local civil rights activists who helped to desegregate the city as well as with people close to the editorial decision-making at the newspaper who decided to ignore or downplay press coverage. Among the interviewees is Don Mills, described as "an editorial page writer in 1968, who later became editor of the Herald." Mills explained:

"It was a standing order that an effort at a dining room or restaurant or march would not get Page One coverage, that it would go inside. The management's view was that the less publicity it got, the quicker the problem would go away."

There is also a profile of Calvert Mc Cann, 62, who joined the Civil Rights Movement because he was frustrated at the discrimination he faced at his job in a local photo shop. In the course of his activism, he took photos that have only recently been developed, and that are now the only contemporary images of the city's struggle for racial equality.

Kerry to Announce Edwards at AME Convention

The buzz is that John Kerry will introduce Sen. John Edwards as his choice for running mate at today's speech before 30,000 members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church who are meeting in Indianapolis for their quadrennial General Conference. The announcement is significant not only in its own right, but because Democrats have not won Indiana since 1964, and because the AME Church is the oldest African American congregation in the US, with churches throughout this country and Africa. From its founding in 1787 as an outgrowth of the Free African Society, down to the present, the AME Church has been a major force in black economic, political and educational development. The support of AME members could prove crucial to efforts to get out the black vote in November.

Estonia's Pop Star: Dave Benton

Aruba-born Dave Benton has found both commercial and critical success in the Baltic state of Estonia. Benton's style a strong Latin/Caribbean flavor, and his vocal style is easy on the ear. It's not surprising to learn that he paid his dues in the Caribean, Las Vegas, as well as doing backup vocals for such stars as Tom Jones and Billy Ocean. An interesting artist with an even more interesting personal journey and outlook on life. Check him out.

(Photo from Dave Benton.com.)

"We need to reframe the struggle"

Tiffany and Black Feminism.org says that while most black folk agree with Bill Cosby's most recent comments, but don't know how to address the problems he raises.

[T]he solution is not to lob classist missives at poor blacks. The solution is not to blast poor blacks for “betraying the Civil Rights Movement” — a movement that was very much rooted in, and beneficial for black bourgeois interests.

Instead, we need to actively reframe the Civil Rights struggle to include economic issues. We need to actively work with and on behalf of poor blacks to bring change.

Tiffany's argument is consistent with the entire history and philosophy of the black feminist movement, which stretches back the the mid-19th century efforts of Maria Stewart and Sojourner Truth, spawned the black women's club movement, and continues today through such organizations as the National Council of Negro Women, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and Delta Sigma Theta. There are people in these and other similar organizations who have been trying to do exactly what Tiffany is advocating over the last century and a half or more.

In the 60s and 70s, a lot of us thought that we had to build new, alternative institutions to accomplish many of these tasks, but outside of the growth in the numbers of African American elected officials and the establishment of African American studies as a discipline, most of what we tried to do either didn't last or had to be absorbed in more established institutions. In the '80s and '90s, more of us returned to our traditional organizations, or tried to use our new access to the mainstream to help lift others as we climbed, with mixed results.

Today, we have black CEOs leading Fortune 100 companies, or creating their own firms,black women who lead major philanthropic efforts such as Stephanie Bell-Rose, Esther Silver-Parker and Gabriella Morris.

I know enough about each of the people referred to in the last paragraph to know that has dedicated much of his or her life and resources to the kind of racial uplift that Tiffany is talking about. I know too, that they can't do what they do and social work tha hood at the same time. (Nor, for that matter, can they always be available to their younger sister and brethren on the corporate and academic plantations.)

I also know that they need folks to be prepared to walk through the doors they are trying to wedge open, and Cosby's valid frustration is not only that too few of us are ready -- too many of us have been so seduced by materialistic, fools-gold fantasy of American pop culture that we disregard and disrepect the people who are trying to stand in the gap. Tiffany is right -- we need to redouble our efforts to promote financial literacy and independence. But we also have to engage the some of the selfish and self-defeating attitudes that, as sociologist Julia Hare so succinctly put it on one of Tavis Smiley's summits earlier this year, leaves us with "too many black men looking for justice and too many black women looking for Jesus."

FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS GEORGIA TO COMPLY WITH NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION ACT

[This is an unedited press release from the law office of Bradley E. Heard.]

State Must Begin Accepting Mail-In Registration Applications From Private Voter Registration Drive Organizers

Atlanta, GA - Sunday, July 4, 2004 - Senior U.S. District Judge William C. O'Kelley issued a preliminary injunction last week requiring Georgia to immediately begin accepting mail-in voter registration applications from private voter registration organizers, as required under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 ("NVRA"). This ruling likely spells the end for a nearly 10-year-old policy of Georgia's Secretary of State which requires private voter registration drive organizers to obtain approval from local county elections officials before setting up a registration drive and collecting applications.

(To view a copy of the court documents, here.)

The lawsuit was filed by the Charles H. Wesley Education Foundation, Inc., the charitable affiliate of the Nu Mu Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., located in DeKalb County, Georgia. The Foundation alleges that Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox and Elections Division Director Linda Beazley failed to comply with the NVRA (more commonly referred to as the federal "motor voter" law) when they rejected 64 voter registration applications that the group had collected during its registration drive on June 12. Several members of the fraternity and one of the 64 voter registration applicants also are named as plaintiffs.

In addition to requiring voter registration at driver's license bureaus, public libraries, and other government venues, the NVRA also established procedures for nationwide voter registration using a federally mandated mail-in registration form. Federal law requires states to accept NVRA registration forms and to register qualified citizens who submit such applications by the close of the registration deadlines established by state law. Only three states (New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Wyoming) are not required to accept the NVRA application, and each of those states has either same-day voter registration or no voter registration at all.

Secretary Cox contended that the applications sent in by the Foundation were invalid and would not be processed because the Foundation did not follow correct procedures under the Georgia Election Code for setting up a voter registration drive and for
collecting applications. The Wesley Foundation insisted that it had complied fully with the federal NVRA and that, as a result, its drive did not have to comply with Georgia's Election Code.

The Court's injunction order seemed to support the Foundation's position: "Here, it is undisputed that each of the applications submitted by the Wesley Foundation arrived at the Secretary of State's Office in an envelope postmarked by the appropriate date. . . . Because the applications were received in accordance with the mandates of the NVRA, the State of Georgia was not free to reject them," wrote Judge O'Kelley.

"We are extremely gratified that the Court has issued this injunction," said Atlanta attorney Bradley E. Heard, who is representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. "By rejecting those applications, Secretary Cox's office had violated clearly established federal law and had thereby denied vital and constitutionally protected voting rights to scores of Georgia citizens, as well as to organizations such as the Wesley Foundation, which are interested in maximizing voter registration and participation."

Jaru Ruley, one of the named plaintiffs, stated in a declaration filed in the case that the Wesley Foundation chose to use NVRA procedures, instead of Georgia's procedures, so that the group would be free to conduct cross-county and multi-state
registration drives and because the federal procedures "provide the most convenient and least restrictive means for registering the greatest number of eligible voters, wherever they may live. . . ." (Georgia law allows only for county-by-county
voter registration and does not provide for registration by out-of-state residents.)

The Foundation actively participates in several national voter registration and education programs sponsored by Alpha Phi Alpha, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, and the National Pan-Hellenic Council. While all of the Foundation's
voter registration services are provided on an equal opportunity, nonpartisan basis, the primary goal of the Foundation's efforts is to increase voter registration, civic participation, and civic awareness in African-American communities. Indeed, part of the reason that the Foundation was so troubled by Secretary Cox's rejection of its 64
applications was that many of the people whose applications were adversely affected were African-American citizens who were registering to vote for the first time.

The Wesley Foundation has asked the federal court to issue a permanent injunction requiring Secretary Cox to follow the NVRA, not to interfere with private entities' rights to conduct organized voter registration drives, and to process all mail-in
voter registration applications, regardless of the manner in which they are delivered to her office.

The Court's preliminary injunction order grants that relief on an interim basis, until the case can be finally resolved. The Foundation also seeks compensatory and punitive damages and attorneys' fees against Secretary Cox and Director Beazley.

About the Charles H. Wesley Education Foundation:

The Charles H. Wesley Education Foundation, Inc., is the non-profit 501(c)(3)charitable and education foundation of the Nu Mu Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. The Foundation supports virtually all of Nu Mu Lambda's charitable and
community service efforts. Nu Mu Lambda, founded in 1980, is the second-oldest alumni chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. in the metropolitan Atlanta area. From 2001 through 2003, Nu Mu Lambda held the
coveted title of Alpha Phi Alpha's national alumni chapter of the year. Alpha Phi Alpha was founded December 4, 1906, at Cornell University. It was the first intercollegiate Greek-letter organization founded by African-Americans and is one of the oldest non-religious African-American organizations in the United States.

About Bradley E. Heard:

Bradley E. Heard is the founder and managing attorney of The Heard Law Offices, LLC, and an executive board member of the Nu Mu Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. A magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Mr. Heard received his Juris Doctor degree from the Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut. He is currently licensed to practice law in Georgia and the District of Columbia. Mr. Heard practices primarily in the areas of general business litigation, employment, education, and juvenile law.

For More Information on the National Voter Registration Act, see the following web links from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission:

EAC Home Page

EAC Voter Registration Page

Frequently Asked Questions About Voter Registration


For More Information on the Georgia Secretary of State's Elections Division:
See the following web link.