What is the plan for our nation’s cities? Are they simply to simmer with a growing divide between the affluent financial district and the impoverished slums? Will another generation be lost while we wait for the inevitable explosions? The gulf between the realities of our cities and the foolishness of our politics has seldom been wider. Consider gun violence. Over the Fourth of July weekend, Chicago surpassed 200 homicide deaths for the year. On that weekend alone, 10 people were killed and several dozen wounded in gun violence, including 5- and 7-year-old boys. The only grim salvation in the savage …
The Watts Revolt of 1965 August 11 still stands as a historical moment and marker of a turning point in the Black Freedom Struggle, signaling the historical exhaustion and end of the Civil Rights phase of this struggle, and announcing the emergence and defiant assertion of its Black Power period.
Seminole County, Florida ~ named for the Seminole people who once lived throughout the area. The term Seminole comes from the Creek word ‘semino le’, which means ‘runaway’ and the Spanish word cimarrón which means “runaway slave.”
It is still too soon to tell what the political legacy of the hip-hop generation will be. But if our stance toward our past leads us in this moment to conclude, as Jay Z has recently done, that our mere presence “is charity,” then we are off to an incredibly bad start.
PRESIDENT MUGABE, SAVORING VICTORY, PLANS TAKEOVER OF FOREIGN MINES
Aug 6 (GIN) – Robert Mugabe’s wide lead in the just-ended presidential poll over his long time rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, may have ended a years-long struggle between the two men for the nation’s top spot.
Civil rights attorney Julius LeVonne Chambers died after a long illness. He was 76. Julius Chambers was a champion of the courtroom. A masterful attorney of great integrity he was known for his smooth southern drawl and determined spirit. Julius Chambers argued eight cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, winning them all.
On this day, 48 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, announcing, “This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, as individuals, control over their own destinies.” With Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks at his side, he pledged that the act would be enforced. No longer would anyone be excluded from exercising the right to vote because of the color of his or her skin. This February, in his fourth State of the Union address, a newly re-elected President Obama earned fierce applause when he declared: …
The issue is beyond race and Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law. George Zimmerman’s fear of Trayvon Martin led to murder and his acquittal. Since fear for his life, even if unreasonable, allowed Zimmerman to walk free. Then, what of other fear-based prejudices?
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX Last week workers at fast food restaurants demonstrated outside their places of work, highlighting the low wages they receive and demanding more. They say twice as much, or $15 an hour, will provide them with a living wage. In Washington, DC, the City Council has sent legislation to Mayor Vincent Gray, requiring […]
During the hot afternoon of Saturday, July 20, Courtney Stewart, founder and chairman of the volunteer organization Reentry Network for Returning Citizens, knocked on doors and walked the streets of Southwest’s Greenleaf and James Creek neighborhoods, in search of reentering citizens to register as voters. Additional volunteers registered people at the King Greenleaf Recreation Center at 201 N Street in Southwest.