Black America
News
Black America
News Archive
10/1/03 - 11/30/03
6/16/03 - 9/30/03
5/16/03 - 6/15/03
Current
News
Search the News
Daypop
Google News
Newstrove
Black America News
Wednesday 12/31/03Michael Jackson and the Nation of Islam 12/31/03 Black America Today: "Anyone who has followed American politics and the thorny issue of race over the last 20 years could easily conclude that Farrakhan is a polarizing figure. He has been called by white America a Jew hater and a man who considers whites to be devils. In black America, some consider him a wretched figure, while many others see him as being one black man who is unwilling to bow down the white racial supremacy. Like it or not, the Revs. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and any black member of Congress could not have pulled off the Million Man March in 1995. But in this case, I just refuse to take the bait. This guilt by association is often used to smear individuals and drive public perception on an issue. Everyone involved knows full well that the mere mention of Jackson aligning himself with Farrakhan will force Americans to take sides."
Michael Jackson and Louis Farrakhan 12/31/03 Jude Wanniski: "One such error that I have been trying unsuccessfully to correct is the Times insistence on reporting that Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan once said “Judaism is a gutter religion” when he never said any such thing. It may seem a minor matter to the paper’s editors, but it contributes in a major way to the perception throughout America that Muslims are anti-Semitic. As I mentioned to you in an earlier note, when I called the managing editor of the Associated Press last year to point out there is no evidence Minister Farrakhan ever uttered the words “Judaism” and “gutter religion” or “dirty religion” in the same speech, let alone the same breath, I was told that AP follows the New York Times, and if the Times said he did, case is closed."
Dean gets backing of leading lawmaker 12/31/03 Miami Herald: "Menendez said he was comfortable with Dean's position on Cuba and the U.S. embargo, which has shifted in the past year, and planned to ''proselytize'' for Dean among Cuban voters in Florida and New Jersey. Dean said in August that while he wanted to ease the embargo in return for human-rights concessions in Cuba, ''we can't do it right now'' because of the Fidel Castro's crackdown on dissidents. ''The governor is open-minded on Cuba policy, but I appreciate his position that the policy should not be changed as long as Castro does not change,'' Menendez said."
Tuesday 12/30/03
Activists want killer cops jailed 12/30/03 Final Call: " Protesters gathered on December 19, in front of the Peter Rodino Federal Building here to demand that the five Orange, New Jersey police officers convicted in December 2000 in the death of Earl Faison, 27, be sent to jail. December 19 marks the third anniversary of the guilty verdicts in the Faison case. "It has been three years and the five officers found guilty in federal court of violating Mr. Faison’s civil rights have not been to jail or even sentenced for their crimes," Larry Hamm, head of the Newark-based group Peoples Organization for Progress, told The Final Call. "We are out here today to call attention to the injustices facing Black people." "
Dispute in Michael Jackson Camp Over Role of the Nation of Islam 12/30/03 NYT: "Another Jackson employee said: "They're negotiating business deals with him. They're negotiating media deals, who can talk, how much. You've got a lawyer who's scared to throw them out. Michael doesn't know what to do with them." The employees said Mr. Geragos and Mr. Muhammad together negotiated an interview of Mr. Jackson by the CBS program "60 Minutes," which was shown on Sunday, in exchange for an agreement by the network to broadcast a still-incomplete Michael Jackson special, for which Mr. Jackson would be paid $5 million."
Afro-centric shops expect sales boost long after Christmas 12/30/03 WAVE
Monday 12/29/03
The terror threat at home, often overlooked 12/29/03 CSM: "Last month, an east Texas man pleaded guilty to possession of a weapon of mass destruction. Inside the home and storage facilities of William Krar, investigators found a sodium-cyanide bomb capable of killing thousands, more than a hundred explosives, half a million rounds of ammunition, dozens of illegal weapons, and a mound of white-supremacist and antigovernment literature. "Without question, it ranks at the very top of all domestic terrorist arrests in the past 20 years in terms of the lethality of the arsenal," says Daniel Levitas, author of "The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right."
But outside Tyler, Texas, the case is almost unknown. In the past nine months, there have been two government press releases and a handful of local stories, but no press conference and no coverage in the national newspapers."Nation of Islam Leader Monitored Jacko Interview 12/29/03 Fox News
So. Carolina Sen. had other black relatives 12/29/03 NNPA: "At the end of August in 1948, Hall traveled to Edgefield to find the rest of Strom Thurmond's Colored clan. In the Aug. 24, 1948, edition of the Afro, he reported the existence of the Rev. James Thurmond, a half-cousin of Strom Thurmond, Eva Thurmond Smith, another cousin, and Thomas Thurmond, Strom Thurmond's uncle. "Why, I remember well when Gov. Thurmond's father used to visit my grandfather. I remember asking my grandfather, why did that white man always visit our home? My grandfather [Thomas Thurmond] told me that they were brothers,'' Rev. Thurmond said. Douglas Hall reported further: "It seems like everybody up there [Edgefield, S.C.] are Thurmonds. They are of all colors. Some are so white that you cannot tell them from the original Thurmonds. The only thing that surprises Colored Thurmonds is, why is it so important that they are related to the white Thurmonds? It is an old story and 'everybody in these parts knows it.''' "
Saturday 12/27/03
Tavis Smiley returns to television with his own talk show on PBS 12/27/03 AP Seminoles With African Ancestry: The Right To Heritage 12/27/03 Black World Today
Thursday 12/25/03
White Terror 12/25/03 Black Commentator: "The Bush men decorate our holidays in Homeland Security yellow, orange and red, while demonizing Islamic green as the color of the most implacable foes of Western “civilization.” Yet official silence conspires to hide genocidal maniacs in our midst who have sworn to erase the Black presence from the landscape of the United States: White Terror.
Tens of thousands of members of a racist legion operate openly in every corner of the nation – men, women, juveniles, extended families, cells, gangs, churches, clans, militias, border armies, all engaged in what they consider to be a war to the death against non-white America."Wednesday 12/24/03
Pleading Our Own Cause by Makani Themba-Nixon 12/24/03 ColorLines: "Drawing its inspiration from the environmental justice movement and their efforts to advance a different analysis from the “mainstream” environmental movement, media justice proponents are developing race, class, and gender conscious frameworks that advance new visions for media content and structure. There are even plans for a Media Justice Summit in late spring 2004, the first gathering of its kind."Tuesday 12/23/03
The scavengers of Africa 12/23/03 Final Call: "Great danger lies ahead for Africa in the future, according to leaders of TransAfrica, one of this country’s oldest and most influential Africa-interest organizations.
In the face of the AIDS pandemic, wars, famine and drought, it is possible that the African continent and Black people around the world have become targets of a genocide conspiracy by Europeans, said folk singer Harry Belafonte and Bill Fletcher, president of TransAfrica, to reporters Dec. 8."Monday 12/22/03
The Five-Percent rap - Is a mysterious black Muslim group a bona fide religion or a dangerous gang? 12/22/03 Boston Globe: "LAUDED BY HIP-HOP ARTISTS from Busta Rhymes to the Wu-Tang Clan, linked to drug dealers and prison gangs, The Nation of Gods and Earths -- or, as they are popularly known, the Five Percenters -- have inspired controversy for almost 40 years. But this past summer, the group received a powerful endorsement from an unexpected corner. On July 31, the Federal District Court in New York ruled that Intelligent Tarref Allah, a 27-year-old convicted murderer currently serving 19 years to life, had been denied his First Amendment right of religious freedom, and is entitled to practice his Five Percent beliefs in prison. Immediately deemed the "5% Fraud" by The New York Post, Allah's case is the latest installment in the ongoing tug-of-war between the predominantly black Five Percenters, prison officials, and the court system. In the 1980s the group was said to be associated with a drug ring in Queens, N.Y., and in the mid-'90s South Carolina prison officials reprimanded more than 300 inmates for refusing to renounce their Five Percent status. Last year, a New Jersey state court upheld the legitimacy of disciplinary actions taken by prison officials who had broken up an orderly meeting of inmate members… The official Nation of Gods and Earth's website, www.ibiblio.org/nge, lists regular parliaments in almost three dozen cities in 17 states and Canada, and hundreds of Gods and Earths have linked their personal webpages to the site."Genocide: a system of survival (Interview) 12/22/03 Final Call: "The Semites of the Jewish religion in Germany believed that they had been assimilated; they were being assimilated from the middle of the 19th Century. They felt that the barriers and the ghettoes no longer existed and that they were being allowed to attend colleges, and be more mobile in the society. Then, at a critical point, all of that was washed away."
A Nation Divided - Seminole rift more than a black-and-white issue 12/22/03 Newsday: "After two centuries of coexistence that has rarely made most history books, a chasm has opened between the descendants of the Seminole people, Indians and escaped slaves who banded together in Florida against the white onslaught and were eventually deposited here along what became known as the Trail of Tears. Though history and intermingling made cousins of the two groups, time and money and the modern experiences of being black or Indian or both have chewed away at all they shared in common, leaving the ligaments of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma exposed and aching. The blacks, still known around here as Freedmen,have been excluded from millions of dollars awarded to the Seminole in the early 1990s for the seizure of their land in Florida a century earlier. And three years ago they were stripped of their Seminole status altogether through the imposition of an ancestral blood standard for membership that few could prove. The government later forced the tribe to restore their standing, but to this day the Freedmen are denied access to many benefits and services because they cannot show sufficient Indian heritage based on a 19th-century identification system that was stacked against them to begin with."
Strom Thurmond 'Raped' a Black Teenager 12/22/03 NNPA
Sunday 12/21/03
Some Lessons in Black and White 12/21/03 Black America Web: "Thus did Carmento Floyd, the wife of the University of Missouri president, caution the black basketball player about his choice in women. In a telephone conversation recorded by the man’s jailers, Mrs. Floyd advised the man to look more toward Delta Sigma Theta, the famous black sorority, than to Delta Delta Delta, the famous white sorority, for dating prospects.
Because of that, white folks are accusing Mrs. Floyd of racism and, by extension, her husband and a family friend too. It could be political correctness gone amok; or payback for the January dismissal of a grade school teacher who told her class in a nearby town that she vehemently opposed interracial dating, marriage and procreation. One thing it wouldn’t seem to be is a last stand by white Missourians in defense of interracial dating. If that’s what it is, it begs examination, for it would be a phenomenon for damn sure."Contributing Factors to the Growth of Colored Slave Owners of Louisiana from the Colonial Period to the Nineteenth Century 12/21/03 Marcus Garvey BBS: "This research paper argues unique factors in Louisiana™s historical, social, economic and political developments made it the largest colored slaveholding state in the United States. Gramsci™s theory of cultural hegemony can be applied to explain the development of colored slaveowning in the Louisiana. Colored slave owners represented a privileged subaltern group who appropriated different aspects of power in the antebellum period of the status quo to both acquire and exert influence."
Saturday 12/20/03
Miscegination and Racism: The Afro-Mexican in Colonial Mexico 12/20/03 Marcus Garvey BBS: "Most students of Mexican history would be surprised to know that an extensive Black population, which will be referred to as Afro-Mexican,
existed during the colonial period. However, Afro-Mexicans, both slave
and free at one time outnumbered the current domination Mestizo
population and the Whites. Mexico had an extensive Black population,
which eventually assimilated into the dominant majority Mestizo population
by the eighteenth century. This paper will concentrate on the factors that
caused the decline of the Afro-Mexican population in Mexico during the
colonial period, from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century.
It will not focus of the Afro-Mexican population, slave or free, but only
explain their disappearance. Although the Afro-Mexicans were an extensive dominant population during the colonial period, by the eighteenth century,
they became a negligible population that the Indians, Whites and Mestizos supplanted."Friday 12/19/03
Jackson to Meet With Family at Neverland 12/19/03 AP Thursday 12/18/03
The Attack on Black Leadership by Cynthia McKinney 12/18/03 Black Commentator Jury awards victim $350,000 12/18/03 Black World Today: "A Bronx New York jury last week unanimously awarded an African American woman $350,000 against Lord & Taylor, Inc… The jury's award follows a confidential settlement by the company, which is owned by the May Company, when its security guards at a store on the outskirts of Detroit, while arresting a shopper, caused his death through a choke hold."
Fear of Losing Black Mizzou President 12/18/03 BlackAmericaWeb: "When Elson Floyd became president of the four-campus University of Missouri system last January, it was an historic and triumphant day for the Columbia, Mo. Black community. Now, less than a year later, black people in the city of fear an incident involving Floyd’s wife and an embattled former University of Missouri basketball player at the will lead to the president’s demise. In a city in which approximately 11 percent of the 85,000 citizens are black, some feel Floyd’s exit – whether forced or on his own – would be a tremendous step back. And they want to avoid that. “I was so worried when he came here because I was very familiar with Columbia and how it has a tendency to attack any African-American that moves here with such a grand reputation,” Mary Ratliff, president of the local and state chapters of the NAACP, told BlackAmericaWeb.com “I do think this could lead to his dismissal, unfortunately.” "
Michael Jackson Joins The Nation of Islam 12/18/03 BlackAmericaWeb: "According to the New York Post, Michael Jackson became a member of the Nation of Islam last night. Joining his brother Jermaine, who converted to Islam in 1989, the reason for Jackson's conversion was not immediately made clear to New York Post's sources. The New York Post states that high ranking members of the Nation of Islam have been working to bring Jackson into Rev. Louis Farrakhan's well known Nation of Islam community. Fox News's web site yesterday reported that Jermaine Jackson has brought Farrakhan's chief of staff, Leonard F. Muhammad into Jackson's inner circle as a "bodyguard." "
Will chief and thug become jailhouse buddies? 12/18/03 BlackAmericaWeb: "Enter Baltimore attorney A. Dwight Pettit, who’s better than Johnnie Cochran eight days a week. First Pettit got cops to admit they had filed two reports, one which said Officer Gavin’s death was an unavoidable accident and a second one which alleged Stennett deliberately ran into Gavin’s patrol car. Pettit then got one police sergeant to change his testimony on the stand and revealed that police had destroyed crucial evidence in the case. By the time Pettit got done with prosecutors and police, Stennett walked out of court acquitted, a free man. Norris didn’t care for it when I wrote that Stennett walked because Gavin’s fellow cops boo-booed… The practice of shunting local cases involving young black men from state court to federal court — with those whiter and more conservative juries that almost guarantee conviction — has been in vogue a few years now. You’d think the typical racial disparity watchdogs — Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus — would object to the trend. We haven’t heard a word from any of them."
Above The Law 12/18/03 Tom Paine: "Documents just released by the Federal Election Commission show that Attorney General John Ashcroft engaged in serious campaign finance violations during his 2000 Senate campaign. Ashcroft participated in a patently phony deal that allowed a political action committee he founded and controlled to transfer a highly valuable mailing list to his campaign committee. The donation of the list—which cost more than $1.7 million to create—flaunts campaign contribution limits."
Wednesday 12/17/03
Rappers' Lament 12/17/03 Village Voice: "For some years here in New York the frequent arrests of MCs and others around the "Hip Hop Nation" have spurred rumors of a "Hip Hop Task Force"—a kind of Rap COINTELPRO—within the New York City Police Department."Tuesday 12/16/03
Racial politics stunting development of New South 12/16/03 Chicago Sun Times: by Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.Beleagured Cincinnati Mayor Seeks Funds for Stun Guns 12/16/03 WAVE: "After the deaths of 19 Black men in police custody, a two-year economic boycott, Justice Department and FBI investigation, a racial profiling lawsuit and racial tensions that produced riots in 2001, Mayor Charlie Luken has decided to buy stun guns for the police force to avoid the death of another Black man in police custody."
Monday 12/15/03
Ol' Strom and Me By Earl Ofari Hutchinson 12/15/03 Alternet: "The big break came with Republican Barry Goldwater's presidential bid in 1964. Thurmond adroitly read the political tea leaves, stumped for Goldwater and urged Southern Democrats to do the same. In the process, he dropped the racially inflammatory rhetoric that had long been his and other Southern politicians' stock in trade. Instead, he and Goldwater railed against welfare, crime in the streets, permissiveness and big government. He branded the Democrats the party of "regulation," "control," "coercion," "intimidation" and "subservience."
This was racial code speak but it worked. It ignited the first big exodus of Southern whites from the Democratic Party into the Republican Party. The stampede got even bigger in 1968. President Nixon, with Ol' Strom's endorsement and active support, crafted his "Southern Strategy," that is, woo white voters, while saying and doing as little as possible about civil rights. That strategy became the indispensable cornerstone of Republican politics in the South. In the years to come, Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and the elder Bush also made masterful use of Nixon's Southern Strategy to win elections and tighten the Republican grip on the South."Flu shots carry sting of history for some blacks 12/15/03 Black Voices
Is everybody picking on Rosa Parks? 12/15/03 CSM: "Parks is suing rap duo OutKast for naming a song after her on its 1998 album "Aquemini." Last week, the US Supreme Court cleared the way for her to proceed with the lawsuit, which claims the song uses her name to sell a product she does not endorse. This is not the first time the civil rights pioneer has taken a stand against popular culture's appropriation of her legacy. Last year, Parks boycotted the NAACP Image Awards, at which a movie about her life was celebrated, to protest another nominated film, "Barbershop," in which a character makes what Parks called "hurtful jokes" about her status as a black icon."
Saddam’s Capture Means Trouble for U.S. Officials 12/15/03 Final Call: "Why wouldn’t U.S. officials readily agree to relinquish jurisdiction over Hussein’s trial? Because of their need to closely guard the secrets that Saddam Hussein has in his possession — secrets that would cause no small amount of embarrassment to the U.S. government, including former president Ronald Reagan, former vice-president and former president George H.W. Bush (the president’s father), and Donald Rumsfeld, the president’s secretary of defense."
Sunday 12/14/03
Power failure - Why black politicians are still struggling for a foothold in Boston 12/14/03 Boston Globe: "IN 1983, WHEN MEL KING became the first black candidate in Boston history to win one of the two spots on the final election ballot for mayor, many thought a new era had begun for African Americans in local politics. But what looked like the dawn of a new day still stands, two decades later, as the high point of black political advancement. The state of black politics is dismal," says Hubie Jones, former dean of the Boston University School of Social Work. "We have no black congressman, we have no black at-large city councilor. We have no black mayor, [and] we're not in shouting distance of getting one in the near future." "Mississippi burning: Rapper is leading movement to smash stereotypes 12/14/03 Miami Herald: "And so the sum of the Southern man is on wax: Mississippi: The Album, a mélange of bluesy funk and crunk, acoustic guitar and blue growls, which bore the hit singles Like a Pimp and Cadillac on 22s. The sequel, coming to stores Dec. 23: MTA2 -- Baptized In Dirty Water. ''There's an awful lot that needs to be said about Mississippi. We have a rich history. We have a harsh history. The cradle of black music is here. This is where the blues were born. This is where your mama and grandmama are from,'' Banner, rapper and producer, says in a phone interview while sitting on his Jackson front porch last week."
Saturday 12/13/03
Florida first in U.S. to dedicate prison to faith-based program 12/13/03 Palm Beach Post, FL: "Hard time will soon be hallowed time for nearly 800 Florida inmates who will be given the option of repaying their debt to society in the nation's first prison dedicated entirely to faith-based rehabilitation programs.
Gov. Jeb Bush made the surprise announcement Friday at a White House-sponsored news conference in Tampa that spotlighted President Bush's attempts to give religious organizations a greater role in solving social problems."Thursday 12/11/03
Trial on Texas Redistricting Plan Begins 12/11/03 AP Nixon Tapes Reveal What Many Long Suspected 12/11/03 BlackAmericaWeb: "Thirty one years ago, one of President Richard Nixon’s top advisers recommended that blacks should be relocated because black people living in large concentrations posed social problems. The comment and other statements came to light in a new round of Nixon White House tapes released this week. The statements did not surprise NAACP Board Chairman Julian Bond, but did confirm a hunch he had about Nixon and his Republican administration of 1969-75: “We knew he [Nixon] was an evil man, an anti-Semite from prior tapes, Bond told BlackAmericaWeb.com Thursday. “We always suspected he was a racist. Now we have confirmation that he was a racist of the highest order.” Domestic policy adviser John Ehrlichman said to Nixon on tape that Washington blacks should be encouraged to resettle in other communities."
CONGRESS Democracy crumbles under cover of darkness 12/11/03 St. Louis Post Dispatch, MS: "House Republicans bend rules, press for votes during wee hours to escape the light of accountability."
Wednesday 12/10/03
George Clinton illegally searched before arrest, lawyer says 12/10/03 AP: "An attorney for funk music pioneer George Clinton said Tuesday the musician was illegally searched before he was charged last weekend with drug possession."Memo Could Exonerate Jackson 12/10/03 BlackAmericaWeb: "It was revealed Tuesday that a California District Attorney’s Office had seen a government memo that 10 months ago concluded that accusations that Jackson molested a 12-year-old boy were “unfounded.” Despite that, a judge went on to issue warrants for the search of Jackson’s mansion and property, and the singer was arrested. In light of the memo, the decision doesn’t sit well with some black legal experts."
DeLay's Texas PAC investigated 12/10/03 Cox
Abolish prisons, says Angela Davis 12/10/03 SF Bay View
Political prisoner Hugo Pinell needs your support to be free after 39 years 12/10/03 SF Bay View: "At least one reason Yogi was singled out for even harsher punishment than other comrades was his refusal to disassociate himself with “Blacks” and hang with the “Mexicans” as the prison apartheid mandated at that time. Yogi, originally from Nicaragua, identifies Black, as his father was an African-Nicaraguan. His being bilingual was of course an advantage in organizing and struggling for international unity behind the walls."
People of Color Against Globalization Mission Statement and Perspectives 12/10/03 TransAfrica
Tuesday 12/9/03
Sill Unanswered: Why Did Cops Confront Cincinnati Man 12/9/03 BlackAmericaWeb Raid at High School Leads to Racial Divide, Not Drugs 12/9/03 NYT: "For many residents of Goose Creek, a pleasant bedroom community north of Charleston, it was particularly disturbing that though blacks make up less than a quarter of the 2,700 students at the high school, two-thirds of the 107 students caught up in the sweep were black."
An African Tree Branches: Kwame Ture Shares His Roots 12/9/03 The Black World Today: "He told his young son about seeing the newly elected president of Ghana come forward to introduce his cabinet to the Parliament. The president and all the cabinet members were not wearing the formal clothes of the British colonial rulers, or the regal African robes of their village status. They wore the misshapen prison garb of the imprisonment they had endured for their nation's liberation. "Boy, you hear me, those black men marched right out of prison and into power," the exuberant sailor told his son in the Bronx home he renovated with his own hands. That son was Stokely Carmichael who later met Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian president, and took on the president's first name in respect when he became Kwame Ture."
Monday 12/8/03
Past Imperfect: Black Iraq 12/8/03 Africana: "There has been a black presence in Basra — present-day Southern Iraq — as early as the 7th century, when Abu Bakra, an Ethiopian soldier who had been manumitted by the prophet Muhammad himself, settled in the city. His descendants became prominent members of Basran society. A century later, the writer Jahiz of Basra wrote an impassioned defense of black Africans — referred to in Arabic as the Zanj — against accusations of inferiority which had begun to take root even then. The Zanj, who were primarily persons of East African descent, were to have a significant impact upon Iraqi history. They had been traded from ports along the African coast (Zanzibar, which is derived from the term "Zanj," was a major slave exporting center during the era) to clear salt marshes. Laboring in miserable, humid conditions, the Zanj workers dug up layers of topsoil and dragged away tons of earth to plant labor-intensive crops like sugarcane on the less saline soil below. Fed scant portions of flour, semolina and dates, they were constantly in conflict with the Iraqi slave system. Between the 7th and 9th centuries, the Zanj staged three rebellions, the largest of which occurred between 868 and 883 AD."Shreveport Black Community Says Justice is Due Following Shooting Death 12/8/03 Black Action Net: published 7/11/03
Tillman isn't helping debate over slave reparations 12/8/03 Chicago Sun Times
Venezuela has reasons to doubt U.S. claims 12/8/03 Final Call: by Bill Fletcher Jr., president of TransAfrica Forum and co-chair of the anti-war coalition, United for Peace and Justice.
Sunday 12/7/03
Selling George W. 12/7/03 Arizona Republic: "He left the Republican National Committee in July to join the Bush campaign. His inclination toward the Republican ideology began at home with his parents, who ended up in Venezuela after being driven out of Cuba when Fidel Castro took over the island more than four decades ago.
He was born and raised in Venezuela. When he was 10, the family headed to Florida where most Cuban exiles live. And like most of them, the Fernández family gravitated politically to the Republican Party."Black Women Are Outpacing Black Men in Getting Elected to Public Office 12/7/03 NNPA
Saturday 12/6/03
40 to Watch 12/6/03 Southern Poverty Law Center: "What does the radical right look like after a year of reverses? The future may lie in the personalities still peopling the fringe."Against the Wall 12/6/03 Southern Poverty Law Center: "The most important hate group in America is sinking. The National Alliance, the neo-Nazi organization that has produced and influenced more violent criminals in the last three decades than any other, may soon be facing irrelevancy. In the last year, membership has plunged from around 1,400 to fewer than 800 who still pay their dues. The staff, once the largest of any hate group in decades, has been cut by nearly half. Income from selling white power music and paraphernalia, which with dues was said to be bringing in more than $1 million last year, has dropped to the point where the Alliance spends more than it takes in."
Hip Hop Artist Nelly's 'Pimp Juice' Raises Controversy Among African-Americans 12/6/03 Voice of America
NAACP QUESTIONS PRISON SYSTEM 12/6/03 Wilmington Journal, NC
Friday 12/5/03
UofL forum defends activist - Sister Souljah's speech also spurs request by KKK 12/5/03 Louisville Courier-Journal, KY Thursday 12/4/03
Profile: Slain Prosecutor Jonathan Luna 12/4/03 AP First black councilwoman brings 'balance' 12/4/03 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
City admits going overboard helping minority firm win bid 12/4/03 Baltimore Sun
December 4, 1969: The Execution of Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark 12/4/03 Black Commentator: "To members of Chicago's African American community in the late 1960s, no leader was more inspiring, more articulate, or more effective than Fred Hampton. He organized food pantries, educational programs, and recreational outlets for impoverished children, and he helped bring about a peaceful coexistence among the city's rival street gangs. To civic leaders in Chicago, the FBI, and many others, however, he was a dangerous revolutionary leader, committed to the violent overthrow of the white-dominated system. Hampton was killed in a 1969 raid on the headquarters of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther party, in what was almost certainly a planned assassination orchestrated by Federal agents and city leaders, who feared that Hampton's influence could lead to an all-out armed uprising by the city's most disenfranchised residents."
The Bush Administration's End Game for Haiti 12/4/03 Black Commentator
Ministers Call for Investigation of Police Shooting of Teen 12/4/03 Dogon Village: "The African American Council Of Christian Clergy, which represents more than 300 African-American churches, held a rally in North Miami Beach Wednesday afternoon in response to the police killing of a teen carrying a BB gun. Church leaders called for an investigation into the incident by the Justice Department. Police reported that the 16 year-old pointed the BB gun at one of the officers, however some witnesses say that the teenager had put the gun down before he was shot."
Wednesday 12/3/03
Cincinnati death declared a homicide; videos shown 12/3/03 Black America Web Questions outnumber answers in Jones case 12/3/03 Cincinnati Inquirer: "Parrott said officials found .36 grams of powder cocaine and three cigarettes dipped in PCP - more commonly known as angel dust - in Jones' car." It would be interesting to see a true chain of custody on these.
Clergy Reacts To Police Shooting Of Teen 12/3/03 Click10, FL
Prominent Dolphin singled out by writer 12/3/03 ESPN: "The FBI is investigating several threatening and racist letters that have been sent in the past two years to black NFL players, including one prominent Miami Dolphins player who received a letter in September."
Newark cleric seeks to lead national Muslim group 12/3/03 Newsday: "A black Muslim cleric from New Jersey wants to reorganize a national group whose founder quit out of frustration that his followers were not integrating into the country's broader Islamic community."
Blacks on Bloomberg 12/3/03 Village Voice: "After Giuliani, anybody is a breath of fresh air," contends Congressman Charlie Rangel."
Tuesday 12/2/03
Don’t Let Government Bully War Opponents 12/2/03 Black America Web: "FBI officials say the monitoring program is intended to root out anarchists and to ensure that large protests don’t get out of hand. That may be legitimate. But through the lens of an administration that shamelessly brands those who oppose the occupation of Iraq as being anti-American, it’s hard to believe that a peaceful protest won’t easily become distorted as a terrorist activity, and its leaders regarded with suspicion.
As a black American, this frightens me."Gap in Cincinnati Beating Video is Suspect 12/2/03 Black America Web: "The video starts at 5:58 [a.m.]. You see Mr. Jones in the corner bothering no one. Then at 6- something, it doesn’t go to black, but there is snow as if something has been erased,” she said. “Why did the video conveniently come back on when Mr. Jones lunges at police?” Frierson said she has spoken to several people who witnessed the beating. Some said that the police initiated the attacks, others told her that the police started “saying things” to Jones in a harsh or derogatory manner."
Sister Souljah sparks campus controversy 12/2/03 Louisville Cardinal: "Though Sister Souljah, an African-American author, activist, and lecturer, spoke on the University of Louisville campus over a month ago, her lecture has had a lasting impact. After her Oct. 28 lecture on 'Black Student Activism on College Campuses,' Louisville Cardinal columnist Brian Yates wrote an opinion article questioning her appearance on U of L"s campus. This article, as well as local media attention, spurred a forum on Sister Souljah"s lecture and a response from Mordean Taylor-Archer, the Vice Provost for Diversity and Equal Opportunity at U of L. Sister Souljah was brought to the university in Oct. as part of the Bank One Diversity Lecture Series. Bank One donated $50,000 to the university after some of the company"s representatives were found passing out racist t-shirts on campus. A committee of students, faculty and staff decided to earmark this money for programs addressing diversity."
Monday 12/1/03
Death of 350-Pound Man Being Investigated 12/1/03 AP