***For Immediate Release***
Contact
R2C2H2 Tha Artivist
e-mail:: r2c2h2@gmail.com
phone: 901-299-4355
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 752062
Memphis,TN 38175
Date: 11/30/2010
Sis. Margaret Block & Rev. Alan Bean Are The 2010 W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Artivists Of The Year!
"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."~Harriet Tubman
"Be the change you want to see in the world"~Mahatma Gandhi
"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth." ~Muhammad Ali
"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."~Dr. Martin Luther King
The W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group Inc. has chosen this year to honor two very extraordinary everyday people, Sis. Margaret Block & Rev. Alan Bean, as the recipients of the 2010 W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Artivists Of The Year Award. According to W.E. A.L.L. B.E., “an artivist” is a person who uses his/her talents to advocate for and create effective and progressive change in his/her community in particular and in the greater society in general. They are humanitarians who possess a creative and proactive vision for the world. Although they may come from different walk s of life, it is their love to serve others that is the tie that binds and makes them a truly unique group of people.
Sis. Margaret: A Grassroots General That Can Carry A Tune
Sis. Margaret Block (photo courtesy of W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News)
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Freedom Singing With Sis. Margaret Block, An American Civil Rights Legend
Miss. Civil Rights Legend Sis. Margaret Block Demonstrates & Discusses The Importance Of Freedom Songs In The Mississippi Civil Rights Movement @ The 46th Annual Mississippi Civil Rights Martyrs Memorial Service In Neshoba County, Ms...6/19/2010.
Sis. Margaret Block is a true grassroots cultural warrior activist…She has been a Freedom Fighter using words and song to fight bigotry and racial oppression since the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement, working alongside now legendary icons such as Stokely Carmichael and Fannie Lou Hamer in the very brutal Mississippi Delta Campaign. Coming from a long line of activists which included her brother, the very charismatic and highly revered Sam Block (the SNCC Field Secretary for the Northern Mississippi campaign), Sis. Margaret knew that serving the people was not only a choice, but a calling much like folks called to preach.
Her activities in the movement raised the ire of many powerful entities and enemies of the people including the Klu Klux Klan and The Mississippi Sovereignty Commission a.k.a. The White Citizens Council…She became the target of so many death threats that she at one point had to be smuggled out of Charleston,MS, in a funeral hearse driven by unsung Mississippi Civil Rights Martyr Birdia Keglar.
Since coming back to Cleveland, MS, from Oakland,CA, some years ago she has picked up where she left off in the 60s, not missing a beat.
***Reason For Award: Empowering A Community To Stand Up & Act***
Sis. Margaret Block: Civil Rights Legend/ Activist & Co-Organizer Of The 2010 Cleveland, MS, Schools Boycott
In February 2010, she helped organize a successful one day school boycott to fight segregation within the Cleveland Schools District. A grassroots organizer and advocate of the highest order, Sis. Margaret was also instrumental in motivating the disenfranchised youths of Cleveland to organize a march and rally to protest the unneeded police tasering and killing of 30 year old Jermaine Williams. The youths involved valued her leadership so much that they nicknamed her the commander in chief a.k.a. the general.
Sis. Margaret is the personification of what a true Elder is: a person who applies his/her wisdom to great effect in the service and for the benefit of others and one who is also open and receptive to learning from others in order to enhance his/her own world view. Sis. Margaret’s efforts truly epitomize the potential of intergenerational teaching and reaching.
More Margaret Block On W.E. A.L.L. B.E.:
Contact An American Civil Rights Veteran Today:
Dr.
Alan Bean is the executive director of Friends of Justice, a nonprofit
organization that works to uphold due process in the criminal justice
system. It was formed in response to the infamous Tulia, Texas, drug
sting of 1999, in which forty-seven people, thirty-nine of them African
Americans, were rounded up based on the false testimony of a corrupt and
racist undercover agent. Bean, a local Baptist minister, played a key
role in organizing to expose the Tulia travesty and working to free the
defendants. The Texas legislature, in response to the work of the
Friends of Justice, passed the Tulia Corroboration Bill, which has led
to the exoneration of dozens of innocent people by raising the
evidentiary standards for undercover testimony.
Rev. Alan Bean comes from a great if often underappreciated and/or misunderstood line of journalist activists who take hold of the story to not only state the facts but to put flesh and bone to it in order to create a human appeal and moral compass that incites the reader to think and to either act or react…His writings sometimes forces us to lift the veil and confront uncomfortable truths about our individual thoughts and behaviors as well as society’s collective psyche…
His passion for his subjects really comes through and that what makes him a very effective advocate for the true underdog in the U.S. Judicial system…This is what also makes him such a polarizing and intriguing figure among adversaries and fans alike…Whether it was Tulia,TX, in 1999 or Jena 6 in 2007, you can usually find Rev. Alan Bean and his organization The Friends Of Justice on the frontlines feeding stories to be disseminated to the public via the corporate media news machine and independent media outlets…It is because of his resolve and hard work that many stories that normally wouldn’t get any interest or light of day coverage may find themselves in the Chicago Tribune Sunday Edition or as a story of interest on the CNN News Network…
In the tradition of Elijah Lovejoy, William Lloyd Garrison, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and many others before, Rev. Bean has the courage of his convictions to stare down his harshest critics and actually hit them in their mouths with indisputable facts so piercing that even their own will to deny and cover them up does not succeed. Rev. Bean also possesses the uncanny ability to make even the most hostile of environs bend to his will for justice thus transforming these places into a homecoming venue of sorts welcoming his inquisitive and cerebral nature in discerning truth from fiction. Like a seasoned defense lawyer he takes the evidence and then cross examines it against the official story or verdict with surgeon like precision and a let no stone go unturned attitude.
Those who are normally benchwarmers in the game of life and indifferent to the suffering of their brethren either catch the holy ghost for social justice or fire and brimstone hell for apathy when Rev. Bean energetically and unapologetically makes his presence known where justice has been a stranger far too long...Lord have mercy.
***Reason For Award: Pioneering Citizen Media Coverage Of Curtis Flowers' 6th Trial***
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Rev. Alan Bean Gives A Brief Synopsis Of The Curtis Flowers Saga...
Video: Ain't No Sunshine For Defendant In Flowers VI:
Past accolades aside, Rev. Bean was selected for this year’s award for his amazing play by play coverage of the historical 6th capital murder trial of Curtis Flowers (who this past June became the first person in known U.S. Judicial history to be tried 6 times on the same evidence in a capital murder case). Almost like the biblical Daniel in the lion’s den, Rev. Bean went into Winona ,MS, into an emotionally heated and venomous courtroom for several straight days enduring harassment from some locals who thought of him as an outside agitator and troublemaker (sounds familiar?)…
Nevertheless, Rev. Bean kept his cool in the stifling Mississippi Delta heat and used his blog as a therapeutic and cathartic exercise or in this case exorcise to offer detailed summaries of the day’s proceedings as well as hard hitting analysis and commentary with an easy to follow historical timeline of the Curtis Flowers’ saga from its murky beginnings to its even murkier present status. What can be said with extreme clarity is that Rev. Bean knows his purpose in this life and he won’t rest until true justice has been served.
Full Text: Ain't No Sunshine For Defendant In Flowers VI:
More Curtis Flowers On W.E. A.L.L. B.E.:
For More On The Curtis Flowers Saga Please Visit The Friends Of Justice Website:
***
Like What You See? Then Donate To W.E. A.L.L. B.E.!!!
Or Send A Check Or Money Order To The Following Address:
Attn: Ron Herd II
The W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group Inc.
P.O. Box 752062
Memphis, TN 38175
Artivistically Yours,
Bro. Ron
a.k.a.
Tha Artivist
Founder of the W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group Inc.
AMPLIFY W.E. A.L.L. B.E.!
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