Monday, February 28, 2011

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: Weds. 3/2/2011 @ 9pm c/ 10pm e/7pm p*"Black By Popular Demand...Dick Gregory LIVE Again!"

4 Years In The Tank Now It's Time To Get $Bank$
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W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Needs Your Support...Give To Grow The Movement!
March 2011 Theme: Master Teachers & Master Griots

Air Date: Weds. March 2, 2011


Time: 9 PM C/10 PM E/7 PM P

Call-in Number: 646-652-4593

Show:

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 "Black By Popular Demand...Dick Gregory LIVE Again!"
 Video Promo: W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: Black By Popular Demand...Dick Gregory  LIVE Again! (3/2/2011)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iItp8hNyIvk

About Bro. Dick Gregory
During the golden era of skinny-tie comedians, Dick Gregory was one of the biggest: a $12,000-a-week headliner on par with with Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen. Mr. Gregory influenced  Bill Cosby, who inherited his stage presence, as well as Richard Pryor, who expressed biting racial candor.

Mr. Gregory was a headliner in Las Vegas, played all the hot clubs in New York and San Francisco, published a best-selling 1964 autobiography, titled "Nigger," and became the first black guest invited to the sofa on Jack Paar's show, where he startled audiences by mixing obligatory family jokes with sharp political humor.

Mr. Gregory was, in his words, "the first flatfooter" -- no dancing, no shuffling -- to play white clubs, a break with the singing and dancing routines of his black predecessors. Wearing a white shirt and three-button Brooks Brothers suit, he balanced himself on a stool and talked in rolling sentences, punctuating his routine with long pauses as he slowly dragged on his cigarette.

But while he talked politics, Mr. Gregory wasn't a political comic. If anything, he had an antipolitical genius for personalizing, and then disarming, relations between races:
 "Down South they don't care how close I am as long as I don't get too big, and up North they don't care how big I am as long as I don't get too close."
"Don't just sit there and heckle me. Pay your check, burn your cross, and leave."

During the civil rights era, Mr. Gregory was friends with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers and Malcolm X, delivered food to N.A.A.C.P. offices in the South, marched in Selma, Ala., and was threatened many times and arrested more than once. In 1968, Mr. Gregory ran for president, after an unsuccessful bid to be mayor of Chicago. His candidacy was a stunt, but it was not a joke: on Election Day he received about 47,000 votes.

In the years after, he hit the health-food speaking circuit, pushing a raw food diet and something he called the Bahamian Diet Nutritional Drink; wrote alternative-history books; tried to intervene in the Iranian hostage crisis; and enjoyed an odd revival with his public campaign to help Walter Hudson, a 1,200-pound man, lose weight.

When not in Washington, where he has an apartment, or at his home in Plymouth, Mass., where he lives with Lily, his wife of 50 years, he is on the road doing around 200 shows a year. -- Bruce Headlam (New York Times)

Check Out Bro. Dick Gregory's W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio debut:

Contact An American Civil Rights Veteran Today:
 
More Civil Rights Movement On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. :


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W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Needs Your Support...Give To Grow The Movement!
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2010/03/we-all-be-needs-your-supportgive-to.html

Posted by tha artivist at 9:54 AM 0 comments

Help The United Negro College Fund & Tha Artivist @ The SameTime...Vote Hope '65!!!

Help The UNCF & Tha Artivist By Voting For Hope '65!

Everytime You Vote For My Pic $1 Is Donated To The United Negro College Fund...If I get the most votes or finish in the top 5 in voting I will receive $1000 and could possibly win a one person art show sponsored by Frito Lay...You can vote everyday until Feb. 28, 2011 @ 11:59pm Central...Help A Friend & A Worthy Cause At The Same Time...Ir's a Win/Win.

Vote Here & Please Spread To Your Networks: 

About Hope ‘65 
This is an artwork that deals with the 100 year or century worth of struggle it took for African Americans to get their civil and human rights officially acknowledged and enforced by the U.S.A. as articulated by the passage of both The 13th Amendment of 1865 (which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude) and The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (which makes it illegal to discriminate against African Americans in voting) respectfully. In both cases a civil war as well as civil disobedience had to be waged to make these changes happen as witnessed by history through The American Civil War of the 1860s and The American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The old woman represents the collectively resilient and indomitable spirit of millions of enslaved Africans held in bondage for several generations in America while the baby represents the new hope or potential for generations of free African Americans to hopefully come, a freedom truly earned through blood, sweat and tears.
Posted by tha artivist at 12:00 AM 0 comments

Monday, February 14, 2011

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio Special: Weds. 2/16/2011 @ 9pm c/ 10pm e/7pm p*"The Injustice Files" Preview Show With Keith Beauchamp

4 Years In The Tank Now It's Time To Get $Bank$
***Radio Free Dixie For The 21st Century***

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Needs Your Support...Give To Grow The Movement!
February 2011 Theme: Telling Our Story...

Air Date: Weds. February 16, 2011


Time: 9 PM C/10 PM E/7 PM P

Call-in Number: 646-652-4593

Show:

***

topic:  "The Injustice Files" Preview Show With Keith Beauchamp

Promo Video:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmvzr6FBQqo

Our Featured & Honorable Guests... 
1.) Bro. Keith Beauchamp

2.) Bro. Alvin Sykes, Legendary Cold Case Justice Advocate
& The Architect Of The Emmett Till Bill


3.) Sis. Jas Bailey, NOLA Activist & Proud Extremist

4.) Sis. Margaret Block, 2010 W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Artivist Of The Year & Freedom Fighter Extraordinaire (Left)

 

EMMETT TILL FILMMAKER KEITH B. DOES IT AGAIN WITH NEW TV SERIES, "THE INJUSTICE FILES." BEGINS AIRING FEB. 18 ON INVESTIGATION DISCOVERY!!!!

Dear Family and Friends,

May this email find you in the best of spirit and good health.

It's been some time since I spoken to many of you, but when you're on a mission you often get sidetracked.  I'm writing you today to share my current TV Series with you entitled, "The Injustice Files" which begins airing on Friday, Feb. 18, 2011 on Investigation Discovery.  The series is Executive Produced by CBS News' Susan Zirinsky and her talented crew of CBS 48 Hours and CBS Eye Too Productions for Investigation Discovery.

This project is the extension of my life's work and the passion that the 'Creator' has instilled in me to continue to speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves.

I want to thank you for your past support and time and hope that you will share this historic moment with me. Please help spread the word by sending this email to family and friends.

Respectfully,

Keith A. Beauchamp
Executive Producer/Host
"The Injustice Files"

About "The Injustice Files"

The Injustice Files - Shining A Light On Key FBI Civil Rights-Era Cold Cases

In February 2007, the FBI officially launched a new investigative effort called the Civil Rights-Era Cold Case Initiative, which was tasked with taking a fresh look at racially-motivated homicide investigations that occurred prior to 1970. Since then, over 100 cold cases have been identified for this initiative.

In an effort to bring attention to these important investigations, critically-acclaimed documentary filmmaker, Keith Beauchamp, the host of Investigation Discovery's The Injustice Files, combs through records; interviews family members, witnesses and investigators; and pieces together the known facts of each case. He attempts to interview potential suspects and individuals who may know who was responsible for these murders, sometimes confronting them in their driveways after attempts to contact them for interviews prove unsuccessful.

Cynthia Deitle, Unit Chief for the Civil Rights Unit of the FBI, is interviewed throughout the show and she provides context to the ongoing efforts the FBI has dedicated to bringing closure to cases included in the Civil Rights-Era Cold Case Initiative. As Beauchamp explores the stories behind these horrific crimes, Unit Chief Deitle hopes the additional attention for these cases might provide new leads and witnesses willing to share information that may lead to finding who is ultimately responsible. Time has passed, witnesses have disappeared and memories have faded, but Beauchamp's efforts are developing new opportunities for justice to be served.
Episode Guide - Explore The Cases Under Investigation In The Injustice Files

The Secrets of Natchez - World Premiere: Friday, February 18 at 9PM ET
After taking a promotion at the Armstrong Tire and Rubber Factory in Natchez, Mississippi, Wharlest Jackson, father of five and treasurer for the local chapter of the NAACP, was murdered with a car bomb. Hearing the explosion, Wharlest Jackson's son rode his bike to the scene of the crime and unfortunately witnessed the results of this sophisticated murder plot.

The Ghosts of Bogalusa - World Premiere: Friday, February 25 at 9PM ET
The first two African-American police officers in Bogalusa, Louisiana were gunned down while on patrol. Deputy Sheriff Oneal Moore died instantly, but Deputy Sheriff David Creed Rogers was able to call in a description of the pick-up truck used in the drive-by shooting.

He Walked Alone - World Premiere: Friday, March 4 at 9PM ET
William Lewis Moore was an activist who planned a peaceful protest -- a solo Freedom Walk from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi to hand deliver a letter to the Governor of Mississippi urging for full human rights to African Americans. Despite friends, family and law enforcement warning him about the dangers of the journey, Moore started his walk, which ended when his body was found on the side of a road in Alabama. 

More Bro. Keith Beauchamp On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio...

Never Too Late For Justice: Heating Up The Civil Rights Cold Case Files...

Contact An American Civil Rights Veteran Today:
 
More Civil Rights Movement On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. :


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W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Needs Your Support...Give To Grow The Movement!
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2010/03/we-all-be-needs-your-supportgive-to.html

Posted by tha artivist at 6:17 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Martin Delany, 'Father Of Black Nationalism'


Delany died of tuberculosis at 72 in southwestern Ohio. In 2006, a grave marker was dedicated to him, showing Delany in his majors uniform for the Union Army.
Martin Delany, 'Father Of Black Nationalism'


Friend and rival of Frederick Douglass argued that African-Americans should emigrate to Central or South America, later to Africa

Sunday, February 06, 2011
By Mark Roth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Martin Delany, who lived in Pittsburgh most of his life, was one of the most important black abolitionists in the Civil War period, but most people cannot remember his name today.

In 1846, the famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass came to Pittsburgh.

His purpose? He wanted to persuade a fellow African-American, Martin Delany, to become co-editor of his new newspaper, The North Star.

The editorial alliance of the two young men lasted only 18 months. But from the time of that meeting, Douglass and Delany would remain lifelong friends -- and often bitter rivals.

Today, Frederick Douglass remains well-known to many Americans. Every year, schoolchildren are assigned to read his autobiography, and his face, framed by a shock of white hair, is a familiar visage.

Except to history buffs, though, Martin Delany has largely disappeared from view. Even most Pittsburghers who work Downtown have undoubtedly walked right past the historical plaque dedicated to him next to PPG Plaza.

Yet Delany played an important role in the anti-slavery movement from before the Civil War until afterward, and is known as the "Father of Black Nationalism."

Why isn't he more visible?

Read more »
Posted by tha artivist at 1:45 PM 0 comments

Dallas News: Dallas Official Gives Michael Vick Key To The City, Draws Anger

Dallas News: Dallas Official Gives Michael Vick Key To The City, Draws Anger
By RUDOLPH BUSH / Staff Writer

Published 07 February 2011 11:10 PM


When Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway handed Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick a key to the city of Dallas on Saturday, he was really opening the lock to another controversy at City Hall.

What the key meant to Vick — who admitted brutalizing and killing dogs for entertainment and served 19 months in prison — is hard to say.

He could not be reached for comment, although he looked appreciative in a shaky cellphone video captured by a man who adopted one of the dogs Vick had abused.

But for Caraway, the key meant a day of explanations and defenses over how and why he decided Vick, who was in town for Super Bowl weekend, deserved an honor on the city’s behalf.

The gesture, and the outcry that ensued, led to a quick call from Mayor Tom Leppert that the city review how council members hand out ceremonial gifts, with the clear suggestion that guidelines become more restrictive.

“We don’t condone it and clearly didn’t approve it,” Leppert said of the Vick award. “It’s unfortunate, and I would rather have not seen the situation.”

The key that Caraway gave Vick — a gold-hued, six-inch key bearing the seal of Dallas — is less than official, according to explanations from city officials.

The official “keys” to Dallas are made from gold or crystal and are given out mainly to foreign dignitaries under strict protocol.

But all council members are permitted to hand out token keys, at a cost of $25 apiece, to whomever they please. So it was that Kiss’ Gene Simmons got an unofficial key from council member Steve Salazar last week.

The way council members pass out unofficial keys sometimes raises hackles at City Hall, in large part because they so often seem to end up in the hands of celebrities.

It’s hard to say, however, exactly who has gotten the keys. No list is kept. And because every council member can hand them out at will, it’s unclear how many keys to the city of Dallas are floating around.

It is clear that the practice has been in place for years. The keys are listed as a ceremonial gift available to council members in a policy that dates to 1997.

But until Caraway gave a key to Vick, the question of who got what keys to the city didn’t have much resonance outside City Hall.

That changed Monday, as word spread about Caraway’s act.

“It’s shameful. I’m embarrassed that my city has given a key to a convicted felon accused of a violent, horrendous crime,” said Jonnie England, spokeswoman for the Metroplex Animal Coalition.

England, a former member of the Dallas Animal Shelter Commission and a respected figure among animal advocates, called on Caraway to publicly apologize.

By late Monday afternoon, he did exactly that.

“I care deeply about animals. … I have two dogs of my own, and I am deeply sorry to offend anyone who loves animals,” Caraway said in a prepared statement.

Caraway insisted, however, that Vick deserved the honor he received because he has, in Caraway’s eyes, turned his life around and dedicated himself to keeping kids from making the same mistakes he did.

“In the eyes of many people, he’s a hero,” Caraway said.

He said that “a great majority” of Dallas residents would agree that giving Vick the key was the right thing to do.

But even among the City Council — a cautious body loath to cast judgment on a fellow member — there wasn’t much support.

Council members Jerry Allen and Ann Margolin called Caraway’s gesture inappropriate.

Council member Delia Jasso, a strong advocate for decent treatment of animals, said she didn’t know enough to say whether Caraway’s action was appropriate. But she did say that she believes Vick has made strides in convincing some animal advocates that he is serious about reform.

Council member Carolyn Davis was alone among council members who could be reached in defending Vick and Caraway.

“He’s served his time,” she said of Vick. “I’m a dog and cat lover, but he did what the court told him to … Each council member has a right to do awards or do a key to the city.”

Richard Hunter couldn’t disagree more.

It was Hunter who took the cellphone video Saturday of Caraway reaching into pocket and proudly handing a golden key to Vick.

Hunter went to the event at Club Cirque on Pacific Avenue downtown because he heard Vick would be speaking to kids about his experience.

Hunter has a special interest in Vick’s reform. After the quarterback was arrested and his animals seized, Hunter and his wife adopted one of Vick’s dogs, a little black pit bull named Mel.

Mel was used as a bait dog at the Bad Newz Kennel where Vick raised dogs to fight and die, Hunter believes.

Fifteen months later, the dog still shakes with fear at times, he said.

Hunter attempted to ask Vick whether he was getting therapy to deal with how he had treated dogs. He didn’t get any answers and was roughly pushed aside by Vick’s entourage, as shown in his video.

That, he expected. But the presentation by Caraway came as a complete surprise.

“I did not know that was happening. I was stunned. They’re viewing Michael Vick himself as some sort of victim,” he said.
Posted by tha artivist at 2:25 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

MENTALLY RETARDED BLACK MAN DEAD AFTER ALLEGEDLY BEING TAZED BY POLICE


MENTALLY RETARDED BLACK MAN DEAD AFTER ALLEGEDLY BEING TAZED BY POLICE 

Date: Tuesday, February 8, 2011, 4:38 AM Central

REPORTER: TONY BROWN
EYES OPEN RADIO
(318)792-5940

ALEXANDRIA, LA,

LOUISIANA STATE POLICE ARE INVESTIGATING THE DEATH OF A YOUNG BLACK MAN WHO APPARENTLY DIED AFTER BEING TAZED AT LEAST TWICE BY TWO SEPARATE LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES.

TWENTY-THREE YEAR OLD  ROBERT RICKS DIED SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, ABOUT AN HOUR AFTER BEING ARRESTED FOR SIMPLE BATTERY AND RESISTING AN OFFICER ACCORDING TO THE LOUISIANA STATE POLICE.

ALTHOUGH STATE POLICE WOULD NOT CONFIRM REPORTS BY THE FAMILY OF RICKS THAT HE WAS TASED ONCE AT THE HOME OF HIS GRANDMOTHER, 85-YEAR-OLD MAXINE JONES WHO SAYS SHE CALLED 911 FOR AN AMBULANCE AFTER HER GRANDSON HAS A SEVERE SEIZURE JUST BEFORE 10PM AT HER HOME ON 716 APPLE WHITE STREET IN ALEXANDRIA.

RICKS FAMILY SAYS THE YOUNG MAN WAS MENTALLY RETARDED AND WAS ON STRONG MEDICATION AND HAS JUST BEEN CHECKED TWO DAYS EARLIER FROM FROM CROSSROADS HOSPITAL, A TREATMENT FACILITY FOR PATIENTS WITH MENTAL ILLNESS.

ALTHOUGH POLICE WERE NEVER CALLED BY THE FAMILY,THE ALEXANDRIA POLICE REPORT CONFIRMS THAT THEY WERE CALLED BY ACADIAN AMBULANCE, FAMILY AND WITNESSES SAY ABOUT 6 POLICE UNITS RESPONDED TO THE RESIDENCE SCARING THE MENTALLY RETARDED MAN WHOM THEY SAY SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ARRESTED.

THE GRANDMOTHER MAXINE JONES, WHOM WHICH THE YOUNG MAN LIVED DENIES POLICE ACCOUNT THAT THE BOY ASSAULTED HER AND SAYS SHE TOLD POLICE HE WAS MENTALLY ILL AND SAYS SHE WAS PROMISED BY ALEXANDRIA POLICE OFFICERS THAT HE WOULD BE TAKEN TO THE HOSPITAL.

SHE SAYS HER GRANDSON HAD A DEADLY FEAR OF POLICE, POSSIBLY BECAUSE OF HIS MENTAL ILLNESS AND HAS NEVER IN HIS LIFE LIFTED A HAND TO HURT HER WHICH IS A DIRECT CONFLICT OF THE POLICE REPORT.

WITNESSES WHO HAD GATHERED AT THE SCENE TOLD MAXINE JONES THAT THEY SAW AN ALEXANDRIA OFFICER STRIKE THE YOUNG MAN REPEATEDLY IN THE HEAD WHILE HE WAS HANDCUFFED WHILE PUTTING HIM IN THE SQUAD CAR.

EYES OPEN NEWS ALSO HAVE BEEN TOLD BY OUR SOURCES THAT YOUNG RICKS MAY HAVE BEEN TASED A SECOND TIME BY JAILERS AT THE RAPIDES PARISH JAIL WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE THAT HE WAS TASED ONLY MINUTES EARLIER BY ALEXANDRIA POLICE.

THIS IS THE SECOND TIME IN AS MANY YEARS THAT AN UNARMED BLACK MAN HAS DIED WHILE IN POLICE CUSTODY IN CENTRAL LOUISIANA AFTER BEING TASED.

TWENTY ONE YEAR OLD BARON "SCOOTER" PIKES , WHO WAS BLACK DIED IN WINNFIELD, LA BACK IN JANUARY 2008 AFTER BEING TASED 9 TIMES IN A 14 MINUTE PERIOD BY FORMER OFFICER SCOTT NUGENT, WHO IS WHITE. NUGENT OFFICER WAS FOUND NOT GUILTY BY A JURY OF 10 WHITES AND 2 BLACK IN NOVEMBER OF LAST YEAR. A CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATION CASE IS PENDING IN FEDERAL COURT.+
Posted by tha artivist at 5:26 PM 0 comments

Census Finds Hurricane Katrina Left New Orleans Richer, Whiter, Emptier

Census Finds Hurricane Katrina Left New Orleans Richer, Whiter, Emptier

By David Mildenberg - Feb 4, 2011
Five years after Hurricane Katrina drove Lena Johnson from New Orleans, her family’s home since the 1930s, she misses its food, music and Mardi Gras. And she never wants to live there again.
“It was like a bird leaving a cage,” said Johnson, 60, a New Orleans Chamber of Commerce employee for 24 years who left for Dallas and recently earned a college degree there. “I’m in Texas because there’s opportunity for me to grow. Home is still suffering.”

 

The extent of the exodus after the August 2005 disaster can be gauged by 2010 Census data released yesterday. New Orleans lost 140,845 residents, a drop of 29 percent from 2000. The percentage of black population fell to 60.2 percent from 67.3 percent. The loss in New Orleans translates into one fewer congressional seat for Louisiana -- now six instead of seven.

 

“The city is more affluent, more Latin and a little whiter than it was before Katrina,” said Jacques Morial, a community organizer whose father and brother were its first and third black mayors.

 

The storm, the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history, killed at least 1,330 people in Louisiana and Mississippi; 85 percent of New Orleans flooded after levees collapsed. The storm surge extended as far as 10 miles inland, displacing almost 200,000 residents, a congressional report in February 2006 found.


Read more »
Posted by tha artivist at 5:22 PM 0 comments

George Curry: Ronald Reagan...A Better Friend Of Blacks Than Obama?


Ronald Reagan: A Better Friend Of Blacks Than Obama?

By George E. Curry

There they go again. First, conservatives ranging from anti-affirmative action foe Ward Connerly, to combative talk show host Glenn Beck, claimed to be acting in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as they sought to dismantle everything he fought for. Now, one of Reagan’s sons has made the outlandish assertion that Reagan was a better friend of African-Americans than the nation’s first black president.

These people have no shame.

In an article that appeared on FoxNews.com the day we observe Dr. King’s birthday as a federal holiday, Michael Reagan wrote, “…The past two years have made one thing clear: Ronald Reagan was a far better friend to black Americans than Barack Obama has been.”

And he didn’t stop there.

Instead of Bill Clinton being known as the first black president, the younger Reagan wrote, “Well, I could make an even stronger case for my father, Ronald Reagan, as ‘our first black president.’” He said he could make such a case, but in deference to Obama, he decided he wouldn’t.

Well, as his father would say, let’s examine the Reagan record.

    * [1]While campaigning for governor of California, Reagan opposed that state’s Fair Housing Act, saying, “If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, he has a right to do so.”

    * Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

    * Reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Miss., which at the time was known for only one thing: the Ku Klux Klan murder of three civil rights workers. Reagan, using the code words of the day, said, “I believe in states rights.”

    * The Reagan Justice Department, unlike previous Republican and Democratic administrations, decided to stop negotiating specific goals and timetables in settling illegal discrimination cases.

    * Under Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights William Bradford Reynolds, the U.S. Department of Justice went to court to challenge voluntary affirmative action programs that had been agreed to by different parties.

    * Over the objection of Reagan, the Supreme Court upheld an Internal Revenue Service rule denying tax exemption to Bob Jones University, an institution that prohibited interracial dating and marriage.

    * Reagan vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act passed by Congress to overturn a Supreme Court ruling (Grove City v. Bell) that limited the remedies available to the federal government when going after private organizations that receive federal subsidies. Congress overrode Reagan’s veto.

    * The Reagan administration went to court to invalidate voluntary school desegregation programs, such as the one in Seattle.

    * Throughout his presidency, Reagan refused to take a stand against South Africa’s racist regime. When Congress voted for sanctions against the minority-ruled country, Reagan vetoed the measure. But Congress again overrode his veto. After one pro-apartheid speech, the normally mild-mannered Bishop Desmond Tutu said: “I found it quite nauseating. I think the West can go to hell…Your president is the pits as far as blacks are concerned. He sits there like the great, big white chief of old.”

    * Reagan slashed domestic programs for the poor, especially housing subsidies. According to Peter Dreier, a housing expert: “Reagan’s most dramatic cut was for low-income housing subsidies…Between 1980 and 1989, HUD’s budget authority was cut from $74 billion to $19 billion in constant dollars.”

    * Reagan didn’t recognize his lone black cabinet member responsible for carrying out the drastic housing reductions. At a reception for mayors, he approached HUD Secretary Sam Pierce and greeted him, “Hello, Mr. Mayor.”

    * He depicted poor women as “welfare queens” driving around in pink Cadillacs.

    * In his article, Michael Reagan noted that his father signed into law a bill making Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday a federal holiday. However, he neglected to say that Reagan signed the measure grudgingly, noting he did so because “Congress seemed bent on making it a national holiday.”

    * Reagan attempted to fire three members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights – Mary Frances Berry, Blandina Cardenas and Rabbi Murray Saltzman – because the members of the then-independent body were critical of his civil rights record.

    * Reagan’s most lasting legacy is the number of far-right judges he appointed to the federal bench. One – Robert Bork – was so extreme that the Senate rejected his nomination.

As proof that he wasn’t a racist, President Reagan often recalled the story of when two black members of his college football team were not allowed to stay in a hotel with their white teammates, he offered his parents’ Illinois home to the African-Americans.

Michael Reagan recounts that story yet again in his defense of his father. However, his quote reveals his father’s interest was not limited to the welfare of the two black teammates. The future president said that after the coach said all of the players would sleep on the bus if the black kids were not allowed to register at the hotel, Reagan then came up with his offer.

The son said, “Dad spoke up and offered an alternative: why not send Burgie and Jim to the Reagan home in Dixon, just 15 miles away? Dad’s parents, Jack and Nellie Reagan, would welcome his teammates – and the whole team would get a good night’s rest.”

Despite his devastating policies, President Reagan saw himself as a friend of African-Americans. In a 1989 interview with CBS News about his relationship with blacks, Reagan said, “One of the great things that I have suffered is this feeling that somehow I’m on the other side.”

It was more than a feeling; it was reality. And there’s nothing that Michael Reagan and other revisionists can say to alter the truth.

(George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, http://www.georgecurry.com/. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.)

Hear Bro. George Curry On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio:

Concerning Our Father, Brother & Friend, Mr. Ernest Withers:Reactions From The Press...Part 3
 http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2010/10/07/tha-artivist-presentswe-all-be-radio

2010 State Of The Black Union
“It Ain’t About Tavis, It’s About Us, & It's About Time!”
Posted by tha artivist at 4:56 PM 0 comments

George Curry: NFL's Coaching Diversity Means Everybody Wins


NFL's Coaching Diversity Means Everybody Wins
Posted on Sun, Feb. 6, 2011

It was considered major news four years ago when Lovie Smith's Chicago Bears squared off against the Indianapolis Colts, coached by Tony Dungy. It was the first time an African American coach - in this case, two black coaches - had led an NFL team to the Super Bowl.

Now another black coach, Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers, leads a team that will face the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl, the seventh time in the last 10 years that a team with a black head coach or general manager has reached the game. Next season, there will be eight minority coaches in the NFL, including seven African Americans. Of the four teams competing in the NFC and AFC championship games this season, two were coached by African Americans. That's a long way from 2002, when Dungy and Herman Edwards were the only black head coaches in the NFL.

How did the NFL make such dramatic progress?

Everybody points to the "Rooney Rule," named in honor of Steelers owner Dan Rooney, the chairman of the NFL owners' diversity committee. The rule requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for every head-coach vacancy. It was put into effect after two lawyers, Cyrus Mehri and Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., authored a report in 2002 documenting that African American NFL coaches were held to a higher standard than white coaches, even those with losing records.

The report found that the five blacks who had coached during the modern era routinely outperformed white coaches. In their first year, they averaged 2.7 more wins, even though they had inherited less successful teams. And when they were fired, they had won an average of 1.3 more games than white coaches who were dismissed.

Since 1920, the NFL has hired more than 400 head coaches. Of those, only six (a little more than 1 percent) were African Americans, the report noted. Although nearly 70 percent of the players in the NFL were black, only 6 percent of the head coaches and 28 percent of the offensive and defensive coordinators, often stepping-stone jobs to becoming a head coach, were black.

After the report was presented to NFL owners, with the implicit threat of litigation, they accepted the recommendation that a person of color be considered for each head-coach opening.

"Today, there are eight minority coaches - three hired this season - both of which are records. We went from zero black general managers to five. The guys who have gotten the opportunities have been a smashing success," Mehri said. "In the last five Super Bowls, there were five black head coaches. There have been two black general managers - Rod Graves of the Cardinals and Jerry Reese of the Giants. None of this would have happened but for the Rooney Rule. . . . What more powerful message can we send to this country than diversity is the key to success?"

The lessons of the NFL can be applied in non-sports settings, according to N. Jeremi Duru, a Temple University law professor and author of Advancing the Ball: Race, Reformation, and the Quest for Equal Coaching Opportunity in the NFL.

"What we have seen is that when you have that environment created by the diverse candidates slate, oftentimes you've got candidates that wouldn't have gotten a shot," he said. Duru cited Tomlin as an example.

"The Steelers have taken to heart this idea that you look far and wide," Duru explained. "You don't just look at what's in front of you, where you see Ken Whisenhunt and Russ Grimm" - assistant Steelers coaches considered the leading candidates to succeed Bill Cowher as head coach when he retired.

"Tomlin was one of the people they took a look at."

The look paid off. Tomlin took the Steelers to the playoffs in his first year, won the Super Bowl in his second season, and is in his second Super Bowl in three seasons.

Duru said expanding the pool of candidates to fill vacancies was a nonthreatening approach to diversity.

"There's no quota system in it," he explained. "It's just that one person gets an interview. There's no hiring mandate. Indeed, among interviewees, there's no requirement that there be only four candidates, one of whom must be of color. You can interview as many as you want. Therefore, there's no individual that's being excluded because this person of color is being included. There's nothing unfair about it."

Such an approach, he said, fosters a fairer workplace.

"If you explore a situation of one of those teams - take the Bears with Lovie Smith, or Mike Tomlin of the Steelers - you can see that you have expanded opportunity and gotten better," Duru said. "If you can do that in corporate America and you get a CEO you wouldn't have thought about and suddenly your profits are up, productivity is up, and inefficiency is down, I think pretty much anybody except a staunch racist would realize the benefits that flow from broad-minded thinking."

(George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, http://www.georgecurry.com/. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.)

Hear Bro. George Curry On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio:

Concerning Our Father, Brother & Friend, Mr. Ernest Withers:Reactions From The Press...Part 3
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Monday, February 07, 2011

Egypt, Economic Justice And The Rest Of Us


Egypt, Economic Justice And The Rest Of Us

People took it to the streets in Egypt on Tuesday, January 25, and they’ve been on the streets ever since.  They’ve been demanding the removal of President Hosni Mubarak, who now says he won’t seek reelection, and agitating for “freedom, democracy, and change.”  

Unemployment is high, economic opportunity is low, and people are so frustrated that they are taking it to the streets.  In Egypt, at least 40 percent of the population lives in poverty, on less than $2 a day.  The population of 80 million skews young, with an average age of 24 (in contrast, the average age in the U.S. is 36).   President Mubarak, at 82, seems out of touch with the population.

The gap is not really about age.  It is about class, about employment, about social and economic justice.   People are furious that the elites live well while others scratch and scramble for a living…. 

It is important to note that these protests are both political and economic.  People want democracy, and they also want an opportunity to participate in a vibrant economy.  They want to work, they want to thrive, and they are clear that the playing field is not level; that the elites extract surplus value from them, and that their lives will not change until the economic rules change….

I wonder about economic justice in the United States.  While we have the possibility of political participation that both Egypt and Tunisia lack, there are sectors of our population that feel as marginalized around employment issues.  

The official unemployment rate, of 9.4 percent in December, can translate to as high as 28 percent for African Americans. And yet, President Obama’s State of the Union Address addressed unemployment, but did not directly address issues of poverty.  Those who were listening had to be frustrated that our leader did not give even a nod to their pain.  Will this frustration ever spill into the streets?   Will we ever demand social and economic justice with the same vigor as the Egyptian people?   There are many differences between the situation in the U.S. and that in Egypt, but the frustration over poverty and economic injustice is universal.

(Julianne Malveaux is President of Bennett College for Women.  She can be reached at presbennett@bennett.edu.)

Posted by tha artivist at 12:50 AM 0 comments

Sunday, February 06, 2011

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio Special: Weds. 2/9/2011 @ 9pm c/ 10pm e*"Dick Gregory: Makin' It Plain & LIVE"

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topic:  "Dick Gregory: Makin It Plain & LIVE!!!"

 

About Bro. Dick Gregory
During the golden era of skinny-tie comedians, Dick Gregory was one of the biggest: a $12,000-a-week headliner on par with with Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen. Mr. Gregory influenced  Bill Cosby, who inherited his stage presence, as well as Richard Pryor, who expressed biting racial candor.

Mr. Gregory was a headliner in Las Vegas when the casinos were still largely segregated, played all the hot clubs in New York and San Francisco, published a best-selling 1964 autobiography, titled "Nigger," and became the first black guest invited to the sofa on Jack Paar's show, where he startled audiences by mixing obligatory family jokes with sharp political humor.

Mr. Gregory was, in his words, "the first flatfooter" -- no dancing, no shuffling -- to play white clubs, a break with the singing and dancing routines of his black predecessors. Wearing a white shirt and three-button Brooks Brothers suit, he balanced himself on a stool and talked in rolling sentences, punctuating his routine with long pauses as he slowly dragged on his cigarette.

But while he talked politics, Mr. Gregory wasn't a political comic. If anything, he had an antipolitical genius for personalizing, and then disarming, relations between races:
 "Down South they don't care how close I am as long as I don't get too big, and up North they don't care how big I am as long as I don't get too close."
"Don't just sit there and heckle me. Pay your check, burn your cross, and leave."

During the civil rights era, Mr. Gregory was friends with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers and Malcolm X, delivered food to N.A.A.C.P. offices in the South, marched in Selma, Ala., and was threatened many times and arrested more than once. In 1968, Mr. Gregory ran for president, after an unsuccessful bid to be mayor of Chicago. His candidacy was a stunt, but it was not a joke: on Election Day he received about 47,000 votes.

In the years after, he hit the health-food speaking circuit, pushing a raw food diet and something he called the Bahamian Diet Nutritional Drink; wrote alternative-history books; tried to intervene in the Iranian hostage crisis; and enjoyed an odd revival with his public campaign to help Walter Hudson, a 1,200-pound man, lose weight.

When not in Washington, where he has an apartment, or at his home in Plymouth, Mass., where he lives with Lily, his wife of 50 years, he is on the road doing around 200 shows a year. -- Bruce Headlam (New York Times)

 
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Posted by tha artivist at 3:57 AM 0 comments

Black AIDS Awareness Day: Commemorating Reggie Williams


"The Pied Piper Of HIV: The Woeful Tale Of Darnell 'Boss Man' McGee" By R2C2H2 Tha Artivist
 
Commemorating Reggie Williams

by Phill Wilson
NNPA News Service
2/3/2011

Monday of next week marks the 11th anniversary of Black AIDS Awareness Day, an annual commemoration that calls upon Black people to take action against HIV and AIDS.

Nobel prize winner Andre Gide once said, “Everything that needs to be said has already been said.  But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” The fact that 30 years into America’s AIDS epidemic, HIV/AIDS continues to rage in black communities and families, suggests that this thought could apply here. According to a 2009 Kaiser Family Foundation study, 58 percent of Black Americans know someone with HIV/AIDS, and for 38 percent of us, that “someone” is a close personal friend or family member.

But, rather than rehash statistics describing the magnitude of the epidemic and its disproportionate impact on black women, youth, injection drug users, and men who have sex with men, I’d like to ask you to think about the people in your life who are at risk of HIV, who are living with the virus or have already died of AIDS.

This week, I’m thinking about my friend Reggie Williams, who passed away 12 years ago on the date that now marks Black AIDS Awareness Day.  I used to call Reggie my “brister” – he was both brother and sister to me.  He was the person I went to when I needed to talk about my life without having to explain myself.  He didn’t need a glossary to understand my words when I talked about the difficulty of having a partner living with HIV or the challenges of living with HIV myself because my truth was his truth.

Reggie was a remarkable leader.  We co-founded the National Task Force on AIDS Prevention, and he was instrumental in not only raising awareness about the AIDS epidemic among black gay men, but in sounding the alarm on the AIDS epidemic in the black community at large. He was one of the first people who understood that if black gay men and intravenous drug users were dying from HIV, that even if we didn’t know it yet, black women and black children were dying as well.

Eventually he decided that the stigma and discrimination he faced in the United States was too much, so he moved to the Netherlands instead.  There, he demonstrated his skills and passion on the international stage.

Reggie died in Amsterdam in 1999; yet I miss him every day.

I use the memories and lessons I learned from him to get started in the morning and to help me stay focused and keep my eyes on the prize: the end of the AIDS pandemic.  Before he died I promised him that I would not stop until this epidemic was over.

So between now and Monday, think about someone that you know who has been impacted by the virus – or could be. Trust me, you have a Reggie Williams in your life.  There is someone in your world who would benefit by your decision to take a stand.

On the other hand, someone in your life will suffer if you do nothing. During this coming week, think about that person and do something – action is greater than apathy.

We can end the AIDS epidemic in Black America. But to do so, every day needs to be National Black AIDS Awareness Day.

(Phill Wilson is the President and CEO of the Black AIDS Institute, the only National HIV/AIDS think tank in the United States focused exclusively on Black people. He can be reached at PhillWilson@BlackAIDS.org)
Posted by tha artivist at 2:05 AM 0 comments

White Folks Need A White History Month Minus The White Lies...

White History 101By Gary Younge for The Nation Magazine

Whatever happened to James Blake? He is probably the most famous bus driver ever. And yet when he died at age 89 in March 2002, the few papers that bothered to note his passing in an obituary ran just a few hundred words of wire copy and moved on.

Given that February is Black History Month, it is worth taking a moment to ask how such a crucial figure could be so cruelly forgotten.

Blake was the Montgomery driver who told a row of black passengers: "Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats." Rosa Parks was one of those passengers. She made her stand and kept her seat. The rest, as they say, is history.

Well, black history anyway. We know how African-Americans boycotted city transit for thirteen months until the segregationists caved in. We know how the boycott launched the career of a previously unheard-of preacher called Martin Luther King Jr. and made Parks an icon. In schools, bookstores and on TV there is an awful lot of talk about them in February. But nary a word about Mr. Blake. That's because so much of Black History Month takes place in the passive voice. Leaders "get assassinated," patrons "are refused" service, women "are ejected" from public transport. So the objects of racism are many but the subjects few. In removing the instigators, the historians remove the agency and, in the final reckoning, the historical responsibility.

There is no month when we get to talk about Blake; no opportunity to learn the fates of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, who murdered Emmett Till; no time set aside to keep track of Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, whose false accusations of rape against the Scottsboro Boys sent five innocent young black men to jail.

Wouldn't everyone--particularly white people--benefit from becoming better acquainted with these histories? What we need, in short, is a White History Month.

For some this would be one racially themed history month too many. Criticisms of Black History Month from cynics, racists and purists are about as predictable as the arrival of February itself. But for all its obvious shortcomings, Black History Month helps clear a space to relate the truth about the past so we might better understand the present and navigate the future. Setting aside twenty-eight days for African-American history is insufficient, problematic and deserves our support for the same reason that affirmative action is insufficient, problematic and deserves our support. As one means to redress an entrenched imbalance, it gives us the chance to hear narratives that have been forgotten, hidden, distorted or mislaid. Like that of Claudette Colvin, the black Montgomery teenage activist who also refused to give up her seat, nine months before Rosa Parks, but was abandoned by the local civil rights establishment because she became pregnant and came from the wrong side of town.

The very notion of black and white history is both a theoretical nonsense and a practical necessity. There is no scientific or biological basis for race. It is a construct to explain the gruesome reality that racism built. But, logic suggests, you cannot have black history without white history. Of course, the trouble is not that we do not hear enough about white history but that what masquerades as history is more akin to mythology. The contradictions of how a "free world" could be founded on genocide, or how the battle for democracy during the Second World War could coincide with Japanese internment and segregation, for example, are rarely addressed.

"I am born with a past and to try to cut myself off from that past is to deform my present relationships," writes Alasdair MacIntyre in his book After Virtue. "The possession of an historical identity and the possession of a social identity coincide."

The purpose here is not to explore individual guilt--there are therapists for that--but collective responsibility. When it comes to excelling at military conflict, everyone lays claim to their national identity; people will say, "We won World War II." By contrast, those who say "we" raped black slaves, massacred Indians or excluded Jews from higher education are hard to come by. You cannot, it appears, hold anyone responsible for what their ancestors did that was bad or the privileges they enjoy as a result. Whoever it was, it definitely wasn't "us." This is one more version of white flight--a dash from the inconveniences bequeathed by inequality.

Freedom Fighter John Brown

So we do not need more white history, we need it better told.Settlement, slavery and segregation--propelled by economic expansion and justified by white supremacy--inform much of what the United States is today. The wealth they created helped bankroll its superpower status. The poverty they engendered persists. But white history does not mean racist history any more than black history means victim's history. Alongside Blake, Milam and Bryant, any decent White History Month would star insurrectionist John Brown; the Vanilla Ice of the Harlem Renaissance, Carl Van Vechten; civil rights workers Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi, during the Freedom Summer of 1964; and Viola Liuzzo, murdered during the Selma to Montgomery march. It would explain why Ronald Reagan kicked off his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, why George W. Bush chose Bob Jones University to revive his presidential hopes. It would tell the story of how Ruby Bates recanted her rape accusation in a bid to save the Scottsboro boys from the noose and how the Blakes never did reconcile themselves to the event that brought them infamy. "None of that mess they said was true," said his wife, Edna. "Everybody loved him. He was a good, true man and a churchgoer."

It would offer white people options and role models and all of us inspiration while relieving the burden on African-Americans to recast the nation's entire racial history in the shortest month of the year. White people, like black people, need access to a history that is accurate, honest and inclusive. Maybe then it would be easier for them, and the rest of us, to make history that is progressive, antiracist and inclusive.
Posted by tha artivist at 1:17 AM 1 comments
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