Saturday, January 08, 2011

Freed Scott Sisters Say They Aren't Bitter 'We're Free ... Thank God'

 
 Jamie (L) & Gladys Scott With Their Lawyer Chokwe Lumumba
Freed Scott Sisters Say They Aren't Bitter
'We're Free ... Thank God'

Elizabeth Crisp • elizabeth.crisp@clarionledger.com • January 8, 2011
The Clarion Ledger
With their life sentences for armed robbery suspended, Jamie and Gladys Scott say they aren't bitter about the 16 years they spent behind bars.

"We couldn't have made it in that prison being bitter," said Jamie Scott, 38.

The Scott sisters, who received life terms for their involvement in a 1993 armed robbery that netted between $11 and $200, left the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility Friday morning, driving through a crush of news media - waving and yelling "We're free" and "God bless y'all."

They were scheduled to reunite with their mother, Evelyn Rasco, and their children in Pensacola, Fla., Friday night. Jamie Scott has three children, ages 23, 20 and 17, and Gladys Scott has two, ages 22 and 15.

"I believe that's when I'm going to break down," Gladys Scott, 36, said during an afternoon news conference in Jackson. "That's when reality is going to sink in for me."

Both also are now grandmothers - something Jamie Scott said may take some time to adjust to.

"It's going to be weird - very weird," she said.

Jamie Scott's grandchildren are ages 3 and 5, and Gladys Scott's grandkids are ages 7 and 4.

The sisters are required to report to the Florida Department of Corrections by Jan. 18. They will remain on probation for the rest of their lives as part of their release.

Jamie Scott, who suffers from kidney failure and diabetes, was scheduled to have a dialysis treatment in Florida this morning.

In agreeing to release the sisters, Barbour noted the high cost - nearly $200,000 a year - of providing her dialysis in prison.

He conditioned Gladys Scott's release on her donating a kidney to her sister within the year.

"I'm praying to God that I'm a match," Gladys Scott said. "I was going to give it to her anyway - he didn't have to let me out of prison to do that."

The governor's office has declined to speculate on what will happen if Gladys Scott is unable to go through with the donation.

The sisters are trying to qualify for Medicaid to help pay for Jamie Scott's dialysis and the eventual transplant, and NAACP leaders said they had been working all day Friday to fast-track the paperwork.

Some doctors and hospitals have reached out about performing the operation, but nothing has been finalized, the Scott sister's attorney, Chokwe Lumumba, said.

Rasco has fought for years to have her daughters freed, gaining the attention of the NAACP, ACLU and several grass-roots organizations.

The case received national media attention in the months leading up to Barbour's decision to order their release.

Advocates have argued the back-to-back life sentences handed to the sisters by a jury were extreme.

During the sisters' first public appearance at Jackson's Masonic Temple on Friday afternoon, supporters cheered as the two walked into the room.

Several held signs, and some wore T-shirts emblazoned with Jamie and Gladys Scott's photos and "Free the Scott sisters."

"It's been a long, hard road, but we made it," Gladys Scott said.

On the advice of their attorneys, the Scott sisters did not discuss what happened Dec. 24, 1993 in Scott County.

They have maintained their innocence, but according to court testimony, they lured two acquaintances to a secluded area where three teens robbed them.

The assailants hit both men in their heads with a shotgun and took their wallets, according to the court records. The accomplices - all teens at the time - testified the sisters planned the robbery and persuaded them to assist.

Ben Jealous, national leader of the NAACP, said advocates will continue to seek a pardon.

"Everybody came together when they heard the call," he said. "We're still working."

Jamie and Gladys Scott would have been eligible for parole in 2014.

"I told my sister, 'Man gave us 2014, but God said, 'No', " Gladys Scott said.

She first learned of her impending release when she saw a news alert on TV.

"I just started screaming and hollering," she said.

Jamie Scott said she learned it from some of her fellow inmates in the kitchen.

"All the inmates started yelling 'You're free, You're free," she said.

Lumumba said many people are rejected by their families when they go to prison, but the situation was different with the Scott sisters - and that may have played a role in their release.

"(The family) continued to support their loved ones," he said. "Sixteen years is a long time."

Jamie Scott said she hopes to be an advocate for others in prison.

"I left people in that prison that I love with all my heart," she said. "They don't have a voice, so I'll be their voice."

To comment on this story, call Elizabeth Crisp at (601) 961-7303.

Visit The Official Scott Sisters Website:


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Still Strange Fruit: 'The Eyes Of Willie McGee' Author Alex Heard & Major Scott Sisters Update (2nd Hour)...
 
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***Check Out The Scott Sisters Update Featuring Sis. Nancy Lockhart 3/24/2010 (Starts In The 2nd Hour)***
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Tha Artivist: Don’t Let Mississippi Make Jamie Scott Into A Martyr Like Clyde Kennard

(Text) Tha Artivist: Don't Let Mississippi Make Jamie Scott Into A Martyr Like Clyde Kennard:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2010/04/tha-artivist-dont-let-mississippi-make.html

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Posted by tha artivist at 7:52 PM 0 comments

Friday, January 07, 2011

The Root: Let's Not Give Haley Barbour Too Much Praise

 
Let's Not Give Haley Barbour Too Much Praise
By: E.R. Shipp
Posted: December 31, 2010 at 12:47 PM

Pardoning the Scott sisters, two women serving life sentences for an $11 robbery they may not have committed, is hardly a profile in courage.

Haley Barbour, Mississippi's governor, wants everyone to believe he is the good guy in the case of two black women who have spent nearly 20 years in prison because of an $11 robbery that they may not have even committed.

Once the heat over his recent civil rights flap got a little too warm for his big backside, Barbour generously decided that they should be released on the condition that one donates a kidney to the other. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote in October about the cascading pleas for mercy: "This should be an easy call for a law-and-order governor who has, nevertheless, displayed a willingness to set free individuals convicted of far more serious crimes. Mr. Barbour has already pardoned four killers and suspended the life sentence of a fifth."

The judge who essentially sentenced the Scott sisters, Jamie and Gladys, to life in prison was downright lenient in 2005 when it came to sentencing one of the ringleaders of the lynching of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964 -- Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney. That despicable human being was given 60 years -- 20 years for each murder? -- but left free while appealing his conviction.

As Nina Simone would say if she were still among us and seeing what Judge Marcus Gordon has wrought, "Mississippi, goddam!" The NAACP, which has pushed hard for the release of the Scotts, is grateful that Jamie and Gladys are about to be freed (the process may take 45 days), but the NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, as well as other civil rights organizations -- and especially individual lawyers like Chokwe Lumumba -- want this kind of miscarriage of justice to never happen again.

The Scott sisters, like the Scottsboro Boys in Alabama decades ago, have learned all about rural Southern justice and the politics that control that justice. We must learn from this. And in 2010 and beyond, we must mean it when we say, "Never again!" Let's keep up with these sisters once they are on the outside; being symbols is not enough. Oprah, do you hear me? Reverends, do you hear me? Imams, do you hear me? Greeks, do you hear me? Professional athletes, do you hear me?

Barbour is not only a governor; he is the former national chair of the Republican Party and heads the GOP Governors Association. He clearly has his eyes on the 2012 race against President Obama or whoever is the Democratic candidate. So he's counting on black folks giving him some love -- and votes -- for releasing Gladys and Jamie Scott.

He is especially counting on white people -- conservative Republicans and White Citizens' Council alums and Tea Partiers -- to give him some love (and votes) because the sisters "no longer pose a threat to society." Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP, gives Barbour props for pressing the state parole board that did not -- does not -- want to release these women. "While it's been a long time coming, he could have waited if he wanted to." Most governors, Jealous said, are afraid to use their powers to grant clemency.

This is the statement Barbour issued:

… I have issued two orders indefinitely suspending the sentences of Jamie and Gladys Scott. In 1994, a Scott County jury convicted the sisters of armed robbery and imposed two life sentences for the crime. Their convictions and their sentences were affirmed by the Mississippi Court of Appeals in 1996.

To date, the sisters have served 16 years of their sentences and are eligible for parole in 2014. Jamie Scott requires regular dialysis, and her sister has offered to donate one of her kidneys to her. The Mississippi Department of Corrections believes the sisters no longer pose a threat to society. Their incarceration is no longer necessary for public safety or rehabilitation, and Jamie Scott's medical condition creates a substantial cost to the State of Mississippi.

The Mississippi Parole Board reviewed the sisters' request for a pardon and recommended that I neither pardon them, nor commute their sentence. At my request, the Parole Board subsequently reviewed whether the sisters should be granted an indefinite suspension of sentence, which is tantamount to parole, and have concurred with my decision to suspend their sentence indefinitely.

Well, la-di-da. Humanitarian. Tough on crime. Watching the bottom line. All in a stroke or two of the pen, after these women have been in prison since 1994 for what is less than the cost of a couple of sandwiches, some chips and a soda or two. And definitely less than the cost of the lives of three young men whose only crime was trying to register black folks to vote in 1964. Mississippi, goddam.

The kissing-up has already begun. One Mississippi legislator, Willie Simmons, told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger that Barbour had made a "courageous move." Jealous also considers him courageous for standing up to the parole board. I respect Jealous and others who see Barbour as a good guy in this drama, but I think that what Barbour did was about as courageous as my trying to make a chicken parmesan dinner for a friend's birthday the other night.

E.R. Shipp, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is a Southerner based in New York and a frequent contributor to The Root.

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Still Strange Fruit: 'The Eyes Of Willie McGee' Author Alex Heard & Major Scott Sisters Update (2nd Hour)...
 
All Eyes Are Still On Mississippi: Free The Scott Sisters!!!
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2009/09/17/Tha-Artivist-PresentsWE-ALL-BE-News-Radio

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***Check Out The Scott Sisters Update Featuring Sis. Nancy Lockhart 3/24/2010 (Starts In The 2nd Hour)***
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Tha Artivist: Don’t Let Mississippi Make Jamie Scott Into A Martyr Like Clyde Kennard

(Text) Tha Artivist: Don't Let Mississippi Make Jamie Scott Into A Martyr Like Clyde Kennard:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2010/04/tha-artivist-dont-let-mississippi-make.html

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Posted by tha artivist at 7:56 PM 0 comments

The Scott Sisters' "Debt To Society" And The New Jim Crow

 Jamie (L) & Gladys Scott With Their Lawyer Chokwe Lumumba

The Scott Sisters' "Debt To Society" And The New Jim Crow
Mother Jones
By James Ridgeway | Fri Jan. 7, 2011 1:49 PM PST

Jamie and Gladys Scott walked out of prison today [1]into the free world. As reported here [2]in March of last year, the sisters were convicted, on dubious grounds, of an $11 armed robbery, and sentenced to life in prison. Both sisters lost 17 years of their lives behind bars before Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour suspended the remainder of their draconian sentences [3]; Jamie also forfeited her health, and is now suffering from end-stage renal disease. Yet the sisters’ “debt to society” is still far from paid.

First and foremost, the conditions of their release stipulate that Gladys Scott must give Jamie Scott a kidney. From the very beginning of this medical scandal, in which Jamie’s health was further compromised by inadequate prison health care, Gladys offered her kidney for transplant to her sister. For the governor to mandate this donation is both unprecedented and unconscionable. As others have pointed out [4], releasing Jamie Scott before she has this costly life-saving surgery could also stand to save the state a considerable amount of money; a donation from her sister could save even more, and is apparently part of the price of their freedom.

At the same time, the Scott sisters will have to pay out money to maintain their freedom. Rather than pardoning Jamie and Gladys, Barbour suspended their sentences. According to Nancy Lockhart, a legal advocate who played an instrumental role in the sisters’ release, each will have to pay $52 a month for the administration of their parole in Florida, where their mother lives and where they plan to reside. Since they were serving life sentences, that means $624 a year for the rest of their lives. Both women are now in their thirties; if they live 40 more years, each will have paid the state $24,960. Of course, Jamie, in particular, will be lucky to live so long.

The consequence of failing to pay the fees charged for parole or probation can be a return to prison. As the Southern Center for Human Rights has documented [5], such fees are part of a larger system that adds up to what are in effect modern-day debtor’s prisons: 

    Contrary to what many people may believe, there are debtors’ prisons throughout the United States where people are imprisoned because they are too poor to pay fines and fees.

    The United States Supreme Court in Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983), held that courts cannot imprison a person for failure to pay a criminal fine unless the failure to pay was “willful.”  However, this constitutional commandment is often ignored.

    Courts impose substantial fines as punishment for petty crimes as well as more serious ones. Besides the fines, the courts are assessing more and more fees to help meet the costs of the ever-increasing size of the criminal justice system: fees for ankle bracelets for monitoring; fees for anger management classes; for drug tests, for crime victims’ funds, for crime laboratories, for court clerks, for legal representation, for various retirement funds, and for private probation companies that do nothing more than collect a check once a month.

    People who cannot afford the total amount assessed may be allowed to pay in monthly installments, but in many jurisdictions those payments must be accompanied by fees to a private probation company that collects them. A typical fee is $40 per month. People who lose their jobs or encounter unexpected family hardships and are unable to maintain payments may be jailed without any inquiry into their ability to pay or the willfulness of their failure to pay.

This system of imprisonment-by-poverty in turn fits into what author Michelle Alexander, among others, have called “The New Jim Crow” [6]–an America in which mass incarceration has become the new means of wielding control over poor African Americans. For more on how Mississippi and other southern states have historically used fines and imprisonment to extend the institution of slavery, see today’s post on the Prison Culture Blog [7].

This post also appears on Solitary Watch [8].
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***Check Out The Scott Sisters Update Featuring Sis. Nancy Lockhart 3/24/2010 (Starts In The 2nd Hour)***
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Tha Artivist: Don’t Let Mississippi Make Jamie Scott Into A Martyr Like Clyde Kennard

(Text) Tha Artivist: Don't Let Mississippi Make Jamie Scott Into A Martyr Like Clyde Kennard:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2010/04/tha-artivist-dont-let-mississippi-make.html

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Posted by tha artivist at 7:45 PM 0 comments

Who Shot Ya? Investigation Into Death Of Notorious B.I.G. Heats Up

Investigation Into Death Of Notorious B.I.G. Heats Up
By Ted Rowlands, CNN
January 7, 2011 2:03 p.m. EST

Los Angeles (CNN) -- A task force made up of local and federal law enforcement agencies is actively pursuing leads into the 1997 slaying of hip hop artist Christopher Wallace, better known as Biggie Smalls or Notorious B.I.G., according to two sources familiar with the investigation.

According to one law enforcement source, the investigation into the 13-year-old unsolved case was "reinvigorated" months ago as a result of new information, but the source would not elaborate further because of the ongoing investigation that includes the Los Angeles Police Department, L.A. County District Attorney's Office and the FBI.

On March 9, 1997, Wallace, 24, was shot and killed while riding in a Suburban that was driving away from a music industry party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles police said a lone gunman in a Chevy Impala pulled alongside the Suburban and opened fire on Wallace, who was in the passenger seat. Witnesses described the suspect as being an African-American man wearing a suit and bow tie.

The main theory behind shooting was payback in a so-called rap war between East and West Coast hip hop artists and their record companies- Bad Boy Entertainment in New York, which represented Wallace, and Death Row Records, headed by Marion "Suge" Knight, in Los Angeles. Six months earlier in Las Vegas, a gunman opened fire on a car driven by Knight, killing one of his top artists Tupac Shakur.

That murder remains unsolved also.

"East Coast was Biggie, West Coast was Tupac," Wallace's mother Voletta Wallace told a filmmaker in the 2002 documentary "Biggie and Tupac."

"Come on now, you're messing with lives here and that's exactly what happened. Two lives were lost as a result of what? Stupidity?" Voletta Wallace told the filmmaker.

Retired Los Angeles Police Detective Russell Poole, who worked on the Wallace case, told CNN that he believes Knight was behind the murder, even though the Death Row Records' boss was serving time on a probation violation at the time.

"Suge Knight ordered the hit," Poole said, adding that he believes it was arranged by Reggie Wright Jr., who headed security for Death Row Records.

Reggie Wright Jr. told CNN he had nothing to do with the murder, and Knight has repeatedly said he had nothing to do with the crime. Poole said he retired early from the LAPD, in part, because he was thwarted in following leads in the Wallace case involving police officers, some of whom worked off-duty for Death Row Records.

"I think I was getting too close to the truth," Poole said. "I think they feared that the truth would be a scandal."

One of the officers Poole said was involved is David Mack, who was sent to prison for robbing a bank in 1997, the same year Wallace was killed.

Poole said Mack owned the same type of car driven by the gunman who shot Wallace, and Poole said a friend of Mack's resembles a police sketch of the shooter.

CNN was unable to reach Mack for comment, but when allegations of his involvement in Wallace' slaying originally surfaced more than a decade ago, his criminal defense attorney Donald Re called the claims ridiculous.

Poole also assisted Wallace's family in their wrongful death lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department alleging a cover-up in the investigation.

Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks was the chief of police when Poole was investigating, and he told CNN the accusations about a police cover-up are "absurd."

"We would have never ignored a lead that could have helped us solve that murder," Parks said.

Perry Sanders, Voletta Wallace's attorney, told CNN the family's lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2002, was put on hold in April after Los Angeles police said turning over evidence from the case would interfere with a beefed up investigation.

Mack was released from federal prison on May 14.
Posted by tha artivist at 6:55 PM 0 comments

Scott Sisters' Mom Plans Homecoming. Daughters To Be Treated To Special Meals On Release

Mrs. Rasco with daughter Jamie & son

Scott Sisters' Mom Plans Homecoming
Daughters To Be Treated To Special Meals On Release
Molly Parker • mparker2@jackson.gannett.com • December 31, 2010
The Clarion Ledger

There will be collard greens for Jamie and homemade macaroni and cheese for Gladys.

Evelyn Rasco is preparing a simple, perfect homecoming for her daughters, who have been eating prison food for 16 years.

"I can't afford a party," Rasco said from her home of Pensacola, Fla., "so I'll probably cook them a dinner."

Those are the dishes the women liked years ago, says Rasco, who has been raising their combined five children. "God knows what else I'll cook."

Imprisoned for their involvement in a 1993 robbery, her daughters will go home to their children in Florida thanks to two orders that Gov. Haley Barbour issued Wednesday indefinitely suspending their sentences.

In doing so, Barbour cited the high price tag on Jamie Scott's regular dialysis treatment, which cost the state about $190,000. Both of Jamie's kidneys failed in January, a source of contention with Rasco.

"The prison contributed to everything that has happened to Jamie's health," Rasco said. "They could have prevented kidney failure."

The sisters have always maintained their innocence, though prosecutors said at trial they were masterminds in the armed robbery in rural Scott County.

According to court testimony, the sisters lured two acquaintances on Dec. 24, 1993, to a secluded area near Forest where three teens robbed them.

The assailants hit both men in their heads with a shotgun and took their wallets, according to the court record. The accomplices testified that the sisters planned the robbery and persuaded them to assist.

The estimated take from the robbery ranges from $11 to $200, but advocates of the Scott sisters have touted the $11 figure and many have questioned their involvement in the crime at all.

Read more »
Posted by tha artivist at 1:32 PM 0 comments

Scott Sisters Free Today. Mother Awaiting Daughters' Arrival In Fla.

Scott Sisters Free Today. 
Mother Awaiting Daughters' Arrival In Fla.
Elizabeth Crisp • elizabeth.crisp@clarionledger.com
The Clarion Ledger
1/7/2011
After 16 years in prison and countless pleas from across the country for their release, Jamie and Gladys Scott will leave the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility today.

"I feel real happy about them coming home," said their mother, Evelyn Rasco.

Rasco was busy Thursday preparing her house in Pensacola for her daughters' arrival. Outside, the national media already had descended on their neighborhood - a CNN truck was parked down the street and her phone had been "ringing off the hook," she said.

"I just want to make sure everything's together for when my children get home," Rasco said.

Last week, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour agreed to indefinitely suspend the life sentences the Scott sisters received for their involvement in a 1993 armed robbery that netted between $11 and $200.

The sisters have maintained their innocence in the case, but according to court testimony, they lured two acquaintances to a secluded area where three teens robbed them in Scott County.

The assailants hit both men in their heads with a shotgun and took their wallets, according to the court records. The accomplices testified the sisters planned the robbery and persuaded them to assist.

Advocates have touted the minimum $11 take in arguing the back-to-back life sentences handed to them by a jury were extreme. The sisters were not eligible for parole until 2014.

Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said he got word from Florida officials Wednesday afternoon that the two had been accepted to go to Pensacola, where their children also live.

Area judges, the district attorney and sheriff have been notified of the pending release, as procedure, he said.

In agreeing to release the sisters, Barbour noted the high cost - nearly $200,000 a year - of providing dialysis treatment to Jamie Scott, 38.

In what many have considered an unusual move, the governor conditioned Gladys Scott's release on her donating a kidney to her sister.

In a statement, Barbour appeared to downplay the kidney stipulation.

"(Gladys) asked for the opportunity to give her sister a kidney, and we're making that opportunity available to her," he said.

Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said he has never heard of an organ donation becoming a condition of release.


Read more »
Posted by tha artivist at 1:11 PM 0 comments

Gov. Barbour's Statement Regarding Release Of Scott Sisters


 Gov. Barbour's Statement Regarding Release Of Scott Sisters
"Today, I have issued two orders indefinitely
suspending the sentences of Jamie and Gladys Scott.
In 1994, a Scott County jury convicted the sisters of
armed robbery and imposed two life sentences for
the crime. Their convictions and their sentences
were affirmed by the Mississippi Court of Appeals in
1996.

“To date, the sisters have served 16 years of their
sentences and are eligible for parole in 2014. Jamie
Scott requires regular dialysis, and her sister has
offered to donate one of her kidneys to her. The
Mississippi Department of Corrections believes the
sisters no longer pose a threat to society. Their
incarceration is no longer necessary for public
safety or rehabilitation, and Jamie Scott’s medical
condition creates a substantial cost to the State of
Mississippi.

“The Mississippi Parole Board reviewed the sisters’
request for a pardon and recommended that I
neither pardon them, nor commute their sentence.
At my request, the Parole Board subsequently
reviewed whether the sisters should be granted an
indefinite suspension of sentence, which is
tantamount to parole, and have concurred with my
decision to suspend their sentences indefinitely.

“Gladys Scott’s release is conditioned on her
donating one of her kidneys to her sister, a
procedure which should be scheduled with
urgency. The release date for Jamie and Gladys Scott
is a matter for the Department of Corrections.

“I would like to thank Representative George Flaggs,
Senator John Horne, Senator Willie Simmons, and
Representative Credell Calhoun for their leadership
on this issue. These legislators, along with former
Mayor Charles Evers, have been in regular contact
with me and my staff while the sisters’ petition has
been under review."”
 
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Still Strange Fruit: 'The Eyes Of Willie McGee' Author Alex Heard & Major Scott Sisters Update (2nd Hour)...
 
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***Check Out The Scott Sisters Update Featuring Sis. Nancy Lockhart 3/24/2010 (Starts In The 2nd Hour)***
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Tha Artivist: Don’t Let Mississippi Make Jamie Scott Into A Martyr Like Clyde Kennard

(Text) Tha Artivist: Don't Let Mississippi Make Jamie Scott Into A Martyr Like Clyde Kennard:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2010/04/tha-artivist-dont-let-mississippi-make.html

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Posted by tha artivist at 12:59 PM 0 comments

Thursday, January 06, 2011

A Homeless Voice Has The Sound Of A Fairy Tale

A Homeless Voice Has The Sound Of A Fairy Tale
Wednesday, January 5, 2011  02:54 AM
By Kevin Joy
The Columbus Dispatch

DORAL CHENOWETH III | DISPATCH
Ted Williams holds up his sign along the Hudson Street ramp off northbound I-71 | Watch the video
 
Live chat

    * Chat with videographer Doral Chenoweth III about Ted Williams and the video at 1:30 p.m. today

Audio

    * Excerpts of Ted Williams on WNCI's Dave & Jimmy show this morning

VIDEO

    * Watch Ted Williams demonstrate his "God-given gift of voice"

That voice.

The smooth baritone of Ted Williams became an Internet sensation yesterday when a Dispatch.com video compelled millions of viewers to take a closer look (and listen) at a homeless panhandler who sometimes works the Hudson Street ramp off northbound I-71.

Carrying a hand-scrawled cardboard sign touting his "God-given gift of voice," an otherwise ragged Williams was recorded last month offering up his radiant pipes to an idle commuter for spare change.

When you're listening to nothing but the best of oldies, you're listening to Magic 98.9!

That voice delivered.

Eclipsing the initial awe over Williams' "gift" were the scores of phone calls that followed - media inquiries and potential job offers that could ultimately provide the one-time radio announcer with a second chance.

"My boss said to me: 'If you don't get him hired, you're fired,'" said Kevin McLoughlin, director of post-production films for the National Football League. He contacted The Dispatch last night in search of Williams.

"I can't make any guarantees, but I'd love to get him some work."

The 97-second clip - posted Monday on Dispatch.com and copied yesterday morning to YouTube by an anonymous user - was filmed on a whim by Dispatch videographer Doral Chenoweth III.

As blog entries, Facebook posts and Twitter exclamations turned viral, so did the calls from news producers at ABC, CBS and CNN, as well as national talk shows.

"We run into these guys at the exit ramps and we pretty much ignore them," said Chenoweth, who was en route with his wife to the grocery store when he first saw Williams. "This guy was using his talent."

We'll be back with more, right after these words!

That voice, however, remained elusive yesterday.

A sporadic resident of a camp behind an abandoned Hudson Street gas station, Williams had declined offers to relocate to a shelter, said Ken Andrews, a volunteer for Mount Carmel Outreach and a 15-year veteran of local homeless-assistance work.

"He's a good guy," Andrews said. "But we never knew he had 'the voice.'"

Several visits to the site and the highway ramp yielded no sign of Williams. Yet he supposedly was found by the promotions staff at radio station WNCI (97.9 FM), which will host the virtual star as a guest at 7:15a.m. today on the Morning Zoo.

WNCI program director Tony Florentino said the station wasn't housing Williams or providing a ride to the Downtown studio, which has since fielded queries from ESPN and MTV. "A friend" providing temporary housing didn't give a phone number, he said.

"We're on pins and needles," Florentino said. "I think he really has no idea how big this is going to be."

Finding an agent to navigate the undoubtedly complex - and predatory - landscape ahead is vital, said Shane Cormier, a Los Angeles agency owner whose clients have done voice-over work for Ford, Sprint and Western Union. He sent an e-mail to The Dispatch yesterday.

"We could make him a millionaire," Cormier said.

WBNS-TV (Channel 10) wants Williams to provide narration for promotional spots during its first-ever "One Day to End Homelessness" telethon on Jan. 31, said Frank Willson, director of operations. (WBNS is owned by The Dispatch Printing Company, which also owns The Dispatch.)

And a $10,000 offer for voice-over work for the Ohio Credit Union League will be presented this morning on WNCI, where camera crews from NBC's Today show and other national networks are expected to be on hand.

Although such work is contingent on a background check, league spokesman Patrick Harris said, "his voice would be a perfect fit for us."

Don't forget: Tomorrow morning is your chance to win!

That voice has little known history.

The native of Brooklyn, N.Y., became infatuated with radio at age 14 during a field trip that included a talk with a station announcer who looked nothing like his voice would suggest.

"He said to me: 'Radio is defined (as) theater of mind,'" Williams says on the Dispatch video. "I can't be an actor; I can't be an on-air (television) personality.

"The voice became something of a development."

Williams says he attended broadcasting school but doesn't elaborate. He once worked filling in on overnight shifts in Columbus at WVKO (1580 AM), a former soul-music station now offering Catholic programming.

Problems with drugs, alcohol and "a few other things" derailed his ambitions long ago, he says, but he recently marked two years of sobriety.

"I'm trying hard to get it back," Williams says.

Watch Family Guy , weeknights at 7:30 on Fox 28!

Listen closely.

That voice could be his.
kjoy@dispatch.com
Posted by tha artivist at 8:10 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio Video Promo: The Best Damn Scott Sisters Show Evar!

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

January 2011 Theme: Fight The Power!

Air Date: Weds. January 5, 2011


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

Call-in Number: 646-652-4593

 The Best Damn Scott Sisters Show Evar!
Posted by tha artivist at 11:20 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio Special: Weds. 1/5/2011 @ 9pm c/ 10pm e*The Best Damn Scott Sisters Show Evar!

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!
January 2011 Theme: Fight The Power!

Air Date: Weds. January 5, 2011


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

Call-in Number: 646-652-4593

Show:

***
topic: The Best Damn Scott Sisters Show Evar!



Panel Discussion: The Scott Sisters Saga...Free At Last??? Final Epilogue Or New Beginning?


Our Featured & Honorable Guests...

1.) Sis. Evelyn Rasco, The Mother Of The Scott Sisters

Mrs. Rasco, Jamie + her older Brother

***

2.) Bro. Chokwe Lumumba, Renowned Civil Rights Activist & The Scott Sisters Lawyer



***

3.) Sis. Nancy Lockhart, Early Advocate, Strategist & Confidante For The Scott Sisters

***

 4.) Bro. Charles Evers, Civil Rights Legend, Entrepreneur & Brother Of Civil Rights Martyr Medgar Evers

***

5.) Sis. Jaribu Hill
Founder & Executive Director
The Mississippi Workers' Center For Human Rights

***

5.) You! This Is A Live Call-In Show...Join The Conversation!


Visit The Official Scott Sisters Website:
http://www.freethescottsisters.blogspot.com


Listen To The W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio Specials:

Still Strange Fruit: 'The Eyes Of Willie McGee' Author Alex Heard & Major Scott Sisters Update (2nd Hour)...
 
All Eyes Are Still On Mississippi: Free The Scott Sisters!!!
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2009/09/17/Tha-Artivist-PresentsWE-ALL-BE-News-Radio

Also On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio...
***Check Out The Scott Sisters Update Featuring Sis. Nancy Lockhart 3/24/2010 (Starts In The 2nd Hour)***
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Tha Artivist: Don’t Let Mississippi Make Jamie Scott Into A Martyr Like Clyde Kennard

(Text) Tha Artivist: Don't Let Mississippi Make Jamie Scott Into A Martyr Like Clyde Kennard:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2010/04/tha-artivist-dont-let-mississippi-make.html

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

***


Tha Artivist

 AMPLIFY W.E. A.L.L. B.E.!

***

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

***
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See Also...




"Real Talk With Tha Artivist" TV Show On Memphis Comcast Channel 17








Mondays @ 8pm Central


***


~~~~~~

Buy The Award Winning James Reese Europe: Jazz Lieutenant




*Named To The Smithsonian Institute's Jazz Books For Kids And Young Adults List*


Official Website:



Buy The Book @ Amazon.com



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Planning & Preparing For College



$ Millions Of Dollars In Scholarships, Internships & Job Offers $ Please Visit
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Advertise With W.E. A.L.L. B.E.!!!
Affordable Rates...$Incredible Returns$

***For More Info & Quotes Please Contact Us:
e-mail: r2c2h2@gmail.com
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***Radio Free Dixie For The 21st Century***
Posted by tha artivist at 12:09 AM 0 comments

Monday, January 03, 2011

More Scott Sisters...NY Times: For Two Sisters, The End Of An Ordeal

For Two Sisters, The End Of An Ordeal
By BOB HERBERT
NY Times
December 31, 2010

I got a call on New Year’s Eve from Gladys Scott, which was a terrific way for 2010 to end.

As insane as it may seem, Gladys and her sister, Jamie, are each serving consecutive life sentences in a state prison in Mississippi for their alleged role in a robbery in 1993 in which no one was hurt and $11 supposedly was taken.

Gladys was on the phone, excited and relieved, because Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi had agreed to suspend the prison terms.

“I’ve waited so long for this day to come,” she said.

I was happy for the Scott sisters and deeply moved as Gladys spoke of how desperately she wanted to “just hold” her two children and her mother, who live in Florida. But I couldn’t help thinking that right up until the present moment she and Jamie have been treated coldly and disrespectfully by the governor and other state officials. It’s as if the authorities have found it impossible to hide their disdain, their contempt, for the two women.

The prison terms were suspended — not commuted — on the condition that Gladys donate a kidney to Jamie, who is seriously ill with diabetes and high blood pressure and receives dialysis at least three times a week. Gladys had long expressed a desire to donate a kidney to her sister, but to make that a condition of her release was unnecessary, mean-spirited, inhumane and potentially coercive. It was a low thing to do.

Governor Barbour did not offer any expression of concern for Jamie’s health in his statement announcing the sentence suspension.

He said of the sisters: “Their incarceration is no longer necessary for public safety or rehabilitation, and Jamie Scott’s medical condition creates a substantial cost to the state of Mississippi.”

By all means, get those medical costs off the books if you can.

I asked Gladys how she had learned that she was to be released. “Oh, I saw it while I was looking at the news on television,” she said.

The authorities hadn’t bothered to even tell the sisters. After all, who are they? As Gladys put it, “Nobody told me a thing.”

I asked if she had seen Jamie, who is in another section of the prison, since the governor’s decision had been announced. She said no one had tried to get the two of them together for even a telephone conversation.

“I haven’t seen her or heard from her,” Gladys said. “I want to see her. I want to see how she’s doing and take care of her.”

I am not surprised at Governor Barbour’s behavior. He’s not the first person who comes to mind when I think of admirable public officials. The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Miss., noted that the governor had been on the radio this week asserting that there was hardly anyone in prison who didn’t deserve to be there. It’s an interesting comment from a governor who has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to free prisoners convicted of the most heinous crimes.

The Jackson Free Press, an alternative weekly, and Slate magazine have noted that Mr. Barbour has pardoned four killers and suspended the life sentence of a fifth. So cold-blooded murder is no reason, in Mr. Barbour’s view, to keep the prison doors closed.

This is also a governor who said recently, while reminiscing about the civil rights struggle and the treatment of blacks in his hometown of Yazoo City, Miss., in the 1960s: “I just don’t remember it being that bad.” The comment was in an article in The Weekly Standard in which the governor managed to find some complimentary things to say about the rabidly racist White Citizens Councils.

Faced with heavy and widespread criticism, he later pulled back on the comments, describing the era as “difficult and painful” and the councils as “indefensible.”

The only reason the Scott sisters have gotten any relief at all is because of an extraordinary network of supporters who campaigned relentlessly over several years on their behalf. Ben Jealous, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., emerged as one of the leaders of the network. The concerted effort finally paid off.

Gladys Scott said her 16 years in prison have been extremely difficult and that she had gotten depressed from time to time but had not given up hope. “It was a very bad experience, ” she said.

What is likely to get lost in the story of the Scott sisters finally being freed is just how hideous and how outlandish their experience really was. How can it be possible for individuals with no prior criminal record to be sentenced to two consecutive life terms for a crime in which no one was hurt and $11 was taken? Who had it in for them, and why was that allowed to happen?

The Scott sisters may go free, but they will never receive justice.

***

Listen To The W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio Specials:

Still Strange Fruit: 'The Eyes Of Willie McGee' Author Alex Heard & Major Scott Sisters Update (2nd Hour)...
 
All Eyes Are Still On Mississippi: Free The Scott Sisters!!!
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2009/09/17/Tha-Artivist-PresentsWE-ALL-BE-News-Radio

Also On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio...
***Check Out The Scott Sisters Update Featuring Sis. Nancy Lockhart 3/24/2010 (Starts In The 2nd Hour)***
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Tha Artivist: Don’t Let Mississippi Make Jamie Scott Into A Martyr Like Clyde Kennard

(Text) Tha Artivist: Don't Let Mississippi Make Jamie Scott Into A Martyr Like Clyde Kennard:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2010/04/tha-artivist-dont-let-mississippi-make.html

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

Posted by tha artivist at 9:17 PM 0 comments

Why Women Should Not Join The U.S. Military: Pfc. Lavena Johnson

Pfc. LaVena Johnson - The Silent Truth



For More Info On Case Please Visit:
http://www.lavenajohnson.com/

Rape Victim’s Death Ruled “Suicide” By Army — Henry Waxman, Where Are You?
By: Jane Hamsher Monday July 28, 2008

The Jamie Leigh Jones-Halliburton rape case was horrific, but what happened to PFC Lavena Johnson in Iraq in 2005 was many orders of magnitudes worse.

The parents of the young Missouri woman were told that she died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds, and her death was ruled a suicide. But her physician father became suspicious after looking at injuries to the body:

After two years of requesting documents, one set of papers provided by the Army included a xerox copy of a CD. Wondering why the xerox copy was in the documents, Dr. Johnson requested the CD itself. With help from his local Congressional representative, the US Army finally complied. When Dr. Johnson viewed the CD, he was shocked to see photographs taken by Army investigators of his daughter’s body as it lay where her body had been found, as well as other photographs of her disrobed body taken during the investigation.

The photographs revealed that Lavena, a small woman, barely 5 feet tall and weighing less than 100 pounds, had been struck in the face with a blunt instrument, perhaps a weapon stock. Her nose was broken and her teeth knocked backwards. One elbow was distended. The back of her clothes had debris on them indicating she had been dragged from one location to another. The photographs of her disrobed body showed bruises, scratch marks and teeth imprints on the upper part of her body. The right side of her back as well as her right hand had been burned apparently from a flammable liquid poured on her and then lighted. The photographs of her genital area revealed massive bruising and lacerations. A corrosive liquid had been poured into her genital area, probably to destroy DNA evidence of sexual assault.

Despite the bruises, scratches, teeth imprints and burns on her body, Lavena was found completely dressed in the burning tent. There was a blood trail from outside a contractor’s tent to inside the tent. She apparently had been dressed after the attack and her attacker placed her body into the tent and set it on fire.

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio: Justice For Pfc. LaVena Johnson...Murdered Soldier's Father Speaks Out For Truth & Justice In Military Cover-Up!!!

Posted by tha artivist at 7:45 PM 0 comments

Sunday, January 02, 2011

Happy New Year 2011 From W.E. A.L.L. B.E.!


Happy New Year! May this year bring u ever closer to achieving ur goals, manifesting dreams and realizing the greatness that resides within. May u find the courage to live the realest u without any apologies, regrets or restraints. May u find love in all its forms unlimited and inviting. If u r ever n doubt know that the person who sent this still believes and hearts u madly. In other words damn it call me! ~R2C2H2 Tha Artivist a.k.a. The Founder Of W.E. A.L.L. B.E.

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

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