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Former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. Released to Home Confinement in Washington by Frederick H. Lowe

June 22, 2015

Former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. Released to Home Confinement in Washington
By Frederick H. Lowe

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Former U. S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., son of civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, was released June 22  from a Baltimore-area halfway house to his Washington, D.C., home to complete the remainder of his prison sentence, a Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesperson tells NorthStar News Today.

"Former Congressman Jackson is now under home confinement to complete the rest of his sentence, which ends September 20, 2015," said BOP spokesman Edmond Ross.

Jackson, who represented Chicago's 2nd Congressional District, entered a halfway house on March 26, 2015, after serving prison terms in Butner, N.C. and Montgomery, Ala.

Jackson reported to a federal prison in Butner Oct. 29, 2013, to begin serving a 30-month sentence. He pled guilty to misusing $750,000 of his campaign funds. He later was transferred to a federal prison in Montgomery.

Before resigning from Congress in 2012, Jackson, a rising star in the Democratic Party, represented the 2nd Congressional District 17 years. The district includes part of Chicago's South Side and parts of the South Suburbs.

His wife, Sandi or Sandra, a former Chicago alderman, was sentenced to one year in prison for filing false tax returns that failed to report the campaign money as income. The couple has two young children.

Under a plea deal, a judge ordered Mrs. Jackson to report to prison 30 days after her husband is released to reduce the impact on their two children.

Jesse Jackson Jr. cannot leave his house without prior permission from the Bureau of Prisons, Ross said. Ross added, "Jackson is under supervision 24/7."

Civil Rights Groups Announce “America’s Journey for Justice March” by Zenitha Prince

June 21, 2015

Civil Rights Groups Announce “America’s Journey for Justice March”
By Zenitha Prince
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National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) President and CEO Cornell William Brooks recent announced Journey for Justice, an 860-mile march from Selma, Ala., to Washington, DC to highlight vulnerable communities subject to regressive voting rights tactics. 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - With the Lincoln Memorial towering behind him, NAACP President and CEO Cornell Brooks, joined by leaders of a broad coalition of partners, announced “America’s Journey for Justice,” a historic march across the country to focus national attention on voting rights and other pressing human and civil rights issues.

Under the unifying theme “Our Lives, Our Votes, Our Jobs, Our Schools Matter,” representatives of the Democracy Initiative, Communications Workers of America, Common Cause, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, 1199 SEIU, The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Sierra Club, National Bar Association, Black Women’s Roundtable and National Congress of Black Women and other supporters will march while participating in nationwide demonstrations, teach-ins and in a #JusticeSummer social media campaign.

The 860-mile journey will begin in Selma, Ala. Aug. 1. Selma is the city where 50 years ago another historic march changed the civil rights landscape forever, but also in a state which, more recently, brought the Shelby v. Holder case to the Supreme Court resulting in the striking down of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. It will end 40 days later in early September in Washington, DC.

“We gather in the shadow of Lincoln, we find ourselves at a perilous point in history—what some call, a third reconstruction,” Brooks said. “We are facing opposition by adversaries of change, those determined to turn back the clock on progress and stop the momentum of a changing tide of American demographics, those who chose to stand in the way of achieving a fairer, more just America.”

Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human, echoed Brooks’ concerns.

“2015 is a very troubling year for our democracy and our nation’s promise of dignity and equality for all. On nearly every indicator of progress, people of color are falling further behind: Our schools are more segregated, our levels of unemployment continue to be unacceptably high, we face continued discrimination in voting, and our incarceration rates have increased exponentially,” he said. “In the midst of political grandstanding and gridlock on a host of important issues, we cannot rest on historic accomplishments; we must keep on keeping on.”

“Our members are definitely in!” said E. Faye Williams, Esq., president and CEO National Congress of Black Women. “We are sick and tired of being left out of the prosperity others enjoy in this country. This journey, with its broad coalition of allies, has great potential for awakening those who’ve slept through the efforts of so many to bring about justice and equality for all. Many of our people haven’t even noticed the losses we have suffered and how many of the hard fought rights we once had that are no longer ours. We’re not just fighting to gain new rights; we are fighting to hold onto the ones we do have, and to regain the ones we once had.”

“America’s Journey” will focus on and seek solutions to an array of issues, including criminal justice reform, strengthening of voting rights protections, protecting the integrity of the electoral process from special interest hijackers, ensuring equitable access to quality education and stopping the flow of children of color in the school to prison pipeline. And, the range of the initiative’s interests is reflected in the coalition partners, which included, for example, the Sierra Club.

“Justice is essential when we’re up against a climate crisis that is bigger than us all and affects us all, despite our race, ethnicity, or other background,” said Aaron Mair, Sierra Club president. “In fact, the climate crisis makes no such distinctions. The Sierra Club is proud to join the NAACP this summer not only to call for environmental justice, but also for the social justice that unites us.”

University of Virginia Honor Student Talks Arrest, Future by Joey Matthews

June 21, 2015

University of Virginia Honor Student Talks Arrest, Future
By Joey Matthews

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Martese Johnson

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Blooded Martese Johnson during arrest. Facebook Photo

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Martese Johnson still has two scars on his forehead and one under his left eye.

The rising fourth-year University of Virginia honors student also bears deep emotional wounds, for which he has undergone counseling.

The scars are reminders to Johnson of what can happen to African-American males when they are confronted by white law enforcement officers in what would seem to be even the most routine of circumstances.

Three months after he was slammed face first onto the pavement during a questionable arrest by three white Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control officers outside a Charlottesville pub, memories of that night still haunt him.

“I don’t think I’ll ever fully get past it,” Johnson told the Free Press on Tuesday. “I think it will last the rest of my life.

“Regardless of what I do, someone will always know me for this incident, personally or professionally,” he added.

Johnson was charged with public intoxication and obstruction of justice — both misdemeanors — after his violent takedown on March 17. Prosecutors announced on June 12 that they were dropping the charges.

Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman says he dropped the charges after determining Johnson “had done nothing wrong” before ABC agents confronted him to determine if he was using a fake I.D. or was intoxicated.

He said he could have charged Johnson with resisting detention, but decided that trying to slap the young man with a criminal record would “not be right.”

Johnson, who recently turned 21, spoke from Washington, where he is completing an internship this summer with the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank. He said he focuses on issues pertinent to millennials, such as criminal justice reform, climate change and campus sexual assault.

Johnson discussed the night of his very public arrest.

“I was not drunk,” Johnson said.

Images of his bloodied face spread via social media, sparking local and national outrage and demonstrations.

Johnson said that at the time, he was well aware of the highly publicized deaths of black males by law enforcement officers in locales such as Ferguson, Mo., New York City, Cleveland and North Charleston, S.C.

“I look at those situations and feel blessed I’m still alive,” he said in retrospect. “When they took me down, I could have hit the pavement in a different way and things could have turned out much differently.”

Johnson said his attorney, Daniel Watkins of the Richmond-based Williams Mullen law firm, sent him a text message before they were to meet last week to go to the Charlottesville court.

“At first, I thought something had gone wrong,” Johnson said. “When he told me the news, I paused for a second. But because I was really excited, I had to scream.”

Watkins told the Free Press shortly after a press conference outside the courthouse last Friday, “I’m happy with the result. We’re happy that justice was served.”

George Keith Martin, rector of the University of Virginia, concurred.

“Martese is a fine young man with a very bright future. I wish him well in his fourth year at U.Va., and I am pleased that the cloud of the ABC charges has been lifted,” said Mr. Martin, who also is managing partner of McGuire Woods’ Richmond office.

Chapman, the Charlottesville commonwealth’s attorney, also said he would not pursue charges against the ABC agents involved. He said after reviewing an investigation by the Virginia State Police that involved interviews with 52 people, including 15 witnesses to the bloody arrest, he found the ABC agents acted properly. He said the agents had authority to detain Johnson and that he found no indication they acted with “malice or racial animosity” in their handling of the situation.

Chapman also noted that Johnson resisted when they sought to handcuff him.

In response to the incident, Gov. Terry McAuliffe ordered the State Police investigation. He also issued an executive order requiring retraining by Sept. 1 of all ABC agents in “use of force, cultural diversity, effective interaction with youth and young adults and community policing.”

Perry Hicks, a Richmond security officer and former special court appointed conservator of the peace, said he believes Chapman’s office cleared the officers to “establish a positive defense against what will be any possible civil litigation” on Mr. Johnson’s behalf.

“Had not social media video of Martese’s arrest gone viral, still another young Black male would have been convicted of crimes based on fallacious law enforcement testimony,” he said.

Watkins would not say if a civil lawsuit on Johnson’s behalf is being considered.

Johnson said he did not necessarily want the officers to be charged criminally, but he believes racism played a large role in the way he was treated.

“I think those officers should endure some form of repercussion,” he said. “It’s not my priority for those officers to be charged because, ultimately, the way those officers treated me is a product of larger societal issues.

“Had they not been taught the way their parents taught them, had they not had the interactions that they did throughout their lives, perhaps they would not have treated me the way they did,” he added.

He said the officers became quiet when they saw how badly he was bleeding. He then was shackled, taken to an ambulance and driven to a nearby hospital, where he received 10 stitches in his face, he said.

He said he remained at the police station until about 6:30 the next morning, then he was released. He said police administered a breathalyzer test, the result of which was undeterminable because of equipment problems.

After a short nap when he arrived home, he awoke to find more than 300 text messages.

Johnson said he received dozens of interview requests including from national TV and news shows.

“I had always loved attention until this happened,” he said.

Demonstrations, led mostly by African-Americans students, ensued on and around the U.Va. campus, calling for justice for Johnson. They mirrored “Black Lives Matter” demonstrations around the country that call for law enforcement officers to wear body cameras, undergo anti-bias training, institute community policing policies and for an end to racism in the criminal justice system.

Johnson said he wouldn’t wish what happened to him on anyone else, but said he is willing to serve as one of the faces of police brutality if it helps prevent future incidents against African-Americans.

“If there had to be anyone at my university that this happened to, I’m happy that it’s me,” he said. “I fear that there could be a student who is a great person, but might not be as well known as I am, and their story might never have been told or they might not have gotten the support that I did.”

The incident, he said, has further fueled his ambition to help others. He has a double major in Italian and media studies and would like to pursue a career in consulting after he graduates, with a focus on social issues.

He also said he’d like to make enough money “to help others.” The experience with the police has whet his appetite to run for office one day.

He has been a leader on the campus since arriving from his hometown of Chicago.

He has been a member of the U.Va. Honor Committee for the past two years. For the last three, he has served as leadership development chair of the Black Student Alliance and also has been vice polemarch (vice president) of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.

Most recently, Johnson was chosen to moderate “Sustained Dialogue,” a group of about 20 students who will interact with students around the world to discuss current issues.

 


2016 Campaign: Same Issues as 'Black Politics at the Crossroads' - 1972 By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III

June 22, 2015

2016 Campaign: Same Issues as 'Black Politics at the Crossroads' - 1972
By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III

NEWS ANALYSIS

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(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “Our cities are crime-haunted dying grounds. Huge sectors of our youth -- and countless others -- face permanent unemployment. Those of us who work find our paychecks able to purchase less and less. Neither the courts nor the prisons contribute to anything resembling justice or reformation. The schools are unable -- or unwilling -- to educate our children for the real world of our struggles. Meanwhile, the officially approved epidemic of drugs threatens to wipe out the minds and strength of our best young warriors.” THE BLACK AGENDA - The Gary Declaration: Black Politics at the Crossroads 1972

In March of 1972 several thousand African-Americans from all walks of life, class, social and political philosophies convened in Gary, Indiana for the Black Political Convention, the “Gary Convention”.  The preamble to the National Black Political Agenda that was generated at the Convention stated in part, “The American system does not work for the masses of people, and it cannot be made to work without radical fundamental change...”

As the nation kicks off the 2016 presidential campaign season, Americans of all classes, ethnicities and backgrounds find themselves confronted with the same problems that were articulated in Gary in 1972. America is faced with a “system (that) does not work for the masses of people…” High unemployment, mass incarceration, ineffective public schools and an increase in prescription drug abuse is fueling a rise in heroin addiction.  These are just a few of the issues confronting Americans in today’s political landscape.

According to Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, a 5.6 percent unemployment rate is “the Big Lie”. There are actually more than 30 million Americans unemployed or severely underemployed.  That’s closer to 11 percent of the population not the 5.6 percent being touted by the White House.  The “official” unemployment rate for African-Americans is 11.4 percent.  If the actual national unemployment number is 11 percent, history tells us that the actual number in the African-American community must be closer to 22 percent.

According to Clifton, small businesses in America, the real engine of the economy, are dying.  Four hundred thousand new businesses are now being born annually nationwide, while 470,000 are dying annually.   Other issues such as extrajudicial police killings, the exportation of jobs, income disparity, home foreclosures, and homelessness are other issues plaguing America.

What are the contenders for the 2016 presidential race articulating?  What solutions are they putting on the table?

On the Democratic side Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 kick off speech was filled with the typical Democratic populist themes and very short on bold policy initiatives.

“Prosperity can’t be just for CEOs and hedge fund managers. Democracy can’t be just for billionaires and corporations. Prosperity and democracy are part of your basic bargain too... Now it’s time -- your time to secure the gains and move ahead.” She did not take a position on the TPP, the Keystone XL pipeline, new drilling in the Artic or extrajudicial police killings.

She praised her husband’s administration, “When President Clinton honored the bargain, we had the longest peacetime expansion in history…”  Don’t forget that he ushered in a rash of neoliberal policies such as welfare reform and the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill that resulted in more African-Americans being incarcerated in the history of this country and the state withdrawing its support for social welfare programs. He continued the Reagan agenda.

For the Republicans, Jeb Bush has finally entered the 2016 presidential field.  During his campaign announcement he said the Democrats, “…are responsible for the slowest economic recovery ever, the biggest debt increases ever, a massive tax increase on the middle class, the relentless buildup of the regulatory state, and the swift, mindless drawdown of a military that was generations in the making… Our country is on a very bad course.

Yes, the country is on a very bad course. What Jeb Bush fails to acknowledge is that it was his brother, then President George W. Bush, Vice President Cheney and his minions that charted that course and set sail.  Who wasted the “peace dividend,” invaded two sovereign countries and expanded the national security state based upon lies and disinformation? Where would the American economy be if it were not bogged down in paying for the illegal wars in Central Asia and the Middle East?

According to Jeb, he’s his “own man”. How he can this be when his father is raising most of his money and so many of his key foreign policy advisors, people such as Paul Wolfowitz, John Negroponte, Peter Goss and Stephen Hadley are the same people who so poorly advised his brother?

Where has the progressive leadership gone? America needs an independent progressive convention, similar to the Gary Convention of 1972. Grass-roots organizations such as Black Lives Matter, Code Pink, Students Against Mass Incarceration (SAMI), Occupy Wall Street and Business for a Fair Minimum Wage need to convene in a city such as Newark, NJ under the leadership of a progressive mayor such as Ras Baraka.  They need to develop a national strategy to change the dominant narrative and develop a progressive platform that addresses the real issues facing average Americans.

This coalition could take this platform to the Democrat and Republican conventions and demand a seat at the table as Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer did with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in Atlantic City, NJ in 1964. Understanding that, neither of the major parties will allow a coalition of this type into their platform committee meetings; it’s about the process and effort. It’s that a coalition of this type with a national strategy and platform could develop momentum, capture the imagination of progressive individuals and change the narrative in this country.

Where is progressive political leadership in America?  Can the leadership in these progressive organizations put their egos aside, organize, coalesce around a substantive policy agenda and pressure the political establishment to respond to Main Street instead of Wall Street?

If not, it will be more of the same.  The lesser of two evils is still evil.

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the Sirius/XM Satellite radio channel 126 call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Wilmer Leon” Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leon’s Prescription at Facebook.com  (c) 2015 InfoWave Communications, LLC

White Gunman Murders 9 Worshippers in a Black Church

A FOLLOW UP TO THIS TRAGIC STORY WILL BE POSTED BEFORE NOON ON MONDAY, JUNE 22, 2015

June 18, 2015

White Gunman Murders 9 Worshippers in a Black Church 
Alleged killer gunman captured

By Frederick H. Lowe

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Dylann Roof, the alleged killer of nine people in a black Charleston, S.C., church. Roof was later captured with incident.  He has not yet been charged. Facebook photo

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Pastor Clementia Pinckney of  Emanuel AME Church was  shot to death Wednesday night in a massacre. Facebook photo

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A white gunman  who walked into an African-American church in Charleston, S.C., Wednesday night and shot and killed nine worshippers, attending Bible study, has been captured without incident even though police warned he was armed and very dangerous.

Charles Frances, a spokesperson for the Charleston police department, said the alleged murderer Dylann Roof,21, of Lexington S.C., was arrested Thursday morning in Shelby N.C.  Frances did not know the circumstances that led to Roof’s arrest, but other sources said Roof was apprehended during at a traffic stop, 240 miles from Charleston. Roof will not be charged until he is in the custody of the Charleston police, Frances told NorthStar News Today.com. Police handled the Roof’s arrest much more differently than the arrest last July of an unarmed Eric Garner, who was choked to death by Daniel Pantaleo, a New York City cop, for selling loose cigarettes.

Eight of the victims died at the scene and one died in a hospital, said Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen. One of the victims was pastor Clementa Pinckney, a longtime state senator who spent the earlier part of the day campaigning in the city with Hillary Clinton. The names of the other victims will be released later by the county coc

Mullen added there were survivors but he refused to disclose how many, according to news reports. After the shooting, police cordoned off the area, but the gunman got away.

The incident is being called a hate crime and a massacre. Mullen said the suspect attended the Bible meeting for an hour before standing up and firing his gun.
According to an eyewitness, he says that he has “to do it” because black people “rape our women” and are “taking over our country,” said Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.

Roof reloaded his gun, which was a present for his 21st birthday, several times before fleeing. Cohen said Roof admired apartheid, the separation of the races in South Africa.

“The only reason someone would walk into a church and shoot people that were praying is hate,” said Mayor Joe Riley.

At about the same time, there were several bomb threats in the area.

The shooting occurred around 9 p.m. at the Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston, according to news reports.
Known as “Mother Emanuel,” the church is the oldest AME church in the South, having been founded in 1816 under the leadership of abolitionist minister Morris Brown, the second bishop of the AME Church in the U. S.

The deadly shootings have angered African-American church officials. Rev. Anthony Evans, president of the Washington, D.C.-based National Black Church Initiative, said he is traveling to South Carolina to personally direct 682 churches on security measures for congregants and their families.

Rev. Evans said, “This horrendous act follows a litany of brutal attacks on African Americans over the past several years across  the United States."

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