June 30, 2013

State of Equality and Justice in America:

There is Strong Statistical Evidence that Politics is Resegregating

By David A. Bositis, Ph.D.

NEWS ANALYSIS

David Bositis

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - There are demographic changes occurring in the United States that will change politics and public policy and make this country a more humane and equitable place. In another 20 to 30 years the U.S. will be a majority-minority country and White supremacy will be a discredited idea of the past. But we are not living in that future time. And for African-Americans, more than half of whom live in the southern states, the facts do not speak to a just or equitable society.

Black unemployment is twice that of Whites. The average Black income is much less. Black family financial assets are one-twentieth that of Whites. There are large racial disparities in health and access to health care and much higher high school drop-out rates for African-Americans; and of course much higher incarceration rates.

The gains that African-Americans have seen since the Civil Rights movement were substantially built on Black votes and civic participation. But despite the hardship and struggles that many African-Americans face, there are many who would oppose the progress and promise the future holds. The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Shelby County v. Holder opened the door to widespread efforts in the South to diminish minority voting rights.

By invalidating Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, the court has effectively eliminated Section 5 federal oversight. The current U.S. House of Representatives will almost certainly not provide a new definition for Section 4 coverage, and so Section 5 is out for the foreseeable future.

By next year's midterm elections, there will likely be photo identification laws operative in all the southern states, and Blacks and Hispanics are much more likely than Whites to lack government issued photo ids. The changes will not only involve photo identification laws. There will be a headlong rush to change election laws across Section 5 jurisdictions in order to discourage minority voters. This will involve not only state governments but local ones as well.

Section 2 is still in effect, but with no preclearance provisions. What this means is that all sorts of election changes will be put into effect to diminish minority votes - moving and locating polling places, changing hours, the mechanics of voting - not to mention extralegal intimidation - without federal intervention.

Even when these changes are challenged and the civil rights community 'wins' the legal case, the minority community's preferred candidate may still lose, and then the Section 2 cases result in consent decrees where the opposing side agrees not to do the same thing (actions to discourage minority voters) again - at least until the next election. The results of elections - even unfair elections - are rarely undone.

Following the election of President Barack Obama, some political observers - mostly conservative ones - suggested that the United States was now a post-racial society. At the present time, five years later, in the region of the country where a majority of African-Americans live, the South, there is strong statistical evidence that politics is resegregating with African-Americans once again excluded from power and representation.

Black voters and elected officials have less influence now than at any time since the Civil Rights Movement. Less than a handful of the 320 Black state legislators in the South serve in the majority in their legislative chambers. And southern state constitutions invest in the state legislatures' power over all aspects of government in those states, including local government.

Conservative Whites control all of the political power there, and they are enacting legislation and adopting policies both neglectful of the needs of minorities - in health care, education, employment - as well as some that are downright hostile to the rights of African-Americans , e.g., the assault on voting rights through photo identification laws and other means.

Last month, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies published a report based on a survey of the five Deep South states (the states with the proportionally largest black populations - Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina) on attitudes toward Medicaid expansion. Majorities of the populations in all five states, and large majorities of African-Americans in those states, favored expansion. The state legislatures in those five states oppose expansion, and the disproportionally uninsured Black populations of those states will suffer the consequences.

Has the United States become a more just and equitable society? Almost 50 years ago - around the time that the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law was founded, Robert F. Kennedy gave a speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention where he quoted from one of his brother's favorite poets: "...but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep."

David A. Bositis, Ph.D., a senior research associate for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, is a foremost expert on voting and Black political participation in America. This article - the twentieth of a 20-part series - is written in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, of which Congressman John Lewis is grand marshal. The Lawyers' Committee is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to enlist the private bar's leadership and resources in combating racial discrimination and the resulting inequality of opportunity - work that continues to be vital today. For more information, please visit www.lawyerscommittee.org.

Zimmerman Jury Selected, Testimony Starts This Week

George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The trial of George Zimmerman started in earnest this week in Sanford, Fla., where he killed unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin. A jury of six women - five white and one Black Hispanic – has been set to hear the case.

The proceedings culminate more than a year of protests and debate over the racially charged case in which 17-year-old Martin, who is Black, was shot while walking home to his father’s house after going to a neighborhood store for iced tea and Skittles.

Police tapes appear to make it clear that Zimmerman, a White Hispanic Neighborhood Watch captain, pursued Martin, profiling him as a troublemaker. The key question that the jury must solve is whether Zimmerman should be found guilty of second degree murder or whether he was acting in self-defense after a struggle ensued between the two.

Judge Debra Nelson has ruled out expert testimony on whether it was Zimmerman or Martin screaming for help, heard in the background on police 911 tapes. Two experts had said it is Trayvon Martin’s voice. But, an FBI analyst said the recording is too short for that opinion to be conclusive.

Despite the ruling against expert testimony on the audio, relatives of either Martin or Zimmerman are allowed to testify whose voice they believe it is, including Martin’s mother.

The high profile case is being viewed as yet another hallmark of racism in America, where Black men are often victims of police profiling and brutality.

June 24, 2013

March on Washington Anniversary Organizers Aim for Change
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire) – At the time of the Aug. 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, there were 22 million people living in poverty in America. Upon the 50^th Anniversary this year, that number has nearly tripled to 60 million.

This according to Martin Luther King III who has joined with dozens of civil and human rights leaders to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the march led by his father. A press conference held at the National Press Club June 24 drew dozens of high profile religious, civic and labor leaders, all vowing to unite and not only commemorate but renew the fight for equality and justice. They expect at least 10,000 to converge on Washington, D.C. for at least five days of events in late August.

“This is almost like a campaign,” King said. “First I’d like to think that we’d achieved the dream that Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned for our nation and parts of our world. But I’m sad to say that we have not achieved that dream. And so while some will see this as a commemoration, it is truly a continuation of being in the struggle of organizing communities around this nation – again, not just for this day.”

King continued, “We already know the issues. We know the issues around immigration. We know the issues around voting, we know the issues around poverty and no jobs in this country; We know that in 1963 there were 22 million people living in poverty, roughly and today there are nearly 60 million - unacceptable in a nation with so much wealth and so many resources and so much ingenuity. And the only way that we can change this is creating the right climate.”

Among dozens of national organizational heads in attendance were King’s sister, the Rev. Bernice King, the Rev. Al Sharpton, who presided at the press conference, Ben Jealous of the NAACP, Melanie Campbell of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Charles Steele of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Dr. E. Faye Williams of the National Congress of Black Women.

Sharpton, who will co-lead the planned march with King, stressed that the 50^th anniversary commemoration will not be a one-day event. “This will be the realigning of a coalition that will go and impact and affect where we are going in this country for the next several years and decades to come,” he said.

Unlike 1963, Sharpton said women and gays will play prominent roles on the forefront of the march and other activities, indicating how today’s civil rights leaders have ended misogynistic and other discriminatory ways. Moreover, the desire is to impact the nation for the better, Sharpton said.

“Like what Dr. King, Roy Wilkins, A. Phillip Randolph and Dr. [Dorothy] Height did in 1963 led to the ‘64 Civil Rights Act and the ‘65 Voting Rights Act, what we do in this August we intend to help shape and change legislation and the body politic and the spirit of this country going forward,” Sharpton said. “And we intend to address the powers in the kingdom and make change happen.”

Rev. Bernice King, president of the Martin Luther King Center for Social Change, who has taken the lead in organizing the five-day event, ticked off numerous festivities, including the commemorative march on Washington, slated for Saturday, August 24. More details, including times and locations, will be announced later. In a nutshell - the following are among the events she outlined:

• Thursday and Friday, August 22 and 23 a string of town hall meetings, youth trainings, forums, receptions and a women’s intergenerational dialogue will take place.
• On Saturday, August 24, there will be the march culminating on the Washington Mall, but also a “global freedom festival” will open on the mall. She described the global festival as four days of education, entertainment and activities for families and youth.
• On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, August 25, 26, and 27, there will be youth initiatives focused mainly on educating the next generation.
• On Wednesday, Aug. 28, the actual anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, a  9 a.m. Interfaith Service will be held at the foot of the King Memorial, the Stone of Hope. She said it will feature tributes from children and adults.
• Also on Wednesday, Aug. 28, at 1 p.m., there will be a “Let Freedom Ring Global Commemoration Celebration Call to Action” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. That event will include tributes and entertainment from leaders; culminating with a “Let Freedom Ring” bell ringing at 3 p.m. She said states are asked to participate in the bell-ringing, “recommitting ourselves” to continue the work of freedom.

“Struggle is a never-ending process,” Rev. King quoted her mother, Coretta Scott King. “We are still fighting for freedom. This is a continuation of the freedom struggle.”

The leaders of the commemoration are hoping for a new movement that will sweep the nation:

“I am confident and convinced that our nation can and must and will do better,” said Martin King III. “But, it is our responsibility to challenge this nation. And again, that’s why we will come together in large numbers on August 24. But we will be going around to communities all over this nation over the next 24 months, mobilizing at every level - bringing business leaders, community leaders, religious leaders and elected officials together to determine how we’re going to define a strategic plan that brings about that freedom, justice and equality for our communities and ultimately for our nation.”

June 23, 2013

Frederick Douglass Statue Erected in the U.S Capitol
By Shayla Mulzac

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The unveiling of a statue to honor abolitionist Frederick Douglass, sometimes called the “father of the civil rights movement,” drew hundreds of people to the U. S. Capitol’s Emancipation Hall June 19.

It is the 101st statue erected in the Capitol Visitors Center, but only the fourth in honor of an African-American. While each state has only two such famous figures in the hall, this is the first opportunity for D.C. to welcome one of its very own. Congressional Republicans have refused to allow a second, declining to give the federal District of Columbia equality with states.

“Douglass's life as an active D.C. resident and his deep commitment to our equal rights are the reasons that his statue is here to be unveiled today as a gift from the almost 650,000 American citizens of the District of Columbia,” Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton said in prepared remarks at the unveiling.

Placement of the statue marks the culmination of the decade-long argument between DC leaders and Congressional Republicans over whether DC should be allowed to have the statue since it is not a state, but a federal district.

“Frederick Douglass stood even taller when he lent his stature as a world leader to his home town and refused to temper his demand for congressional voting rights and local self-government for the residents of the District of Columbia.”

The unveiling was organized and led by House Speaker John Boehner and in attendance were the descendants of Frederick Douglass, members of Congress, local leaders and Vice President Joe Biden.

Like Norton, Biden also used the tribute to the 19^th century abolitionist, author and statesman as an opportunity to push the issue of equal voting rights for the people living in the nation’s capital. Though he didn’t mention “statehood” per se, the vice president addressed Douglass’ work advocating equal justice and stated that Douglass supported voting rights for his fellow residents of DC.

He said he and President Obama both support “home rule, budget autonomy and a vote for the District of Columbia.”

Emancipation Hall is also home to statues honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, the reputed “mother of the civil rights movement” and abolitionist Sojourner Truth.

The Douglass statue stands 7 feet tall and weights nearly 1,700 pounds of pure bronze. The statue shows Douglass grasping a paper in one hand, his other resting upon a lectern complete with quill and ink.