Dec. 20, 2023

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from BlackMansStreet.Today

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The jobless rate for Blacks dropped, but not far enough to catch up with other ethnic groups.

The August jobless rate for Black men fell to 5.0 percent compared to the seasonally adjusted average in August 2022 to 6.0 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The unemployment rate for Black women was a seasonal adjusted 4.7 percent in August compared with 5.9 percent in August 2022.

Employment continued to trend up in health care, leisure and hospitality, social assistance, and construction. Employment in transportation and warehousing declined.

The unemployment rate for Blacks compared with Whites, Hispanics, and women was much higher.

The jobless rate for Whites is 3.4 percent, and for Asians is 3.1 percent; the rates for both groups rose in August. The unemployment rate for Hispanic men is 4.3 percent and 4.4 percent for Hispanic women.

The jobless rate for adult women stands at 3.2 percent, for teenagers, 12.2 percent, for Blacks, 5.0 percent, and for Hispanics the rate it was 4.9 percent and 4.3 and 4.4 percent for Hispanic women.

Dec. 11, 2023

Michael Grant (right), former president of the Nashville Branch of the NAACP and the National Bankers Association, congratulations Tennessee Rep. Harold Love on his election as the next president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators.

Rep. Harold M. Love, Jr.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) -  Tennessee Representative Harold M. Love, Jr., the next president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL), served as host to the NBCSL’s recent conference held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in downtown Nashville. Representative of Tennessee’s 58^th legislative district, Love is now president-elect of the NBCSL. He will be sworn in as president next December 2025 in Washington, D.C.  

“One thing that I have thought about when it comes to leading NBCSL once I’m sworn in is to continue some of the work I’m doing now as president-elect. And one of the main focal points that I have been charged with by the current president is to establish a series of regional quarterly meetings.” 

Love says the NBCSL will begin holding in-person meetings throughout the year instead of one annual meeting, a strategy envisioned by current president, Alabama Rep. Laura Hall, and assigned to Rep. Love. 

“The benefit is that we can address issues a lot faster than to wait for the annual conference at the end of the year. Most legislators are in session part time and the issues that we have to address happens in many states and affects constituencies that we represent from voting rights to educational attainment to affordable housing and health issues,” he said. “And so, to have regional meetings on a quarterly basis will allow us to respond faster collectively and that’s the strength of NBCSL. We are a collection of caucuses from across the country…We work in silos, but it does help when we have an organization that can galvanize us and make us aware of issues that are moving from state to state. So much happens from January through November that we now can no longer wait to convene.” 

Representative Love has been groomed for national leadership since his youth. His father, the legendary Harold Love, Sr., served in the Tennessee state house for nearly 30 years. His mother, an educator, taught math for 10 years and acted as director of the federal government’s local Upward Bound program for 47 years at Tennessee State University. She passed away one year after retirement. 

Representative Love lavishes praise on both of his parents who taught him how to serve others. All of their efforts resulted in his finally being elected after three unsuccessful attempts to hold public office. According to Representative Love, who earned a master’s degree from Vanderbilt University in Theological Studies and a doctorate from Tennessee State University in public policy and who is also Senior Pastor at Lee Chapel AME Church, received some sage advice from his mentor, Rev. Sonnye Dixon: “Do the work for the community outside of elected office. Then you will be able to continue this work after you are elected”. 

From that, Rep. Love took that there are many paths to public service and to elective office.  

“I know some people who worked for individuals and for campaigns and then ran for elective office the first time and won. That was not my case. Even though I worked in my father’s campaign, even though I was fairly active in my community, I did not win until my fourth time running,” he recalls. “It was in that space that Rev. Dixon said to me, ‘I know you want to do well. I know you want to help your community. Put that to work outside the office. And then if you get in the office then you’ve done well. But even if you don’t get elected, you still engaged in helping to shape policy.’” 

There are many ways to serve, Love says. “We get caught up in the moment-in-time snapshot of election day…But we must also look for opportunities to serve on local and state level boards and commissions. We miss that. Local and state level boards. Or we can shadow someone in a legacy organization like the NAACP and the National Urban League and engage in that work.” 

The 2010 flood that damaged a section of Black Nashville, gave Dr. Love the opportunity to put Reverend Dixon’s advice to work. By taking the initiative and helping to organize the recovery funded by FEMA, a grateful community encouraged Representative Love to seek office again. This time, in 2012, he was resoundingly elected to represent the 58^th district of the Tennessee General Assembly. 

The 2010 flood was a deep learning experience for Rep. Love. 

“We often times do not adequately look into the long-lasting damage that is done to African-American communities post a national disaster. You think about the uprooting of a family, you think about the one of several entities that can appreciate in value – that’s the home – and what that looks like for that thing to now be gone. What it looks like for a person to have to relocate their entire family to another part of town and acclimate themselves to a new community, new amenities to all that is new. What does that disruption look like from the standpoint of the ripple effect because it doesn’t just affect them. We’re talking about a whole neighborhood. It affects their families and affects their friends.” 

Three major initiatives to date are accomplishments of Representative Love. They are as follows: 

1. Legislation to require TennCare to track and report on the most current treatment modalities for Sickle Cell Anemia. This legislation allowed constituents to hold TennCare accountable for keeping the public apprised of the latest developments in Sickle Cell research. Eleven states have subsequently passed similar legislation. 
2. Representative Love introduced legislation to amend the property tax freeze program for citizens 65 years of age and older who met the income requirements. He got the income ceiling lifted from $31,600 to $60,000 annual income. This legislation has allowed countless seniors to maintain their status as homeowners. Regardless of the increase in house values, the freeze would cap the property tax rate through the duration of homeownership. 
3. Finally, through a joint committee, headed by Representative Love, the historical under-funding of Tennessee State University, a Land Grant college, has been publicized. This gross inequity, dating from 1957-2020, has resulted in a finding that the State of Tennessee owes the school some half a billion dollars for capacity grant matching funds withheld. 

Asked what his vision for the NBCSL will be when he assumes office, Representative Love, with a comprehensive and methodical mind, stated that he wants to get his fellow legislators to take notice of the trend to empower state legislators by political conservatives and be prepared for what is coming at minority communities across the country, such as voter disenfranchisement and intimidation. He wants voters across the country to realize that voting is their obligation in a democracy. Also, that they should stay engaged in the political process from election day to the implementation of policies designed to ensure inclusion in government created opportunities. 

Rep. Love believes America’s leading issue is “Without a shadow of a doubt, voting rights.” 

He says he believes voting rights “impact everything else that we’ve been discussing. When you talk about voting rights it’s not just the surface-level election day process. The whole concept of who governs is linked into access to voting. If I don’t have easy, consistent access to vote, then I don’t get to engage in the process of deciding who governs. If I don’t get to decide who governs, then the person who’s dealing with legislation, that person may not have my interests at heart and I didn’t get to engage in a process to choose them or to not choose them…So, that is where it starts and ends as far as I’m concerns. Because without the ability to decide who governs, everything else is almost unattainable.” 

Michael A. Grant, J.D. is a former president of the Nashville Branch of the NAACP and the National Bankers Association in Washington, D.C.

Dec. 12, 2023

Photos of some of the children who died in Jonestown. Graphic: Courtesy of Dr. Jynona Norwood

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - It's been more than 45 years since Jim Jones forced more than 900 people to poison themselves in a mass suicide in Jonestown, Guinea. For Dr. Jynona Norwood, the pain never goes away. On Nov. 18, 1978, she lost her mother, a 2-year-old cousin and 25 other family members who are now buried in an Oakland, Calif. cemetery.

“I think about my mother every day. I think about my first cousin and how they tried to escape Jonestown...The pain never goes away,” said Norwood, who took part in a Nov. 18 memorial program at Evergreen cemetery because many victims of Jonestown were from the Bay Area. But 45 years after the worst mass suicide in world history, Norwood is far from closure. That’s partially because, in that same cemetery, Jim Jones’ name is listed alongside the victims in a mass grave where 305 children are buried.

“This man was not a minister,” Dr. Norwood said. “Those children’s sacred final resting place is no longer sacred as long as Jim Jones’ name is there.” While the deaths of the members of his church, called the People’s Temple, were widely reported as a mass suicide from a cyanide-laced flavor aide, many of the factual details remain mysteries. Many were reportedly forced to drink the punch at gunpoint. Dr. Leslie Mootoo, Guyana’s chief pathologist at the time, said the majority of the bodies had puncture wounds from needles between their shoulder blades. Rep. Leo Ryan (D-Calif.), the only congressman believed to have been assassinated in the line of duty, was among five who were shot and killed at the Port Kaituma airstrip as they tried to leave Guyana after checking on reports that people were being held against their will.

“It's a tragedy because so many lives were lost,” Norwood said in a recent interview. “Generations of young people who could have become a reporter, a journalist, an actor or a doctor, the president of the United States of America, so many inventions and cures and dreams were killed by this megalomaniac at this church with people who still loved him.” Norwood said Jones was protected by the members of Peoples Temple; yet he betrayed them. “The holocaust was history but you don’t see Hitler's name on the wall, 9-11 is history [but] you don't see those who flew those planes into the Twin Towers on a wall. How dare you insult the intelligence of America.”

Upon this year's 45 anniversary, CBS interviewed retired San Francisco police captain Yulanda Williams who is a survivor and former member of the Peoples Temple. Williams said in a documentary that she, her husband and their young child followed Jones to Jonestown to be part of what they thought would be a socialist paradise. "It was truly an active concentration camp and we were guarded 24-7 by armed security officers," Williams told CBS. “The fact is that they have no respect for Congressman Leo Ryan by wanting to put his name on the same wall" with Jones who ordered him assassinated and the "United Press International news team who were only doing their job,” Norwood said. “That is a mass grave site for the children. They didn't have dental records so they had to bury most of the children in a mass grave site in California. Forty infants are in that mass grave site.” Congresswoman Barbara Lee told the Precinct Reporter News that, “The Jonestown Massacre was a senseless, horrible tragedy, born of the evil of one man, that took the lives of nearly 1,000 innocent people – many African-American and many from the Bay area.

“As a member of Congressman Ron Dellums’ staff, I handled many cases of family members who were concerned about their loved ones in Jonestown. I was invited to go to Jonestown with the late Congressman Leo Ryan and a member of his staff, my good friend former Congresswoman Jackie Speier. But at the last minute I had a family obligation that could not be missed,” Lee said.

Norwood said Jones became a fixture in the African-American community by mimicking Dr. King's speech. “That's why you saw Black and White seated together in his church,” Norwood said. “Jim Jones lured the people by first trapping them with Dr. King’s speech. The most powerful images on the screen would make you adopt a lifestyle you didn’t even believe in.”

Dr. Amos Brown, Pastor of Third Street Baptist Church in San Francisco, said Jones often offered help to the masses with food banks, set up temporary tents to pay utility bills, and bring loads of money to pay rent for those in need. But Brown also said, “The man never would take off his shades! Something didn’t quite smell right.”

When asked whether such a tragedy could happen again, Norwood said, “It has been happening again and again. Look at Waco Texas, Heavens Gate,” said Norwood. She added that Jones tricked people with kindness. “He would pay your rent. My uncle went into business with him…Look at the pictures,” Norwood said. “Everybody was sleeping side by side. Most of them still loved him. He killed a 15-year-old, a 17-year-old a 2-year-old and you called him good. Leo Ryan never knew he was walking into an armed camp. His church said they only had 32 guns but there were thug Black men with guns. When it happened My grandmother started to call out the names of the dead and she was screaming and crying.”

Former USA Today Columnist Barbara Reynolds, who wrote a lot about the massacre when it happened said, “Jim Jones became the Black man’s savior because he sounded good, He was charismatic and he had people following him.” Reynolds' latest book,  “The rise and fall of the techno Messiah,” is about how easy it has become to spread modern day deception. “I don't say this but when I here Donald Trump speak I think about Jim Jones. Today we are flooded with lies."

Rev. Brown also said in an interview, “The legacy of Jim Jones is bad religion. He used religion to enslave, disenfranchise and to dispose Black people in America and it is happening today. Look at what [House Speaker Mike] Johnson is doing in the House of Representatives. He is bashing voting rights and he is a wolf in sheep's clothing.”

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Dec. 5, 2023

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from BlackManstreet.Today

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Cops who killed an unarmed 25-year-old Black man, Jayland Walker, by shooting him 43 times last June in Akron, Ohio, did not violate the law, even after the medical examiner's office ruled the murder was a homicide.

Steve Mylett, the Akron chief of police, found that the officer’s actions during the fatal encounter were “objectively reasonable.”

His ruling came on November 29, more than a year after Jaylan Walker was gunned down by police during a traffic stop on June 27, 2002.

The decision to clear the cops was already signed, sealed, and delivered to the anger of some.

On April 17, 2023, a special grand jury in Ohio declined to indict the Akron police officers after a car chase and foot chase last year.

The grand jury concluded the officers were legally justified in their use of force against Jayland Walker, according to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.

Following the shooting, Walker was put in handcuffs by police and was found with his hands cuffed behind his back when EMTs arrived on the scene.

According to police, officers attempted to administer first aid to Walker after he was shot many times. Walker was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police shot Walker 17 times in his pelvis.

One bullet struck his face and fractured his jaw.

Eight gunshot wounds injured his arms and his right hand.

Five gunshot wounds injured his knees, right lower leg, and right foot, according to Lisa Kohler, MD, the Summit County Medical Examiner.

No firearm was found on or near Walker's body, though the cops on the scene all claimed that they saw him reach for a weapon or for what they assumed was a weapon. No illegal drugs were found in his body.

The Summit County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death a homicide seven months after the deadly shooting.

Eight cops, including a Black officer, fired 94 shots within 6.7 seconds at Jayland Walker. Three cops fired 18 shots each. But the deadly shootings complied with the department’s rules, said  Police Chief Mylott.

Walker worked as a delivery driver when police stopped him for a traffic violation because his license plate was broken.

Gun residue shows he did not have a gun in his hands. A gun was found in his car near his wedding ring.

The Summit County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death a homicide.

Police killings over minor traffic violations has become routine by cops.

Police often argue that low-level stops and the searches they conduct during those stops allow them to root out dangerous crimes by identifying guns and drugs.

However, according to the Vera Institute of Justice, data shows that searches that begin with traffic stops seldom yield contraband.

Encounters with police during traffic stops, including minor infractions, disproportionately harm people of color, according to data collected by Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group, which argues that armed police should not be involved in the majority of these cases.

Community organizations want the U.S. Justice Department to investigate Walker's murder. Walker’s family has filed a $45 million lawsuit against the city of Akron and the police department. The cops involved in Walker's murder are back on duty.