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Three Black Soldiers Killed During Drone Attack in Jordan

Jan. 29, 2024

ArmySoldierskilledinJordan Sgt.WilliamJeromeRivers SpecialistKennedyLadonSanders SpecialistBreonna Alexsondria Moffett

Soldiers killed in Jordan are L-R, Sgt. William Jerome Rivers; Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders; and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett

SPECIAL TO THE TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE FROM BLACKMANSTREET.TODAY

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The soldiers killed in Jordan are Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Georgia; Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders of Waycross, Georgia; and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett of Savannah, Georgia.

All three were assigned to the 718th Engineer Company, 926th Engineer Battalion, 926th Engineer Brigade, Fort Moore, Georgia.

More than 40 other service members were injured following an uncrewed aerial system attack at a military base near the Syrian border. 

The attack occurred early in the morning at the logistics support base at Tower 22 of the Jordanian Defense Network.

Approximately 350 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel are deployed to the base. The three soldiers were killed when a one-way uncrewed aerial system impacted their container housing units.

Pentagon deputy press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Monday that the attack seemed different from prior attacks because of where and when it took place — in living quarters and "pretty early in the morning." 

She said, "People were actually in their beds when the drone impacted."

Singh also blamed the drone attack on an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-backed militia.

The U.S. has said the groups operate in Syria and Iraq. She said the attack had the "footprints" of Kataib Hezbollah but said a final assessment has not yet been made, and she added that U.S. forces would respond "at a time and place of their choosing."

NY Auction of Mandela's Belongings Slated for February

Jan. 28, 2024

Mandela ID

(Global Information Network/TriceEdneyWire.com) - Some 70 treasured belongings of former South Africa president Nelson Mandela are slated to travel to New York next month for an auction sale that sparked a firestorm between his eldest daughter Makaziwe Mandela-Amuah, his son and South Africa’s Heritage and Resource Agency (SAHRA).

The New York auction is set for Feb. 22 but the Guernsey Auction House online announcement now carries the message “Suspended.”

Items up for auction include dozens of personal items, estimated at a collective value of $2 to $3 million.

According to an ad placed by Guernsey Auction House, the property includes “nearly one hundred treasured items – objects that in one way or another played a role in “Madiba’s life – will be presented at unreserved auction…. Never offered before, these objects are coming directly from the Mandela family.”

Among the items are Mandela’s 1993 South African Identification book, his famous green fern-patterned “Madiba” shirt, his iconic aviator sunglasses, a gifted blanket from former President Barack Obama, sculptures, personal letters written by Mandela and even his hearing aids.

Proceeds are set to go to the construction of the Mandela Memorial Garden surrounding his final resting place. in the Eastern Cape village of Qunu, according to Mandela’s daughter, where her father grew up and was buried.

“It is my wish that before I close my eyes on nature, I will honor my father with a memorial garden,” said Makaziwe Mandela in an interview with the New York Times. “That’s what my father would want.”

But Ndaba Mandela, Nelson’s grandson, didn’t agree. 'Who sells their father's ID?' Ndaba demanded to know as he slammed his aunt's plans to auction Madiba's ID and other items.

The sale was initially canceled but this December, a three-judge panel of the high court in Pretoria sided with Mandela’s daughter, calling the SA Heritage Agency’s interpretation of heritage objects “overbroad.”

South Africa’s Minister of Culture Zizi Kodwa echoed some of the concerns raised by SAHRA.

“Former President Mandela is integral to South Africa’s heritage,” said Minister Kodwa. “His life, experiences and legacy live in our consciousness and in the values we promote as a country… It is thus important that we preserve the legacy of former President Mandela and ensure that his life’s work and experiences remain in the country for generations to come.”

A similar trove of items were auctioned off last year by Guernsey in a sale called African American Historical and Cultural Artifacts that consisted of thousands of objects tracing the African American experience from the Revolutionary War and the beginnings of slavery on through the Civil Rights Movement and today’s Black Lives Matter.

For now, according to the auction house online, interested bidders are encouraged to contact Guernsey’s in New York at 212-794-2280 or via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and/or register for online bidding at liveauctioneers.com or invaluable.com where the full auction catalogue will be posted one month before the January 28.

the construction of the Mandela Memorial Garden surrounding his final resting place. in the Eastern Cape village of Qunu, according to Mandela’s daughter, where her father grew up and was buried.

“It is my wish that before I close my eyes on nature, I will honor my father with a memorial garden,” said Makaziwe Mandela in an interview with the New York Times. “That’s what my father would want.”

But Ndaba Mandela, Nelson’s grandson, didn’t agree. 'Who sells their father's ID?' Ndaba demanded to know as he slammed his aunt's plans to auction Madiba's ID and other items.

The sale was initially canceled but this December, a three-judge panel of the high court in Pretoria sided with Mandela’s daughter, calling the SA Heritage Agency’s interpretation of heritage objects “overbroad.”

South Africa’s Minister of Culture Zizi Kodwa echoed some of the concerns raised by SAHRA.

“Former President Mandela is integral to South Africa’s heritage,” said Minister Kodwa. “His life, experiences and legacy live in our consciousness and in the values we promote as a country… It is thus important that we preserve the legacy of former President Mandela and ensure that his life’s work and experiences remain in the country for generations to come.”

A similar trove of items were auctioned off last year by Guernsey in a sale called African American Historical and Cultural Artifacts that consisted of thousands of objects tracing the African American experience from the Revolutionary War and the beginnings of slavery on through the Civil Rights Movement and today’s Black Lives Matter.

For now, according to the auction house online, interested bidders are encouraged to contact Guernsey’s in New York at 212-794-2280 or via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and/or register for online bidding at liveauctioneers.com or invaluable.com where the full auction catalogue will be posted one month before the January 28.

 Dexter King Died Believing that the Truth of His Father's Killing Will Someday Rise by Dr. Barbara Reynolds

Dexter Scott KingPHOTO CREDIT: TheKingCenter.org

ReynoldswithDexterandMartinIII

Journalist, Dr. Barbara Reynolds with Martin Luther King III (left) and the now late Dexter Scott King (on right wearing hat). 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Not another King dying far too soon.  This was the immediate reaction of many at the news that Dexter King, the youngest son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King had died from prostate cancer at age 62 . In 2007 his sister Yolanda died at age 52.  

At the time of his death,  Dexter had served as both chairman of The King Center and President of the King Estate.  In that capacity he engaged in legal intellectual property fights with corporations, federal agencies, and court suits with family members to protect his parents' legacy.  His strongest crusade, however, was his battle to bring to justice those responsible for his father’s murder.

Born in Atlanta on Jan. 30, 1961, he was named after Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where his father served his first pastorate and helped launch the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott.  He was the second-born son of Dr. King  and Mrs. King and was only 7 years old when his father was assassinated in Memphis in 1968.

For years, Dexter King—who has an amazing resemblance to his globally acclaimed father, confessed that when he “looked in the mirror he saw his  father’s face trapped in mine.”  In his memoir “Growing Up King,” he spoke of gazing upon the writing on his father’s crypt, “Free At Last,” and feeling that same sense of freedom. Yet  he was freed in a different way- not in death- but in the resolution of living his best life on his own terms  and not becoming a prisoner of the King name.

As a journalist and later biographer of Coretta Scott King,  I was in and out of the King household since the seventies watching their becoming years. As a teenager Dexter used to love talking about one day becoming a businessman and he started his first enterprise, a music company where he hired himself out as a disk jockey for weddings.  In later years, his zest for business skills took root at the King Center, where he sometimes took the reins of the King Center with his siblings helping it to become a Beloved world house of peace and non-violence.

Coretta King said all four siblings—Martin III, Yolanda, Dexter, and Bernice had inherited specific qualities from her and their father.  Yolanda had a love for the performing arts and became an actress. Martin III, a social justice activist, Bernice, a Call to ministry and pastoral and organizational leadership and Dexter, a drive  to master the complexities of life by pushing forward, overcoming the most difficult problems, even when at the very root he had to overcome himself.

Confronted with the fear of death, instead of running from it, he freed himself by running into it . At age 16, he started working at a funeral home, the same one that buried his father. The experiences in the mortuary he attributed to his quest to come to terms with death and dying.  To understand the intricacies of the criminal justice system, in 1982, for a short spell he  became a police officer in Atlanta.  His stance to wear a uniform with a sidearm shocked the principled non-violent, anti-gun workers at the King Center. But he was determined to understand the system from the inside out.

 Dexter also wanted to test his acting abilities.  With his  uncanny resemblance to his father, he portrayed him in the 2002 television movie "The Rosa Parks Story."  His love for the creative arts drew him to relocate to California but he also continued his work with the King  Center and commitment to the King family legacy,

 As deftly as he helped free himself from fear and tradition, he also took responsibility for freeing his family, especially his mother, from digging their graves with their forks.   He became a strict vegetarian, giving up sugars and starches until his body craved natural foods. He said he was bothered that his grandfather, Daddy King, might have lived a longer life had he eaten differently.  At her son’s insistence, Coretta, who had mastered the art of rich Southern style cooking, became a vegetarian. Once when I traveled with her to a Florida spa, I was dismayed that for a week, they served nothing but raw vegetables and veggie smoothies. Yet, she also believed her strict regimen eased her pain from gout and other discomforts prolonging her life.  She died at the age of 78.

Both mother and son shared an intense determination to prove to the nation that James Earl Ray did not kill Martin Luther King Jr,  that his murder was the result of a conspiracy involving the U.S. government and the assassins should be held accountable.

In the  early 1990’s I picked Dexter up at the DC airport and took him to the National Press Club where I had helped arrange a briefing on the assassination. He spoke about his plans to meet with Ray and that he believed Ray’s claim of innocence and, based on other evidence, felt along with other family members that Ray was not the lone assassin.

On December 8, 1999, Dexter and Mrs. King, on behalf of the family, pursued  a civil suit in Memphis. A jury of six Whites and six Blacks  unanimously  implicated U.S. government agencies in the wrongful death of Dr. King. The shocking evidence convinced the jury that Dr. King had been the victim of assassination by a conspiracy involving the Memphis Police Department as well as local, state, and federal government agencies, and the Mafia. The Jury also concluded,  just as Dexter had argued all along, that Ray was not the shooter, but had been set up as a patsy to take the blame.  

This news , where both Dexter and Mrs. King testified, should have rocked the world, but unfortunately it landed like the noise of a feather hitting the ground. The verdict and shocking testimony were virtually ignored by the media - as it is today.

Dexter was often criticized for his insistence on following up on details ignored by the press, but he argued that it was hard for him to believe looking into his father’s murder was somehow illogical.

Yet, even in this failure, Dexter believed as his mother did, that they had both freed themselves of the guilt of not pushing for the truth.  So many times, they had heard their father and husband say, “Truth  crushed to Earth Shall Rise Again.”

And they left this world believing one day it would.

The Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds is co-author of the new memoir, Coretta Scott King: My Life, My Love, My Legacy. 

U. N. Court Will Explore Claims of Israeli Genocide

 January 28, 2024

 

South Africans

ICJ courthouse and listeners to their ruling

(Global Information Network/TriceEdneyWire.com) -  The U.N.’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) has agreed to take up an application submitted by South Africa seeking an immediate suspension of Israeli military operations in and against the Palestinian people of Gaza.

In its 84 page petition to the court, South Africa cited military operations that have devastated hundreds of schools, including those run by the U.N., destroyed educational infrastructure, and left thousands of beleaguered students suffering from mental trauma.

Close to 45 percent of residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged or ruined beyond repair, according to a recent report by the World Bank. These alleged damages and the deaths of some 25,000 Palestinians are violations by Israel of its obligations under the Genocide Convention, South Africa claims.

In its response on Friday, Jan. 26, the panel of 17 judges agreed that South Africa had jurisdiction to bring the case against Israel and that there was plausible risk that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The finding, read out by Joan Donoghue, president of the court, was applauded by the South African delegation.

South Africa’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the decision a “significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestine people. The decision is momentous… “

In the court’s ruling, Israel is ordered to take steps to limit harm to Palestinians, preserve evidence of genocide, and submit a report within a month on all measures in response to the court’s order. The judges rejected Israel’s request to throw out the case and ordered Israel to take "immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians."

“At least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the (genocide) convention,” Judge Donaghue said.

While the court failed to order a ceasefire, Columbia University Professor Mahmood Mamdani in an interview with the news show DemocracyNow, opined that the court had indeed called for a ceasefire.  “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it just may be a duck,” he said humorously.

In a serious note, Mamdani continued: “The South African case has a strong side and a weak side. The strong side is its content, its substance, and that is based almost entirely, from what I can see, on U.N. documents. So the court is not going to question the authenticity or the veracity of those documents. Almost everybody agrees that the intellectual case is very strong.

“It’s interesting that the lawyers for Israel did not claim that a genocide was unfolding,” he added. “They questioned whether South Africa was the appropriate party to bring this question to the court. And they said that South Africa had not taken into consideration Jewish holidays, belittling the substantial question, which is genocide.”

Still, the preliminary court ruling offers only a glimmer of hope for the more than 2 million Palestinian civilians suffering in Gaza, as the ruling alone cannot put an end to the atrocities and devastation Gazans are experiencing.

For its part, Israel has rejected the accusations of genocide as baseless and said South Africa was acting as an emissary of the Hamas terror group, which seeks to eliminate the Jewish state. The Israel Defense Forces is targeting Hamas terrorists, not Palestinian civilians, they said, but that civilian casualties in the fighting are unavoidable as terrorists operate from within the population.

In a worrying development, it was reported in the Times of Israel that thousands of right-wing activists are getting ready to resettle Gaza after the war. ‘Gaza City will be Jewish’  one leader was quoted to say; adding that core groups of potential residents are being assembled.

Mamdani continued: “Israel has had a record of sheltering under American power, both hard power and soft power. This time, whether it will be able to do so is also questionable.

“The Israeli stance has been that the international community has no moral standing when it comes to Israel, because: Where were they when the Holocaust took place? There’s some truth in this, except that it doesn’t apply to most of the Third World which wasn’t part of the U.N. when the Holocaust took place. It also doesn’t apply to South Africa, which had an apartheid government. And that government was in cahoots with Israel, and Israel was one of the major foreign parties strengthening that government.

“South Africa has the moral standing to bring the claim of genocide, which others lack. So who else but South Africa can stand up for victims in Israel?” 

Black Neighborhoods and Shopping Districts Stripped of $406 Billion as Racial Wealth Gap Continues By Charlene Crowell 

Jan. 23, 2024

Federal Reserve Image on 2022 Wealth by Race

(TriceEdneyWire.com) -  For America, Black History Month brings opportunities to revisit our nation’s lessons, achievements, and unfulfilled promises, capturing our attention as well as our hopes. Yet nothing hits home harder than the painful reminders of how so much of Black America continues to struggle financially, despite an economy that reports low unemployment, a robust stock market, and low inflation. 

Whether discussing kitchen table economics, or yesteryear’s grievances, money – or the lack thereof – is an ongoing and dominant concern. Now is a good time to examine the policies and practices contributing to why Black wealth remains so elusive for people whose work ethic is often far larger than their paychecks. 

The Federal Reserve’s recently updated Survey of Consumer Finance 2019-2022, analyzes post-pandemic trends – particularly as they affect racial wealth gaps. 

In 2022, Asian-Americans had a typical family wealth of $536,000, the highest of any race or ethnicity, and nearly twice the typical white family’s wealth of $285,000. But these six-figure wealth assets did not include either Black or Latino households. Instead, a typical Latino family held only about 20 percent of the wealth of the typical white family (about $61,600), and Black family wealth was even lower at $44,900, only 15 percent of the wealth held by white families. 

“Despite strong growth in wealth for non-white families over the past two surveys, we remain far from racial equality, reflecting the large differences in wealth that have persisted for decades,” states the report. “Taking a slightly longer-run view, since the Great Recession the typical Black and Hispanic family has had between about $10 to $15 of wealth for every $100 held by the typical White family,” the report continues. “This ratio has closed only modestly in the past two surveys. The typical Black family went from having about $9 in wealth for every $100 held by the typical white family in 2013 to around $16 in 2022; the typical Hispanic family went from having about $10 in wealth for every $100 held by the typical white family in 2013 to around $22 in 2022.” 

Recently the Brookings Institution independently analyzed the Fed’s data in a new publication entitled Black wealth is increasing, but so is the racial gap, citing the effects of public policies against Black participation in proven wealth-building assets. 

“Policies that privilege whiteness are reflected in higher levels of wealth for the average white family, which can be leveraged across generations to generate greater wealth and advantages,” wrote Brookings. “This became very clear during the pandemic: Black households made major gains through housing and business equity, yet that growth paled in comparison to white households’ gains from investment returns.” 

For example, Brookings found that in 2020 Black businesses employed 1.3 million people and created over 48,000 new jobs. If access to capital could be available to more entrepreneurs to begin new businesses, or expand existing ones, greater Black wealth likely would result. 

In a separate but related analysis, Brookings examined how redlining of Black business districts suppressed wealth-building, similarly to how lowered appraisal values of Black homes suppress wealth-building in majority-Black neighborhoods. 

“Our research found that storefronts and shopping centers in communities with higher shares of Black residents are valued measurably lower than otherwise comparable properties in communities with fewer Black residents”, wrote Brookings last November in Building Black wealth through community real estate ownership. “We estimate that the undervaluation of majority-Black ZIP codes results in aggregate wealth losses of $171 billion in retail space for the owners of these properties... By comparison, owner-occupiers of housing lose an estimated $235 billion in majority-Black ZIP codes.” 

Imagine what Black wealth could be derived if these billion-dollar discounts were removed from Black and Latino communities. Until or unless public policy reforms effectively address these historic inequities, racial wealth gaps will persist. The financial bottom line – regardless of color – is that people cannot invest what they do not have, or are shut out from mainstream lending. Let’s embrace the lessons of history and enact policies to increase lending for minority homes and business owners, to close the nation’s racial wealth gaps.  

Charlene Crowell is a senior fellow with the Center for Responsible Lending. She can be reached at CharleneThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

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