Urban News Features

Historic HBCU Library Slated for Modernization as National Treasure By Tatyana Hopkins

March 13, 2016

Historic HBCU Library Slated for Modernization as National Treasure
By Tatyana Hopkins

Founders Library opened its door at Howard University in 1939. PHOTO: Howard University

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Howard University News Service

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Howard University’s historic Founders Library is now a national treasure, as named by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, an organization that so far has renovated 14 of 50 preservation projects nationally and promises to help bring the venerable building into the 21st Century with the latest technological improvements.

Representatives from the National Trust and Howard said they will work together to raise the money for the improvements and provide the expertise to transform the library, which is the home to Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, the world’s largest non-circulating collection for documentation of the history and culture of people of African descent.

Writers, researchers and historians from around the world use its facilities. Founders is the first site at a historically black college or university to be named a national treasure.

“The designation of Founders Library as a national treasure is an honor,” Howard President Wayne A.I. Frederick said Monday of the partnership. “This recognition is a testament to the many treasures here at Howard University.

“Additionally, we are excited to partner with the National Trust for the restoration of the Library, as we continue to make strides in offering our students a preeminent education with the best available resources.”

National Trust has partnered on its projects with American Express, which has pledged $6 million dollars as a partner of the organization to preserve several historic sites.

The National Trust Community Investment Corporation will provide Howard with technical assistance on the use of federal and new market tax credits to fund future rehabilitation costs, said Stephanie Meeks, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

National Trust experts will also advise Howard on best practices to ensure the historic fabric is maintained for generations to come, Meeks said.
“Historic libraries like Founders can be reimagined to fit the needs of the modern age, while continuing to serve as monuments of past ideals and achievement,” she said.

“We look forward to working closely with the university to ensure the creation of a more versatile and functional library – one that honors its distinctive character and rich history.”

Existing conceptual drafts from previous attempts to modernize the building are being used to guide the project, said Derrek Niec-Williams, executive director of Campus Planning, Architecture & Development. The university will work with the National Trust to organize a task force to assist in the library’s preservation and updating, Niec-Williams said.

“For a university approaching 150 years, and for a building that old, there have been numerous plans to modernize Founders,” he said. He said efforts to renovate the building date back to the 1970s.

University officials said they will use the 150th anniversary of the university in 2017 to help raise money for renovations and improvements to Founders.
Spokesperson Anthony Owens said the university has not yet set an exact figure.

“It’s a little early to put a dollar amount to the project,” Owens said.

Founders was designed by African-American architect Albert I. Cassell under the first black president of the university, using over $1 million from the federal Public Works Administration. The project took two years to complete and opened in 1939.

Named in memory of the founders of the university, the four-story, brick building opened as one of the largest and most extensive research facilities on the campus of a historically black college or university.

Thousands of Protesters Force Cancellation of Trump Rally in Chicago by Frederick H. Lowe

March 13, 2016

Thousands of Protesters Force Cancellation of Trump Rally in Chicago
By Frederick H. Lowe

Donald Trump's Chicago campaign rally was cancelled because of protests.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Thousands of anti-Donald Trump protesters forced the candidate who is seeking the Republican nomination for president to cancel a rally Friday night in Chicago.

The rally was scheduled for 6 p.m. at the University of Illinois Pavilion, but protesters begin showing up as early as 2 p.m. to protest the appearance of Trump, who has encouraged his supporters to beat protesters.

Thousands of anti-Trump protesters packed the free event that required an online registration. Thousands more gathered outside, surrounded by a police perimeter.
Thirty minutes before the rally was scheduled to begin, Trump called it off after conferring with police. But Chicago police claimed they never met with Trump or officials from his campaign about canceling the rally.

Anti-Trump protesters and Trump supporters began pushing and shoving each other after the event was canceled. Chicago police said two officers were injured and five people were arrested.

Trump supporters blamed Black Lives Matter and liberals for the cancellation. The clash in Chicago followed a similar one between Trump supporters and protesters earlier Friday in St. Louis. There, police arrested 32 people.

On Wednesday, a Trump supporter at a Fayetteville, N. C. rally sucker-punched Rakeem Jones, an anti-Trump protester. Police later arrested 78-year-old John McGraw. He was charged with assault and battery and is scheduled for an April 6 court appearance.

Trump said later that he had no regrets about his tough talk, including a remark that protesters in the "good old days" would be carried out on stretchers.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, who is also seeking the Republican nomination for president, said “there are no fights at my rallies.”

Bernie Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, held a rally Friday night in Summit, Ill., which was not disrupted.

Judge Antonin Scalia: The Second “Black” Supreme Court Justice? by A. Peter Bailey

March 12, 2016

Reality Check

Judge Antonin Scalia: The Second “Black” Supreme Court Justice?
By A. Peter Bailey

apeterbailey

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - When reading and hearing about the negative judicial decision and hostile attitudes toward our campaign for equal rights, equal justice and equal opportunity in this country from recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, I am compelled to recall a book by Madison Grant.

Grant, a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant White supremacist/racist, wrote the book, The Passing of a Great Race, which was published in 1916 to express his total disgust at the huge number of what he considered low-life people coming into the U.S. from Europe. Included in that negative category were people coming from South Italy and Sicily such as the parents of Justice Scalia.

In the book, Grant broke Europeans down into three “races”—the Nordics (“the only true Europeans”), the Alpine (“clearly of Eastern and Asiatic origin”) and the Mediterranean. The latter, declared Grant, “is a relatively small, light boned, long skulled race, of brunet color becoming even swarthy in certain regions of its range…”

Furthermore, he wrote, “Along its southern boundary, the Mediterranean race is in contact with either the long skull Negroes of Ethiopia or the ancient negrito population of southern Asia. In Africa, this race has drifted southward the Sahara and up the Nile Valley and has modified the blood of the Negroes in both the Senegambian and equatorial regions…”

Though very ancient, Grant noted, “This race cannot be called purely European.”

The attitude of Grant and many others who shared his beliefs was surely known to the Italian immigrants pouring into the U.S. from Italy. That meant that Judge Scalia and his Italian compatriots basically had to prove to the Grants of the world that they were pure Europeans. Ways of doing this consisted of becoming super Whites and super American patriots. And, of course, anti-Black. What else could one do when one is suspected of having a bit of Black blood?

One does not have to be a psychiatrist to speculate that Scalia, and other Italian Americans who share his attitude concerning the civil and human rights of Black folks, may have to be persistently on guard less someone accuse them of being less than White. After all, there are still some Madison Grant-like folks around who are certainly keeping a close eye on them.

A. Peter Bailey, whose latest book is Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher, can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Pastor for Refugees Steps Down Due to Threats

March 13, 2016

Pastor for Refugees Steps Down Due to Threats

Fr. Ndjimbi-Tshiende

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Two members of the conservative party of Chancellor Angela Merkel were linked to a spate of verbal racist attacks against an African priest who ministered to refugees fleeing oppressive African regimes.

The two resigned their posts but it didn’t end there for the Catholic priest of Congolese origin. Father Ndjimbi-Tshiende stepped down this week after getting death threats and racist abuse from anonymous sources.

Olivier Ndjimbi-Tshiende, 66, told shocked parishioners of his decision during a church service on Sunday in Zorneding, a small town near the southern city of Munich.

One caller told Fr Ndjimbi-Tshiende to “go to Auschwitz” after he spoke up for Eritrean war refugees in Germany. It was the latest incident in a growing wave of abuse and violence directed against migrants and refugees in Germany.

“You cannot imagine what I have experienced here,” he told a Munich newspaper. “The pressure is too great and I am tired.”

The dispute erupted after Sylvia Bohrer, the local chair of her party, described the refugees as “invaders”. Then Ms Bohrer’s deputy described the priest as “unser Neger” – which translates as “our nigger” or “our Negro.” Both Bohrer and her deputy have since resigned.

Hate speech in Germany is a punishable offense and police are now investigating a possible crime against Father Ndjimbi-Tshiende.

A different scenario, meanwhile, was playing out in London where Seada Fekadu, an Eritrean refugee was commended for counseling refugees by the group Women on the Move.

Ms. Fekadu was 16 years old when she escaped from Eritrea after her father was arrested for his political activities. After taking a boat to Djibouti, a plane to Paris and then smuggled in the back of a truck to London’s Waterloo Railway Station, she was granted refugee status by the Home Office after three months.

Since then, Fekadu has built a new life, studying for a degree in business and technology. She has offers from four universities to study biomedical science. She also volunteers with Young Roots, a charity that helps young refugees.

“Young Roots helped me gain confidence. Now it’s my turn to help others,” she said. “I’ve been in their situation so I can understand them and I’m happy to help.”

In recognition of her work, Fekadu will receive an award recognizing women with a migrant or refugee background who provide inspiring leadership. The awards are organized by the UN and Migrants Organise.

GOP Stopped Being 'Party of Lincoln' Long Before Trump By Jesse Jackson

March 13, 2016

GOP Stopped Being 'Party of Lincoln' Long Before Trump
By Jesse Jackson

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - House Speaker Paul Ryan has denounced Donald Trump for playing footsie with David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan, saying Republicans are “the party of Lincoln.” The speaker is to be applauded for denouncing Trump’s dog whistle racial politics, but he’s got his history wrong. Today’s Republican Party is a far remove from the party of Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln fought to save the Union, and after the Confederate surrender he moved to reconcile warring states in order “to build a more perfect Union.” Lincoln’s party introduced and ratified the 13th Amendment, legally ending slavery. Today, 20 percent of Republicans who voted for Donald Trump in South Carolina disapprove of Lincoln’s executive order freeing the slaves, according to a YouGov poll, and 70 percent want the Confederate flag to fly over the State House.

The Republican Party in Lincoln’s day introduced and ratified the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing equal protection under the law. Today’s Republican Party — the party that Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are fighting so hard to lead — opposes any steps that actually promote equal protection or fairness. They oppose affirmative action, economic set-asides and special consideration for programs for the needy. They oppose equal pay for women. They oppose equal rights for the LGBT community.

The Republican Party in Lincoln’s day introduced and ratified the 15th Amendment outlawing discrimination in voting on the basis of race, color or previous condition of servitude. Today’s Republican Party introduced literally hundreds of legislative bills in 49 states after 2011 to enforce new voting restrictions that would disproportionately impact minorities, women, workers, young people, seniors and the disabled. Today’s Republican Party praises the conservatives on the Supreme Court who gutted the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, and won’t hold hearings or allow a vote on legislation to fix the damage done.

The Republican Party in Lincoln’s day built the national railroads, even as the Civil War raged. It created the land grant colleges, helping to open access to millions to higher education. Lincoln constantly called for “internal improvements” and championed the rights of free labor, as opposed to slave labor. Today’s Republican Party has systematically favored tax cuts for the rich while slashing investments in areas vital to our future from infrastructure to education.

In Lincoln’s day, Democrats were the party of the South, the party of Jefferson Davis, leader of the Confederate revolt. Democrats were slaveholders. Democrats flocked to the Confederacy and opposed the Reconstruction after the Civil War. Democrats became the party of segregation, opposing the civil rights movements. Orville Faubus, Lester Maddox, George Wallace and Bull Connor were all Democrats.

But after national leaders of the Democratic Party began to support civil rights for African-Americans, blacks began to switch parties. When Lyndon Johnson worked with Dr. King and others to pass the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the war on poverty, blacks flooded the Democratic Party. And in 1964, Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, who opposed the Civil Rights Act. Strom Thurmond led Dixiecrats out of the Democratic Party. Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy sought to consolidate Republican gains in the South. Ronald Reagan opened his campaign in Philadelphia, Miss., infamous for the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney, talking about states’ rights. The heirs of Jefferson Davis joined the Republican Party en masse. And Democrats became the party of diversity, the heirs to Abraham Lincoln.

Trump’s dog whistle racial signaling is not new to today’s Republican Party. This is that party that fostered the nonsense about Barack Obama’s birth certificate. It is the party that waged a campaign of relentless obstruction to everything Obama proposed as president. Trump shocks Republicans because he is cruder than most but also because he’s revealed their dodge. Republicans have used racial signaling to get those whose jobs are being shipped abroad to embrace the party run by those who are shipping them abroad. It brings together the workers who are being shafted with the billionaires who are getting the gold. Trump has used the same dog whistle racial signaling, but he has also challenged the lousy trade deals and the big money special interest politics. That has made him a hero to many angry blue-collar Republican voters but anathema to the Republican country club set.

But the reality is inescapable. Today’s Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln. It is the party of Jefferson Davis, the Southern-based, increasingly white party of states’ rights and racial division.