Oct. 6, 2015

Alabama Closure of Driver's License Offices Ignite Demands to Restore Voting Rights Act
Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Civil rights leaders around the country are taken aback over a recent decision by the state of Alabama to close 31 driver’s license offices, many in majority Black and poor areas. The move by Alabama appears to be an attempt to stymie the ability of African-Americans to meet new requirements to have a photo ID in order to vote.

"This is exactly what voter discrimination looks like. The same tactics of yesteryear, of placing administrative barriers in the way of registering and casting ballots, are alive and well in 2015,” says Wade Henderson, president/CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “While Republicans in Congress refuse to protect voters of color by restoring the Voting Rights Act (VRA), Alabama is once again depriving Black voters of their right to cast ballots.”

Two years ago, the U. S. Supreme Court, in the case, Shelby County v. Holder, mooted federal preclearance of voting rights changes, laws that would have required the Alabama closures to be approved by the U. S. Department of Justice. Since the court's ruling, states around the country “have erected new barriers to voting that have fallen hardest on voters of color,” says Henderson. 

Congress currently has bipartisan Voting Rights Act restoration bills pending in the House and Senate, but Republican leadership have not prioritized the measures. 

“They share the blame for turning back the clock on 50 years of progress toward ensuring the right to vote for all,” says Henderson.The announcement by Alabama has caught the attention of organizations around the country that monitor race discrimination. The Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center, a foremost expert on racial barriers, hatred and discrimination, issued a statement implying that the closures are a clear scheme to block voting rights. 

“While 40 percent of the white voting public cast their ballots for a black president nationwide, only 15 percent of white voters did so in Alabama. And as Justice Ginsburg pointed out in her dissent, there are still Alabama legislators who talk openly about suppressing the black vote and refer to black voters as “aborigines’”, the organization said in a statement. “The closure of these important driver’s license offices is exactly what the state thought of next. Alabama can only be this cavalier because we no longer have the strong protections of the VRA—and that’s why we urgently need to restore it.”

By Rhonda Brownstein

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Southern Poverty Law Center

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Suspensions are just one of the ways schools are meting out shockingly cruel punishments for minor school infractions.

With each new study, it becomes even clearer that harsh school discipline policies are not only outrageously discriminatory toward African-American children but highly destructive to the nation.

The Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania has now added new research to the growing body of evidence.

It found that across 13 Southern states, Black children account for roughly half of all suspensions and expulsions – even though they represent less than a quarter of the students in public school.

In 132 of the school districts in those states, Black children were at least five times as likely as White children to be suspended.

As we’ve learned, suspensions are just one of the ways schools are meting out shockingly cruel punishments to vulnerable children for doing the normal things that children do. Many children are hauled into court and thrown into jail cells simply for breaking school rules – often with no due process.

The Results of Such Practices are Devastating.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has represented children across the Deep South who were shackled for hours at a time in school, sprayed with chemical weapons, tossed into jail for offenses such as throwing a penny on a bus or being in the hall without a pass, and more. One child’s arm was broken by a sheriff’s deputy who restrained him in school.

Reacting to an investigation that the SPLC launched in Meridian, Miss., the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suit to stop what local police called the “taxi service” from school to the juvenile lockup. The DOJ said that children – like one girl locked up for a dress code violation – were being incarcerated so “arbitrarily and severely as to shock the conscience.”

Once children are pushed into this school-to-prison pipeline, they fall behind in their schoolwork, they’re stigmatized, they’re more likely to drop out, and they’re more likely to end up in jail or prison. According to the National Academy of Sciences, African-American men under 35 who failed to finish high school are now more likely to be incarcerated than employed.

Even When Jail is Not a Result, Severe School Discipline Can Stunt Educational Growth.

In Mobile, Alabama, a student was suspended in February 2010 for the remainder of the semester for being late to lunch, and then had to repeat the ninth grade. Many others were suspended for months at a time for trivial offenses like having untucked shirts or wearing the wrong color shoes. One high school principal suspended more than 90 students in 2013 for school uniform violations.

It’s abundantly clear that it’s not just the “bad kids” who are suspended or expelled. One of the University of Pennsylvania report’s authors told National Public Radio that “[b]lack kids on the whole are suspended for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with safety.”

As the report notes, earlier studies have found that Black children “are most often disciplined for being disrespectful and threatening, loitering and excessive noise, whereas their white schoolmates are likelier to be referred to school discipline officers for less subjective offenses (i.e., smoking, leaving school without permission, vandalism, and obscene language).”

The report urges educators to recognize the implicit racial bias – as well as the racist policies – creating this disparity. Fortunately, federal officials are finally recognizing the role suspensions and expulsions play in the school-to-prison pipeline. Last year, the departments of Education and Justice offered guidance to help school officials find better, more productive ways to reach children.

SPLC Has Helped Change Some Deep South School Districts.

In Mobile, for example, a 2013 settlement agreement with the school system has already resulted in a nearly 75 percent reduction in the number of academic days lost to suspension. In Meridian, the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit sparked by our investigation resulted in two settlement agreements this year – one with the city and one with the state – that will help prevent students from being needlessly pushed out and arrested.

Plus, the SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance project, which reaches hundreds of thousands of educators, has written extensively about the problems and solutions.

But there is much work ahead. With more than 14,000 school districts in the United States, legal action is not enough. The entire education community must embrace change.

And, while the school-to-prison pipeline is a crisis for children of every race all across the country, nowhere is change more necessary than in the Deep South, where Jim Crow continues to cast a long shadow.

Rhonda Brownstein is legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Oct. 6, 2015

Alabama's New Jim Crow Far from Subtle
By Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.

Oct. 4, 2015

Why We are Gathering on Oct. 10 to Demand ‘Justice or Else’  
Nation of Islam Invites Thousands to 20th Anniversary of Million Man March
By Minister Louis Farrakhan

Nation of Islam members have taken to the streets of cities across America inviting
people to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March Oct. 10.
During the event, Minister Louis Farrakhan is slated to give a special message to
America, "Justice or Else...". PHOTO: Hazel Trice Edney

Minister Louis Farrakhan introduces dais guests during summer rally for the 
20th anniversary of the Million Man March, Oct. 10. They include civil rights icons the Rev. Benjamin
Chavis, NNPA president, and speaker, author and thought leader Dick Gregory.
PHOTO: Roy Lewis/Trice Edney News Wire

During summer rally and announcement, Minister Louis Farrakhan applauds as the
Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant welcomes women to the 'Justice or Else' march in celebration
of the 20th anniversary of the 1995 Million Man March. Tamika D. Mallory, National
Executive Director of the Nation Action Network responds with a raised fist.
PHOTO: Roy Lewis/Trice Edney News Wire.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from JusticeorElse.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Editor's Note: With a backdrop of intense protests against repeated police shootings of unarmed Black people, poverty, economic inequality and other injustices, this Saturday’s 20^th Anniversary of the 1995 Million Man March is expected to draw thousands of men and women to the National Mall in Washington D.C. for a gathering, ‘Justice or Else’.

According to spokesmen for the Nation of Islam, the gathering will start at the steps of the U. S. Capitol and people will assemble down the National Mall. There will be a sunrise prayer service beginning at 7a.m. The program will start at 10 a.m. (EST). Minister Louis Farrakhan will give the keynote address at 1 p.m. (EST).

The following is an open letter to America from the chief organizer and visionary, Nation of Islam leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan. In it, he outlines the meaning of the demand -  ‘Justice or Else’. For more details on the Oct 10 gathering, please visit JusticeorElse.com. 

The following are the words of Minister Louis Farrakhan:

This October will mark the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March, which was the largest public gathering in the history of America and the largest gathering of Black men in world history.

We set an example before the world on October 16, 1995 as Black men stood in ranks and a spirit of love, peace and unity was pervasive. We stood at that time for the necessity of Atonement, Reconciliation and Responsibility and in particular the need for Black men to appeal for God’s pardon for our failures to be the men that we hoped to be and ought to be. That was a magnificent and important day and appeal to the divine Supreme Being, who brought us through a time of great trouble.

Twenty-years later, however, conditions we face and rising levels of tyranny and oppression have brought us to another point in our sojourn in America. Today we suffer from an unbearable level of violence as law enforcement and Whites are able to abuse and murder us but the federal Department of Justice does little and state governments do virtually nothing. Death stalks the Black man, woman and child in America and few seem to care.

Our Native American brothers and sisters often live in abject poverty and are fighting to keep the little land that they have from the hands of a duplicitous U.S. government and corporate liars and thieves.

The Latino community is subjected to scrutiny, mistreatment and disrespect. Women struggle for full recognition of their value and their worth. Soldiers who have served their country in ill-conceived wars and conflicts based on lies, return home to be ignored and their broken bodies and minds left unattended. Even the poor Whites of this nation have no voice as a cruel oligarchy rules on behalf of a small group of individuals.

How much more of this can we stand and how much more oppression must we suffer?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the great preacher and fighter for the poor, spoke of justice. He noted that the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice. What is justice? The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught several important truths about justice: Justice is the greatest principle of fair dealing. Justice is the law that distinguishes between right and wrong. If there were justice, there would be no need for a Judgment. Justice is the weapon that God will use in the Day of Judgment.

We are living in that Day of Judgment at this present moment. And if we are denied what rightfully belongs to us then there has to be unified action that we take that will force the justice that we seek.

It is time that we say enough is enough. Scripture teaches us that inequity and injustice would call God Himself out of his hiding place to address the cries of those who yearn to breathe free. We are at that time. The time requires that we step forward and demand that the U.S. government address the failures of American society and the systemic deprivation of freedom, justice and equality from the masses of the American people.

The time requires that a demand be made on the U.S. government and we must deliver a fearless cry of “Justice Or Else!” We have tried praying in, singing in, lying in and young activists have even employed dying-in to dramatize and appeal for a proper government response to our suffering.

I am convening “Justice Or Else!” the 20th Anniversary gathering of the Million Man March on October 10, 2015 in Washington, D.C. By Allah’s (God’s) grace I plan to deliver an uncompromising message and call for the government of the United States to respond to our legitimate grievances.

If you agree with me, I am inviting you to join me and those from diverse faith traditions, races, political beliefs, spiritual schools of thought, different geographic regions, income levels and a fearless cadre of young leaders, backed by their fearless elders in this demand for “Justice Or Else!” in Washington, D.C.

The other side of this “war on two fronts” is effective organizing of our community to end fratricidal violence fostered by social conditions that breed lesser crimes, while the creator of the social conditions engages in killing, theft, kidnapping and extortion on a global scale. We, however, are clear that it is our responsibility to halt the killings among ourselves and our disrespect of Black life.

“Justice Or Else!” is not a march, but a gathering of those who are sober minded and serious about placing a demand on the United States government and putting power behind that demand to force the government to give us what we deserve.

This is not a march, but a gathering of those who understand that freedom has never been obtained without the loss of life and who step forward willing to give whatever sacrifice that the time and the God of this time demands.

We are certain that God would not bring us out to slaughter but He does require that we take the ultimate stand in order that He may show his power. We recognize that there comes a time in the life of all suffering people where there must be a willingness to lay down their lives for the cause of freedom and a future.

The most powerful weapon in our arsenal is our unity backed by the might of God Himself as this is the time foretold of in scripture as a Day of Judgment, a harvest time for all who have sown evil and who have sown good. We recognize that the Supreme Being is on the scene today and executing his power to punish and destroy the wicked. Our hope is not in carnal weapons of this world but in the power of the Master of this Day of Judgment in which we now live.

We recognize that the work of Dr. King, Jr., and all who came before him, remains unfinished. In his last public message, the civil rights stalwart talked of spreading the pain by engaging in economic withdrawal with strategic pooling and use of over $1 trillion in Black spending to put power behind our demands. We will engage in economic withdrawal in 2016 with a boycott of Xmas Holiday Spending, with its manipulation and exploitation of the emotions of children, parents, families and those we love, with its root in crass commercialism and its perpetuation of pagan practices and base desires when the focus is supposed to be on a righteous man and divine servant.

When our lives are taken unjustly it is the responsibility of government to act to prosecute and punish the killers. The federal government, in particular, has the responsibility to end assaults and killings under the color of law and mob attacks. We cannot continue to suffer like this and not organize and demand that government respond to our needs—or admit that we are still not true citizens.

Justice and equity cannot wait any longer and in October we will remember those killed in Charleston, S.C., those killed before Charleston, and those killed in fratricidal violence in the Black community. We will speak directly to government and to the challenges this country faces if it wishes to have any perpetuity and as the divine hand is ever moving toward justice.