June 9, 2015

Kellogg Foundation Vows to ‘Be Real’ About Racism in America
Organization has tripled spending to dismantle ‘racial hierarchy’

By Hazel Trice Edney

T-Dubb-O, a Hip-Hop artist and director of Ferguson's Hands Up United sits on "America Healing" platform alongside
Marc Morial, president/CEO of the National Urban League. PHOTO: The Kellogg Foundation

Gail Christopher, vice president for policy and senior advisor, W. K. Kellogg Foundation PHOTO: Kellogg Foundation

Kellogg Foundation President/CEO La June Montgomery Tabron PHOTO: Kellogg Foundation

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A $75 million initiative launched five years ago to help address and end “the devastating impact of racial inequities on communities across the country” has now mounted to more than three times that much and organizers say there’s no end in sight.

Gail Christopher, vice president for policy and senior advisor at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, who envisioned and continues to lead the "America Healing" mission, now acknowledges that there is much more work to be done. The challenge, she says, is deconstructing the entrenched racism in America that has been built and maintained with billions of dollars.

“We have to be real,” Christopher told the Trice Edney News Wire at the close of Kellogg’s recent “America Healing” conference, attended by hundreds in Asheville, N.C. “Do you see the billions of dollars that racism has built? Racism built this country...You’re talking centuries of commitment to maintaining racial hierarchy. And so, that’s no money in terms of what it will take to heal. When I say heal, I mean the way that we think about each other and the way we think about our nation.”

Among the richest foundations in the world, W. K. Kellogg has so far spent more than $289 million on “America Healing”, of which $25 million was spent on similar efforts in Brazil.  The strategy includes the financial support of more than 500 national and community-based organizations with racial fairness and equity as their daily goals.

The “America Healing” mission has grown so large, that Kellogg no longer wants to refer to it as an “initiative”, a word that means an introductory act or the first in a series of actions.

“We don’t talk in initiatives anymore. We talk of generations. We talk in dual generations and inter-generations,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, Kellogg's president and chief executive officer. Tabron’s closing speech to the audience after the three-day conference left no doubt that the organization is now leading a massive effort to infiltrate racism in America such that a lasting consciousness will occur.

“Will this America Healing continue? Of course. It’s in our DNA,” Tabron said. “We’re going to go back and think real hard about how we scale this concept of healing in most productive ways that’s embedded in everything that we do and in everything that you all do. We have some serious work to do and some very important decisions to make. This is going to take a lot of courage.”

At the semi-annual gathering early last month, principals of the funded organizations shared perspectives and information through forums, panel discussions and small groups. This year, more than 500 advocates, scholars and civil rights leaders participated in the activities. From the beginning, they have included leaders of major organizations such as the NAACP, the National Urban League, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

Though the funded organizations are racially and culturally diverse, they are all focused on dealing with some aspect of racial bias. The focus is largely on transforming attitudes of bias by people who make decisions that affect other people, such as employers, teachers, police officers, policy makers and doctors.

Kellogg’s decision to extend funding for “America Healing” coincides with what often appears to be intensifying racial disparities and issues that reveal growing racial divides and tensions. Institutional and structural racism; the immigration debate; racial profiling and unconscious biases; racial disparities in education, voting rights, mortality rates, health, health care, housing, economics, unemployment and criminal justice are among the string of issues that have been discussed at the conference.

For the past four years, unarmed African-Americans being killed by police and others has been the primary race issue dominating the national media, sparking largely youth-led marches and protests in cities across the country. May’s conference included a mixture of youth leaders among seasoned civil rights leaders.

“That’s who’s out there in the streets and it’s who was out there in the streets 50 years ago,” says Christopher. “I’m happy that we’re able to support people who have been on the front lines doing this work. But, I’m most excited that the community is so broad and so diverse understanding that it’s all of our work.”

The protests against police misconduct and the killing of unarmed African-Americans have been among the greatest indicators that the racial climate in America remains toxic. But, just like during the civil rights movement, it's largely been college age people leading those battles for justice.

“The fact that they have to make that fight means that we haven’t done enough,” Christopher said. “That they are fighting the fight today that should have been won means we haven’t done enough. And so it was very important to bring those voices here and also to nurture and support them in their work so that they understand that we can do this together. There’s a role for us. There’s a role for you. But we’re not going to be silent and watch you die.”

The primary focus of the 85-year-old Kellogg Foundation is the well-being of children, which is largely the reason that race healing has become a primary goal. The theme for this year’s conference was “All Children Must Thrive”.

According to Kellogg, “Children of color are over-represented among the 29 million low-income children and families in this country, particularly among families living in concentrated poverty. According to data from the National Center for Children in Poverty, about 61 percent of African American, 62 percent of Latino, 57 percent of Native American, 58 percent of children with immigrant parents, 30 percent of Asian American children and 26 percent of White children live in low-income families.”

“So the foundation’s commitment to it is comprehensive and fully integrated”, Christopher said. “And  under La June’s leadership, it’s going to go on.”

Describing Christopher as one of “the most courageous leaders in this country,” Tabron was clear about Kellogg’s direction. “This is going to take a lot of courage. It’s going to take risk-taking and it’s going to take love.”

Christopher said Kellogg’s dream is now "to expand the work to other foundations to help launch a global fund for racial healing.” She concluded, “I wish this was 10 times bigger.”

Community Mourns Life of Reporter – Used as a Human Shield
By Joyce Jones

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - On May 28, at 1:30 a.m., Andrew Lightman, managing editor of the Hill Rag and East of the River community newspapers in South East Washington, DC, received a disturbing telephone message from a homicide detective. When he returned the call, the detective asked whether he was driving or sitting down.

"I said, 'Yes, what do you mean?" and the detective says, 'I want you to know that your reporter, Charnice Milton, was shot,'" Lightman told a standing-room audience of family, friends and colleagues who gathered on June 5 to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of Milton at the Living Word Church in Washington, D.C.'s Seventh Ward.

Like everyone else when they learned that Milton had been killed, Lightman was stunned. Hours earlier, at approximately 9:45 pm, while waiting at a bus stop after covering a community advisory board meeting, Milton, 27, was struck by a bullet that was meant for somebody else. A teenager, who may have been the intended victim, reportedly grabbed Milton and used her as a human shield.

The bullet not only ended an innocent life, Lightman said, it also silenced a compelling voice.

News of the death shook media colleagues in the D.C. area; especially given her youth.

"I never had the pleasure to meet Charnice, but from her reputation as a journalist, it seems she was a model for all of us," said Capital Press Club President Hazel Trice Edney. "Too often reporters have chosen the safer or more comfortable beats to cover. But Charnice chose to follow her heart and her passion to cover those voices that we may not otherwise hear. It is certain that her legacy will continue to remind us all of that noble calling to 'afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.'"

During the three-hour service, several people praised Milton, who had dedicated her career to giving a voice to District residents and communities that are often ignored and unheard. Her steadfast commitment was remarkable in part because she had so valiantly overcome her own issues—Asberger's and a severe stutter—to develop the skills necessary to tell other people's stories.

Milton, a graduate of Ball State University, earned a master's degree in magazine, newspaper and online journalism with honors from Syracuse University's prestigious S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in 2011. Syracuse has announced that Milton will be among the names considered for the Newseum's 2015 memorial to slain journalists.

Cora Masters Barry, widow of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, was one of several prominent public figures who came to honor the young reporter. Barry said Milton embodied all of the guiding principles that her Southeast Tennis and Learning Center has worked to instill in the thousands of children and teens who've come through its doors to go as far as the world can take them.

Praising Milton's willingness to represent and serve the community in which she lived, Barry recalled how deeply Milton had impressed her husband.

"’She's so gifted, she's so thorough. She asked me questions I wasn't even thinking about,’” Masters recalled him saying. "He said she's going to be a bright star and then corrected himself to say she is a bright star,” Masters recalled. “Her star still shines among us. She is an example for our young people. We will keep her in our hearts and she will be up in our center as an example [of] how to live your life."

Julianne Malveaux, columnist, economist and a former president of Benedict College for Women, appeared in a video tribute to Milton.

"She wanted to report on the people east of the river who never attracted the attention of the Washington Post or the New York Times," said Malveaux, who'd worked on a project with Milton.

She added that Milton’s death is exactly the "kind of story that she'd dig into…She made you think," Malveaux said. "They shattered her body [but] her spirit lives on in each one of us."

Yvette Alexander, who sits on the D.C. City Council, said when she first met Milton, she was frankly "baffled" that this shy young woman with a speech impediment, had chosen to become a journalist.

"She taught me patience and when I read the articles, I knew she was a force to be reckoned with," Alexander tearfully recalled. "Charnice told our story and that's why I will miss her so much."

Southeast Washington's story is not about homicides, failing schools or poverty, Alexander said. "Our story is about the love in our community. We're going to get who did this."

The killers "do not know the God that we know. I challenge you to show young people love so they know that someone cares about them, and we won't have to go through this again," she challenged the audience.

Several speakers, including Rev. Donald Isaac, who chairs the D.C. mayor's interfaith committee, said Milton's death should be a call to action to end the violence that continues to plague the city and African-American communities around the nation.

"We have to take a stand. Just like we were able to overcome slavery, just as we were able to overcome segregation, we need to put into practice the belief that we can" end this violence, Isaac said.

Living Word's pastor, S. Patrice Sheppard, echoed that sentiment. Recalling the public service campaign that urges people to speak up if they witness something wrong, she said, "If you see something, say something. Go back and tell people in your neighborhoods if you see something, say something. And don't just say it to each other. Say it to somebody who can do something about it."

The hope is that the mantra will encourage witnesses who may have information about Milton's shooting death to come forward.

"This kind of gathering is never easy; it's a time of mixed emotions. This is a time when pastors wish that we didn't have to serve. There's certainly no pleasure in saying goodbye, especially to someone who was so very special to us. It is a time indeed of great loss," said the church's senior pastor, Eugene Sheppard, who delivered a stirring eulogy.

And despite the grief everyone was feeling, "we gather in the midst of hope—hope that comes from our faith," he added.

He also challenged the audience and the city's pastors to join together to make sure that those responsible for her death are held accountable; and not "let our baby have died in vain."

June 8, 2015

Newly Recovered Ship Contains Rare Remnants of Slave Trade

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – A Portuguese slave ship that left Mozambique in 1794 bound for Brazil had hardly rounded the treacherous Cape of Good Hope when it broke apart violently on two reefs only 100 yards from shore.

The Portuguese captain, crew and half of the enslaved Africans survived. An estimated 212 Africans did not and perished at sea.

The ship lay undisturbed in its watery grave until a chance discovery by divers searching the wreck who found iron ballasts - evidence that slaves had been the cargo on the boat.

This week, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture, along with the Iziko Museums of South Africa, the Slave Wrecks Project, and other partners, will announce in Cape Town that the remnants of the São José have been found, right where the ship went down, in full view of Lion’s Head Mountain.

It is the first time, researchers involved in the project say, that the wreckage of a slaving ship that went down with slaves aboard has been recovered.

For the museum — set to open on the National Mall in Washington next year — the find represents the culmination of more than a decade of work searching for the remains of a slave ship that could help tell the story of the 12 million people who were forcibly moved, over some 60,000 voyages, from Africa to North America, the West Indies, South America and Europe.

So far, no skeletons or even partial remains have been found in the wreck.

On Tuesday, when Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian’s African-American museum, was set to join his counterparts in Cape Town to announce the discovery of the São José, there was a memorial service scheduled near the site where the ship went down. Divers will place soil from Mozambique Island on the underwater site to memorialize the graves of the 212 drowned slaves.

June 7, 2015

Grave of Obama's Father to Get Facelift Before Presidential Visit

Pres. Obama’s father’s grave, cleaned of leaves by first cousin, Moses Obama

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Preparing for the July visit of President Barack Obama, officials of Siaya County in Kenya are proposing to spend 1 million shillings or just over $10,000 on the restoration, maintenance and care of the grave.

Governor Cornel Rasanga gave the Department of Tourism the go-ahead to implement the project before Air Force One arrives in Nairobi.

The grave restoration funds will also cover Obama’s grandfather who lies next to his father. Other plans for the site include a visitor’s park in Kogelo, where Mama Sarah [Obama’s stepmother] will receive her visitors,” Siaya tourism chief Charles Akello said on the phone yesterday.

"Remember these plans were planned long ago, before we even had information that the US President would be visiting the country,'' he said.

President Obama’s travel plans became widely known after a phone call to President Uhuru Kenyatta following the devastating terror attack on Kenya’s Garissa University that claimed over 140 lives.

Obama expressed his condolences and those of American citizens for the students and security personnel killed during the attack. He assured President Kenyatta he had not changed his plans to co-host the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Kenya as part of his of his 4th presidential trip to Africa.

The summit brings together business owners, educators, policymakers and investors to support the growth of new enterprises in developing regions. It will be taking place in Africa for the first time..

This will be the 5^th African country Obama would be visiting since he became President and his first presidential trip to Kenya where his father was born. A previous visit took place in 2006 when Obama was still a senator.

It also emerged this week that Felix Kiprono, a lawyer in Nairobi, has offered 50 cows, 70 sheep and 30 goats for Obama’s daughter Malia’s hand in marriage. “People might say I am after the family’s money, which is not the case,” he told the Nairobian newspaper. "My love is real."