Jan. 12, 2014

New CBC Chairman U. S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) at CBC swearing in ceremony Jan. 9. PHOTO: Courtesy/House.gov

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - U. S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), the 24^th chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, is taking the reins of the CBC at a pivotal moment in Black history.

Despite all of the progress that African-Americans have made since the group was founded in 1971, arguably the most significant of which has been the election of the nation's first Black president, Butterfield says there is still far to go.

"Black America is in a state of emergency today as it was at the turn of the century," Butterfield declared in remarks delivered at the CBC's Jan. 9 ceremonial swearing-in, where the theme was "Learn from our past, but boldly confront an uncertain future."

As the North Carolina Democrat noted, 25 percent of Black households today live below the poverty line and one in three Black children are living in poverty. The African-American unemployment rate has for a half century been twice as high as White unemployment, which only exacerbates persistent income and wealth gaps.

"America is not working for many African-Americans and the Congressional Black Caucus has an obligation to fight harder and smarter in the next Congress to help repair the damage," Butterfield said.

With both chambers now entirely controlled by a Republican Party that has repeatedly turned a cold shoulder on increasing minimum wage, extending long-term unemployment insurance and other proposals to keep the social safety net intact, it won't be easy.

In addition, said Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn, who also spoke at the event, African-Americans must deal with the repercussions of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned a key section of the Voting Rights Act and state and local governments around the country that are "stacking and bleaching legislative and congressional districts, diluting the effectiveness of Black representation and participation."

But Butterfield, who has a storied civil rights past, is no stranger to such challenges. "He has lived much of America's history," Clyburn said, and "has learned its lessons."

The new chairman says his leadership of the caucus will be influenced by his experiences growing up in the segregated South of Wilson, N.C., where "colored people" as Blacks were called back then, were treated like second-class citizens.

When Butterfield, was a boy, his parents, a teacher and a dentist, were considered middle class. But truth be told, they were just two weeks away from poverty instead of one day like others, and if either parent were to become seriously ill, their family of three would have been financially devastated just like everyone else's.

While he was more fortunate than most, Butterfield, now 68, still vividly recalls seeing Blacks from his side of the railroad tracks transported by Whites to work as domestics or laborers each day and paid a pittance at the end of the week. He remembers schools that were "structurally inferior" and outstanding teachers who were paid less than their White counterparts.

During that time, his father, an avid voting rights activist and founder of the local NAACP chapter, also served for a time on the city council – until efforts to disenfranchise black voters made it impossible for Blacks to be elected. As a teenager, Butterfield founded a junior NAACP chapter and helped lead hundreds of other youths in weekly demonstrations to protest segregated public facilities. During his freshman year of college, he took on voting rights, an issue he continues to fight for today.

"Those experiences have helped mold my perspective and make me determined to fight every day to expose and defeat racism and discrimination wherever it may exist," Butterfield said. "So if anyone has doubts that this chairman and this Congressional Black Caucus will have any reluctance to fight for our communities – you are mistaken."

Butterfield succeeds Ohio Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, who led the Caucus with a keen focus on decreasing the jobless rate in the Black community and against poverty. In the next two years, the caucus will focus on reducing poverty; creating educational opportunities and strengthening HBCUs; restoring Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act; and ensuring corporate diversity. In addition to working with allies in Congress and in state and local government, the CBC will join forces with national Black organizations and the faith community to promote its agenda.

Butterfield hopes that poverty is an issue on which Democrats and Republicans can find common ground because GOP lawmakers represent the majority of constituents who've lived below the poverty line for the past 30 years.

"We will continue to fight against any additional efforts to reduce the deficit by dismantling the social safety net that our communities depend on and programs that create jobs for the unemployed and underemployed," Butterfield warned. "Irresponsible budgeting in this Congress will be met with dogged resistance."

The centerpiece of the group's agenda, however, will be criminal justice reform and reversing a "terrible trend" that has resulted in unarmed Black men dying at the hand of law enforcement, Butterfield said.

He said that the CBC will pursue legislation to deal with racial profiling and excessive police force, but also work to address "outdated sentencing laws, unethical prosecutors and communicate the importance of criminal defendants having competent counsel.

"We are ready for these fights. The fight for the future is not a Black fight, a Democratic or Republican fight; it is a fight that all fair-minded Americans should promote," the CBC chairman said. "We need to use political means, policy and legal means to reduce racial disparities and move closer to the day when all African-Americans will benefit from fairness and justice and realize the American dream."

Jan. 12, 2015

Selma Plunges a Dagger In the Truth
By Dr. Barbara Reynolds

News Analysis

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - If Coretta Scott King were alive today, she would not recognize herself as she is portrayed in the new movie Selma scheduled for a full release on January 9.

Except for the beauty of the actress Carmen Ejogo that plays human rights leader Coretta Scott King, the filmmakers misconstrued the intimate relationship she had with her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and miscast her as being tormented by fear when she was bold and courageous as she went through the fires of Southern terrorism as a wife, mother and her husband’s co-partner.

The movie is a powerfully dramatic story of the bloody civil rights struggle in Selma, Ala., which resulted in the Voting Rights Act which President Lyndon Johnson signed into law on August 6, 1965. It is directed by Black filmmaker Ava DuVernay with Oprah Winfrey as a woman being beaten into the dust by Nazi-like Alabama troopers. It tells how King played by David Oyelowo  and a charged up movement of Blacks and Whites combined protest with legislative muster to change the complexion and character of U.S. politics.

The movie has Oscar buzz and might not bother those who buy the premise that moviemakers are not historians and their mission is to entertain rather than to educate and to dramatically pursue a riveting story line regardless of its truth.

But then there are those of us who believe it is wrong for storytellers to mis-educate and fictionalize our main heroes which robs them of their historic truth, especially when they are no longer alive to defend themselves.  Sadly enough, it is easier to popularize a lie when it packs in more drama than the truth and the more often an untruth is told the harder it is to counter it.

Selma shows Mrs. King listening to a tape that suggests her husband was having sex with another woman.  It was a dramatic gotcha moment reportedly showing him as a philanderer and Mrs. King in anguish and in submissive tolerance asking him if he loved the “others.”

As Mrs. King’s biographer, she confided to me that she and Dr. King had a relationship secure in their love and in her trust that her husband was faithful to her and the marriage.  “It has been well established that the tape was sent by the FBI in an attempt to destroy our marriage and weaken him to the point he would take his own life.”

Describing the incident, she said: ”On January 5, 1965, I came across a package postmarked from Miami and dated November 2 that felt like it held a tape. I opened it. The package contained a reel of audiotape and a letter, which I also opened.

“The poorly typed letter read, 'King, we’ve found you out. This is just a sample of the goods we have against you. Your end will come soon. You are done for, there is only one way out for you. You better take it. You have thirty-four days before you will be exposed and publicly defamed.

“The letter had been sent some 34 days before Martin was to receive the Nobel Peace l Prize. There was no question in my mind that the letter was prodding Martin to commit suicide. Under stress, Martin often suffered from depression. In the sick minds of those who sent the letter, I’m sure they thought they were pushing my husband over the edge.

I had heard rumors that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI had prepared a suicide letter and a doctored tape to embarrass Martin. 'This must be it,' I said to myself. I sat up our reel-to-reel recorder and sat down to listen. Although I have read scores of reports talking about the reported scurrilous activities of my husband, there was nothing at all incriminating on the tape. It was of very poor quality and was recorded at some social event. I recognized a staffer Bernard Lee’s voice, but on the entire tape, I didn’t hear Martin’s. People were laughing, talking. Now and then I heard a dirty joke, some profanity. But there was nothing about Martin having sex or anything else that resembled the lies Hoover and his people were spreading.

“Oh, this is nothing,” I said to myself, cutting if off. I gave the tape to Martin who listened to it along with several staff members.

“Later, we learned what great lengths the FBI had taken to prepare the suicide package. Hoover had ordered the doctored tape be mailed from a southern state; an FBI agent flew to Florida with the small package, mailed it, and returned to Washington. Hoover reasoned that I would confront Martin and then leave him, putting Martin in such a weakened state that he would become ineffectual to the Movement. An impending divorce would also reduce his stature. Despite my refusal to fall for any of the bait, rumors spread through the media claiming we’d had a screaming match and saying I was on the verge of walking out. Once again, nothing could be further from the truth. Martin and I did not have the slightest argument over the tape."

As to their reported troubled relationship over Martin’s alleged infidelity, she said, “If there was anything like that I would have known.  A wife always know.’’  Yet despite her own confidence, it was puzzling that given the role of the FBI to discredit her husband that the media would put more credence to the smear than to the witness of  someone who Martin often described as “being only a heartbeat away.’’ That was just one of the many fabricated stories about Martin, our life, and me that I know were fabricated, pure and simple.”

Scenes showing Mrs. King traumatized by the outpouring of death threats to Dr. King and her family  were also out of character for a woman who often told me, “I gather strength from a crisis.”  She told me that rather than being a fearful woman, she had early in life come to terms with terror and the hate that produced it as part of the struggle.

As a teenager growing up in Heiberger, Ala. the family home was burned down, as was her father’s saw mill. On January 30 1956, she was home in Montgomery with her infant daughter Yolanda when it was firebombed.  Upon hearing of the danger, her father came to take her back home, but she refused to leave Martin which he later conceded would have made it more difficult for him to stand his ground if she had not been such a courageous soul.

This is not only the criticism levied against the movie for fictionalizing important historical events and DuVernay, a talented artist, is not the only filmmaker to do so.  Charges are flying back and forth that LBJ was depicted as an adversary instead of a leader in the Voting Rights struggle.

To be fair DuVernay has invited her critics to”investigate major historical moments themselves.” Unfortunately only a very few are gifted enough or have the resources to bring major events to world-wide audiences.

That is why it is so incumbent on the anointed storytellers not to plunge a dagger in the truth.

Dr. Barbara Reynolds is an ordained minister and formerly an editor/columnist for USA TODAY and a columnist for the ROOT DC of the Washington Post.  She is the author of six books, including Jesse Jackson: America’s David and has completed a biography of Coretta Scott King.

Jan.. 11, 2015

Remembering Cuomo, Brooke and Scott
By Marc H. Morial

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - "Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities…because it is the quality which guarantees all others." – Winston Churchill

Just as we welcomed in the New Year with various renditions of Auld Lang Syne and well-wishing cheers, we also met 2015 with solemn reverence as we mourned the loss of three great Americans - former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, former United States Senator Edward Brooke III and ESPN sportscaster Stuart Scott.  Each of these men charted a new course and left an indelible mark on America with their passion, pioneering spirit and principled approach to leaving our nation a better place than they found it.

Mario Cuomo, who passed on New Year’s Day at 82 years old, was lionized as a great voice for liberalism, the New Deal and the Great Society from the 1970s through the 1990s, particularly during the Reagan years.  Governor of New York from 1983 through 1994, Cuomo, the son of immigrants whose deep commitment to values was shaped by his Italian American upbringing in Queens, NY, was widely celebrated for his stirring speeches and oratorical skills.  I had the fortune to be in San Francisco at the Moscone Center during the 1984 Democratic National Convention as a young delegate for Jesse Jackson when Mario Cuomo gave his now very famous speech on the haves and the have-nots – a speech that has as much relevance today as it did 30 years ago.  At the time, it moved us, and at present, it is required reading for anyone serious about the future of America.

But as his son – current NY Governor Andrew Cuomo – reminded us at his funeral services, Mario Cuomo was above all a man of principle.  It is legend that many, including me, wanted him to run for president of the United States in 1988 and 1992, believing that he would bring a sense of principled passion to the office.  He obviously declined – citing his unwavering commitment to the voters and people of NY.  Mario Cuomo will forever have my deepest admiration and respect for representing something very different than many of today’s elected and appointed officials – and that was his steadfast commitment to pragmatism, while at the same time basing his thinking on solid principles rather than the immediate expediency of public polling. 

While many people today may not have known Edward Brooke III – the first African-American elected as a state's Attorney General and first African American elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote – he stands as one of the most pivotal politicians in our nation’s history.  I grew up knowing about Sen. Brooke from my father because, in addition to being a history-making senator from Massachusetts, Sen. Brooke was also a member of and leader in the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.  I also recall the first time I had the honor to meet him.  I was 14 years old and attended a graduation ceremony at Xavier University where he delivered the commencement address. 

What I remember most dearly about Edward Brooke, who passed away on January 3 at 95 years old, is that he ran against the current of the times.  He was a republican in an overwhelmingly democratic state.  He was an African-American in the U.S. Senate when it was dominated by Dixiecrats and segregationists of the likes of Richard Russell, Strom Thurmond and others.  He was also a man who navigated his position as both a historymaker and a senator in a deft and effective way – championing civil rights while at the same time honoring his commitment to the people of Massachusetts.  He broke down the barriers and forged a path for many African American elected officials who followed him, including President Barack Obama, who remembered Brooke as being “at the forefront of the battle for civil rights and economic fairness” and who “sought to build consensus and understanding across partisan lines, always working towards practical solutions to our nation's challenges." 

Stuart Scott, the ESPN anchor and reporter who brought a new swagger and swerve to sportscasting, was one of my favorite sportscasters because he told it as we talked it. He explained it as we thought it.  In short, he made sports very real for people in all communities across the nation.  I also believe that Stuart Scott opened the doors for many other African American sportscasters at ESPN and other networks.  He demonstrated, much like the late great Howard Cosell, that to be effective you need not be cut from a traditional cloth, but that you could bring the fullness of who you are, your personality and your experiences – and the audience would love it. 

Stuart Scott was a stand-out among his peers, but not just for his “remix” of traditional sportscasting with cultural and memorable catch phrases.  He was also a stand-out for the life he lived, the love he gave to family and friends, and the fight he fought.  Scott was valiant as a young man in his fight against cancer.  Passing away on January 4 at 49 years old, he left a legacy that extends far beyond his years.  When he accepted the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at the 2014 ESPY Awards in July 2014, he said “When you die, it does not mean that you lose to cancer.  You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and in the manner in which you live."  By his own definition, Stuart Scott beat cancer.

Our nation is better off for the contribution of these three men, who each, in their own way, challenged and changed our perceptions, our expectations and our futures by being courageous enough to show us a different way.