Jan. 9, 2015

"Selma": You've Got to See It!
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Whenever someone tells you how terrible a movie is—especially one about Black people or Civil Rights/Human Rights, one by a Black writer or director – you need to go to see it! It almost always means that it’s worth seeing; that’s my rule!  It means that the film struck a nerve with someone who professes, “I’m not a racist” even as that person reacts as one!

Such is the case with "Selma" - a film whose central character is not President Lyndon Johnson, but which has been harshly critiqued as being unfairly critical of the legacy of LBJ.  The film is not about LBJ and, unfortunately, most who would critique “Selma” in that manner are likely those unwilling to look realistically and objectively at the raw savagery reigned upon people who were only seeking the justice inherent in their citizenship.

Unquestionably, good white people participated in the Civil Rights Movement and no one can dispute the transformational legislation signed by President Johnson in 1964 and 1965.  As a Black person, I am grateful for that, but I am far more grateful to the human beings who put their lives on the line—some making the ultimate sacrifice—to demonstrate the need for the laws than I am to the President who finally did the right thing.

To more honestly critique "Selma”, one must answer the questions, "Why did Johnson have to be asked to push a Voting Rights law?”  “Why did he tolerate so much death and destruction before he did the right thing?”

While understanding the gravity of Johnson's actions, his decisions were made and his actions were taken in the sanctuary of his Oval Office.  The only threat faced by LBJ was political.  Unlike Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Viola Liuzzo, Pastor James Reeb, John Lewis, Jimmy Lee Jackson, Medgar Evers, Diane Nash, Fannie Lou Hamer and others, President Johnson did not have to weigh the threats against his life to the potential good which would be realized by their sacrifice.

I encourage everyone to see “Selma” and, after you've seen it, I ask you to share this powerful film with your family and friends.  When you've seen it, have a serious discussion with your children and grandchildren about what yesterday's leaders endured to give us the rights we enjoy today.  Let "Selma" teach them the lessons of courage and conviction and show how under the threat of death, people were willing to put their lives on the line for what is right.  Use "Selma" to let all you hold dear to know why you tell them, “The struggle continues!”   Teach their responsibility to pick up the baton and join the movement to push us closer to our rightful place in America.

I applaud Ava DuVernay for making this movie and I challenge its critics to honestly assess how many filmmakers have produced honest depictions of the struggles and accomplishments of African Americans.

The 50^th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act will be celebrated this year.  This auspicious anniversary should illuminate the goals achieved in the past and give good cause to resist those who are actively engaged in a campaign to reverse our hard fought voting rights gains.

In the month of March, it might also be a good idea to take our children and our families to Selma, Alabama for the Bloody Sunday observance.  Such a pilgrimage will take them closer to the ground where people died to give us the right to vote.  They will gain a better appreciation of what happened there, as well as why they should never ignore an opportunity to vote at any level. Perhaps seeing the film “Selma” and taking that trip to Selma could help to indelibly make that point.

(Dr. E. Faye Williams is President of the National Congress of Black Women.  202/678-6788.  www.nationalcongressbw.org.)

Jan. 6, 2014

Ed Brooke, Trailblazing U. S. Senator, Succumbs
Brooke told NNPA that Republicans had not done right by African-Americans

By Hazel Trice Edney

Edward W. Brooke Photo: LOC.gov

(TriceEdneyWire.com) Edward Brooke, the first African-American elected to the U. S. Senate since Reconstruction, has died. He was 95.

Black politicians and educators around the nation this week saluted Brooke, a trailblazing Republican who was elected in 1966 and served through 1978 when he lost his election amidst a controversial ethics investigation. His prized issues included health care, the economy, and wars overseas,

Brooke also fought for bi-partisanship and sought to hold his own party accountable to Black people.

In a 2004 interview with this reporter, then Washington Correspondent for the NNPA News Service, Brooke sharply criticized top African-Americans in the Bush administration, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, as they attended the Republican National Convention in New York that year.

"I applaud Rice and Powell's appointments and I think most African-Americans applaud them as well. But when you're talking bread-and-butter issues, when you're talking jobs and health care, you have to balance that. What are they doing for the millions of African-Americans who are suffering?" he asked. "From the tax programs, the war, and the disproportionate number of African Americans going to war, when you look at it that way, they can't expect to receive African-American votes just because of a few Black appointments."

Brooke remained a loyal Republican, but said in that interview, "The Republican Party has not done what it should have done to attract African-Americans…The party of Lincoln is not the party of Lincoln today. Unfortunately, African-Americans still view the Republican Party as opposed to the issues that are most important to African-Americans."

Brooke also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004 and received the Congressional Medal of Freedom in 2009.

“Senator Brooke led an extraordinary life of public service, including his time in the U.S. Army. As the first African-American elected as a state's Attorney General and first African-American U.S. Senator elected after reconstruction, Ed Brooke stood at the forefront of the battle for civil rights and economic fairness,” said a statement from President Obama. “During his time in elected office, he sought to build consensus and understanding across partisan lines, always working toward practical solutions to our nation's challenges.”

U. S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, credited Brooke for making “the critical connection between the challenges facing minorities and the challenges facing low-income families. Mr. Brooke was a trailblazer, inspiring countless leaders who followed him to transcend partisan differences and find common-sense solutions to the problems facing our nation, including the passage of the bipartisan Fair Housing Act which, even today, works to ensure equal housing opportunity for all people.”

Both Democrats and Republicans applauded him upon his death.

“Today, our party and our nation have lost a statesman and a trailblazer,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Co-Chairman Sharon Day in a statement.

DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Brooke “earned the respect of those who served beside him. He was a statesman in the truest sense, possessing a commitment to public service which is all too rare to find in this day and age.”

Brooke was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002, but died of natural causes.

A native of D.C., Brooke graduated from Howard University in 1941. He served in an all-Black combat unit in World War II and later settled in Boston after graduating from Boston University Law School, the Associated Press reports.

Howard University President Wayne A. I. Frederick issued a statement describing Brook as “an activist who was willing to reach across party lines and use his power and influence to serve the underserved.”

His survivors include his second wife, Anne Fleming Brooke; their son Edward Brooke IV; his daughters Remi Goldstone and Edwina Petit; stepdaughter Melanie Laflamme, and four grandchildren.

Jan. 11, 2015

Education, Economic Justice, and the King Mandate
By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - As he labored for social, civil and economic justice, Dr. King was extremely concerned both about the educational inequities that were a function of segregation, and about the purpose and quality of education.  As early as 1947, as a Morehouse College student, he wrote an article, "The Purpose of Education" for the Maroon Tiger, the college newspaper.  His article is as relevant today as it was then.

Today much of the focus of education is on passing standardized tests; and while educational measurement is important – Dr. King suggests that these measures are insufficient. In his article in the Maroon Tiger, he pondered the meaning and purpose of education.  He wrote that “Education must enable a (person) to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.”

Dr. King was critical of the results of specific aspects of education when he wrote, “education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking.  To think, incisively and to think for one’s self is very difficult.  We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half-truths, prejudices, and propaganda.  A great majority of the so-called educated people does not think logically and scientifically.  Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths.” True in 1947, but even more so today with three-minute commentary passing for news, and some classrooms the site of propaganda delivery.  Some Southerners still believe that the South won the Civil War, and they fly the confederate flags to honor it, and teach this falsity in their classrooms.  A friend who lives in Georgia said nearly half of her junior high school-age daughter’s US history curriculum covered aspects of the Civil War.

From that perspective, he was quite critical of segregationist, their intelligence, ad their prejudice.  “The late Eugene Talmadge, in my opinion, possessed one of the better minds in Georgia, or even America.  Moreover, he wore the Phi Beta Kappa key.  By all measuring rods, Mr. Talmadge could think critically and intensively yet he contends that I am an inferior being.  Are these the types of men we call educated?"

Dr. King said that intelligence is not enough. “Intelligence plus character is the goal of true education.”  We must develop and support young people who are educated in the King tradition – young people with character and discernment.  We cannot do this work without a consciousness of people who are committed to breaking down educational barriers, closing the achievement gap, improving the quality of schools and access to education.  But while other countries are increasing their commitment to education, the United States is cutting back.

Said King, “The most dangerous criminal may be the man (person) gifted with reason, but no morals.”  How moral is it to consign millions to low wages, refusing, even, to increase the minimum wage.  How moral is it to cut food stamps and jobs programs are in the name of economic growth, although many are still suffering.  The art and science of politics is about compromise, but how do we compromise with people’s lives and well-being?

There ought to be a floor under which no citizen is allowed to fall.  Wages, health career, education, and access to housing should not be bargained over, but given.  Too many of our legislators are educated, but lack morals.  It is shameful to watch them celebrate the shredding of the safety net.

Budget cuts have made education less obtainable than ever. While many parents hire coaches to help their children write essays and complete their college applications, working class parents don’t have the money to do this kind of hiring.  The American School Counselors says that many States mandate a ratio of between 500 and 750 students per counselor.  Even at the lower number, a counselor can spend just an hour per student per semester, hardly enough to get advice about college attendance, the filling out of applications, and other matters.  Some states have no mandate at all. They include (but are not limited to) Florida, Illinois, Kansas, and Kentucky.  Unless parents or civic organizations are willing to step up, some students face major barriers to college attendance and career preparation.

Julianne Malveaux is an author and economist based in Washington, D.C.

Jan. 6, 2014

Remains of New Orleans’ First Black Mayor Moved 
By Mason Harrison

National Urban League President Marc Morial, also former mayor of New Orleans, stands by the new tomb of his father.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Louisiana Weekly.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Two decades after the death of New Orleans’ first Black mayor, local civic, religious and political luminaries gathered December 29 to mark the reinterment of Ernest “Dutch” Morial at St. Louis Cemetery No. 3. The ceremony comes after the mayor’s original resting place, St. Louis No. 1, exhausted space to bury future generations of the Morial family and now allows members of the political dynasty to rest together. Pictures of the former mayor adorned the grounds of the cemetery first established in 1848.

Former New Orleans mayor and head of the National Urban League, Marc Morial, led the proceedings as more than 100 attendees encircled the former mayor’s new resting place. Local Muslim cleric Rafeeq Nu’Man offered prayers at the gathering and described the event as a “token of love and respect” for Morial. He also extended “salutations to those of the grave,” referring to the cemetery’s decedents.

St. Louis No. 3 is home to a number of religious leaders, including members of the Little Sisters of the Poor and the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Restaurateur families Tujage, Prudhomme and Galatoire also call the cemetery home, which sits on the edge of the Esplanade Ridge near Bayou St. John.

New Orleans archbishop, Greg­ory Aymond, whose archdiocese is charged with upkeep of the city’s St. Louis cemeteries, applied holy water to Morial’s tomb and offered a blessing in prayer of the site. The ceremony also featured a wreath laying at the tomb and the sound of taps as the event drew to a close.

Xavier University president, Norman Francis, called Morial “one of the finest mayors of any Southern city, and perhaps the nation.” Francis said “it’s not as if there weren’t other great mayors,” but Morial, he said, stood out as someone who was both “a public and private figure” in his kind approach to others.

Francis told the former mayor’s grandchildren who attended the ceremony, and who read portions of his resume, that the road ahead “will be no easier for you than it was for your grandfather,” citing ongoing civil rights debates on voting and police brutality. He called Morial a “mayor for everybody.”

“This event takes us back to a great man,” said Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman, when asked to share his thoughts about the ceremony. Morial, Gusman said, supported each constituent group throughout his career in public service. “It didn’t matter what your station in life was. I loved him.”

“Dutch redefined the city of New Orleans,” said Bishop Paul Morton, co-pastor of Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church in New Orleans East. “We are who we are today because of Dutch Morial.” Morton, who offered the event’s closing prayer, lauded Morial’s history-making career in politics.

Before becoming the city’s first Black mayor in 1977, Morial was the first Black graduate of the law school at Louisiana State University in 1954. More than a decade later, he became the first Black legislator in Louisiana’s statehouse since Reconstruction a century before. In 1970, Morial again made history when he was elected as the first Black juvenile court judge in Louisiana and followed that election four years later by becoming the first Black member of the state’s Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal.