Dec. 8, 2014

Mayor Marion Barry Eulogized as a ‘Hero - More Than a Champion’

By Hazel Trice Edney

Rev. Jesse Jackson preaches the eulogy of Marion Barry, known as 'the mayor for life.' PHOTO: Roy Lewis/Trice Edney News Wire

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Marion Barry, the Washington, D.C. mayor who soared above all odds to become one of Black America’s most storied and most popular politicians, has been eulogized as a hero.

“He was a hero - more than a champion. When champions win, they ride the people’s shoulders. When heroes win, the people ride their shoulders,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson who preached the eulogy before thousands at the Washington Convention Center Dec. 6. “They lift the quality of the whole game. More than a champ, he was a hero.”

Throngs of people – Washingtonians and visitors from around the nation – observed three days of ceremonies leading up to Saturday’s funeral, which lasted more than five hours. At one point, people lined up for blocks, standing in the rain to watch his procession go by.

“Marion Barry was a freedom fighter and a long distance runner. He never stopped running. He never stopped serving…He never took his focus off the poor and those with their backs against the wall. That’s why the people loved him and the people kept blessing him,” said Jackson.  “The Jesus standard, the standard of the fair referee is ‘for when I was hungry, did you feed me, the least of these? When I was naked did you clothe the naked? When in prison, did you visit me? On this basis, he separated the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff, the real players, the champions from the heroes…That’s why the people stood in the rain and watched him go by.”

Barry collapsed outside his home and died shortly after midnight Sunday, Nov. 23, at the United Medical Center. He had been released from Howard University Hospital the day before. No cause of death was given, but Barry had long suffered complications from several chronic illnesses. He was 78.

He was revered in his public service. Those sending words of condolences included President Barack Obama, who said Barry “earned the love and respect of countless Washingtonians” despite what was “a storied, at times tumultuous life and career.”

Former President Bill Clinton sent a letter saying, “through great triumph and personal tragedy, Marion always kept looking toward the future. Washington, D.C. has lost a dedicated public servant.”

Congressman John Lewis and the Rev. Joseph Lowery also published letter in the 36-page souvenir program; both praising his commitment to national civil rights as well as to the people of D.C.

Among the dozens of speakers on the program were Minister Louis Farrakhan, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, U. S. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.); National Urban League President Marc Morial; the Rev. Dr. Barbara Williams Skinner, and the Rev. Dr. Jamal-Harrison Bryant. The service was hosted by Rev. Willie F. Wilson, senior pastor, Union Temple Baptist Church, in DC.

People across the nation recall the scandal in which Barry, after three terms as mayor, was arrested and served six months in federal prison on a crack cocaine-related charge. But Barry’s supporters never forgot his service. He quickly rose back to popularity after his release and a stint in drug rehab. He won re-election to Council in 1993 and was re-elected mayor in 1994. He served a total of 16 years as mayor and a total of 16 years on the DC Council until his death.

Senior citizens, youth, Black businesses, the poor, and the homeless were the people who won his heart. Housing, contracts, summer jobs for youth, and economic justice were foremost on his political agenda. He often said D.C. was a “sleepy southern town” when he first arrived in 1965.

In a nutshell, after a stint on the school board and then as board president, Barry won election to council in 1974 and was elected to mayor in 1978. He was credited for setting in motion the funding that turned D.C. into a booming metropolis with millions of dollars in development, much of which went to Black-owned developers and businesses.

Fighting the good fight was in his blood, said Jackson, reflecting on his growing up in the deeply segregated Mississippi Delta.

“He was nearly 30 years old before his family had the right to vote. How does one sum up the life journey of one who went through indignity and disgrace to amazing grace?” said Jackson, who was friends with Barry for more than 50 years, since his days as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). “We shared scars and stories about the odds we had to fight…It seems that we were so certain that the risks we took going to jail, dogs biting, horses kicking, blasted by the press, it did not seem to matter…We became immediate friends and blood brothers in the struggle. We lived as if life is certain and death is uncertain. The fact is that death is certain and life is uncertain.”

Barry was buried in the historic Congressional Cemetery in Washington. But, his autobiography titled, "Mayor for Life", published in June, promises to continue telling his story.

“His enemies laughed, his friends cringed, but he never lost the faith. He went down, way down, but he got up because he knew that nothing was too hard for God,” Jackson preached. “He lifted as he climbed… Lifting up the poor and the seniors and those whose backs are against the wall… The standard is not perfection but dependability to show up when the game is on the line.”

Dec. 7, 2014

We Must Look Back in Order to Move Forward  
By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “There is not a Black America and a White America …there's the United States of America.” – Senator Barack Obama 2004

As Americans react to the Grand Jury decisions to “no-bill” in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases and struggle to come to grips with the most recent shooting death of 12 year-old Tamir E. Rice in Cleveland, Ohio, the shooting death of John Crawford, III in Dayton, Ohio and the shooting  death of Victor White III in New Iberia, LA it is obvious that the system is failing. There are different Americas for ethnically different Americans.

The reasons that African Americans, other people of color and now whites from differing backgrounds are protesting these killings are very complex. Among the major factors are 1) the misperception of African American men as inherently threatening leads to too many white police officers to engage in the extrajudicial killing of these unarmed citizens 2) America’s criminal justice system fails to hold these officers accountable.

Senator Obama’s assertion in 2004 that there is “One America” was wrong. The Kerner Commission was correct in 1968 when it opined, “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal."  We see this playing out in economic, health, education, mass incarceration statistics and the focus of this article, unarmed victims of police shootings.

Many are asking, “How has America come to this point?” I submit that this is not a new phenomenon. We are today where America has always been. These systemic failures must be examined within the context of a recent history that has become all too familiar.

The solution to these extrajudicial killings is not a matter of body cameras it is a matter of psychoanalysis.  It is not a matter of more training it is a matter of psychotherapy. In order for America to move forward and correct its ongoing racist trajectory Americans must look back, examine and accept how its racist history has become a controlling element of its nationalist psyche.

Since the first Africans set foot on the shores of Jamestown, VA in 1619 the lives and humanity of African Americans have never been respected by America. For example, a Virginia Slave Code from 1669 read – “if any slave resist his master…and by the extremity of the correction should chance to die, that his death shall not be acompted felony, but the master…be acquit from molestation, since it cannot be presumed that prepense malice…should induce any man to destroy his won estate.” Today’s translation, white police officers can shoot unarmed African American citizens with impunity.

Ask yourself this, if Eric Garner or Michael Brown had been white, would the police officers that shot or choked them have felt so threatened? Would the police officer’s patterns of perception, logic and symbol formation have been different reacting to a white suspect vs. a black/Hispanic suspect - perhaps resulting in their lives being spared?

America has a history of extrajudicial murders. In The Negro Holocaust Robert Gibson wrote, “According to the Tuskegee Institute figures, between the years 1882 and 1951, 4,730 people were lynched in the United States: 3,437 Negro and 1,293 white. The largest number of lynchings occurred in 1892. Of the 230 persons lynched that year, 161 were Negroes and sixty-nine whites.” Even though not all of these victims died at the hands of the police, it was not the practice of local law officials to arrest the perpetrators and bring them to trial. The message to African Americans was loud and clear, “The American system of justice does not apply to you”. Neither Michael Brown nor Eric Garner was afforded the opportunity to face a jury of their peers for their alleged crimes. “Justice” was dispensed on the street by law enforcement officials.

It is ironic that as people fill the streets to protest these latest murders, December 4^,th was the 45^th commemoration of the murder of Illinois Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton and his comrade Mark Clark in 1969. Hampton and Clark were summarily executed by Chicago police officers during a predawn raid of the apartment that they shared… while they slept.  America has a long history of extra judicial killings.

The so-called “War on Terror” has now turned inward.  Domestic forces are being militarized and trained in combat style tactics by and with Israeli security forces. Too many police forces and officers view the African American citizens that they have sworn to “Protect and Serve” as enemy combatants to be “Feared and Eliminated”.

The most recent grand jury “no-bills” have sent the very clear message that the lives of African American men are worthless.  This is eerily reminiscent of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney’s Dred Scott decision in 1857.  African Americans “were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.”

Those facing the oppressive forces in this country and being disaffected by the outcomes of its injustice system must engage the very system that oppresses them.  They must engage in the streets, courts, and legislatures in concerted efforts to bring about substantive change.

Too many people have placed unrealistic expectations on the Obama Administration.  There is no way that one man or one administration can undo 395 years of oppression and racial terrorism.  With that being said, President Obama has failed to use his bully pulpit to forcefully articulate and advocate for the interests of the constituents that sent him to the White House.

As Americans react to the Grand Jury decisions to “no-bill” in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases they must come to realize that we have to look back in order to move forward. Based on this racist history, America never was America to me.

Words from Langston Hughes, “Let America Be America Again”

^{© 2014 InfoWave Communications, LLC Dr. Wilmer Leon is a political scientist and host of the call in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Wilmer Leon” on Sirius/XM channel 126. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or Dr. Leon’s Prescription @ Facebook.com or www.twitter.com/drwleon}

December 4, 2014

Reality Check

Black Folks Must Organize a Movement or Continue to Pay the Consequences
By A. Peter Bailey

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Numerous people have asked me to respond to the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner by White cops. My response is the same as one I gave in July 1964 in the Organization of Afro-American Unity Newsletter (founded by Brother Malcolm X), of which I was editor. It was first published as an editorial in Volume 1, Number 2 of the newsletter and was later republished in a 2013 column for the Trice Edney News Wire, entitled “The Connection Between Trayvon Martin and James Powell.”

My response focused on the killing of 15-year-old James Powell by New York City cop Thomas Gilligan. The following is an excerpt from that editorial: The events that began on July 15, 1964 with the killing of 15-year-old James Powell by Lieutenant Gillian and which ended in demonstrations in several Afro-American communities has once again exposed the powerlessness of Afro-American communities. No one in his wildest dreams can imagine a black police officer shooting and killing a 15-year-old white boy without losing his job and possibly his life."

Yet a white cop brazenly shot down an Afro-American boy without even being suspended. This type of killing happened because Afro-Americans are powerless and therefore are not respected by the white community. And the reason that Afro-American communities are powerless is due to total DISUNITY in their communities. Developing unity of purpose and method is the most urgent problem facing Afro-American communities."

Unity must be achieved or there will be no progress. With UNITY will come POWER; with POWER will come RESPECT; for one of the most basic problems in relationships between individuals, groups, races or nations is that POWER RESPECTS MORE POWER. White America is generally united in its desire to keep black America powerless….”

I believed in 1964, in 2007, in 2013 and I still believe in 2014 that unless we form a movement with the mission of promoting and defending our cultural, economic and political interests in this country, all kinds of manifestations of White supremacy/racism will grow bolder and bolder. We have resolutely refused to do this for the past 45 years. What’s happening today are consequences of that refusal. Demonstrating, chanting “No Justice, No Peace...Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” and rhetorical woofing from visionless “leaders” will not launch a movement. 

They only provide enormous overtime loaded paychecks for the cops and propaganda windfalls for the likes of Rush Limbaugh Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and their fellow haters. My next column will include suggestions on concrete actions we can take to promote and defend our interests.

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

Dec. 7, 2014

Where Do We Go from Here?
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq. 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) — Six years ago, in so many ways, things began getting better for our country and prospects for a new, positive national dialogue foreshadowed an era of rebirth and enlightenment. We had hope for CHANGE.  We now have gasoline prices dropping, the addition of 10.6 million jobs in the past four and one half years and more people going back to work than in Europe, Japan and every other advanced economy combined, an Executive Order on immigration reform, and we’re witnessing the lowest unemployment rate in six years—yet recent horrifying events lead many of us to wonder where do we go from here.  As national progress flourishes under President Obama and his accomplishments persist under the heaviest of contrarian resistance, we’re now demoralized by the emergence of the legally condoned murder of Black people.  Like many others, I just don’t know where we go from here.

The larger issue that must now be faced by the Black community is the reality that the legal system, including the courts at all levels and law enforcement agencies that are sworn "to protect and serve," have become the most dangerous adversaries we’ve faced in decades.  In addition to rescinding established protections to our voting rights, this system has become the assassin of our souls, psyche and bodies. The most recent victims, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice, join a long list of Black people who’ve been unjustly murdered by police who’ve had their crimes excused by official legal processes.

Few who’re familiar with the proper conduct of Grand Jury proceedings would’ve doubted the existence of sufficient evidence to bring Darren Wilson and Daniel Pantaleo to trial for the respective murders they committed.  Instead, under the veil of secrecy and irregularity, the Grand Juries refused to bring indictments.

Thankfully, there’re leaders outside the legal system who’re unwilling to allow injustice to prevail.

Fortunately we have a President who has expressed his determination to move from words to action.  He spoke of seeing the tragedy with Eric Garner in New York City, all of which was caught on videotape and speaks to the larger issues that we’ve been talking about now for the last week, month, year, and, sadly, for decades, and that is the concern on the part of too many minority communities that law enforcement is not working with them and dealing with them in a fair way. He vowed to take specific steps to improve the training and the work with state and local governments when it comes to policing in communities of color. He said we’re not going to let up until we see a strengthening of the trust and a strengthening of the accountability that exists between our communities and our law enforcement.

AG Eric Holder said, "As the Justice Department’s independent investigations into the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner proceed, I will continue these conversations as we seek to restore trust, to rebuild understanding and to foster cooperation between law enforcement and the communities they serve."

We heard Mayor Bill De Blasio in very personal terms express concern about his own Black son and his safety.

We heard a few conservatives wonder how, in view of what they saw on the taped police action with Eric Garner, could there not be an indictment!

Our system of justice is definitely not working for Black people. We clearly saw a policeman on camera choking a man to death and other police joining in or just standing around watching while the man died. We saw a 12 year old baby playing and shot to death without warning. We saw a young man shot to death walking while Black. The list goes on. Peaceful protests and more action MUST continue until change comes.

(E. Faye Williams is President of the National Congress of Black Women. www.nationalcongressbw.org)