March 26, 2019

Mueller Report Remains a Mystery as NAACP, Black Congressional Leaders Call for Full Release
By Hazel Trice Edney

NAACP President Derrick Johnson

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – A two-year wait for the results of an investigation into whether then presidential candidate Donald Trump and/or his campaign staff colluded with Russia has now fizzled down to four pages.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller finally released his findings this week – but not to the general public; nor to the U. S. Congress. Instead, he sent his full report to Trump-appointed Attorney General William Barr, who reduced the findings to a four-page letter to leading members of Congress. That letter, Barr said, outlined Mueller’s “principle conclusions”.

The first of the conclusions stated that Mueller “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities”. This is the finding that came as a shock to those who had hoped for clarity on why so many Trump associates either lied about meetings or conversations with Russians. It is also a mystery why Trump refuses to criticise Russian President Vladimir Putin and why he is so secretive about their private conversations.

With no clear answers the NAACP and Congressional leaders are demanding the release of the full report.

“The nation must consider the Mueller report in its entirety. Anything short of complete transparency is unacceptable,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement March 24. “Attorney General William Barr’s principal conclusions submitted to Congress today raise more questions than answers. The American people deserve to see the full report and findings from the investigation, not just a summary from Trump’s hand-picked Attorney General.”

The fizzling of the long-awaited so-called “Mueller Report” has now become new fuel for Trump, who has contended all along that there was “no collusion” and who called it all a “witch hunt” repeatedly.

“After a long investigation, after so many people have been so badly hurt, after not looking at the other side, where a lot of bad things happened, a lot of horrible things happened, and a lot of bad things happened for our country, it was just announced there was no collusion with Russia - the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Trump told reporters shortly after the announcement. “It was a shame our country had to go through this. To be honest it’s a shame that your President has had to go through this since before I even got elected it began.”

Trump also added that there was “no obstruction” and said, “It was a complete and total exoneration”. But Mueller apparently did not go that far.

According to Barr’s summary, Mueller’s report, “leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as difficult issues of law and fact concerning whether the President’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction.”

Without the full report on findings of the detailed investigation, members of Congress say they and the general public have been shorted.

“We should not construe a four page letter from the Attorney General with the complete findings of Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation," wrote U.S. House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn in a statement. "The entire findings of the report must be made public to Congress and the American people before we draw any conclusions. In the meantime, Congress will continue to fulfill its oath to uphold the constitution by providing oversight of this administration.”

The announcement of the closure of the report appears to have started more than it finished. As civil rights leaders have encountered yet another attack on the freedom of Black people; they are gearing up for yet another fight.

“It is even more imperative that we have full access to the Mueller report and evidentiary basis to learn the facts surrounding Donald Trump’s actions and potential attacks on the integrity of our democracy,” concludes Johnson. “We are entitled to know everything about Russia’s brazen attacks on our political system. This includes how Russia manipulated voters in the United States, fomented racial division among voters through social media and other means, and targeted the African-American community in extraordinary fashion to suppress voter turnout.”

March 25, 2019

Paying a Debt to Society?
After Incarceration, Former Prisoners Face a Tough Journey Home to Find Work, Reunite with Family and Begin Again
 Plan for transitional support to ex-convicts stirs not-in-my-backyard protests in Washington, D.C. showing complexities of criminal justice reform
By Rachel Holloway

NEWS ANALYSIS

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Try to imagine what freedom must be like for many prisoners who’ve been released after serving sentences of 10, 15 or 20 years behind bars.

Sure, there is the initial sense of elation among some of the men and women about the prospect of a second chance in society. But that elation frequently gives way to frustration, dismay and even fear over how to begin picking up the pieces of their shattered lives.

Indeed, the questions and obstacles they face can be overwhelming. Will they ever find a job, especially if they lack the skills employers need? What about affordable housing? And where will they find money to pay for food and transportation?

Then there are all the societal changes, starting with the disappearance of transit tokens, not to mention the array of other new technologies, including smartphones, social media platforms, video streaming, e-readers, GPS devices and tablets. These technologies are often dizzyingly unfamiliar to individuals who in many cases went to prison at a time when the lowly flip phone was a high technological achievement. And yet being able to use these technologies—from Microsoft Word for a resume to LinkedIn for job searching —is critical.

Thousands of ex-convicts face this reality in communities across the country, from Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta and Miami to Chicago, Detroit, Houston and Los Angeles. To hear these sort of coming home stories is the first step to understand the daunting journey undertaken by these individuals – often unsuccessfully – to rebuild their lives and re-establish ties to family, friends and community after prison.

With tens of thousands of prisoners being released each year from jails and prisons across the country, experts agree that a major test on the journey home for these individuals is navigating rocky shoals of the transition between prison and society. Will they be productive citizens, or will they engage in a repeat offense and return to prison? Or will they end up homeless in the streets – or worse?

Ex-convicts continue to pay after release

How to help ease the transition for inmates returning home has become part of the growing national debate on reforming the criminal justice system at a time when critics say it has incarcerated a disproportionate number of Black and Hispanic men while focusing on punishment rather than rehabilitation.

That debate is playing out in Washington, D.C.’s  predominantly black Ward 5, where a proposal to open a residential reentry facility for ex-prisoners has provoked a not-in-my-backyard furor. It has also sparked a larger discussion about the need for programs that confront systemic needs of ex-convicts—including providing housing, job training or drug treatment—while helping them work through the psychological issues that returning home can provoke.

At the center of this debate is CORE DC, a minority-owned, social-services group seeking to open a residential reentry center in Ward 5. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) on November 1, 2018 awarded CORE DC the contract to open a 300-bed center and the facility was scheduled to start taking in residents on March 1 of this year.

 

But plans were put on hold amid concerns from some community members. The delay dealt a blow to efforts to address the pressing needs of former inmates returning home with what CORE DC and supporters say is the organization’s humane approach to helping the former prisoners assimilate into a society with obsolete notions of crime and punishment.

“How do you genuinely engage in criminal justice reform when you still have ancient and outdated attitudes?” CORE DC chairman and CEO Jack Brown said. “These are the kind of monsters under the bed that CORE has to deal with. If you have an organization that is providing these services and their reputation is questionable, of course the community should have concerns. But that is not what the community is getting with CORE.”

 

Lingering concerns about past service providers

 

The only reentry center in Washington, D.C., today is Hope Village, located in Southeast Washington. Opened in the late 1970s, it has faced criticism in the past on issues ranging from the treatment of residents to its security practices. In a 53-page 2013 memo, the independent agency in charge of monitoring conditions inside of District correctional facilities found that Hope Village lacked “job readiness resources” and substandard care for residents with mental health needs. In 2016, a nonprofit criminal justice advocacy group called the Council for Court Excellence implored the BOP to end its contract with Hope Village.

 

When Northeast Washington residents got word that a new reentry center would open in Ward 5, some expressed reservations. Chief among their questions was whether CORE DC’s reentry home would be a good neighbor, a concern that seemingly reflected lingering concerns the community had from past experiences.

 

In fact, just weeks after CORE DC’s Ward 5 project was announced, two former Hope Village residents who had escaped and committed crimes were sentenced to prison, one for a 27-month term and the other for 33 months. The episode seemed to fuel falsehoods and misconceptions about the indispensable role that experts say transitional services such as temporary housing and job training have in ensuring former inmates have the tools needed for a second chance.

 

As the drip-drip of troubling reports coming out of Southeast Washington cast a dark shadow over a possible new reentry center in Northeast Washington, CORE DC reached out to local lawmakers while the organization’s leadership joined community hearings convened to address questions surrounding the planned facility.

 

CORE DC says it hoped to provide facts and clarity to the discussion.

 

“At our facilities, the program director is in daily communication with Bureau of Prisons,” Brown said. “Most people in the community believe you get to hang out from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m at outside of the center, not at CORE. We don’t see too many program failures because our clients have jobs that we work with them to get in the construction industry, technology sector and other livable wage jobs.”

But dialogue has sometimes been elusive—and sometimes heated.

 

Halfway houses, a loaded term

At one community meeting, a pamphlet was left behind that warned of the grave dangers of “halfway houses,” a term that those in the criminal-justice world say is outdated and filled with a negative connotation. “Halfway houses accept sex offenders, drug offenders, convicted murders and rapists,” the pamphlet read. A group of 12 Northeast residents sued, and on December 21, CORE DC lost its lease on the property.

 

There is also the fact that Hope Village, which has won more than $125 million in federal contracts since 2006, filed a protest against the BOP contract with CORE DC. The protest, filed with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), leveled a number of charges, including that Hope Village lost the contract because it refused to take in sex offenders. In a decision made on Feb. 21, the GAO dismissed Hope Village’s highly charged claim, while raising technical questions about CORE DC’s use of the property it proposed for its center.

 

CORE DC said that it remains committed to the DC area.

 

“We remain committed to reunifying the families and restoring the communities that these individuals leave behind,” Brown said, “But in order to address these complicated issues, the community deserves a productive, fact-driven dialogue, not falsehoods and fear-mongering.”

 

In recent weeks, CORE Services Group, of which CORE DC is an affiliate, has invited Ward 5 leaders to tour other reentry centers the organization operates. The nonprofit, founded in 2005, has invited local representatives to a reentry center in Brooklyn, New York, where security standards have been lauded in routine reviews by the BOP.

 

Meanwhile, it remains to be seen whether the community will embrace CORE DC as a new neighbor. But with an estimated 8,000 former inmates returning home to Washington every year, advocates say reentry centers are a proven part of the solution, even as they caution that the District, just like communities around the country, need a comprehensive approach.

 

The writer, Rachel Holloway, can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

March 25, 2019

Imposing a Modern-day Version of a Poll Tax is a New Low
By Jesse Jackson

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Until 2018, Florida — the state vital to the presidential victories of George Bush and Donald Trump — deprived one in 10 voters, and two in 10 African Americans, of the right to vote with a constitutional provision banning felons from voting, even after they had fulfilled their sentences. Many with nonviolent drug felonies, enforced by a systematically biased criminal justice system, are kept from the polls. The discriminatory effect and intent of this exclusion is obvious. In a stunning act of decency in 2018, Floridians voted overwhelmingly to amend their constitution and restore the voting rights of Floridians with felony convictions “after they complete all terms of their sentence, including parole or probation.”

According to the Tallahassee Democrat, the “Voting Restoration Amendment,” would “grant most of the 1.7 million convicted felons the right to vote and help select their leaders for local, state and federal offices.” Voting rights activists drew up plans to help contact and register them, with the charismatic young leader, former Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Andrew Gillum committed to leading the effort. Now Republicans in the state legislator are moving to frustrate the will of citizens, adding a new burden to exclude voters, a new form of one of the most loathsome Jim Crow tactics — the poll tax. Republicans in a House committee have voted — contrary to the intent and the text of the referendum passed by voters — to exclude from voting those who haven’t paid their fines (even including those on a court-approved payment plan). Fines are imposed not by judges as part of the sentence, but by administrative clerks. They do not block any other voters from voting.

If Republicans have their way — and they have a majority in the House legislature — they will likely use these fines to block a substantial portion of African Americans from voting. Despite the will of its people, Florida Republicans want to impose a racially biased poll tax to strip citizens of the right to vote — and to tilt elections in their favor. Beginning in the 1890s, the poll tax was central to enforcing segregation in the South. Most of the laws had a “grandfather clause” that exempted those whose parents or grandparents had the right to vote prior to the Civil War. In 1964, this foul measure was outlawed for federal elections in the 24th Amendment to the Constitution. In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional even in state elections. So states like Florida found other tricks and traps to limit the vote. Now, after the citizens of Florida have thrown out felony exclusion, Republicans threaten to impose a new Jim Crow poll tax.

There is no justification — except partisan zealotry built upon race-based politics. Republicans, from Trump on down, have chosen to make themselves the party of racial division. African Americans, not surprisingly, tend to vote overwhelmingly against them. So Republicans use various tricks to suppress the African-American vote — gerrymandering, restrictive voter ID laws, cuts in early voter hours and opposition to same-day voter registration — all to make it harder for the poor and minorities to vote. But imposing the modern-day version of a poll tax is a new low.

If Republicans do succeed in passing this injustice, it will be challenged in the courts or in another referendum. But none of this should be necessary. The real question is to the Republican congressional majority in Florida: Have you no decency? Are you so blinded by partisan self-interest that you would maliciously deprive a million Floridians of the right to vote? Are you so arrogant as to ignore the 65 percent of the voters who voted to erase this injustice from Florida’s constitution? Have you no shame?

March 20, 2019

NAARC Applauds Reparations Conversation by 2020 Presidential Contenders

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Institute of the Black World 21st Century

Dr. Ron Daniels, IBW president

Dr. Julianne Malveaux, NAARC Commissioner

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The National African-American Reparations Commission (NAARC) applauds several presidential contenders for their recent expressed interest in reparations and calls on all the candidates to prioritize reparatory justice as an issue of importance to Black voters in the weeks and months ahead.

NAARC is also calling on all 2020 candidates, as well as other lawmakers, to support HR40, the reparations bill authored by former US Cong. John Conyers, which has languished in Congress since 1989. HR-40, which was reintroduced in the 115th Congress, was developed in consultation with NAARC.

It calls for establishing a federal commission to study reparations proposals for African-Americans that would repair the horrific socio-economic damages caused by the enslavement and generations of racially exclusive/discriminatory policies and practices post-emancipation.

The current reparations conversation, namely being forged by candidates Sens. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and former Housing Secretary Julian Castro, is especially relevant in light of the fact that 2019 marks the 400th Anniversary of the arrival of Africans in chains in Virginia, which opened the era of slavery, one of the most sordid chapters in U.S. history.

“In general, the recent statements by presidential candidates are a positive development,” said Dr. Ron Daniels, Convener of NAARC and President of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW). “They reflect an increasing body of scholarship that definitively draws the connection between the enslavement of Africans and the persistent wealth-gap and underdevelopment of Black America.”

Candidates are also responding to the growing, multifaceted reparations movement in this country and to the fact that in recent public opinion polls, reparations now enjoys the support of a majority of African-Americans as well as from a growing percentage of young White millennial voters.

“NAARC stands ready to educate and orient candidates and legislators on the definition, background, process, internationally accepted norms and historical precedents for reparations to repair damages inflicted on peoples and nations. Hopefully, this will enrich the public dialogue on this vital issue,” added Dr. Daniels.

NAARC was established in April 2015 at a National/International Reparations Summit convened by IBW in New York City. The nonpartisan Commission is comprised of distinguished Black leaders from across the U.S. in the fields of law, education, public health, economic development, religion, labor, civil and human rights.

For decades, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA) has been a leading force advancing the struggle for reparations in the U.S. Kamm Howard, National Co-Chairperson of NCOBRA and a NAARC Commissioner, welcomes the surge in support for reparations by the presidential candidates but insists that the discussion and debate be centered around reparations as full repair.

“The international standard holds that reparations ‘must wipe out all consequences’ of the wrongful acts committed against enslaved Africans,” said Howard. “To get us to full repair, policies programs and practices must be developed to produce the following outcomes: cessation and guarantees of non-repetition, restitution, compensation, satisfaction, and rehabilitation. These are the intended outcomes of HR 40. The candidates, some of whom are Senators, should craft a Senate companion bill. This can be done now if they are serious about their support for reparations.”

To help frame the public discourse and as a guide for action by governmental and private entities, NAARC has devised a comprehensive and detailed 10-point reparations program that addresses the issues of repair and restitution. The creation of a National Reparations Trust Fund is among the proposals outlined in the NAACRC Reparations Program.

The Authority would receive funding grants, scholarships, land and other forms of restitution to benefit the collective advancement of Black America. It would be comprised of a cross-section of credible representatives of reparations, civil rights, and human rights, labor, faith, educational, civic and fraternal organizations and institutions.

The Authority would be empowered to establish subsidiary trust funds to administer projects and initiatives in the areas of culture, economic development, education, health and other fields as deemed appropriate based on the demands of the Reparations Program (https://bit.ly/2T0MhZt).

To increase public awareness of the Program, NAARC has convened initial Hearings and Town Hall Meetings in Atlanta and New Orleans and plans to hold additional sessions in a number of cities across the country.

Pan-Africanist and international movements in support of slavery reparations have emerged across the globe, from the Caribbean and Latin America to Africa, Asia, and Australia. In that regard, it is significant to note that NAARC works closely with the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC) which is claiming reparations from the former European colonial powers for Native genocide and African enslavement.

Advocates for reparatory justice explain that the issue covers both the past and the present and it contains the potential to defend and protect American democracy at a time when it is being threatened by a rise in white nationalism, autocracy and oligarchy. In a recent meeting, NAARC Commissioners also took note of the fact there are external forces that seem intent on sowing confusion within the American electorate to suppress the Black vote to favor the ascendancy of these reactionary forces.

NAARC Commissioner Dr. Iva Carruthers, General Secretary of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference stressed, “Reparations is a process that affirms the humanity of people of African descent and the healing of communities from trans-generational trauma. It is unquestionably the right and just thing to do. Reparations also carries a gravitas that the country as a whole can benefit from as it searches for a moral compass to guide it through these turbulent times which are exacerbated by deeply entrenched bigotry, institutionalized racism and structural economic disparities.”

“As the richest country on the planet, America has more than enough resources to sustain a comprehensive, national reparations program,” says NAARC Commissioner Dr. Julianne Malveaux, noted political-economist and educator. “America needs to accept its moral responsibility to repair and rectify the lingering damages of African enslavement and racially discriminatory policies after Emancipation.”

Dr. Ron Daniels concluded that “reparations is as relevant to our political agenda as any other issue. Finally receiving our ‘40 acres and a mule’ is a matter of ‘national emergency’ when dealing with the profound crises afflicting marginalized Black communities across this nation. The time for reparatory initiatives based upon the principles of justice and equality is now, and NAARC calls on all of the 2020 presidential candidates to endorse and vigorously support HR-40 as a vehicle to move the United States towards redressing one of the original sins of its founding.”