March 11, 2018

March 5, 2018

Black Administrators in Child Welfare:
We Can No Longer Ignore that Our Black Children are Dying Too
By Sharon L. McDaniel and Leonard Burton

NEWS ANALYSIS

Jontae Hunt,17, of Chicago; Bianca Nikol Roberson, 18, of Philadelphia; and Ledajrick Rajae Cox, 18, of Dallas are among the thousands of Black youth killed by gun violence over the past year. PHOTOS: Courtesy

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - It’s happened again—another mass school shooting in America. The images of horror-struck teens at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. continue to grip our thoughts, weeks after the Valentine’s Day murders. And the toll: 17 killed, 15 wounded and thousands emotionally scarred, lingers like a bad taste in our mouths.

Another group of youngsters has been gunned down by weapons of war in what was supposed to be their safe place, school. Parkland’s survivors, like the rest of the nation’s children must bear witness to an administration that fails them, and law makers who have the power to protect them from gun violence, but don’t have the political will. But the choice of the nation’s leaders to protect guns, not America’s children, has ignited a fervent chorus and wave of activism. They are made up of new, young voices spearheaded by Parkland high school students who are asking why and rallying to prevent gun violence. Their cause is commendable, their movement is needed and their voices are impactful. As these mostly White teens push back and speak truth to power, The New York Times, CNN and The Ellen DeGeneres Show have been among the ready media platforms; and Oprah Winfrey and George Clooney among their celebrity financial backers.

At the same time, the silence that shrouds the lives of Black children and youth who are losing their lives daily to gun violence is deafening. Aren’t they also victims? But sadly, there is no national outcry voiced against the gun violence that easily ensnares and frequently destroys our Black children and youth where they live—in poor, segregated neighborhoods with little political clout. As an organization of advocates for Black children, working to safeguard their lives and ensure that they thrive, we hear the clock ticking as a child or teen dies from gunfire every 2 hours and 48 minutes in the United States. The number of youngsters in 2016 who died from guns (3,128) could have filled 156 school classrooms.

Not surprisingly, mass shootings dominate the news and drive the national debate on gun violence. But as senseless and horrific as these killings have been, they represent less than 1 percent of all gun violence among young people under age 19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These students, the CDC found, were 40 times more likely to be killed outside of school than at school. Not much has changed, especially for our school-aged children in Baltimore, Chicago and other urban and high-crime cities where they are often counted among the carnage.

While many view these inner-city shootings involving Black people as an intractable problem, how many in our nation are calling the litany of mass shootings what they are—White-on-White crime and acts of domestic terrorism? As Black administrators in child welfare, we fear the toll that relentless gun violence and political avoidance is having on Black children. The cumulative effect is a wartime mentality. It’s shifting the focus of Black children further away from education, opportunities to learn and to just have fun and play—and toward aggression, early death, violence and depression.

March 4, 2018

Man Cleared of Murder After 16 Years Behind Bars

Albert Swinton raises his arms in triumph after murder charges are dismissed against him. (Innocence Project photo)

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A Connecticut judge has dismissed a 1991 murder indictment against Alfred Swinton who spent 16 years in prison until DNA and other evidence cleared him of the crime for which he maintained his innocence from the day police handcuffed him, according to the Innocence Project.

Swinton was arrested in 1991 for the murder of Carla Terry because he had been in the same bar the night she was murdered. A judge, however, tossed the case because he said there wasn’t enough evidence linking Swinton to the crime.

Seven years later, police again arrested him after finding a bra in a box in the apartment building where Swinton lived at the time of the murder. A bite mark on the victim’s breast reportedly linked Swinton’s teeth marks to the crime. In 2001, he was convicted for the Terry’s murder and sentenced to 60 years.

Terry’s sister testified that she gave the bra to her to wear that night, but a 2015 DNA test—known as touch DNA—revealed that neither Swinton nor Carla Terry’s DNA was on the bra. The state laboratory also conducted a second DNA test on the bite mark and the test determined that it didn’t belong to Swinton.

Dr. Gus Karazulas, the chief forensic odontologist, now admits his testimony wasn’t based on scientific evidence, reported the Innocence Project, which is based in New York City. Swinton, who is 69 and walks with the assistance of a walker, is the 30th person since 2000 whose conviction was vacated in 2017 or dismissed based, at least in part, on bite-mark evidence,  the Innocence Project reported.

Police are still hunting for Terry’s killer and the killer of four other area women.

March 5, 2018

Remembering Lerone Bennett, Jr. Master Journalist, Master Historian, Master Teacher
By A. Peter Bailey

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Brilliant journalist/historian Lerone Bennett, Jr., who died at age 89 on February 14, 2018, in numerous Ebony magazine articles and books, made Black History come alive to millions of people in the United States and throughout the world.  It is almost prophetic that the great historian died in the middle of Black History Month.

During my eight years working in Ebony's New York City office and at several conferences of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, I had an opportunity to personally talk to and closely listen to the wisdom that he abundantly provided.  When it came to Black History, Lerone was a Master Teacher.  He always spoke calmly but emphatically when exposing the outright lies that we had been told about American history, especially when it came to black folks.  I know at least a dozen people who became history-lovers after reading one of Lerone's books or hearing him speak.

In the introductions or prefaces Lerone informs readers, the motivation for each of his books.  They include the following:

1. Before the Mayflower: The History of the Negro in America (1962)
The quote is from the 1964 revised edition.  "This is a history of 'the other America' and what happened to them when they got here.  The story begins in Africa with the great empires of the Sudan and Nile Valley and ends with the Second Reconstruction which Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 'sit-in' generation are fashioning in the North and South...."

2. The Negro Mood (1964)

"In five essays organized around the general theme, the Negro Mood, I have attempted to dig beneath the surface and expose the psychic mechanisms of the Black fury that is rolling across the land."

3. Confrontation: Black and White (1965)

"The Negro rebellion is a classic example of the confrontation of blacks and whites as symbols and as presences.  This epochal event, which is beginning not ending, is unfolding on several levels..."

4. Black Power U.S.A: The Human Side of Reconstruction 1867-1877 (1967)

"The history of this period has been a matter of extreme controversy for several decades.  Until quite recently, most white historians denounced the 'Africanization' of the South as a 'soul-sickening spectacle' of 'military despotism,' 'graft' and 'inefficiency.'  Woodrow Wilson, to cite only one example, was appalled by the whole era and wrote scathingly of the former slaves as a "host of dusty children untimely out of school.  Within recent years, modern scholars, following the lead of W.E.B DuBois and other Negro historians, have proved conclusively that the works of Wilson and other conservative writers were white-oriented distortions of Reconstruction reality.  I have attempted in this brief history to give wider currency to the findings of these scholars..."

5. Pioneers in Protest (1972)

Lerone didn't write a preface or introduction for this book but it includes the following: "For the modern pioneers and martyrs: Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and Medgar Evers."

6. The Challenge of Blackness (1972)

"The words were written and spoken in a variety of contexts. What holds them together is a common concern with the challenge of blackness as expressed most concretely in the the thrust of black people for political, economic, and cultural power."

7. The Shaping of Black America (1975)

"This is an essay towards a new understanding of the long and continuing attempts of African and African descendants to possess themselves and the new land. This essay is historical reconstruction grows, organically and chronologically out of an earlier book, Before the Mayflower.  First of all and most important of all, this is developmental history instead of chronological history…."

8. Great Moments in Black History: Wade in the Water (1979)

"This book is an attempt to answer questions about central events in the shaping of black-white America.  It is an attempt to view history from the inside and it is based, whenever possible, on the response of participants and contemporary observers. The book explores fifteen dramatic turning points from the first black national convention to the March on Washington..."

9. Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream (2007)

"This is not a biography; this is a political study of the uses and abuses of biography and opinion and it suggests, among other things, that your identity, whatever your color, is based, at least in part, on what you think about Lincoln, the Civil War and slavery.  Lincoln or somebody said once that you can't fool all of the people all of the time. By turning a racist who wanted to deport all Blacks into a national symbol of integration and brotherhood, the Lincoln myth-makers have managed to prove Lincoln or whoever said it wrong.  This is the story of how they fooled all of the people all of the time and why."

Finally, another major contribution of the Master Teacher is the article "Why Black History is Important to You" in the February 1981 Ebony.  It includes the immortal observation that "the past is a bet that your fathers placed that you must now cover."

Say Amen somebody. Thanks Brother Lerone.

Feb. 25, 2018

50 Years After Fair Housing Act, We Still Have a Long Way to Go 

By Jeffrey W. Hicks

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - We have come a long way toward building Black homeownership since the Fair Housing Act was signed into federal law 50 years ago. In commemorating that milestone, we recognize and emphasize that, with fewer than half of Black Americans owning their homes, we still have a long way to go to reach economic parity through Black homeownership.

The National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) has advocated for Black American homeownership since it was founded on the principle of “Democracy in Housing” in 1947. We were at the forefront and in the trenches of this movement prior to April 11, 1968, when this act signaled a new level of commitment to self-determination and empowerment for Black people. NAREB was there, active in ensuring that the law passed. Today we continue working to ensure that fair and equitable treatment for Black Americans under the law remains intact as we work to increase homeownership in Black communities, nationwide.

The importance of the Fair Housing Act cannot be over-emphasized as vital to the journey to full fair housing for all Americans. Recognizing this history helps to fortify us for the next stage of this ongoing movement. The obstacles to achieving fair housing may have changed over the past 50 years, but NAREB remains vigilant and ready to challenge any institutional and systemic barriers to increasing the rates of affordable and sustainable homeownership for Black Americans.

We recognize the challenges. Today, Black Homeownership is at a very low 42 percent. At its peak in 2004, Black homeownership stood 49 percent. We’re working to return to—and then surpass—that level.

Democracy in Housing represents something far different today—the systemic obstacles of increasingly economically-segregated communities. We fully understand that de jure segregation and institutional racism remain pervasive problems throughout the United States. We will continue to use all available tools in 2018 and in the future to increase Black homeownership as a pillar of the American Dream. We will keep advocating for supportive policies and educate our community about the inter-generational wealth-building power of homeownership.

NAREB will host a series of events and activities throughout 2018 to educate and inspire the public about the never-ending struggle for equality and true Democracy in Housing. Our continuing movement to increase Black Homeownership signals our unshakable conviction that this pillar of the American Dream is still achievable, desirable and affordable for African Americans.

Jeffrey W. Hicks is the 30^th president of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB). NAREB was founded in Tampa, Florida, in 1947 as an equal opportunity and civil rights advocacy organization for Black American real estate professionals, consumers, and communities in America. The purpose of NAREB is to enhance the economic improvement of its members, the community-at-large, and the minority community which it serves. Although composed primarily of Black Americans, the REALTIST association embraces all qualified real estate practitioners who are committed to achieving our vision of “Democracy in Housing.” For more information, visit www.nareb.com.