July 2, 2017

International Team to Investigate Reports of Deadly Violence in Congo

(TriceEdneyWire.com/GIN) – The U.N.’s main human rights body has approved a resolution to send a team of experts “to establish the truth” about reports of thousands of deaths and the destruction of entire villages by government-backed soldiers in Congo’s central Kasai region.

U.N. rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein had lobbied for the resolution at a meeting of the U.N.’s Human Rights Council. He presented details of men, pregnant women and babies being mutilated by a government-backed militia and insurgents.

After many hours of diplomatic wrangling, a resolution was reached. While it fell short of the “independent, international investigation” sought by the rights chief and backed by the European Union, the U.S. and others, it was supported by a group of African countries.

The new text calls for the team of international experts, including ones from the region, "to collect and preserve information to determine the facts and circumstances... in cooperation with the (DRC) government".

The experts must forward their conclusions to the DRC authorities, the resolution says, stressing that "the perpetrators of deplorable crimes are all accountable to the judicial authorities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo".

A comprehensive report on the team's findings will be presented by the U.N. chief in the council's main annual session in March next year.

Violence in the Kasai provinces erupted in September when security forces moved in against followers of a tribal chieftain Kamwina Nsapu - who had been killed a month earlier - rebelling against the increasing authority of the central government.

Despite a rash of deadly clashes and a general strike last fall when President Kabila announced he would remain in power after the end of his legal term, South African President Jacob Zuma took the occasion of a bilateral meeting to effusively praise the Congolese leader for what he considered the relative stability and progress being made in that vast central African nation.

“We congratulate you, Mr. President,” Zuma said, “on the manner with which you have handled the process. The people of the DRC need to determine and decide their internal political future…. The people of the DRC have proven in the past their ability to dialogue.”

Congolese President Joseph Kabila now says he had never "promised anything" about whether to hold elections in the DRC, seeming to back away from a deal to hold a vote this year.

The Democratic Republic of Congo will mark 57 years of independence on Friday, June 30. This year also marks the 20th anniversary of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s fall from power in 1997.

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July 3, 2017

Dorothy Leavell Tells How She Plans to Lead the Black Press
By Hazel Trice Edney

Incumbent Denise Rolark Barnes and Dorothy Leavell embrace after Leavell is announced winner of the NNPA chair's election. PHOTO: Roy Lewis

New NNPA Chair Dorothy Leavell PHOTO: Roy Lewis

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Loud laughter, greetings and chatter between old friends and fellow publishers filled the Sunset Room near the Gaylord Hotel on the National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md. The aroma of hot hors devours hang heavily in the air as tunes of oldies but goodies drifted from the dance floor. It was the opening reception of the NNPA summer convention.

But neither the music, the energetic conversations; nor the smell of shrimp tempura could cover the thick scent of politics in the atmosphere. By the end of the week, the ballots were all counted and a new chair of the National Newspaper Publishers Association had been elected.

Dorothy Leavell, publisher of the Chicago and Gary Crusader newspapers, once president of the federation, had excelled to the top of the organization that represents more than 200 Black-owned newspapers - descendants of Freedom’s Journal, founded 190 years ago.  This week, in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire, she told her plans for NNPA, in which many members are facing severe challenges with advertising, digital growth and shrinking staff sizes.

“We will develop a strategic plan that we will follow to the letter,” Leavell said in an interview. “We really have been devastated by a lack of advertising for our newspapers. What we will do is we will map out where we’re going to go first.”

Known for her feisty personality, Leavell listed just a few of the huge corporations that will soon get a strategic call from the Black press. Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft – “all of those big companies. We need to do what we must to make sure we are successful as an organization but that our newspapers are also successful.”

Washington Informer Publisher Denise Rolark Barnes, now chair-emeritus, immediately conceded Leavell’s win following the contentious election that allowed absentee ballots for the first time.

“NNPA has made tremendous strides in the last two years. It is my hope that it will continue moving in an innovative direction,” she told a reporter this week. “We need to stay focused on how to broaden our reach and expand our content; not only in print, but in digital…I look forward to supporting NNPA’s efforts in those areas.”

Leavell says national advertising dollars, building bridges with traditional civil rights organizations, and an editorial campaign focused on gun violence in America’s Black communities will be among her top priorities.

“I’m energized and ready to go. Our number one project is to save our young people,” she said.

She says she will also urge national civil rights leaders to understand that their support should be going to the Black press. “Many of them are doing extremely well financially. They should be one of our greatest supporters.”

For example, the NAACP has its annual corporate report card, Leavell pointed out. “The Black press ought to be a part of that report card. Do they support the Black press? Do they advertise in the Black press? That should be one of those things that they consider when they grade.”

Leavell says she is not overly concerned with the fact that President Donald Trump has yet to grant an interview to a Black-owned publication.  According to sources, including civil rights stalwart Barbara Arnwine, during a January meeting, Trump assistant Omarosa Manigault promised NNPA President Ben Chavis the first interview with the President. But Manigault denied that promise when this reporter asked about it in mid-March. She then publicly assured him that he would get an interview. But Chavis says he hasn’t heard from her since.

“If we report the news and we’re actively involved, they’re going to want to have a relationship with us,” says Leavell.

Boxing promoter Don King, owner of the Cleveland Call & Post, an NNPA member, is a friend and associate of Trump’s. Leavell says she will reach out to King “and try to get a perspective on how he thinks we ought to do” as it relates to the Trump Administration.

Although she has big vision for the work ahead, Leavell says she will maintain a team leadership style. Houston Forward Times publisher Karen Carter Richards was re-elected as first vice chair of the organization; New Tri-State Defender Bernal Smith was elected second vice chair; Indianapolis Recorder publisher Shannon Williams will continue as secretary and Atlanta Voice Publisher Janis Ware will continue to serve as treasurer.

Leavell is not new to NNPA leadership. Over the years, she has served as president of the association, chair of the foundation, and was once named publisher of the year. Leavell says she and her leadership team will pursue holding a panel discussion in September during the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference. This is the same week that NNPA holds its annual board meeting and leadership reception. “So, we’re going to hit the ground running.”

July 2, 2017

Citizens Decry Mayor's Plan to Put Confederate Statues ‘in Context’
By Jeremy Lazarus

As  cities around the nation have begun destroying monuments to the slave-supporting Confederacy, this statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee is one of five Confederate statues still standing on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va. PHOTO: National Park Service

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Veteran NAACP activist Ora Lomax is still fuming over Richmond, Va. Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s plans for dealing with the stone and bronze figures that have been defining symbols of Richmond for generations — the statues of Confederate defenders of slavery that punctuate Monument Avenue in the former capital of the Confederacy.

A civil rights activist and NAACP stalwart for 60 years, Lomax is irked about the direction the mayor is taking when it comes to handling the statues she and many around the nation regard as symbols of hate, discrimination and bigotry. Unlike mayors in cities across the South who are pushing to have Confederate statues removed from public spaces, Mayor Stoney has announced the creation of a commission to “put the statues in context,” while also rejecting any effort to remove the century-old figures. 

“For some reason,” Ms. Lomax said, “he thinks those statues aren’t bothering anyone.“Well they bother me, and they bother anyone who knows their history,” said Lomax, who can remember being forced to ride in the back of GRTC buses because of her skin color and who was on the front lines of the 1960s battles to desegregate Richmond lunch counters and clothing stores. To her, the mayor is trying to straddle a fence, rather than doing what’s right. And that would be “to tear those statues down,” she said. “We need to get rid of them, not tolerate them.” 

A longtime adviser and leader of NAACP youth programs, Lomax said every time she sees those statues, she is reminded of the battles she and others fought to break down barriers and pave the way for younger people like the 36-year-old mayor. She said that if Mayor Stoney wants to do something useful, he should revive the city’s Youth Services Commission and the Richmond Human Relations Commission — both now defunct — to empower citizens to do more to improve the city. 

When Mayor Stoney announced on June 22 the Monument Avenue Commission and the names of its 10 members, he sought to preempt Lomax and other critics. In the announcement, he described the statues as “equal parts myth and deception … the ‘alternative facts’ of their time.” He said they were “a false narrative etched in stone and bronze to lionize the architects and defenders of slavery” and were designed “to perpetuate the tyranny and terror of Jim Crow and re-assert a new era of White supremacy...These monuments have become a default endorsement of that shameful period,” he stated in establishing the commission to find ways to debunk the mystique of the statues and to explore the possibility of adding new statues that would add diversity. 

“Right now, Arthur Ashe stands alone,” Mayor Stoney stated. “He is the only true champion on that street.” The commission includes co-chairs, Christy Coleman, chief executive officer of the American Civil War Museum, who is African-American, and Gregg Kimball, director of education and outreach for the Library of Virginia, who is Caucasian. In a surprise move that ignored Virginia Commonwealth and Virginia Union universities, he also named three University of Richmond professors to the panel, Dr. Edward L. Ayres, the university’s former president; Dr. Julian Hayter; and Dr. Lauranett L. Lee.

The commission members also include Stacy L. Burrs, a board member and former chairman and executive director of the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia; Coleen A. B. Rodriguez, a Monument Avenue resident who is active in preservation groups; and two members of City Council, Andreas Addison, 1st District, and Kim B. Gray, 2nd District. 

While the mayor has received applause, with news of the commission distributed nationally by the Associated Press, many Richmonders view the move as a way for Mayor Stoney to avoid confrontation over the statues, and consider that he and the commission are on a Quixotic mission.

King Salim Khalfani, former executive director of the Virginia NAACP, was dismissive of the commission approach. There is “nothing that can be done to put those statues into ‘context.’ It’s ridiculous,” he said. A founding managing director of a new national advocacy group, Americans Resisting Minority and Ethnic Discrimination Inc., or ARMED, Khalfani has spent years advocating for Richmond to remove the statues. He said the mayor’s decision to roll out the commission is a ploy to divert attention from the city’s more serious challenges, including teen violence in the city and multiple problems within the city’s public schools. 

“New Orleans is taking down these symbols of slavery and racism,” Khalfani said. “That’s what Richmond needs to do. I have been saying that for years.”

Former City Councilman Sa’ad El-Amin was equally acerbic in his criticism. He said no other country would tolerate statues to losers and traitors. He said the first thing people did after American troops took Baghdad in 2003 during the Iraq war was to pull down the statues of overthrown dictator Saddam Hussein. In Germany after World War II, pictures, statues and other symbols of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis were eradicated, he said, and “it is still illegal to put any Nazi iconography in a public space...That’s what should happen in this city,” he said. “But we have these statues here without any change. We’re in the 21st century, and there is still no statement by the city to disavow these statues and their clear intent to glorify the Confederacy and the people who fought to maintain slavery.”

El-Amin agreed with Khalfani that Richmond needs the kind of leadership that New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu has shown in removing four Confederate monuments in that city. During his tenure on the council, El-Amin said he proposed that the statues be taken down, but could not win the support of then-Mayor Tim Kaine and other colleagues. That’s why El-Amin said he founded the Richmond Slave Trail Commission. He said he “wanted to raise attention to the level of our victimization and in so doing, reduce the level of glorification of those who victimized us.”

July 2, 2017

 

2017 Kids Count Report States One in Four La. Kids Growing Up Poor
By Della Hasselle

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Louisiana Weekly

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - For children everywhere in the United States, poverty can create formidable obstacles to success.

But that statement is especially true in Louisiana, where more than one in four kids is growing up poor, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

That’s one of the many findings recently reported in the Foundation’s 2017 Kids Count report, which ranked every state in the country using a combination of education, economic, health and community indicators. The national study, released in June, found that the Pelican State fell behind only Mississippi and New Mexico when considering all factors of child well-being.

Although the report found children suffered from inadequate education and health risks, experts suggested poverty was one of the most common and problematic threats to child development.

The foundation also found that the number of children living in poverty in Louisiana remained more or less unchanged since 2010.

Currently, about 313,000 children — or 28 percent overall — live with families who have incomes below the federal poverty line.

In 2010, about 27 percent of children were living in poverty, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Data Center.

The state fared worse than the national average. Throughout the United States, about 21 percent, or roughly 15 million children, lived in poverty in 2015. That ratio had dropped nationally since 2010, when 22 percent of the nation’s kids were found to be poor.

Anthony Recasner, the CEO of the New Orleans-based Agenda for Children, the agency that acts as the state’s Kids Count coordinator, called for Louisiana to pass policies that will help families ”clear pathways out of poverty” for families.

In a release, he asked legislators for “laser-like” focus to bring more “economic opportunity” to those in need.

“Policies that help working families maintain their jobs and get ahead — such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Care Assistance — are some of the best tools we have to make sure children grow up in economically secure households,” Recasner said. “Louisiana has made some improvements to policies in recent years, but if we really want to move the needle on child poverty, our lawmakers need to significantly increase public investments in these evidence-based programs.”

The poverty levels were exacerbated, the report found, because about 34 percent of the state’s children had parents who lacked secure employment in 2015, compared to 29 percent of kids nationwide. Locally, the state had 380,000 children in that predicament.

A higher number of teens in Louisiana were found to be not in school and not working, too. The number came to 28,000, or 11 percent of all teens, compared to seven percent of teens nationwide.

High poverty levels can often be attributed to family-related issues, and the report found significant contributing factors in Louisiana, especially when comparing families nationwide.

The report found that 473,000 children, or 45 percent of all kids, lived in single-family households in the Pelican State. That’s 10 percentage points lower than the rate nationwide.

And 34 in 1,000 teens gave birth in 2015. Nationwide, 22 teens gave birth that year per 1,000.

Kids in Louisiana also grappled with significant health-related issues in 2015, the report found.

Researchers discovered the state had significantly more child and teen deaths than national average. Louisiana reported 462 deaths per 100,000 children in 2015, or 40 percent, compared to about 19,500 nationwide, or 25 percent.

Birthweight was also an issue, as 10.6 percent of all babies were born underweight in 2015, compared to 8.1 percent nationwide.

The children’s educations were affected, too. A whopping 82 percent of eighth-graders were found to be not proficient in math, compared to 68 percent nationwide. Similarly, 71 percent of the state’s fourth graders were not proficient in reading, compared to 65 percent across the country.

The grades negatively affected graduate rates: nearly one in four teens, or 23 percent, are not graduating high school in time. Nationwide, the statistic is 17 percent.

There were a few bright spots. The report found that 96 percent of Louisiana’s children are insured, which is actually better than the national average of 95 percent of children lacking affordable access to health care.

In Louisiana, 40,000 children are uninsured. Nationally, the number is about 3.5 million.

Researchers also reported that roughly half of the state’s preschoolers are in some kind of school or early care, which puts the state ahead of others when considering early childhood education.

And it appears fewer families exist in Louisiana where the head of the family lacks a high school diploma than in other places around the country. Families also seem to have fewer housing cost burdens than elsewhere.

For nearly three decades, the KIDS COUNT Data Book has provided an annual snapshot of how America’s children and families are faring in every state and across the nation.

Nationally, researchers found that the latest trends highlight “notable progress,” but also continued “areas of concern.”

Throughout the country, the report found that parental employment and wages are trending upward, and a record number of children have health insurance.

Teenagers are also more likely to graduate high school and less likely to abuse drugs and alcohol.

But child poverty rates — the biggest issue in Louisiana — remain high, researchers found. The problem is exacerbated by limited options for upward mobility, as more and more families live in neighborhoods with a high concentration of poverty.

Moreover, national data only shows “modest gains” in academic performance, according to the foundation, with “far too many” children falling below grade level in reading and math.

“Even where we see improvements, deep racial and ethnic disparities remain,” the report noted.

Like Recasner, authors encouraged reform on local and national levels.

“Although trends in child well-being are shaped by many forces, it’s indisputable that good public policy makes a tremendous difference,” the report read. “We know that a failure to invest wisely — or to not invest at all — negatively affects children’s opportunities to reach their full potential.”