NAACP Elects Leon W. Russell as New Chairman of the Board of Directors

Feb. 21, 2017

NAACP Elects Leon W. Russell as New Chairman of the Board of Directors
Chairman Roslyn M. Brock Steps Down After Seven Years

New NAACP Chairman Leon Russell

Roslyn Brock has stepped down as NAACP chairman after seven years. The board has elected her chairman-emeritus.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the NAACP

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The NAACP board of directors has elected Leon W. Russell as the Chairman Board of Directors at its annual board meeting on February 18 in New York. Russell replaces Roslyn M. Brock, who decided to step down as chairman after seven years of leadership.

“I am honored to have served seven years as chairman of the nation’s most important civil rights group,” said Roslyn M. Brock, NAACP Chairman of the Board since 2010. “Leon W. Russell is a stalwart NAACP civil and human rights leader who is prepared to lead the NAACP into the future. Mr. Russell has been the chief architect in the development of the NAACP’s strategic plan and champion of its organizational policy and resolutions process. His commitment to the Association’s mission of protecting civil rights for all Americans remains unquestioned,” she added.

Chairman Brock who succeeded the late Chairman Emeritus and civil rights icon H. Julian Bond in 2010 has been a powerful advocate for social justice and the reintegration of young people into key aspects of the organizational planning and policy objectives. She served as the 4th woman and youngest individual elected to the position of chairman in the organization’s esteemed history. In honoring Ms. Brock’s leadership and 32-year volunteer service to the NAACP, she was elected Chairman Emeritus by the Board and presented with an NAACP Image Award. Chairman Emeritus Brock was also re-elected to a three year At-Large term on the Board of Directors and will support the new Board leadership with health care reform; youth leadership recruitment and engagement and external relations.

“Roslyn M. Brock will forever be noted in the legacy of the NAACP as a powerful and forward thinking leader. We are forever indebted to her contributions and unrelenting sagacity,” said NAACP President/CEO Cornell William Brooks. “I am proud to welcome Leon W. Russell as the new chairman of the NAACP board. His lifelong commitment to civil rights and human rights as a member of the NAACP and leader in the state of Florida, represent a rigorously solid foundation for taking the platform of social justice to greater heights. I cannot think of a better successor to the stewardship of the organization than Mr. Russell,” added President Brooks.

Russell most-recently served as vice chair of the board and has been a board member for over 27 years. He served as President of the Florida State Conference of Branches of the NAACP from 1996-2000, after serving for 15 years as the first vice president. He is also the former assistant secretary of the Board and the former director of the Office of Human Rights for Pinellas County Government, Clearwater, Florida from 1977-2012, where he was responsible for implementation of the county’s human rights and affirmation action ordinances.

“This is a most prestigious, yet humbling honor and one that escalates in importance as we move into a new era of increased challenges against civil and human rights,” said Chairman Russell. “I am indebted to the work and leadership of Chairman Emeritus Brock and President Brooks for inheriting a powerful organization that after 108 years, still remains the most relevant and influential civil rights organization in our nation. I assure you that I will keep watered the seeds of activism and social justice that the NAACP’s legacy spouts from,” he said.

The recipient of numerous civic awards and citations, Mr. Russell was also elected for two terms as the President of the International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies. The IAOHRA represents civil rights agencies from the US and abroad responsible for enforcing state and local civil rights laws and the promotion of intergroup relations.

He is also a member of the International City Management Association; the National Forum for Black Public Administrators; the Board of Directors of the Children’s Campaign of Florida; past Board Member of the Pinellas Opportunity Council, past President, and Board Member of the National Association of Human Rights Workers; and the Blueprint Commission on Juvenile Justice with responsibility for recommending reforms to improve the juvenile justice system in the state of Florida. The 64-member board also elected Mississippi NAACP State President Derrick Johnson as the Board’s Vice-Chairman to replace Russell.

“I look forward to working in partnership with Chairman Russell in advancing the agenda of the Association” said Derrick Johnson. “It is an honor to serve the hardworking volunteers who sacrifice daily to make Democracy work for all.” Johnson currently serves as state president of Mississippi NAACP and as executive director of One Voice Inc. A former Mel King Community Fellow with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Johnson also serves on the board of directors of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, and as an adjunct professor at Tougaloo College.

Trump Fails to Push for Racial Unity He Promised in Inaugural Address By Hazel Trice Edney

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 10:20 AM on Feb. 21, following President Trump's visit to the African American History Museum.

Feb. 20, 2017

Trump Fails to Push for Racial Unity He Promised in Inaugural Address
By Hazel Trice Edney

President Donald Trump takes oath of office Jan. 20 after which he promised to be president of "all Americans". PHOTO: The White House

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - In his inaugural address on January 20, President Donald J. Trump quoted the Bible’s premier passage on unity. Yet, when it comes to race – America’s biggest divide – the President has missed nearly every opportunity to make a major impact or statement to that end. This week, Trump visited the Smithsonian's new National Museum of African American History and Culture in commemoration of Black History Month. Yet, in the month leading up to Tuesday's tour of the museum, he has missed major opportunities to show empathy or understanding of the African American struggle for justice.

“The Bible tells us, ‘how good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.’ We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity. When America is united, America is totally unstoppable,” he said in front of the millions watching by television around the world and gathered on the Washington Mall for his inauguration. “It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag. And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty Creator.”

He continued, “So to all Americans, in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, and from ocean to ocean, hear these words: You will never be ignored again. Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams, will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.”

After visiting the African American History Museum, the President said in remarks, "We have to fight bigotry, intolerance and hatred." Then he promised to heal the divide. Yet, so far, he has missed nearly every opportunity to impact gross racial disunity across the nation, to attempt to heal racial divides or articulate a way forward. That includes his failure to publically apologize for his insistence that then President Barack Obama, was not a ligitimate citizen of the U.S. - even after Obama's citizenship was proven.

Most recently, on February 17, President Trump stood before a vastly White cheering crowd in Charleston South, S.C., ground zero for one of the worst domestic terrorist attacks in U. S. history and failed to acknowledge or even mention it. That attack occurred on June 17, 2015 when 21-year-old White supremacist Dylann Roof, brutally murdered nine Black people who had just led him in Bible study and prayer inside the historic “Mother Emanuel” African American Episcopal Church. Included in the slaughtered was the pastor, S.C. State Sen. Clementa Pinckney. Trump was in Charleston for the unveiling of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. But the gravity of the Roof attack sent shock waves around the nation so strong that the S. C. legislature, at the behest of then Republican Gov. Nikki Haley – now Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations - finally agreed to remove the hateful Confederate Flag from the top of the State Capitol building. It was lowered and removed nearly a month after the attack. President Barack Obama delivered the Pinckney eulogy. On Dec. 15, a jury found Roof guilty of 33 counts of federal hate crimes and later sentenced him to death.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and the FBI have reported sharp increases in the rise of hate groups since Trump's campaign and election; plus a spike in hate crimes and threats predominately against Blacks, Jews and Muslims. Yet, President Trump has failed to speak directly to this issue.

On Feb. 1, President Trump held a Black History Month “listening session” with Black Republicans at the White House, which he described as “our little breakfast, our little get-together”. At the gathering, hosted by his White House public engagement assistant Omarosa Manigault, Trump generally praised the works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., abolitionist Frederick, Underground Railroad heroine Harriet Tubman, and civil rights martyr Rosa Parks, “and millions more Black Americans who made America what it is today. Big impact.” But, he mentioned nothing about the specific works of these civil rights leaders; nor the injustices and inequities that continue. Even while listing “the need for safer communities” more law enforcement, more jobs, better wages and better schools, Trump once again failed to say what he would do to deal with these issues, which have historically been exacerbated by racism and White supremacy. “I am proud to honor this heritage, and we’ll be honoring it more and more,” he said.

It was in this meeting that Reverend Darrell Scott, pastor of the New Spirit Revival Center in the Cleveland, in an apparent attempt to impress the President, said he’d been contacted by Chicago gang members, implied that they were Trump supporters and wanted to meet with the President about lowing the “body count”. Rev. Scott later confessed that what he’d said was false.

Perhaps most notable among missed opportunities are the people who Trump has selected as his chief advisors. While calling for America to unite across divisive political and racial lines, he has appointed Steve Bannon, former head of the alt-right, White supremacist voice Breitbart News, as a chief advisor and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general, a man avidly opposed by the civil rights community because of his past racism, including his reputation of embracing the Ku Klux Klan, a reputation that caused him to be rejected for a federal judgeship in 1986.

Meanwhile, another missed opportunity: President Trump has now offended the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) after he apparently ignored a letter sent to him from the CBC in January. The Jan. 19 “Dear Mr. President-elect” letter from CBC Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La.) outlined ways the 49-member caucus would like to work with President Trump. During an East Room Press Conference Feb. 16, President Trump, in response to a question from long time White House Radio correspondent April Ryan about whether he will discuss his urban and inner city plans with the CBC, responded by asking her whether “they’re friends of yours” and whether she would set him up a meeting with them. Ryan quickly clarified that she is a reporter and does not set up meetings between politicians. CBC leaders later expressed that the President’s overture was disrespectful at best. It appears the meeting may take place between the CBC and the President in coming weeks.

The pending meeting with the CBC and an HBCU funding executive order said to be on the horizon are yet new opportunities to begin fulfilling his promise. Despite missed opportunities only a month into his presidency, in his official Black History Month proclamation, Trump indicates there may still be hope that he will press toward that racial unity and justice.

He wrote, “As we journey toward a stronger, more united Nation, let us use this commemoration of African American History Month to serve as a reminder of the need for meaningful dialogue and shared commitment to collective action that uplifts and empowers, as well as of the strength, ingenuity, and perseverance required of us in the years to come.”

Civil Rights Will Suffer Under Sessions By Jesse Jackson

Feb. 14, 2017

Civil Rights Will Suffer Under Sessions
By Jesse Jackson

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Donald Trump’s first three weeks in office have left Americans reeling from what Republican speechwriter Peggy Noonan called his “cloud of crazy.” His cabinet nominees seem intentionally perverse: an education secretary who has no clue about public schools; an energy secretary who wanted to eliminate the department; a treasury secretary from Goldman Sachs who ran a home foreclosure factory. So when a white nationalist sympathizer, Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, was confirmed to be attorney general, it passed by as just another absurdity.

The coverage of the confirmation battle focused primarily on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s outrageous muzzling of Sen. Elizabeth Warren as she tried to read a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King criticizing Sessions.

The muzzling was an unforgivable indignity. Lost in the furor was the thrust of King’s letter. She was writing to urge the Republican-led Senate of the time to reject President Reagan’s nomination of Sessions to the federal bench because he had “used the power of his office as U.S. attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot.” Sessions had opposed the Voting Rights Act, made racist statements and falsely prosecuted black civil rights leaders seeking to register people to vote in Alabama. He was an ardent and unrelenting opponent of civil rights. The Republican Senate rejected his nomination.

Sessions views have not changed. He opposed Supreme Court decisions striking down laws banning homosexual sex and same-sex marriage. He voted against equal pay for women and against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, and he argued that it would be a “stretch” to call grabbing a woman’s genitals — as the president boasted of doing — assault. He is leading opponent of immigration reform and supported Trump’s ban on Muslims.

On civil rights he learned, as Strom Thurmond’s late operative Lee Atwater put it, that “you can’t say ‘n—–’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like … states’ rights and all that stuff.” Sessions remains a fierce advocate of states’ rights over civil rights. Even as he joined 97 senators in voting to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006, he gave a speech declaring its enforcement sections unconstitutional. When the Supreme Court’s conservative gang of five gutted the law, he praised their decision, saying preposterously, “(I)f you go to Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, people aren’t being denied the vote because of the color of their skin.”

Even as he was saying that, states across the South were preparing a raft of laws to make voting more difficult for African-Americans and the young. Striking down the voter ID law in North Carolina, the federal appeals court found that the new provisions “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision,” while providing “inept remedies” for an alleged problem of voter fraud that is nonexistent.

Now Sessions will take his states’ rights views to the Justice Department. He will have more power than George Wallace ever had. Wallace had state power. Sessions has national power with a state agenda, with thousands of lawyers under his command. He will help shape the Supreme Court. And simply by inaction — by refusing to enforce the Voting Rights Act as states act to restrict voting — he can do more to undermine civil rights than Wallace could by standing in the schoolhouse door.

Every senator who voted for this nomination shares the shame. This isn’t or should not have been a partisan question. This is a question of whether the Constitution that Lincoln fought a Civil War to forge and Dr. Martin Luther King led a movement to enforce will be respected. Donald Trump and the Republican Senate have put in office someone who is committed to undermining that Constitution. He is in position to poison the well of justice for a long time.

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump wooed African American voters, saying given disproportionate unemployment and poverty, they should vote for him. “What have you got to lose?” he asked. By making Sessions attorney general, Trump has shown us what we have lost: a Department of Justice committed to equal rights, ready to defend the right to vote. People of color, immigrants, the LGBT and women are likely to experience justice denied directly, and the country as a whole will suffer as justice is defiled.

Patriots Team Members to Sit Out of White House Visit, Citing Trump Brittany Webb

Feb. 14, 2016

Patriots Team Members to Sit Out of White House Visit, Citing Racism by Trump
By Brittany Webb

The Patriots' Martellus Bennett was the first to bow out of the visit to the White House.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Malcolm X once said, “A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.”

Despite having a career where taking a fall on the field is sometimes inevitable, several members of the New England Patriots football team have reportedly decided to stand for what they believe in. They say they will sit out of the traditional visit to the White House by the Super Bowl Championship team.

So far, six players - five Black players and one White - have announced their decision to not participate in the team’s visit. Those players are reportedly Martellus Bennett, Devin McCourty, Chris Long, LeGarrette Blount, Alan Branch and Dont’a Hightower. Long is the White player who says he will not go.

“I’m not going to the White House,” McCourty said in a text to TIME magazine. “Basic reason for me is I don’t feel accepted in the White House. With the president having so many strong opinions and prejudices I believe certain people might feel accepted there while others won’t.”

That unwelcome feeling is a feeling that McCourty shares with Blount, who, when asked about the team’s visit to the White House on The Rich Eisen Show, said, “I will not… It’s just some of the things—I just don’t feel welcome into that house. I’m just going to leave it at that.”

Bennett was the first player to announce his decision when he addressed the visit in a postgame press conference, citing opposition to President Trump as his reason. Despite his views, Bennett says there is no divide in the team because of political views.

“We all have our beliefs,” Bennett said. “The thing is, we accept people for who they are. And that’s the biggest thing about what this country is really about. I don’t really care what you believe. It’s not going to separate me from accepting you for who you are.”

Bennett says anyone wanting to know more about his reasons for not going to the White House should just follow him on Twitter. Among his most recent tweet was immediately following Trump's announced travel ban.

The date of the White House visit has not yet been publically announced.

"America was built on inclusiveness not exclusiveness," he tweeted.

It was also apparent bias and statements made by the commander-in-chief that influenced Patriots safety McCourty from skipping the trip as well.

Although Long did not go into detail about his decision to skip the visit, it can be assumed, by his previous statements regarding race relations in America, that he is not fond of the current president and his policies.

Branch is choosing to stay at home with family, while Hightower says he’s “been there, done that.”

After the team’s victory, President Trump tweeted his support for the team and his friends quarterback Tom Brady, team owner Bob Kraft and head coach Bill Belichick.

“What an amazing comeback and win by the Patriots,” Trump tweeted. “Tom Brady, Bob Kraft and Coach B are total winners. Wow!”

Despite being a friend of Trump, Kraft respects the decision of the players to not visit the White House.

“This is America,” Kraft said on the Today Show. “We’re all free to do whatever’s best for us, and we’re just privileged to be in the position to be going.”

This is not the first time a Patriot has opted out of the team’s visit to the White House. In 2015, Brady decided to skip the team visit to the White House, under the Obama administration, after defeating the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl in 2015.

La'Shanda Holmes Shows Blacks Still Defying Odds, Breaking Barriers by Rushawn Walters

Feb. 14, 2017

La'Shanda Holmes Shows Blacks Still Defying Odds, Breaking Barriers
By Rushawn Walters

La'Shanda Holmes endured abuse and neglect to later become the first African-American female helicopter pilot for the U.S. Coast Guard. PHOTO: Courtesy/U.S. Coast Guard

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Howard University News Service

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Growing up poor and abandoned Fayetteville, North Carolina, La’Shanda Holmes had no idea where her life would take her, certainly not to a career as a helicopter pilot for the U.S. Coast Guard and a position with NASA.

After losing her mother to suicide at age two, Holmes was adopted by her aunt who would later remarry to an abusive man. Due to turmoil within the household, Holmes was put into foster care, only to face more depression, loneliness, abuse and instability. Between her junior and senior year of high school, Holmes said she stayed in a total five homes. Holmes was in the program from 16-years-old until 21 when she aged out.

“My greatest comfort was prayer,” Holmes said. “My situation had become pretty depressing and the isolation was overwhelming. So, I turned to God.

“I felt like I had nowhere else to go and that all of these things had to be happening for a reason. I refused to think that God allowed me to endure tragedy, pain, abuse, or neglect for it to just end with depression and isolation.”

Holmes was a junior in high school when she decided to turn her life around. One of the keys to her success was Linda and Edward Brown, who adopted her at age 17. She still calls them her parents.

She graduated from high school at the top of her class and enrolled in 2003 in her dream school, Spelman College. While volunteering at career fair, she spoke to a U.S. Coast Guard recruiter and met Lt. Jeanie Menze, the first African-American female aviator in the Coast Guard. Holmes decided then she wanted to fly.

“Flying had never even crossed my mind as an option of what I could do in life,” she said. “It wasn’t until I met Jeanine, a brown girl like me, that I considered it. Jeanine completely changed the perception of what a pilot was in my mind. So, I knew I could at least give it a shot.”

She joined the Coast Guard in 2003, graduated Spelman in 2007, graduated from Officer Candidate School in 2008 and at the age of 25, completed flight school in 2010.

“The Coast Guard offered me the opportunity of a lifetime,” she said. “It’s the first time I felt that I had a sense of power to do something with my life.”

Once graduating from her aviation program, Holmes became the first African-American female helicopter pilot for the Coast Guard.

Today, Holmes, 31, is a lieutenant and in Washington working as a special assistant to the administrator of NASA in a White House fellowship program. She said the sky’s the limit - pun intended. Holmes is currently finishing up a master’s degree in administrative leadership and plans to write a book.