July 3, 2016

Reality Check
Brother Malcolm X’s influence on the Voting Rights Movement
By A. Peter Bailey

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - In order to do research for a documentary on Brother Malcolm X’s influence on the Black Power Movement, I joined with the conceiver of the project, Thomas Muhammed, interviewer Dr. Tara White, executive producer Lori Malihoit, and videographers Evans Mitchell and William Hicks on an over 1,500-mile journey to Lowndes County, Ala., Selma, Ala. and Dallas, Texas.

The adventure actually began with Dr. White interviewing Brother Malcolm’s nephew, Rodnell Collins, author of the book, Seventh Child: A Family Memoir of Malcolm X. He provided information on his uncle’s family history.

Highlights of the adventure in which we travelled in a rented recreational vehicle, are as follows:

• A visit with Dr. Calvin Sinnette, who was a pediatrician for Brother Malcolm’s daughters and Mrs. Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, author of Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile & Collector. They were close enough to Brother Malcolm that he called them on Saturday evening, Feb. 20, 1965 to thank them for their contribution to the campaign to secure clothing for his children. Their clothing had been burned up in the firebombing of his home the previous weekend. Mrs. Sinnette also remembers his telling them that there would be an attempt to kill him the next day, Sunday, Feb. 21, 1965, but for them not to worry because he was on top of things. That was painful to hear.
• A visit with John Jackson in Lowndes County, Alabama. Mr. Jackson is the son of Matthew Jackson. His father owned a large farm in the county. Mr. Jackson, who was 16 years old in 1965, said his father heard Brother Malcolm speak at Brown’s Chapel in Selma on Feb. 4, 1965 “and came home a changed man.” He immediately offered the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) a house on his farm that became the headquarters for their voting rights campaign in Lowndes County. That house, in which Kwame Ture and other SNCC warriors strategized and slept, is still there as Freedom House, and is open to the public.
• A visit in Selma with Dr. Frederick Douglas Reese, Joanne Bland, Averette Woodson and Charles Mauldin, all of whom were frontline warriors in the battle with white supremacists/racists. Dr. Reese, whose home was firebombed, is the only surviving member of a group known as The Courageous Eight. They began the battle for voting rights in Selma. Mrs. Bland, Mr. Woodson and Mr. Mauldin, all of whom marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, were 11, 13 and 16 respectively, at the time. All were in Brown’s Chapel to hear Brother Malcolm speak. He had always been presented to them as a person who advocated violence.

Mrs. Bland smiled and said, “At age 11, all I knew was that he advocated killing White folks who suppressed us. I was disappointed when he didn’t do that in his speech.”

• A visit with Pastor Emeritus Zan Holmes whose church, St. Luke Community United Methodist Church in Dallas, includes a stained-glass mural of Brother Malcolm in a series of murals depicting the history of Black folks in this country.
• A panel discussion in Dallas, Texas with Dr. Bernard LaFayette, a member of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s inner circle who provided a first-hand account of the debate among the Southern Christian Leadership Council officers about the possibility of Brother Malcolm speaking at Brown’s Chapel which was the headquarters for their voting rights campaign. After much discussion it was decided that the cost of not allowing him to speak would be greater than allowing him to do so. Both LaFayette, in his book, In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma and the National Voting Rights Museum, in its 50^th Anniversary program state that Brother Malcolm’s coming to Selma and speaking in Brown’s Chapel to clearly demonstrate his support for their campaign, had an influential impact on the later passage of a voting rights bill.

Why he was able to do so can best be ascertained by reading an observation by brilliant, perceptive journalist/historian Lerone Bennett Jr., who wrote, “Although Malcolm X was assassinated before he could organize his ideas into a movement, he was an enormously talented theorist who influenced millions with his articulate expositions on television programs and his lectures on public platforms.”

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

July 3, 2016

Obama Foundation Chooses Designer for Presidential Library
By Frederick H. Lowe

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The Obama Foundation on Friday selected a New York architectural firm to design the Presidential Library Center for the nation’s first African-American president.

The library will have a dual role of improving the economy in a neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, where it will be constructed. In addition to being a destination point for tourists from around the world, the Presidential Library Center will serve as magnet to attract more businesses, jobs and other services to the area. The Obama Foundation is considering two sites on Chicago’s Mid-South Side for the first Presidential Library in Chicago—Jackson Park and Washington Park.

The team of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (TWBTA) and Interactive Design Architects (IDEA) of Chicago will design the Obama Presidential Center, which will house President Obama’s archives. The center also will focus on the Obama presidency and the issues of our time.

Dina Griffin, a black woman architect, is president of IDEA, but all of the firm’s other top officials, including its founders, are white. The firm qualifies as a minority and women-owned business.

Tod Williams and Billie Tsien is a husband and wife team of a white man and an Asian woman with an all-white staff, based on a staff photo.

The Obama Foundation issued a Request for Proposals on December 21 to seven architectural firms that were selected from more than 140 firms worldwide that applied for the job.

The two firms will lead a multi-disciplinary and wide-ranging design effort that may ultimately include 15 to 20 other firms engaged in various specialty areas crucial to the center’s design.

“We are deeply moved by the mission of the Obama Foundation and the role the center can play in empowering that mission. It is a joy, an honor, and a responsibility to create a place that reflects the optimism and integrity of the President and First Lady,” said Williams and Tsien. “This has been a transformative presidency and we will work to make a center that embodies and expands the Obamas’ vision. We look forward to collaborating with our partners, Interactive Design Architects, and working with the South Side community.”

July 3, 2016

Long-Running Apartheid Crimes Case Axed by U. S. Supreme Court

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Efforts by South African victims of racist apartheid to obtain justice suffered a new defeat in the U.S. Supreme Court this month when the Judges declined to revive a suit against two U.S. companies that, according to the complaint, helped to suppress the Black population.

The judges left in place a 2015 ruling that cleared Ford Motor Co. and IBM Corp. According to the claims raised by the South Africans, Ford was complicit in extrajudicial killing, torture and directing and controlling the sale of specialized vehicles to the South African security forces while IBM created and maintained an identity card system to denationalize the black population.

Several of the plaintiffs were former employees of Ford who were arrested and tortured after Ford released information about protests to the apartheid government.

Over the years, dating back to 2002, complaints against dozens of corporate defendants who collaborated with apartheid were filed by a South African legal team and Harvard law faculty and students. The cases were all dismissed by a district court despite a law that allows non-U.S. citizens to seek damages in American courts for egregious human rights violations committed abroad.

Initially, 23 companies were named in the suit including Citigroup, Exxon Mobil, American Isuzu Motors, General Motors and Barclay’s Bank. They were liable, according to the suit, because the police shot demonstrators “from cars driven by Daimler-Benz engines”, “the regime tracked the whereabouts of African individuals on IBM computers”, and “the military kept its machines in working order with oil supplied by Shell.”

“[A]t the least, defendants benefitted from a system that provided a glut of cheap labor,” the South Africans maintained.

In a friend of the court brief, former U.S. ambassador for war crimes, David J. Scheffer, said: “The United States cannot afford as a nation and world leader to undermine international law by immunizing its nationals who aid and abet atrocity crimes from civil liability for their knowing conduct, absent a specific mandate to do so by Congress,”

Dumisa Buhle Ntsebeza, founder of South African National Association of Democratic Lawyers and president of South Africa's Black Lawyers Association, represented the victims. 

July 3, 2016

Blackonomics

One Shining Moment
By James Clingman   

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - More than a couple of million folks have responded to the words spoken by Jesse Williams, which points out the fact that many Black people are mesmerized by words that excite us and stimulate our emotions.  Rather than initiating practical and appropriate actions as a result of words that make us feel good, we usually end up celebrating, espousing, regurgitating, and discussing, ad nauseam, those words instead of implementing strategies that make us “do good.”

The speech by Williams was important and relevant, especially to Black people.  I appreciate his words and his willingness to make his statements on such a widely viewed stage.  He used his fame and the very popular BET Awards Show to put forth a message that has been spoken and written by others before him, but also one that we need to hear over and over.  Seems to me that when someone famous says the same things other non-famous folks have said, it takes hold quicker and our light bulbs come on faster.  Questions: “How long will the message last, and will we act upon it?

Jesse Williams’ background, political affiliations and motivations notwithstanding, his message was more important than the messenger.  But since we are so attuned with what our celebrities say, he had instant credibility with many young and older folks alike.  This is not to suggest that we discriminate against a message because of its messenger.  A moron can bring a valid message.  Suppose Clarence Thomas had said the same thing Williams said.  Would we reject that message?

My point is that Black folks should be able to discern a positive message that comes from any messenger, so that we can know “why” the message is being promulgated and be able to respond appropriately to that message.  Emotional catch-words and phrases are fleeting and seldom cause any improvement in our wellbeing.  Remember: “I have a dream!”  “Down with dope – Up with hope!”  “No justice, no peace!” “Yes we can!” and all the other words we have heard and chanted millions of times?

I’d rather we follow words from Richard Allen, “To Seek for Ourselves,” Marcus Garvey, “One God, One Aim, One Destiny!” and Elijah Muhammad, “Do for Self.”  I chose to hear some of those words in Williams’ speech, and I give him credit for speaking on the subject.  It’s on Mr. Williams now to show us what he meant by putting his words into action; and it’s up to the rest of us to develop strategies and initiatives that will move our people forward.

Jesse Williams spoke on issues that I have written articles on as far back as 1994, more specifically, one titled, “The Young and the Relentless,” in which I described how many young Blacks were becoming entrepreneurs.  Rather than falling for the okey-doke of buying and wearing someone else’s brand, they were developing, marketing, and selling their own brands.  Unfortunately, as the article also cited, many of our young entertainers had succumbed to the lure of “OPS” (Other People’s Stuff) e.g. Adidas, Nike, Hilfiger, etc. rather than “OPM” (Other People’s Money).

It is ironic that in April 1997 Forbes Magazine featured a front page article titled, “Badass Sells,” by Joshua Levine, which aptly illustrated much of the tremendous economic potential within the younger segment of Black America.  It also described how the hip-hop culture had been co-opted by designers such as Hilfiger and manufacturing giants like Nike.  Now in 2016, Alicia Keys is featured in a commercial for Levis jeans, in which she says, all women are “Badass,” so I guess it still sells.

But I digress. Will Jesse Williams’ comments simply become last month’s shining moment for Black folks, or will his message finally be transformed into real economic progress for our people?  Will his two minutes of enlightenment and in-your-face rejoinder to our plight make their way into the pantheon of speeches by our learned elders, or will they drift off into oblivion never having gained traction or made a significant difference in our lives?

Will Jesse Williams’ one shining moment become activated within us to the degree that we begin to coalesce and collaborate to build an economic foundation from which we can truly have an impact on public policy?  Fiery rhetoric, overwhelming applause, and two million “hits” and “tweets” are not enough to get the job done.  We must have action; we must have a critical mass of Black people who are willing and able to work to make our economic and political empowerment a reality.

Yes, we had yet another shining moment when Williams took the stage to accept his award.  Will its sheen fade to Black, or will that moment turn into momentum for Black progress? Remember: A moment is not a movement, but a moment can start a movement.