Jan. 31, 2023
By Barrington M. Salmon

Tyre Nichols

First Memphis police officers fired in the death of Tyre Nichols. 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The brutal beating and resulting death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of five Black cops in Memphis, Tenn., has roiled African-Americans and other people nationwide who are again trying to wrap their heads around the senseless death of another Black man and the fact that his killers are also Black.

Law enforcement officials investigating the brutal January 7th beating released a harrowing hour-long video of the barbaric treatment of Nichols, a 29-year-old father of a 4-year-old, and a treasured son and friend. The five cops who appeared to be most involved - were fired by Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis, after she reviewed the video tape recordings.  They disregarded Nichols’ considerable injuries from their fists, pepper spray and a baton and first responders milled about, appearing to be in no hurry to rush him to the hospital. Three emergency medical technicians, members of the Memphis Fire Department, have been fired in the incident and two additional police officers have since been relieved of their duties. The California transplant, who loved skateboarding, photography, sunsets, his son and his mother, died in a hospital three days after the beating.

“You know, it’s more of the same,” sighed Zakiya Sankara-Jabar, a veteran social justice activist, wife and mother, of this latest highly publicised police-involved killing. Like emotions expressed by others, it has left her disgusted and angry. “I’m frustrated. It was unnecessary. One of the main things is that in conversation, people always talk about diversifying the police force. But hiring more Black faces in a White supremacist institution is not the answer.”

Sankara-Jabar, co-founder and co-director of Racial Justice NOW, said advocates, activists and organizations with suggested solutions have been ignored.

“They need to listen to people who want to disinvest in police departments and invest in jobs and people, especially those excited about entrepreneurship. There are so many things this country won’t do. We need people with the political will.”

Recently, President Joe Biden at the American Conference of Mayors, declared that he’s not defunding the police.

“And the mayors – many of them Black – applauded him,” said Sankara-Jabar, also director of educational policy with the Wayfinder Foundation. “We don’t have elected officials who are willing to be bold. And until we break down the power of police unions, nothing will change.”

The Memphis chief of police fired the five officers who beat Nichols. They were investigated and arrested shortly afterward and charged with seven crimes including second-degree murder. Nichols’ death sparked protests in cities around the country. His family lawyer, Antonio Romanucci, said he sustained “extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating.” Activist lawyer Benjamin Crump, co-counsel to Romanucci, said the officers used Nichols as “a human pinata.”

Ron Hampton, a police officer with Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Police Department for 23 years, agreed saying he’s been “at it” for years working from the inside to effect change in police departments. Serving on committees, taskforces and organizations working to push against the structural racism, Hampton said the baked in bias and discrimination and the influential people in place to uphold the status quo have proven to be formidable barriers to meaningful change.

“I’m tired and frustrated,” Hampton said. “I’ve been doing this for a longtime. But (people) are hardheaded…We don’t listen. I was actually there, been working on this sh*t. When I was there, I saw so much.”

What he saw included beatings and brutality of both innocent and guilty victims and a special unit called the “jump out” boys who profiled and rousted residents.

Hampton, who retired from the police department in 1994, is a member of the DC Police Reform Commission and teaches criminal justice at the University of the District of Columbia, says 85 percent of what police do has nothing to do with public safety. He said Americans need to have difficult conversations about policing and exert the will to make the necessary changes. On a personal level, he said, he worries all the time when his daughters and wife go out because he fears that they may encounter an officer who may hurt or kill them.

“Right now, we should be looking at how do we reduce the footprint of these people in society,” Hampton said of bad law enforcement. “Are there things we can hand off? Because this is not working. But the politicians can’t say no to the police. And fearmongering by cops is used to bring the public on board. Black folks know that more money and more police will not make Black people safer, will not make that relationship better.”

Dr. Rayshawn Ray, a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution, is one of many who likens American law enforcement to a rotten tree that has produced bad apples.

“In policing, people always talk about ‘bad apples.’ Well, bad apples come from rotten trees – law enforcement agencies imbued with structural racism,” said Ray in a Brookings article titled, ‘Bad Apples Come from Rotten Trees in Policing.”

Ray said that for the past decade, he has worked with dozens of police departments, the Department of Homeland Security, and the US military.

“I have researched body-worn camera programs and conducted countless implicit bias courses. While these solutions to police brutality matter, they fall short of dealing with the rotten trees because they focus on the bad apples,” writes Ray, a professor of Sociology and executive director of the Lab for Applied Social Science Research at the University of Maryland, College Park in the article. “In order to fundamentally solve police brutality, we have to replant the roots of rotten trees within law enforcement. To deal with rotten roots, America needs to be honest that law enforcement originated from slave patrols meant to capture my ancestors who aimed to flee from enslavement. America has not fully dealt with this.”

Dr. Melina Abdullah – a professor and former chair of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles and a co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter – said police departments and law enforcement cannot be reformed.

“I’m an abolitionist who believes that policing is irredeemable. There’s nothing that will make it work. We need to implement crisis measures including removing police from mental health calls and traffic stops. Why did the police need to respond? We have to remove police from where they obviously don’t belong.”

In the first weeks of January, the Los Angeles Police Department killed three men by shooting and/or tasing them. In at least two cases, the men were experiencing mental health crises. Abdullah and BLM-LA have been pressuring elected officials and the police chief to be more transparent in these and other cases where members of the city’s Black and brown residents encounter police or are killed or hurt by police officers. At the same time LAPD officials are asking for a larger budget.

In the article by Rayshawn Ray, he argues that there needs to be a restructuring of civilian payouts for police misconduct because police officers are typically shielded from the financial impact of payouts. Instead, taxpayers have footed the bill for misconduct to the tune of $33 million in St. Louis, $50 million in Baltimore and more than $650 million over the past 20 years in Chicago.

“I think it’s maintaining the status quo but beyond – police are advocating for an expansionist view,” said Abdullah. “They’re really trying to gobble up more and more of resources. They’re moving toward a police state.”

Jan. 2024
Currently the only Black governor in the U. S. 

Governor Moore takes office as wife Dawn Flythe Moore and two children, Mia and James,watch. He follows a short line of other Black governors. PHOTO: Courtesy

Deval Patrick was the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015.

L. Douglas Wilder, the 66th governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994, was America's first elected Black governor after Pinchback succeeded Dunn after Dunn's death during Reconstruction.

P.B.S. Pinchback served as Louisiana's governor from December 9, 1872, to January 13, 1873. Pinchback, who had been lieutenant governor, assumed the office of governor, succeeding Dunn, who died in office. 

Oscar Dunn, Louisiana's acting governor, served during the Reconstruction Era from June 27, 1868 and died in office on November 22, 1871. 

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from BlackManStreet.Today

(TriceEdneyWire.com/BlackManStreet.Today) - Governor Moore took the oath of office twice on Thursday--first in Maryland’s state senate and later in a public ceremony outside the state house in front of a large crowd.  

Governor Moore raised a clenched fist in the air as his wife, Dawn Flythe Moore, his daughter, Mia, and James, his son, beamed with pride. He took the oath of office on a Bible once owned by Frederick Douglass.

Oprah Winfrey, a long-time friend, introduced the new governor. She knew him because she was previously a television talk show host and a news anchor in Baltimore.

Matthew J. Fader, Chief Justice of the Maryland Supreme Court, administered the oath of office, followed by a 19-gun salute and a flyover by jets. 

Moore soundly defeated Republican Dan Cox in November’s election.  He declared that he would tackle the wealth gap, protect the Chesapeake Bay, fight pollution and have the state generate 100% clean energy by 2035. With respect to education, he pledged to raise standards in all schools and increase inclusivity.

In one inaugural ceremony, Governor Moore took the oath on a copy of the Bhagavad Ghita, one of the holy scriptures of the Hindu faith.

He also laid a wreath at the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial at the City Dock in Annapolis, commemorating enslaved people's arrival in Maryland. 

Moore is a bestselling author, a nonprofit CEO, and a combat veteran.

He joins other Black governors, including Oscar Dunn, who served as acting Louisiana governor from November 22, 1871, who served until his death while still in office.

Dunn was succeeded by P.B.S. Pinchback, who served as Louisiana governor from December 9, 1872, to January 13, 1873.  

The other and more recent Black governors were L. Doulas Wilder of Virginia, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, and David Paterson of New York.

Jan. 23, 2023
By Charlene Crowell 

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - As 2023 begins, a key anti-financial discrimination initiative is expanding million-dollar penalties and the kinds of businesses found to violate fair lending laws. The https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-new-initiative-combat-redlining. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-loopstyle="link" data-linkindex="0">Combatting Redlining Initiative that since 2021 has combined resources and efforts of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is now holding a social media giant as well as another bank accountable for violations of fair credit and lending laws.

A January 9 settlement with Meta Platforms - formerly Facebook, Inc. - marks the first time that a social media platform will be subject to court oversight for its advertising targeting and delivery system. As the world’s largest https://www.demandsage.com/facebook-statistics/#:~:text=Facebook%20is%20the%20most%20popular,United%20States%20and%20Canada%20alone.. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-loopstyle="link" data-linkindex="1">social media platform, the enforcement action will affect its 264 million users in the United States and Canada, as well as 10 million advertisers that in the third quarter of 2022 generated $27.71 billion in revenues.

According to settlement terms, Meta’s new system will measure algorithmic discrimination that violates the Fair Housing Act. Meta will be subject to federal court oversight monitoring and regular reviews through June 26, 2026 to determine whether all terms of the settlement are honored. Guidehouse, Inc., an independent third-party reviewer will verify Meta’s adherence to settlement metrics. Meta must provide this monitor with regular compliance reports and any necessary information.

“Federal monitoring of Meta should send a strong signal to other tech companies that they too will be held accountable for failing to address algorithmic discrimination that runs afoul of our civil rights laws,” said Assistant Attorney General https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-and-meta-platforms-inc-reach-key-agreement-they-implement-groundbreaking. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-loopstyle="link" data-linkindex="2">Kristen Clarke of the Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

The Justice Department also continues to move against lenders who allow discrimination in their lending practices. On January 12, Los Angeles-based https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-over-31-million-city-national-bank-address-lending-discrimination. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-loopstyle="link" data-linkindex="3">City National Bank,  with 58 California locations as well as branches  in nine other states and the District of Columbia, reached a $31 million settlement with DOJ’s Redlining Initiative, the largest such agreement in DOJ’s history.

According to DOJ, from 2017 until at least 2020, City National failed to provide mortgage lending in Los Angeles County’s majority Black and Latino neighborhoods. Further, during more than 20 years when the bank either opened or acquired 11 additional branches, only one was located in a majority-minority neighborhood. And unlike branches located in majority white areas, City National did not assign any employee at that one branch to generate mortgage lending.

“[E]nding redlining is a critical step to closing the widening gaps in homeownership and wealth, especially in a city as large and diverse as Los Angeles,” said U.S. Attorney https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-over-31-million-city-national-bank-address-lending-discrimination. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-loopstyle="link" data-linkindex="4">Martin Estrada for the Central District of California. “It is unacceptable that redlining persists into the 21^st century…Through this agreement, we are taking a major step forward by removing unlawful and discriminatory barriers in residential mortgage lending, and meeting the credit needs in Los Angeles.”

According to settlement terms, City National will now implement multiple and measurable actions in Los Angeles County that include:

• Opening a new branch in a majority-minority neighborhood staffed by at least four mortgage loan officersdedicated to serving Black and Latino neighborhoods, along with a full-time community lending manager who will oversee related lending development;

• Multiple targeted funds for these under-served communities that include a minimum $29.5 million loan subsidy fund for residents of majority Black and Latino neighborhoods in Los Angeles County, $750,000 minimum for the development of community partnerships and increased residential mortgage credit, and $500,000 minimum for advertising and outreach; and

• Research-based market study that will identify financial service needs for majority Black and Latino census tracts in Los Angeles County.

The Redlining Initiative also reached a $20 million settlement with Trident Mortgage benefitting consumers in the Philadelphia metro area, and a $13 million settlement with Lakeland Bank located in Newark, Passaic, Somerset and other nearby communities.

“If we allow racist and discriminatory policies to persist, we will not live up to our country’s ideals,” said CFPB Director https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/remarks-of-director-rohit-chopra-at-a-joint-doj-cfpb-and-occ-press-conference-on-the-trustmark-national-bank-enforcement-action/. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-loopstyle="link" data-linkindex="5">Rohit Chopra. “We need a fair housing market that is free from old forms of redlining, as well as new digital and algorithmic redlining.”

Charlene Crowell is a senior fellow with the Center for Responsible Lending. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Jan. 18, 2023
By Hamil R. Harris


The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson speaking to Dr. King. Jackson said he continues to work to keep King’s legacy alive. (Courtesy photo)

Virginia Ali (center), owner of Ben’s Chili Bowl and widow of the restaurant’s namesake founder, served free lunches to D.C. schoolteachers for Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan. 16. The late civil rights icon often ate at the renowned establishment while planning the March on Washington. (Hamil R. Harris/The Washington Informer)

SPECIAL TO THE TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE FROM THE WASHINGTON INFORMER

Virginia Ali

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had just met with President John F. Kennedy to discuss his plans to convene the 1963 March on Washington, and JFK was concerned.

“Dr. King and organizers of the March often came into Ben’s because their office was on 14th and U,” said Virginia Ali, who co-founded Ben’s Chili Bowl with her husband Ben Ali in August 1958. “That was a real privilege meeting with Kennedy, but he was concerned that a large protest would provoke injustice.
Despite the President’s concerns, more than 250,000 people converged on the grounds between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963, and Mrs. Ali said, “Ben and I were there.”

Had King lived, he would have been 94 on Jan. 15, and in observance of the occasion on Monday, Ben’s Chili Bowl will serve free meals to school teachers who visit the restaurant.

“I am very concerned about our young people,” said Ali, 89, who will celebrate the 65th anniversary of the popular restaurant for civil rights activists and families at the height of segregation.

Ali, who turns 90 this year, said the secret to her vitality is “staying busy and treating people like you want to be treated.”

Fred Gray

As he planned to fly to the Midwest to speak during a King holiday program, Fred Gray, the lawyer for King and Rosa Parks, spends his time these days continuing to keep King’s legacy alive.

“I am speaking in Lansing, Michigan, Sunday, and Monday, I will be at Emory University on Wednesday, and next week, I have to go down to Miami to speak to a group of lawyers,” said Gray, who, at 92,  said. “I’m delighted to talk about Dr. King for several reasons.”

“I was one of two persons who recommended Dr. King at the Montgomery bus boycott, and the other person was Joanne Robinson,” he said. “We made that recommendation after Mrs. Park’s arrest.”

“It means a great deal to me personally because some years later when I was in the Alabama state legislature, between 1971 and 1972, I introduced (legislation that) the third Monday in January be a holiday after Dr. King,” Gray said, even though his bill never made it out of committee, he is glad King’s birthday became a national holiday.

Rev. Jesse Jackson

Rev. Jesse Jackson, 82, had plenty to say about what he is focused on this King holiday.

“When we register to vote, we change the composition of America,” Jackson. Referring to his two bids for president, Jackson said much has changed in the U.S. since the 1980s. “We won in 84; we won 88, and now so many people are running for everything.”

Jackson, who has slowed down a bit as he battles Parkinson’s disease, also said he was happy that his son Jonathan Jackson was elected to Congress to represent the citizens in Illinois’ 1st Congressional District.

Rev. Grainger Browning

Rev. Grainger Browning, the pastor of Ebenezer A.M.E. in Fort Washington, said, “Dr. King would have been 94, and everything that we fought for 60 years ago we are fighting for today: jobs, police brutality, issues of race discrimination, but Dr. King would also be concerned with the role of technology and how it is dehumanizing personal relationships.

”It is no longer what’s important but what gets the most views,” Browning added. “What gets the most views can be the most outlandish, the craziest. It’s no longer world poverty, world hunger because these issues are no longer popular.”

Browning talked about when King came out against the war in Vietnam, “I don’t remember anyone who was spoken of as negatively at that time.”

Jane Johnson

Jane Johnson, a retired educator who grew up in Lynchburg, Virginia, said, “Dr. King was one of the most hated men in America.”
Johnson, who later moved to the District, was part of the individuals driving King, and explained that there were unusual steps taken for the leader’s protection, such as staying in rooms and boarding in private homes.