August 25, 2014

Youth Leadership Will Determine Next Moves in Michael Brown Case
By Hazel Trice Edney

Ending another night of protests in the Michael Brown shooting last week, this young man strikes the
pose of marchers who repeated the chant, "Hands up! Don't shoot!" Brown was laid to rest at a funeral Monday as the nation
awaits a grand jury's decision on whether to indict the shooter, Officer Darren Wilson. PHOTO: Hazel Trice Edney/Trice Edney News Wire

Casket of Michael Brown, surrounded by clergy, civil rights leaders and family, including his mother, Lesley McSpadden (in red dress). PHOTO: Lawrence Bryant/St. Louis American

Casket taken to cemetary in a horse-drawn carriage, symbolizing royalty. PHOTO: Lawrence Bryant/St. Louis American

FERGUSON, Mo. – (TriceEdneyWire.com) - A young Black mother pushing a toddler in a stroller decided to reach out to four White police officers standing near the West Florissant Ave. sidewalk as protestors, a few blocks away, marched peacefully after the police shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown.

Two weeks after the August 9 shooting,clashes with police had calmed down significantly. After exchanging greetings with the officers, the mother leaned the stroller back and coaxed the child to speak.

“Say thank you for your service…Say thank you for your service,” the woman encouraged. Instead, the toddler, who was about 3, said what was least expected. She leaned forward in the stroller and asserted: “Hands up. Don’t shoot.”

Obviously mimicking the chants she’d heard hundreds of times during the days of protests following the shooting, the child simply said what came to her in the moment. The stunned mother whisked her away as the smiles of the officers faded.

It was a lighter moment after a night of mostly peaceful protests that followed several chaotic nights mixed with looting, peaceful protests and militaristically violent responses by the police. Yet, it was a moment that perfectly illustrated how youth – children, teens and young adults - appeared to suddenly wake up to the struggle for racial justice in America and began to lead.

“I think it has opened your eyes to everything, makes you see things a little bit differently…I’m glad that instead of just sitting at home watching history, I’m a part of it,” said Gabriele Hanson, 19, who graduated high school this year and is preparing for college. “It makes you not want to let it pass by, you want to pay attention to it. You want to watch CNN, you want to watch the news and see what’s going on in the world instead of just letting it pass you by on Instagram and Twitter and everything. You want to focus."

Her sister, Dominique Hanson, 16, says the protest has been “definitely life changing.” She said it has taught her that “if you do have a voice, you have to stand for something.” And she has learned much from the Michael Brown killing, she said, “You don’t have to be doing anything to like get in trouble or get killed so, yes, definitely, you want to be more careful and open up your eyes to more things.”

Meanwhile, Brown was laid to rest on Monday at a funeral service that seated 2,500 at the Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church, plus up to 5,000 with an additional overflow room. His parents, Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown Sr., had asked for a day of quiet and mourning, therefore there were no open protests. The Rev. Al Sharpton, who did the eulogy, pleaded for protestors not to loot, but rather allow Brown's death be remembered as the moment of change for police-community relations in America. The church was packed with who's whos of civil rights, clergy, and Hollywood; including Rev. Jesse Jackson, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant, Dr. R. B. Holmes, Spike Lee and Tom Joyner.

On Canfied Drive, only four blocks from the site of the protests, a make-shift memorial with flowers, teddy bears, candles and a trail of hundreds of red roses were set in the middle of the street in the spot where Brown lay dead for more than four hours August 9. Well into the night, teens and adults drive or walk by to pay their respects. There, one of his closest friends, Paul Norfleet, 17, talked to this reporter about the friend who liked to be called “Mike-Mike”.

“I never thought anything like this could happen,” said Norfleet. He said it was hard to even get Brown to go outside.  “He wasn’t really out here in the streets. He used to stay in the house a lot. So, we used to try to get him out of the house because he didn’t like to come out,” he said.

He continued his memories: “We used to go out to the malls and stuff and we used to record music. But other than that, he just stayed in the house. He didn’t do nothing for real. … I’d just go to his house and sit in the basement every day and record music…That was a cool moment too.”

Amidst the protests, some youth marched with their faces covered with bandanas for fear of backlash on their jobs or careers.  “A young man got gunned down less than five miles away from where I grew up and where I live,” said a young man with his face partially concealed. “This is my city and I mean, I’m all about change and standing up and fighting the power.”

Fareed Alston, a St. Louis-based film-maker, said the initial protests were “almost cinematic” in the way police treated the protestors.

“Once we get out here, we become fugitives, almost like marshal law. They can search you, they can arrest you, there can do whatever they want. There’s no rebuttal,” said Alston, whose arms were wrapped in bandages covering severe abrasions from a fall during clashes between police and protestors.

Alston said the protests were not just focused on the killing of Brown. That was only a spark, he said.

“Now it’s grown to be a movement of people who are sick and tired of being abused by the police. They’re angry, but they’re intelligent. They’re orchestrated. People are forming solidarity,” he said.

“Enough is enough. At the end of the day, they know right from wrong,” says Devante Whitfield, 20, holding a sign that said “Don’t shoot. Black men are people too.” Nineteen-year-old Donta Hall said the whole situation has taken him by surprise. “I never really thought anything like this could happen.”

Many came from other cities to stand in solidarity with Ferguson because of the national scope of police shootings. A group of young men from Milwaukee, Wis., visited the Michael Brown memorial site.

“Right now we’re dealing in Milwaukee with the case of a young man who was shot 15 times at Red Arrow Park for resting in the park,” said Tory Lowe, 38, designated by his friends as their spokesman. “The business district thought it was bad for business.”

According to Milwaukee news reports, the Milwaukee police chief has still not said why the unarmed Dontre Hamilton, 31, was killed four months ago. He was apparently shot 15 times by the police.

Lowe credits the youth for rising up in the Ferguson shooting and taking action that got media attention even beyond the first few days of the Trayvon Martin shooting.

“What these young people did was they rose up and they reacted. And now, all eyes are hear because of that. If they had only been peaceful, this could have been just one of the things they would have swept under the rug. But, they caused severe damage,” Lowe said. “The nation pays attention when young people rise up. This is where the fight is for injustice. The media is here. We want body cameras on these cops. We want for officers to be fired and not just set aside when these acts happen. This is a time to pass legislation to get what we want from these lives being lost.”

As the funeral service for Brown took place on Monday, his parents called for a day of silence and calm. If the grand jury decides not to charge Officer Darren Wilson in this case, another decision will then be made.

Lowe concluded: “If they don’t indict this man it’s going to be up to the youth to decide. This is a youth movement and the people of Ferguson are going to decide how they are going to react. Right now, the civil unrest says they are not going to react too positively to them not putting this man away.”

August 24, 2014

Liberian Woman after losing her husband.

Liberians Rebel as Government Puts Ebola Clinic in Crowded Slum

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – An Ebola isolation center was overrun by Liberians in the capital city Monrovia over the weekend, as fear and confusion lead some to accuse western countries of inventing a killer disease and then placing a clinic for infected people in the midst of a slum.

The holding facility in the densely-populated West Point slum was targeted by an angry group of citizens who, according to some reports, carried off some of the sick and stripped the clinic of almost all of its supplies. There are an estimated 50,000 people in the West Point neighborhood.

Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah said protesters were unhappy that patients were being brought in from other parts of the capital.

Mr Nyenswah said after the attack that 29 patients at the center were being relocated to an Ebola treatment center at the John F Kennedy Memorial Medical Center. But reporters at the scene contradicted him, saying that 17 escaped and 10 others were taken away by their families – raising the prospect of a widening circle of infection.

The attackers, mostly young men armed with clubs, chanted “No Ebola in West Point”, according to one eyewitness, adding that nurses had also fled the centre.

Jina Moore, a reporter and witness, said she saw the crowd storm the front gate and push into the holding center. “They stole the few gloves someone had donated this morning, and the chlorine sprayers used to disinfect the bodies of those who die here, all the while hollering that Ebola is a hoax.

“They ransacked the protective suits, the goggles, the masks.”

Jemimah Kargbo, a health care worker at a clinic next door, said she saw mattresses and bedding, utensils and plastic chairs going out the door. “What are they carrying to their homes? They are carrying their deaths.”

She said the police showed up but failed to act.

“They said, ‘The president says you have Ebola, but you don’t have Ebola, you have malaria. Get up and go out!’” Kargbo told the reporter.

According to Kargbo, the staff at the clinic lack protective gear. The riot means more infections as escaped sick patients infect their families, and as looters sleep on mattresses where the Ebola-infected have died.

“I have four sons. I am a single mother,” Kargbo said to Moore.  “I’m not going to let anybody infect me to die of the disease and leave my children.”

Health official Nyenswah suggested a quarantine might be imposed on all of West Point, a serious measure that would require meticulous planning and heavy security.

On Friday, the death toll rose to 1,145. There have been 2,127 cases reported in total. 

August 24, 2014

Latino Community Expresses Solidarity with Ferguson Protestors

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Latino activists have spoken out in support of the ongoing protests in Ferguson, Mo. over the shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer earlier this month. The Latino group Presente.org on Aug. 22 joined in a nationwide day of action on social media centered around the hashtag #HandsUpDontShoot.

The phrase has become a rallying cry for protestors and refers to the contention that Brown was unarmed at the time of his death. “The shooting of Mike Brown represents yet another terrible example of law enforcements’ targeting of African American and Latino communities,” Presente.org Executive Director Arturo Carmona said in a statement. “What’s happening in Ferguson is not just an issue for the African American community, Latinos of all races face daily violence at the hands of heavily militarized police and border patrol.”

According to its website, Presente.org is the nation’s largest Latino online community, and seeks to advance social justice causes for that group through technology, media, and culture. Presente.org is not alone in its show of solidarity; over the past two weeks, several Latino groups and coalitions have spoken in support of the protests. Jose Calderon, president of the Hispanic Federation, said in a statement that Latinos “stand with all who call for a swift, just investigation to determine how another unarmed Black young man was killed by those who are given the solemn responsibility to protect and serve all of us.”