May 19, 2014

William Worthy, Trailblazing Journalist, Dies at 92

William Worthy Jr. PHOTO: Randy Goodman/Richmond Free Press

In this 2008 photo, William Worthy Jr., center, shows off the Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity he received from the Neiman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He receives congratulations from longtime friend, Raymond H. Boone, editor/publisher of the Richmond Free Press and the main speaker at the presentation, and Bob Giles, then curator of the Harvard-based foundation. PHOTO:  Randy Goodman/Richmond Free Press

William Worthy, Trail-blazing Journalist, Dies at 92

William Worthy Jr., left, courageously ignored government restrictions on American journalists to go behind the Iron Curtain to gather news during the Cold War.

The trailblazing reporter traveled to China, Cuba, Russia and even North Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s to interview leaders and report on conditions in the communist regimes. Nearly 20 years later, he bravely accepted the assignment to travel to Iran after Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the U.S.government-backed ruler, called the shah. The only American reporter in the country at the time, he brought back documents challenging the official story of American involvement in that country.

Worthy not only made history with his reporting, but he also played a key role in smashing U.S. government regulations aimed at barring journalists from traveling to countries regarded as hostile. “He wanted people to know what was happening in the world,” said his close friend, Raymond H. Boone, editor/publisher of the Richmond Free Press.

Worthy’s pioneering efforts to break down government barriers to the free flow of information and provide fresh perspectives to the American people are being given renewed attention following his death Sunday, May 4, 2014, at a nursing home in Brewster, Mass. He was 92.

“He had a commitment to the First Amendment on a global level,” said Boone who worked with Worthy when both were at the Baltimore Afro- American, at Howard University where both taught and at the Free Press for which Worthy wrote for several years.

“And that was reflected in our conversation. When I would call him at a nursing home in Boston during the last five years, I would ask him, ‘Bill, how are you doing?’He would say, ‘Ray, how is the world doing?’”

In 2008, Worthy was awarded the Neiman Foundation for Journalism’s Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity. Boone was the main speaker at the award presentation at Harvard University.The Boston-born journalist grew up in a family that was active in civil rights and progressive causes and encouraged him to have independent views.

Worthy’s challenge to the government began when he slipped into China with two others in 1956 on behalf of CBS News. He was then the first U.S. reporter to broadcast from thecountry after the communist takeover seven years earlier.

The U.S. government tried to hobble him by seizing his passport when he returned, a move he fought unsuccessfully all the way to the Supreme Court. Undeterred, Worthy traveled to Cuba in 1961 without a valid passport to interview then President Fidel Castro and provide insightful reports on the island nation.

On his return, he was arrested for entering the United States without a passport. “I became the first person ever to be indicted for coming home,” Worthy told an interviewer at the time.

His federal conviction was overturned when his attorney, William Kuntzler, successfully argued the law was unconstitutional. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that government had no authority to imprison American citizens for returning from foreign travel without a passport — forcing the State Department to overhaul its regulations and enabling American reporters to go to risky places without government approval.

The case inspired folk singer Phil Ochs to write and recordthe “The Ballad of William Worthy” in 1964 to protest the journalist’s treatment.

“William Worthy isn’t worthy to enter our door,” the song goes. “Went down to Cuba, he’s not American anymore. But somehow it’s stranger to hear the State Department say: ‘You’re living in the free world, in the free world you must stay.’”

A graduate of Bates College in Maine, Worthy would describe himself as “anti-colonialist, anti-militarist and anti-imperialist.”

Those who knew him considered him a bulldog on moral issueswho was unrelentingly persistent in pursuit of the truth.During nearly 60 years as a reporter, writer, educator andauthor, he covered a wide range of issues. He earned attention for his perceptive reports on civil rights, black militants andanti-Vietnam War protests for the Afro-American.

During the Civil Rights era, he repeatedly interviewed Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But he was never afraid to be critical of civil rights leaders for not going far enough to achieve equality in American life. He also wrote critical columns on the Black Panthers fortheir indiscriminate “Uncle Tom” criticism of the black middleclass and their undisciplined organization that made them aneasy target for law enforcement.

In the late 1960s, Worthy organized a rent strike against a Catholic hospital in New York City that attempted to tear down the apartment building where he lived to turn it into a parking lot. He wrote about those experiences in 1976 in a critically acclaimed book, “The Rape of Our Neighborhoods.”

Early in his career, he worked as a public relations aide to civil rights activist and union leader A. Philip Randolph. Worthy’s journalism career flowered after he joined the Afro-American in 1953. He would spend 27 years off and on at thenewspaper as a reporter and columnist.

He was most noted for his overseas trips. He reported from the Soviet Union in the 1950s when few Western reporters were permitted there. During his visit, he was allowed to use the Radio Moscow facilities to broadcast to the United States. He also filed reports from North Vietnam and Cambodia. Worthy would later recount that he traveled to Vietnam “for the first time in the spring of 1953” while the French were fighting to maintain control, “and I found the situation to be drastically different from the New York Times’ accounts.

The French were completely hopeless and I could see America getting slowly sucked into the tragedy.” He also challenged the government with his reportingfrom Iran. Boone, who was the editor and vice president of the Afro-American, sent Worthy to Iran. During his trip to that country’s capital, Tehran, in 1980, he obtained documents that Iranian activists had taken from the U.S. Embassy while employees were being held hostage.

The government seized one copy of the documents, but he managed to get another copy to the Washington Post, which resulted in a series of critical articles on American policy toward Iran.

“Americans have a right to know what is going on in the world in their name,” he said in explaining why he pushed to get the information out. He taught journalism at the University of Massachusetts and Boston University and later at Howard, from which he retired in 2005 as a special assistant to the dean of the HU School of Communications. He also served on the board of the National Whistleblower Center. He was the author of “Our Disgrace in Indo-China,” and “Pampered Dictators and Neglected Cities,” and co-authored“The Silent Slaughter: The Role of the United States in theIndonesian Massacre.”

Survivors include his sister, Ruth Worthy of Washington.

No Deal for the Kidnapped Girls, Seen in New Video

Photo excerpt from video appearing to be missing school girls in Nigeria.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Attempts to broker the return of the missing school girls held in a rebel camp somewhere in northern Nigeria were apparently quashed today when a government minister forcefully rejected any deal.

The offered deal, from Abubakar Shekau, leader of the Boko Haram rebel group of kidnappers, would have released the girls in exchange for prisoners being held by the Nigerian government. Minister Abba Moro gave thumbs down to any exchange.

Shekau made his offer in a video, obtained by a French news agency, which is believed to be the first to show the missing girls alive. In long gowns or “chadors” worn by Muslim women, the girls are sitting silently or in prayer lead by the kidnappers who also claim to have converted the girls to Islam. Most of the girls, between 14 and 16 years of age, were Christian.

Thousands of Boko Haram suspects –including women and children – have been jailed over the years by security forces since fighting intensified between insurgents and Nigerian soldiers back in 2011. Human rights groups call the jail conditions “atrocious.” After a prison break earlier this year by Boko Haram fighters, more than 600 people, most of them unarmed recaptured detainees, were summarily killed by the military, according to “credible sources” cited by Amnesty International.

The Nigerian government has now reportedly made "indirect contact" with the terrorist group. The official response to the kidnapping – delayed for almost 3 weeks – infuriated Nigerians and sympathizers all over the world who responded with the Twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. Rallies continue to be held in Nigeria and in Washington, including a televised appeal by Michele Obama.

Meanwhile, the watchdog group Amnesty International has gathered testimonies to confirm that Nigerian security forces knew that a convoy of Boko Haram fighters was approaching the town of Chibok four hours before the kidnapping and did nothing to stop them.

Nearby military commands in Damboa and Maiduguri were repeatedly contacted with warnings by both security and local officials.

Armed Boko Haram fighters on motorbikes and trucks were seen by locals, some of whom also raised the alarm. In the village of Gagilam, local civilian patrols alerted officials, including the Borno State Governor and senior military commanders based in Maiduguri. One resident of the area said he made several calls to local officials and was promised by the security people that reinforcement was on its way.

Two senior officers in Nigeria's military confirmed to Amnesty International that the military was aware of the planned attack even before the calls received from local officials.

An urgent, independent and transparent investigation is clearly essential. But the first priority for Nigeria's security forces is to achieve the rescue of the schoolgirls. 

May 19, 2014

8-Year-Old Hero Laid to Rest
Boy killed while defended his sister from sexual assault

By Joey Matthews

Marty Cobbs (Courtesy Photo)

Sharain Spruill,lovingly holds her son’s toy truck at theservice held at Mimms Funeral Home to remember her heroic 8-year-old child. PHOTO: Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press

Friends and classmates of young Marty Cobbs mourn his tragic, but heroic death. PHOTO: Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press

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

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Eight-year-old Martin “Marty” Cobb and his 12-year-old sister had a special bond. They were by all accounts inseparable as siblings, best friends and playmates.

“They were never apart,” said the Rev. Theodore L. Hughey, the pastor at Abundant Life Church of God in Christ, the family’s church. They would ride bikes and big wheelers together, play side by side with children in their South Side neighborhood and brag about their mother’s fine down-home cooking, he told the Free Press.

Marty had a special affinity for keys of any type, the pastor added. In a tragic event that has captured the nation’s heart, Marty now is being fondly remembered as a courageous hero. Local and national media are telling the heart-rending story of how Marty died May 1, while bravely trying to protect his beloved sister from a sexual predator as they played around noon near railroad tracks behind the family’s home in the 200 block of Brandon Road.

A 16-year-old boy has been arrested and charged with Marty’s murder and the attack on his sister, who survived. She is recovering at a local hospital.

Marty died from severe head trauma, police later reported. Neighbors reported the attacker struck Marty in the head with a brick. A few days following his death, about 200 family members, friends, neighbors and other community members somberly gathered outside Abundant Life to honor the endearing child with the small frame, indomitable spirit and warm, loving smile.

Prior to the vigil, loved ones assembled around a sign in Marty’s yard that read: “Martin: A real hero lived, fought and died here.”

“Little Marty is a hero,” stated City Council member Reva M. Trammell, who spoke at the vigil and represents the 8th District where the grieving family lives. “He was there when his sister needed him the most,” she added in response to a Free Press query. “Marty’s beautiful smile and his love for his sister will always be with us. Marty will always be in our hearts, and he will never, ever be forgotten.”

Charles Willis, executive director of the Citizens Against Crime group that has helped lead vigils for more than 20 years in the city, said the turnout reflects a caring community.

“Even though a crisis of this nature happens, this shows the strength of not only the city, but of the community,” Mr. Willis said. “When trouble comes to any community, we will respond in a positive fashion.”

He described Marty’s mother, Sharain Spruill, as “very, very, very upset as well as hurt and trying to wrap her mind aroundwhy this happened her son.”

Major Steve Drew, who directs Support Services with the Richmond Police Department, praised neighborhood residents for providing information that resulted in the quick arrest.

“The community really came together to seek justice for little Marty, the hero,” he said. Police said Marty’s sister first reported the attacker to be a White male, but later recanted and identified a black, 16-year-old neighbor as the attacker. She told police the teenager had threatened to hurt her if she told on him.

It has been reported the suspect’s name is Mariese Washington. He has a history of violent behavior that includes a 2010 attack in the Mosby Court housing community on a 3-year-old boy. He hit the boy in the back of the head with a hammer.

The attack required the child to receive 100 staples and a metal plate in his head. The boy has spent four years in recovery, according to his family. The alleged killer of Marty was to make his first appearance in Richmond Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on Monday in front of Judge Ashley K. Tunner.

Authorities have declined to identify the suspect because he’s a minor. Prosecutor Mary Langer stated in response to a Free Press query that she and Chris Bullard of the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office are trying the case. She said the 16-year-old suspect will be tried as an adult for first degree murder, but will not face the death penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the execution of juveniles violates the Constitution.

“A murder charge against a juvenile who is 14 years or older is subject to automatic certification treatment (as an adult),” Ms. Langer stated. “There is no discretion or choice for the judge.”

Those in the tight-knit South Side neighborhood where Marty’s family lives are determined to make sure his heroic actions are remembered. They have organized an online petition directed to the White House to have Marty recognized by President Obama for his heroic act. 

A fund for the family has been established at Wells Fargo bank called the “Keys for Marty Foundation.” Donations can be made at any Wells Fargo branch.

Marty’s funeral was held May 9 at Mimms Funeral Home in Richmond.

“This young child has awakened a nation that has turned their back on the children!” the Rev. Hughey declared at the funeral of the young hero. “We need to end the war on our most precious gifts, our children...This young man, this little child, this giant that God put in this time has brought us together to say to him, ‘Martin, we will honor your memory now.'" 

May 12, 2014

Beyond #BringBackOurGirls: Standing with Nigerians
Nigerian Schoolgirls Represent Aspirations of Nigerian People
By Nicole C. Lee

Nicole C. Lee (Right), former president of TransAfrica Forum, has long served as an advocate for African and African-American people. File photo.

News Analysis

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - It has been almost a month since the militant terrorist organization Boko Haram attacked the small town of Chibok in northeast Nigeria. They ransacked the town killing whoever they could, taking whatever loot and burning the rest. 

This was an all too familiar scene. In the last few years Boko Haram has terrorized the mostly unprotected countryside killing, looting and kidnapping. What made this attack different was the scale and magnitude of their final assault on Chibok.  While Boko Haram had kidnapped before they brazen abducted over 300 Nigerian girls from the Chibok Government Secondary School.  Posing as military personnel sent to protect the girls did not realize who the men were until it was too late.

Nigeria is a country full of promise and heartache. It is the largest economy on the African continent. Because of its vast oil reserves and other minerals, its people should live in prosperity and growth across all indices. Yet, the majority of Nigerians live on $2 per day.

Any discussion Nigeria’s present state of affairs leads to one word: complicated.  Nigeria’s democracy is new and its governments have always been plagued by accusations and instances of coercion or payoffs by multinational institutions for access to the country’s precious resources. While the Boko Haram insurgency is relatively new, the problems with governance of both the national and some local governments are not.  Amnesty International reported that last year 800 people died while being held in Nigerian government detention. Fighting between Boko Haram and the government has claimed the lives of civilians and there has been little done to restore victims’ homes, property, or livelihoods. Internal displacement is a growing problem that no one has wanted to discuss.

When parents found their daughters missing, they immediately reported it to the local police and authorities. Parents begged the police and military officials on sight to go with them to try and rescue the girls.  The government officials did worse than nothing.  Parents and concerned citizens were told not to embarrass Nigeria by going forward with the stories.

It was out of this reality that the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls was born. Their aims were humble: to force the Nigerian government to recognize the rights of the families to information and action.  For two weeks it was discussed on social media until the dam gave way and #BringBackOurGirls was being discussed from water coolers to car pools. With each retweet, many have embraced the girls as if they are our own.  So many parents have personalized it saying, “What would I do if it was my child?”

The #BringBackOurGirls movement began on the ground in Nigeria and spread its way across the world. This social media campaign has given the families a voice and platform but positive action must be taken offline in the real world.

From the US, there are ways we can help and there are ways we can hurt.  We help by retelling the story of the kidnapped girls and the bravery of their parents. We hurt when we pretend to be the heroes of the story like Ramaa Mosley did. The filmmaker from L.A. who bought the facebook page seemingly after seeing the hashtag, tried to make herself the story instead of uplifting the true heroes. 

Silly savior stories, where we make out to be those who “save Africans” are counterintuitive and infantilizing. We help by recognizing the dignity of these girls and their families and that we can help by amplifying their voices. We help by holding our own government accountable and keeping a watchful eye on increase U.S. role in the area. We hurt when we don’t engage with the reality of terrorism and Nigerian government’s limitations of will and capacity. We help when we stay engage, commit to being a part of the solution rather than losing interest when the next shiny thing comes along.

The people of Nigeria continue to call for a solution to the insecurity in Nigeria and the safe return of the girls.  Like Americans who led the U.S. anti-apartheid movement, we can stand with the Nigerian people in their calls for accountability and peace. The schoolgirls represent the aspirations of the Nigerian people. Let’s be in this for the long haul.

Nicole C. Lee is a human rights attorney and the immediate past president of TransAfrica.