Lead Stories

Top Black Press Stories of 2016 Reveal Need for Clear Black Agenda by Hazel Trice Edney

Jan. 1, 2017

Top Black Press Stories of 2016 Reveal Need for Clear Black Agenda
By Hazel Trice Edney

Two days after the election, President Obama met with President-elect Donald Trump to begin the transition. PHOTO: Pete Souza/The White House

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – As the Obama era comes to a close, a snapshot of the top Black press stories of the past year alone reveal a need for a clear Black agenda as African-Americans still struggle for equality and justice.

“We are spending trillions in wars without end. Inequality has reached extremes not witnessed since the eve of the Great Depression. We continue to lock up more people than any nation in the world. On an average day, 27 people die from gun violence in the United States. In Canada and other western nations, the average is fewer than five per day,” wrote the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. in a post-Christmas column.

Despite good news - the facts that unemployment and poverty are down and incomes are rising – the African-American unemployment rate at 8.1 percent is still nearly twice that of Whites at 4.2 percent and remains consistently well above the national average, now at 4.6 percent.

This is partially the reason economic justice remains among the 10 top Black stories of 2016. The following are synopses of other revealing stories told through the Black press last year:

Election of Donald Trump as President of the United States – President Obama has announced a farewell address to be given in Chicago Jan. 10. The end of his eight-year tenure as America’s first Black president begins a new era for America. It is one marked by the national shock of the Nov. 8 election of business billionaire Donald Trump – a person who not only tormented Obama with racist questions about his country of birth until the president finally produced his birth certificate as proof that he was born in America - but also a person who won the official endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan. He has since surrounded himself with a cabinet of nearly all White males, including his chief advisor Steve Bannon, a founder of Breitbart news, the voice of the so-called “alt-right” with its White supremacist and racist views.

Racial attacks - Since the Trump election, race-related harassment and intimidation has sky-rocketed across the country. In the first month alone (between Nov. 8 and Dec. 12), the Southern Poverty law center, a foremost monitor of hate groups and activity, received reports of more than 1,000 incidents - mostly anti-immigrant and anti-Black. “Overall, anti-immigrant incidents (315) remain the most reported, followed by anti-black (221), anti-Muslim (112), and anti-LGBT (109). Anti-Trump incidents numbered 26 (6 of which were also anti-white in nature, with 2 non-Trump related anti-white incidents reported),” states the organization’s website, SPLCenter.org.

Guilty verdict for murderous White supremacist Dylann Roof: A federal grand jury on Dec. 15 convicted 22-year-old Dylann Roof of murdering eight Black parishioners and their pastor last year as they attended Bible study and prayer at the historic “Mother” Emanuel A.M. E. Church in downtown Charleston, S.C. Roof, who represented himself, pled not guilty during the trial although he had confessed to the killings, saying he had hoped to start a race war. He now faces either life in prison or execution. Roof sat for an hour with Emanuel parishioners and their pastor Clementa Pinckney, also a member of the S. C. State Senate, on June 17, 2015, before firing his 45-caliber pistol. President Obama gave Pinckney’s eulogy. The shooting sparked the removal of the Confederate flag from public use from many sites across the nation – including atop the S. C. State Capitol.

Death of Gwen Ifill - Gwen Ifill, the iconic, award-winning journalist who broke racial barriers in journalism, was laid to rest in a star-studded funeral after dying of cancer Nov. 14. President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder were among those who paid their respects. Ifill, 61, spent decades climbing the ranks from print journalist to news anchor and famed political moderator. Last spring, she co-moderated the Democratic primary debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Ifill had performed that role solo during vice presidential debates in the 2004 and 2008 general election campaigns.

Opening of Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) – More than a century after Black veterans of the Civil War proposed the idea of a Black history museum in D.C., the opening of the NMAAHC on the Mall took place in grand style Sept. 24. Led by Georgia Congressman John Lewis, it was then-President George W. Bush who signed legislation in 2003 that allowed the project to begin. President Barack Obama officially dedicated the museum, saying, “What we can see of this beautiful building tells us that it is truly a sight to behold. But what makes it special are the stories contained inside.”

Death of George Curry - George E. Curry, the dean of Black press columnists, died suddenly of heart failure August 20. The funeral service, held in his hometown of Tuscaloosa, Ala., drew national civil rights royalty, including the Rev. Al Sharpton who gave the eulogy, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who preached a memorial, the Rev. Charles Steele, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Curry’s lifelong friend and comrade; and Dr. Benjamin Chavis, president/CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, where Curry served as editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service for a collective nine years. Before coming to NNPA, he was editor-in-chief of his beloved Emerge Magazine for seven years until it went defunct. Curry was among the most respected voices in Black press journalism. When he died, he had founded Emergenewsonline.com, a digital version of the hard copy magazine, which he never gave up hope to revive.

Police shootings and abuse of Blacks - Black Lives Matter activists and civil rights leaders across the country continued to protest police shootings of African-Americans. The controversy came to another peak last year after the police killings of Alton Sterling of Baton Rouge, La. on July 5 by two Baton Rouge, La. police officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake and the July 6 shooting of Philando Castile by Officer Jeronimo Yanez, in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. Castile’s girlfriend recorded the aftermath of the shooting on Facebook Live as Castile died. Then, on the evening of July 7, 2016, allegedly in response to the two previous shootings Micah Johnson, killed five law enforcement officers in Dallas. Johnson was then killed by police operating a robot with a bomb. In another police killing, the trial of Officer Michael Slager, in the videotaped back-shooting of Walter Scott as Scott fled the officer in South Carolina April 4, 2015, ended in a mistrial Dec. 5. Slager is slated to be retried.

Death of Prince - The shocking death of Academy Award winning singer, songwriter and musician Prince on April 21 rocked the entertainment world. He died in his home after accidentally overdosing on opioid fentanyl. The 57-year-old, perhaps best known for his 1984 Academy “Best Original Musical”, “Purple Rain”, was discovered unresponsive on an elevator in his Chanhassen, Minn. home and recording studio.

Homicides – Street violence continued to be the number one cause of Black males between the ages of 15 and 34, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Perhaps no city has been hit harder than Chicago, which ended 2016 with 762 homicides, 57 percent more than last year. Gun violence plagues the streets of major cities year after year. Despite citizen pleas for new gun laws, partisan stalemates prevents Congress from moving new legislation. Other programs to deal with the social aspects of street violence appear to do little without the balance of the gun laws.

Despite major strides by Obama, particularly in areas of health care and criminal justice reform, civil rights leaders say a clear Black agenda is necessary for major progress. A Jan. 14 march planned by Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network aims toward that end. Trump will be inaugurated Jan. 20. Sharpton said the march aims to “warn President Trump and Congress that the fight for criminal justice, voting rights, affordable health care, improvements in education and other issues around equality and justice continues.”

How a Repeal of the Affordable Care Act will Affect Blacks By Glenn Ellis

Jan. 1, 2017

News Analysis

How a Repeal of the Affordable Care Act will Affect Blacks
By Glenn Ellis

President Barack Obama, Vice President Biden, members of Congress and guests before the signing of the ACA on March 23, 2010. PHOTO: The White House

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Racism has historically had a significant, negative impact on the health care of Blacks and other people of color in the United States. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is truly the first time that African-Americans have, collectively, had significant access to health care. It is noteworthy that America’s first African-American president is chiefly responsible for this access.

Improved access to care; Medicaid expansion; prevention medicine; and lifting of barriers for pre-existing conditions, are all aspects of the ACA that have been of great benefit to Blacks. But there is a thick air of uncertainty on the horizon.

In a few weeks, Donald John Trump will become the 45th president of the United States.

It is unclear how quickly, or when, Trump's vow to repeal and replace Obamacare will play out. But make no mistake, just like the adage, “when white folks catch a cold, black folks get pneumonia!”, a repeal of the ACA would disproportionately hurt blacks.

Republicans in Congress have put out their plans: to repeal most of the ACA without replacing it; doubling the number of uninsured people - from roughly 29 million to 59 million - and leave the nation with an even higher uninsured rate than before the ACA.

Let me point out a few ways that Blacks have, specifically, benefitted from the ACA, what many now call "Obamacare". Given the low incomes of uninsured Blacks, nearly all (94 percent) are in the income range to qualify for the Medicaid expansion or premium tax credits. Nearly two thirds (62 percent) of uninsured Blacks have incomes at or below the Medicaid expansion limit, while an additional 31 percent are income-eligible for tax subsidies to help cover the cost of buying health insurance through the exchange marketplaces. Under the new law, insurance companies are banned from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition, such as cancer and having been pregnant.

Importantly, for people living with HIV there also new protections in the law that make access to health coverage more equitable including the expansion of Medicaid and in the private market, prohibition on rate setting tied to health status, elimination of preexisting condition exclusions, and an end to lifetime and annual caps. The passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in March 2010 provided new opportunities for expanding health care access, prevention, and treatment services for millions of people in the U.S., including many people with, or at risk for, HIV.

Safety net hospitals play a critical role in the nation's health care system by serving low-income, uninsured and medically and socially vulnerable patients regardless of their ability to pay. Also, in agreeing to lower payments, hospitals in the 31 states that expanded Medicaid under the law, have made up that revenue in part through the Medicaid expansion.

These places are critical to the health of Black communities, and in the poorest neighborhoods. They have been among the loudest voices against repeal of the health law, as they could lose billions if the 20 million people lose the insurance they gained under the law. This could bring about widespread layoffs, cuts in outpatient care and services for the mentally ill, and even hospital closings.

Under the ACA, these hospitals have received subsidies (or credits) to provide care based on a patients’ income levels. Should this change, community hospitals may have more difficulty weathering the storm of an increase in the number of uninsured.

Admittedly, there are some real problems with the ACA as we have come to know it; not the least being steady increases in premiums (midrange plans increased 22 percent nationally in 2016, with the average premium set to rise 25 percent in 2017); nearly 70 percent of all ACA plan provider networks are narrower than promised; and the high-deductibles and co-pays. Perhaps the most universal complaint is the “individual mandate”, that requires everyone in the United States to have insurance, or face a financial penalty.

Republicans are dead set on repealing the Affordable Care Act. Congress will likely pass significant modifications to the Affordable Care Act this month, which will be signed by incoming President Trump.

The plans they have proposed so far would leave millions of people without insurance and make it harder for sicker, older Americans to access coverage. No version of a Republican plan would keep the Medicaid expansion as Obamacare envisions it.

Donald Trump’s presidency absolutely puts the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in jeopardy. A full repeal is unlikely, but major changes through the budget reconciliation process (which cannot be filibustered) are nearly certain.

But let me be clear; changes are needed in the ACA, but the idea of dismantling it remains a troubling prospect for Blacks.

Glenn Ellis, is a Health Advocacy Communications Specialist. He is the author of Which Doctor? and Information is the Best Medicine. A health columnist and radio commentator who lectures, nationally and internationally on health-related topics, Ellis is an active media contributor on Health Equity and Medical Ethics.

Listen to Glenn, every Saturday at 9:00am (EST) on www.900amwurd.com, and Sundays at 8:30am (EST) on www.wdasfm.com. For more good health information, visit: www.glennellis.com

Bias Hinders Diversity in Hiring for Environmental Organizations By Anthony Advincula

Dec. 26, 2016

Bias Hinders Diversity in Hiring for Environmental Organizations
By Anthony Advincula

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from New America Media

(TriceEdneyWire.com) — Diversity at the leadership level in the environmental sector remains low despite a high proportion of well-educated and qualified people of color in the United States, according to a report released last Thursday. The problem: systemic bias in the hiring process, but also environmental organizations’ unwillingness to mandate diversity when using a search firm.

Diversity Derailed: Limited Demand, Effort and Results in Environmental C-Suite Searches, produced by Green 2.0, found that nearly 90 percent of search consultants – which are frequently used by mainstream environmental NGOs and foundations – have encountered bias on the part of the organizations using them during their search for senior-level positions.

Search firms often hold the key to diverse hiring in executive positions – the question now is how organizations can use search firms effectively.

According to Green 2.0’s report, most search firms allow their client organizations to take the lead in terms of whether or not they’re interested in mandating a diverse slate of applicants. If a client does not mention that diversity is a priority, less than half of search firms report mandating a diverse slate.

Notably, only 28 percent of environmental NGOs and 44 percent of environmental foundations mandate that there must be some sort of diversity represented on their short lists for candidates.

The result? People of color account for just 12 to 16 percent of the staff at mainstream environmental organizations. And there’s even less diversity in upper management, according to Green 2.0 executive director Whitney Tome.

The methodology used in the study includes surveys and in-depth interviews of 85 executive managers, hiring directors, and search consultants in the environmental field.

University of Connecticut associate professor of sociology Maya Beasley, who authored the study, says that while there has been an increasingly diverse constituency in the United States, there has been a limited effort to address why environmental organizations are still racially homogeneous.

“This [study] is one of the few to examine the specific organizational practices that show workplace inequality, not only in the environmental sector but in any sector or industry,” she says. “And it is the first study that solely focuses on the efficacy of search firms on the practices that they employ to increase diversity.”

Although nearly three-quarters of NGOs and foundations could identify benefits associated with diversity in an organization, most admitted to having trouble diversifying, particularly at senior levels.

Their reasons include that their organizations “do not have a culture of inclusivity,” that there is always a “bad cultural fit for applicants of color unrelated to their qualifications,” or that the people of color that they do recruit are “not well known so members of the search committee may be reluctant to support their candidacy.”

But even beyond culture, nearly half of NGOs and one-fourth of foundations “agreed that there are not enough qualified [people of color] applicants.”

On this, many environmental advocates and academics do not agree.

“I can attest to the growing qualifications of people of color. We have a large pool of highly educated candidates,” says Michelle DePass, dean of the New School’s Milano School of International Affairs and director of Tishman Environment and Design Center. “The environmental leadership has still been white; that should not be so in the 21st century.”

According to Beasley, it may be a long journey to fully achieve diversity at the leadership level in every sector, but it should start with major players in each organization.

“What I’d like to emphasize is that the solution is not to take the bias out of people – that doesn’t work,” said Beasley. “Instead, what we want to work on is minimizing the impact of bias in searches, and it will work with organizations thereafter.”

The study came up with several recommendations to increase diversity in leadership hiring:

Mandate diverse slates of candidates.

Minimize bias in the hiring process by using a diverse search committee and diverse interviewers, and by structuring the interview process as much as possible.

Assess diversity on an ongoing basis throughout the process and share the information with others.

“The nonprofit sector is the third largest workforce in the world, after retail and manufacturing,” said Patricia Hampton, vice president and managing partner of Washington, D.C.-based Nonprofit HR. “But, unfortunately, we [people of color in NGOs and foundations] often have the quietest voice.”

Museum Will Be National Memorial to Lynching Victims by Frederick H. Lowe

Dec. 26, 2016

Museum Will Be National Memorial to Lynching Victims
So far, soil from over 300 lynching sites has been collected
By Frederick H. Lowe

jarsofsoilfromlynchingsites
Jars of Soil from sites where Blacks were lynched.

clayton jackson mcghee
Memorial to Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhee, three Black men who were lynched in Duluth, Minn.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to indigent defendants and prisoners denied fair and just treatment in the legal system, intends to open in 2018 the first national memorial to African-American victims of lynchings.

The memorial will be located on six acres in Montgomery, Ala., where EJI is headquartered, the organization said in its 2016 annual report. EJI has reported that nearly 4,000 Black men, women and children were lynched, burned alive, shot to death, drowned and beaten to death by White mobs between 1877 and 1950 in 12 southern states.

The memorial, however, will record terror lynchings in every county throughout the United States, not just in the South. For example, on June 15, 1920, a mob lynched three Black men—Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhee—for allegedly raping a white woman in Duluth, Minn., according to the book “The Lynchings in Duluth,” published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.

The woman claimed she had been attacked. A physician who examined her said nothing indicated she had been sexually assaulted. In 2003, Duluth erected a memorial honoring Clayton, Jackson and McGhee. Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were African-American men who were lynched on August 7, 1930, in Marion, Ind., after being dragged from jail and beaten by a mob for allegedly murdering a White couple. James Cameron, 16, a third person, narrowly escaped being murdered by the mob; he was helped by the intervention of an unknown woman and returned to the safety of his jail cell. He was later convicted and sentenced as an accessory before the fact. After dedicating his life to civil rights activism, he was pardoned in 1999 by the state of Indiana.

Cameron founded America’s Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, Wisc. Cameron died on June 11, 2006.The local chapter of the NAACP and the State’s Attorney General struggled to indict some of the Marion lynch mob, but no one was ever charged for the murders of Shipp and Smith, or the attack on Cameron.

Lynchings of Black men were mostly carried out to protect the perceived sanctity of White women. Otis Price of Perry, Fla., was murdered by a White mob on Aug. 9, 1938, for walking past a white farmer’s home while the farmer’s wife was bathing in an open doorway, according to EJI.The organization has found locations where lynchings occurred. Thousands of volunteers for EJI have collected soil from over 300 lynching sites as part of the organization’s Community Remembrance Project.

The jars of soil are exhibited at EJI. Each jar bears the name of a man, woman, or child lynched in America, as well as the date and location of the lynching. EJI recently released a study about Black military veterans targeted for lynching. The report’s title is “Lynching in America: Targeting Black Veterans.” It builds on EJI’s 2015 report, “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror.”

‘We Shall Not Be Moved’ March Aims to Send Trump Message on MLK Weekend By Hazel Trice Edney

Dec. 19, 2016

‘We Shall Not Be Moved’ March Aims to Send Trump Message on MLK Weekend
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – The march announced by the Rev. Al Sharpton shortly after Donald Trump was elected president is now taking shape for January 14 and will aim to send a clear message to the President-elect in the “spirit and tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said a statement from Sharpton this week.

“The 2017 march will bring all people together to insist on change and accountability,” said Sharpton. “Martin Luther King Jr.’s struggle for civil rights didn’t end with his death, it’s a fight we take on each day. The political players may change but our goals stay the same. Donald Trump and his administration need to hear our voice and our concerns.”

He continues, “Participants will demand accountability not just from President-elect Trump but from Senate and Congress members who are charged with overseeing the Criminal Justice Reform Act, the Voting Rights Bill, Supreme Court nominations and other Trump political appointments. Our movement, #WeShallNotBeMoved, will send a clear message to those in power that the fight for equal rights and justice for all continues,” he states.

The four top concerns outlined involve police reform, mass incarceration, stop and frisk, the Affordable Care Act, voting rights, education, and climate change.

Sharpton first announced the march on a mid-November teleconference during which he told reporters that he was not fazed by Trump’s apparent change of demeanor toward President Barack Obama. Despite his less vitriolic demeanor, Trump has since surrounded himself with an almost lily White cabinet and advisors, including Steve Bannon, a founder of Breitbart news, the voice of the so-called “alt-right” - White supremacists and racists.

“Whether one whispers or whether one shouts, if the message is the same what does it matter?” Sharpton told reporters on that call. “I think we are mistaking his change in tone with change in content.”

That said, Sharpton has organized a march and rally that will include civil rights groups, activists, unions and clergy outside the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in D.C. The following is the detailed route, according to NationalActionNetwork.net:

WHEN: Sat., Jan. 14

ASSEMBLY: Marchers will assemble at 9 a.m. at the National Sylvan Theater, Independence Avenue Southwest & 15^th Street NW.

MARCH STARTING TIME: 11 a.m.

MARCH ROUTE: March will travel along Independence Ave. SW to West Potomac Park at 1964 Independence Ave. SW

RALLY: 12 Noon in West Potomac Park, directly across from Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial

MORE INFORMATION: NationActionNetwork.net

Sharpton said the march will include “Americans from every state, race, religion and ethnicity,” who will “warn President Trump and Congress that the fight for criminal justice, voting rights, affordable health care, improvements in education and other issues around equality and justice continues.”