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The Face of Voter Suppression How can you be charged with illegally voting when you did not vote? Further, how can you be incarcerated for making a “mistake” casting a vote? What is a provisional ballot? Does a provisional ballot constitute a vote? How did the term “intentionally voted illegally” become the elephant-in-the -room in […]
\t On Friday, internet and international calls were cut off across the West African nation in anticipation of the election results, according to locals and international observers in the capital, Conakry.
\t This was the third time that Conde matched-up against Diallo. Before the election, observers raised concerns that an electoral dispute could reignite ethnic tensions between Guinea's largest ethnic groups.
The Collective Political Action Committee has announced a campaign to register 250,000 African American voters on Juneteenth.
According to a release, The Collective, a group dedicated to electing black candidates, will launch its “Vote to Live” campaign, an attempt to register 250,000 African American voters.
The Vote to Live campaign is a data driven voter engagement program to reach African American voters through digital advertising, mail, and text messaging.
On Thursday June 18, The Collective will launch an extensive digital voter registration campaign using online ads aimed at reaching unregistered Black voters.
“The Black vote is powerful and when we vote, we change the course of history,” The Collective’s Founder and President
Quentin James said in a press release.
Clarence Thomas, the second African American to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, was born in Pin Point, Georgia, a small community south of Savannah. His mother, Leola Williams, a single parent, raised Thomas until he was seven. He and his brother, Myers, were sent to Savannah where they were raised by their maternal grandfather, Myers Anderson. To help his grandsons to survive in the Jim Crow South, Anderson, a Democrat, local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) member, and recent convert to Catholicism, instilled in them a discipline and pride that would counterpoint the harshness of southern racism. Thomas remembers that after purchasing a new truck, his grandfather removed the heater because he believed its use would make the boys lazy.
Thomas was educated in St. Benedict the Moor, an all-black Catholic school in Savannah and later became the only African American student at St. John Vianney Minor Seminary just outside Savannah. In 1967 he entered Immaculate Conception Seminary in northwestern Missouri to prepare for the priesthood. He withdrew after viewing one fellow student’s pleasure at the news that Dr. Martin Luther King had been assassinated.
Thomas entered the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1968 as a result of an affirmative action program established after Dr. King’s death. Thomas helped found the College’s Black Student Union and became a supporter of the Black Panther Party. He also urged a student walkout to protest the college’s investments in South Africa.
After graduating 9th in his class in 1971, Thomas married Kathy Grace Ambush, a student at a nearby Catholic women’s college. In 1973 they had a son, Jamal. Thomas entered Connecticuts Yale University Law School in 1971 under an affirmative action plan but soon came to resent what he felt was the patronizing attitude of both faculty and fellow students toward him and other African American students. Thomas increasingly began to embrace conservative values, often linking them to
Samsung Group heir Jay Y Lee arrives for a court hearing to review a detention warrant request against him.
Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters
The de facto leader of Samsung Group, Jay Y Lee, appeared before a Korean court on Monday, awaiting a ruling on whether new allegations including accounting fraud and stock manipulation will send him back to jail after more than two years of freedom.
Prosecutors on Thursday asked the court to issue an arrest warrant against Lee, culminating a probe into a controversial 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates that they said helped facilitate Lee’s plan to assume greater control of the group.
The risk of more jail time for Lee who has led the group since his father’s heart attack in 2014, has cast a pall over the sprawling conglomerate and its crown jewel, Samsung Electronics, whose annual revenue alone is equivalent to 12% of South Korea’s GDP.
At Samsung, prior to his father’s heart attack, Jay Y Lee had only small stakes in several affiliates that raised the possibility he could lose control of the group to other shareholders.
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(1890) T. Thomas Fortune, “It Is Time To Call A Halt,”
Attucks, the black patriot he was no coward! Toussaint LOverture-he was no coward! Nat Turner-he was no coward! And the two hundred thousand black soldiers of the last war they were no cowards! If we have a work to do, let us do it. And if there come violence, let those who oppose our just cause throw the first stone. We have wealth, we have intelligence, we have courage; and we have a great work to do. We should therefore take hold of it like men, not counting our time and means and lives of any consequence further than they contribute to the grand purposes which call us to the work. And now, ladies and gentlemen, in concluding the pleasant task set before me here by your kindness, I would reduce the whole matter, so far as this league is concerned to the following proposition: A large portion of our fellow citizens have determined that the material, civil and political rights conferred upon Afro Americans by the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Federal Constitution shall not be enjoyed by the beneficiaries of them. To all practical intents and purposes these rights have been denied and are withheld, and especially so in the Southern States. That the majority shall not rule; that the laborer shall be robbed of his wages without redress at law; that the citizen shall enjoy no common and civil rights a brute would not scorn; that the principle[s] of taxation and representation are inseparably correlated is without force is fact, as regards Afro Americans here is the work before us. As the agitation which culminated in the abolition of African slavery in this country covered a period of fifty years, so may we expect that before the rights conferred upon us by the war amendments are fully conceded, a full century will have passed away. We have undertaken no childs play. We have undertaken a serious work which will tax and exhaust the best intelligence and energy of the race for the next century. Are we equal to the task imposed upon us? If we are
LOS ANGELES — Following a weekend that saw the reopening of more recreational amenities and increased curbside access to retailers, Los Angeles County health officials said May 18 that hundreds of businesses reopened without adhering to health restrictions, and some beachgoers flouted rules mandating face coverings and social distancing.
Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, tried to strike a positive tone about the large numbers of residents and businesses that adhered to continuing health restrictions over the weekend, but said there were problems.
Both Ferrer and County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, however, lamented the weekend scene in places like Malibu, where hundreds of people flocked to beaches while disregarding face-mask and social-distancing requirements.
Ferrer thanked people who went to many other county beaches and abided by regulations, but said the health department did receive reports of issues in Malibu.
“But I want to remind folks that you don’t know when you’re in a public space or place who the people are that are around you who may have underlying health conditions and may in fact be the very person that is going to end up in the hospital because you didn’t make that extra effort to put on that face covering and to keep your distance,” Ferrer added.
Many of the people living with diabetes unfortunately also fall into this bracket, and the lockdown has had disastrous effects on their ability to move around and access healthcare and medication.
Outpatient clinics play a very big part to a significant number of people living with chronic conditions and common sense would tell one that if people with chronic conditions are unable to visit outpatient clinics or hospitals regularly during the lockdown, then it becomes difficult for them to access their prescriptions or receive urgent advice about managing their conditions in a reduced service environment.
Unfortunately, lockdown support measures around outpatient clinics and other medical services do not appear to have been communicated effectively and widely with people reporting variedly the extent to which messages about clinic closures had reached them for instance, with some patients reporting that they only learnt of the suspension of services upon arrival at the medical centres.
The implications on Zimbabwe’s compromised health system will be severe as it will not be able to handle the extra burden of dealing with people with diabetes complications in the long run.
The implications on our already compromised health system will be severe as it will not be able to handle the extra burden of dealing with people with diabetes complications in the long run, leading to a further collapse of the economy.
That issue was and is police brutality.
And while I know that Whites, both male and female, are all too often victimized by unprofessional or brutal police acts, the most egregious instances of police misconduct are those faced by Black Americans and, specifically, African American men.
The paradigm and historical analogy that is closest to this problem of police use of illegal or excessive force, including deadly force, would be to recall the days when Black Americans were killed extra-legally by lynchings.
The major Senate and midterm elections should teach all Americans, especially Democrats, one thing about the nature of the 21st century American electorate: Democrats do not win without Black voter turnout.
Perhaps, the silence of the Democratic candidates on the issue of police brutality will be the same silence America will also hear on Election Day, 2020.
READ MORE: Abolishing the police: It’s time to throw the whole system away and start over
The problem is no matter how you change the name or the menu, the restaurant is built on a toxic waste dump, and you can’t fix it without tearing the whole thing down and starting up somewhere new.
Tishaura Jones, city treasurer of St. Louis, says she’s always preferred “being smart on crime,” which is a mixture of funding changes and new approaches to policing because defunding as a method of police reform is only as powerful as the next administration.
(Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
The two biggest concerns about abolishing the police are that the streets will run wild like The Purge without cops and, as my colleague Tiffany Cross said on a recent Instagram Live for theGrio, “[Abolishing the police is nice] but I’m a single woman living alone, who am I going to call if somebody is breaking into my house?”
RELATED: Minneapolis City Council announces plans to dismantle police department
If the police aren’t stopping crime from happening, nor solving crimes that have happened, and are routinely brutalizing Black people what do we replace them with?
NYPD officers block the entrance of the Manhattan Bridge as hundreds protesting police brutality and systemic racism attempt to cross into the borough of Manhattan from Brooklyn after a citywide curfew went into effect in New York City.
Dear Editor,
My heart goes out to those defrauded in the “Ponzi Scheme” fraud.
The article ‘Fake-sold’ properties is a major, ongoing fraud appeared first on Stabroek News.
Addressing voting rights issues has been a core responsibility for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights since the Commission was founded in 1957. The Commission has broad authority over voting rights. It has general jurisdiction to examine allegations regarding the right of U.S. citizens to vote and to have their votes counted. These allegations may include, but are not limited to, allegations of discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin.
Pursuant to its authority, and fulfilling its obligations, members of the Commission staff conducted a preliminary investigation and discovered widespread allegations of voter disenfranchisement in Florida in the 2000 presidential election. The Commissioners voted unanimously to conduct an extensive public investigation into these allegations of voting irregularities. Toward that end, the Commission held three days of hearings in Miami and Tallahassee and, using its subpoena powers, collected more than 30 hours of testimony from more than 100 witnesses—all taken under oath—and reviewed more than 118,000 pages of pertinent documents.
The Commission carefully selected its subpoenaed witnesses to ensure that it heard testimony on the wide range of issues that had come to light during its preliminary investigation. The Commission also acted to ensure that it heard a broad spectrum of views. It subpoenaed a cross section of witnesses, including Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, members of Governor Bush’s Select Task Force on Election Procedures, Standards and Technology, and Florida’s attorney general. The Commission staff’s research also led it to subpoena the state official responsible for oversight of motor voter registration, the general counsel for Florida’s Elections Commission, the director of the Division of Elections (part of the secretary of state’s office), the director of Florida’s Highway Patrol, and numerous local elections officials, county supervisors, poll workers, and local
ONE of the suggestions being made to improve the Sexual Harassment Bill is widening the scope of people who have a duty of care to address complaints of sexual harassment, including the crew of public transportation such as the State-run Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC).
In his submission to the committee, Douglas Seeratan, a private citizen, said he was concerned about the wording of the clause in the Bill that deals with ensuring an environment free of sexual harassment.
Seeratan pointed out that based on the specifications in the Bill, this would exclude a passenger on a bus who is sexually harassed by another passenger, as these victims would have no one to hold accountable for providing an environment that is free of sexual harassment.
“My concern is that our first step in this matter of sexual harassment has to be to present legislation which is workable, and which is enforceable...at this point in time its focus on the workplace and institutions.
Committee chairman, and minister in charge of gender affairs, Olivia “Babsy” Grange, while recounting her own experience with sexual harassment on public transportation said, “I don't think we can have this legislation treating with something like that, but it is a reality; it is real.”
African American civil rights and political activists in Seattle had been working throughout the early 1960s to integrate and bring equality to the city’s black population. By 1967, however, many blacks in Seattle began to criticize integration and the civil rights movement as a whole for not focusing directly on the empowerment of the African American community. Black power advocates emerged as powerful alternative voices and their rhetoric quickly overshadowed that of the early civil rights leaders. In August 1967, the Central Area Committee for Peace and Improvement (CAPI) appeared in Seattle as one of the first organizations of the local black power movement.
Led by local activist Les McIntosh, the Central Area Committee for Peace and Improvement had grown from a smaller, informal group known as We of the Grassroots, into a full-fledged community organization. CAPI called for a new approach to issue of de facto segregation in public schools. For many years, Seattle civil rights activists had worked to integrate the city’s schools. CAPI members instead argued for administrative decentralization and community control of the schools in black community neighborhoods as a more effective way of improving the quality of education for black students.
Shortly after the organization’s inception, CAPI presented a list of demands to the Seattle School Board. One of the demands was the dismissal of Garfield High School principal Frank Hanawalt, a white man in a predominantly black school who had attempted to prevent Stokely Carmichael from speaking at the school in April 1967. Pressure from CAPI and others was enough to cause Hanawalt to resign in 1968, but not enough for the School Board to replace Hanawalt with a black principal. Other demands, such as the introduction of minority history into the curriculum of every school in the city, were met with mixed success.
By the end of the 1960s, the Central Area Committee for Peace and Improvement was joined by other black power organizations, such as the
After spending nearly three months on lockdown with the kids and with summer swiftly approaching, you may be wondering whether or not it will be safe to venture out for a brief getaway at some point before the fall.
The growing disdain for Biden among young Democratic voters has been predicted to dwindle with the promise of a Black woman as vice president, but for many, this is not the case.
This sentiment is shared amongst many young Black voters who are weary of the Democratic Party’s unfulfilled promises as a whole.
Still, other young Black voters aren’t impressed with the pool of choices, and the disdain for Biden is so much that they would risk another four years of Trump.
“I hate to say it, but between Biden and Trump, I’d still vote Trump,” says one young Black woman.
There seems to be no guarantee that the Democratic party will achieve its intended end if Biden chooses a Black woman to run alongside him.
During the 2018 midterms, 53% of voters were women. Yet for some, a distrust of the system and other barriers keep them from the polls.
NNPA NEWSWIRE — “Some had to pay fees. Some were tested. Many people died for that right. It is too important for us not to vote, and if we want to have a democracy, we need to participate in it. We can’t hope that situations will change. We have to be active in helping candidates get elected who will create that change,” said Lex Scott, the president of the Black Lives Matter Utah Chapter.
By Jason Lange and Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Campaign staff for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden are advertising their donations to a group that pays bail fees in Minneapolis after the city’s police jailed people protesting the killing of a black man by a white police officer.
At least 13 Biden campaign staff members posted on Twitter on Friday and Saturday that they made donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which opposes the practice of cash bail, or making people pay to avoid pre-trial imprisonment.
Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement to Reuters that the former vice president opposes the institution of cash bail as a “modern day debtors prison.”
President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign on Saturday said it was “disturbing” that Biden’s team “would financially support the mayhem that is hurting innocent people and destroying what good people spent their lives building,” in an email about the Reuters story that called for Biden to condemn the riots.
“It is up to everyone to fight injustice,” Colleen May, who identified herself as an campaign organizer for Biden in South Carolina, Wisconsin and Florida, said in a Twitter post that included an image of her receipt from donating $50 to the Minnesota Freedom Fund.
2. Citizen’s Review Board (Police Review)
U.S. Department of State Background Note
Although Haiti averages about 302 people per square kilometer, its population is concentrated most heavily in urban areas, coastal plains, and valleys. About 95% of Haitians are of African descent. The rest of the population is mostly of mixed Caucasian-African ancestry. A few are of European or Levantine heritage. Sixty percent of the population lives in rural areas.
French is one of two official languages, but it is spoken by only about 10% of the people. All Haitians speak Creole, the countrys other official language. English is increasingly used as a second language among the young and in the business sector.
The dominant religion is Roman Catholicism. Increasing numbers of Haitians have converted to Protestantism through the work of missionaries active throughout the country. Much of the population also practices voudou (voodoo), recognized by the government as a religion in April 2003. Haitians tend to see no conflict in these African-rooted beliefs coexisting with Christian faith.
Although public education is free, the cost is still quite high for Haitian families who must pay for uniforms, textbooks, supplies, and other inputs. Due to weak state provision of education services, private and parochial schools account for approximately 90% of primary schools, and only 65% of primary school-aged children are actually enrolled. At the secondary level, the figure drops to around 20%. Less than 35% of those who enter will complete primary school. Though Haitians place a high value on education, few can afford to send their children to secondary school and primary school enrollment is dropping due to economic factors. Remittances sent by Haitians living abroad are important in paying educational costs.
Large-scale emigration, principally to the U.S.--but also to Canada, the Dominican Republic, The Bahamas and other Caribbean neighbors, and France--has created what Haitians refer to as the Tenth Department or the Diaspora. About one of every eight Haitians lives
Source: Paras Griffin / Getty
The city of Atlanta really is trying very hard to be the new Florida.
Atlanta’s mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, is very disappointed at some of her ATLiens after news broke of an enormous mansion party that over 800 people attended in her city before it got shut down by police.
TMZ acquired video of the private topless pandemic soiree that took place over Memorial Day Weekend that featured twerking strippers, money throwing but no mask-wearing, and social distancing.
A spokeswoman for the Bottoms expressed the mayor’s disappointment, Bottoms also made sure to shoutout the majority of Atlanta natives who continue to take this pandemic serious in a statement:
“While the Mayor is extremely disappointed to see these isolated events, she is encouraged by the vast majority of Atlantans who value their lives and the lives of others enough to practice social distancing and use some common sense.”
VIDEO
Photo: Paras Griffin / Getty
The directive applies to counties with 20 or more Covid-19 cases, which covers most of Texas 254 counties. Texas hit a record of more than 8,000 virus cases in a day on Wednesday, up from about 2,400 two weeks ago. Americans are about to mark the Fourth of July weekend, with some beaches coast to []
The post Coronavirus: Texas governor mandates wearing of face masks appeared first on DefenderNetwork.com.
Syvilla Fort, born on July 3, 1917 in Seattle, was a professional dancer in the 1930s and early 1940s and prominent dance instructor in New York City for three decades between 1948 and 1975. Her dance style, which combined African, Caribbean, and American rhythms, influenced hundreds of professional dancers and actors.
Fort began studying ballet when she was three years old but was denied admission to several Seattle ballet schools because of her race. Forced to learn at home in private lessons, she soon excelled in dance and at age nine began to teach modern dance, tap, and ballet to the neighborhood kids.
In 1932 she graduated from high school and entered the Cornish School of Allied Arts in Seattle, becoming its first African American student. At Cornish she met John Cage, an American composer, who had Fort perform some of his first compositions. They continued this collaboration through her years at Cornish.
In 1937 Fort relocated to Los Angeles to begin her professional career. There she met dancer Katherine Dunham. Fort later joined Dunham’s dance company in Chicago. While with Dunham’s company, Fort injured her knee which ended her professional dance career prematurely in 1945. In 1948 Fort was appointed chief administrator and dance teacher at the Katherine Dunham School of Dance in New York. Fort retained that position until 1954 when the school closed due to financial problems.
Soon afterwards Fort and her husband, Buddy Philips, opened a dance studio in New York City on West 44th Street. It was here that Fort developed her Afro-Modern technique, which combined the modern styles of dance, learned from the Dunham School, with the techniques she had acquired at Cornish. Fort’s school became popular among aspiring actors and had a number of students who went on to illustrious careers including Marlon Brando, James Dean, Jane Fonda, and James Earl Jones. Fort was also a part time Professor of Physical Education at Columbia University’s Teachers College between 1954 and 1967.
Fort’s dance
With Republican-led voter suppression efforts ramped up, one could make a legal argument of gross negligence about our election system. But can anyone prove it?
Wondering what the day has in store for your star sign? Here's a quick glance at horoscopes and more for today - completely free!
Cicely Tyson is a legendary African American actress. She is known for her remarkable performance in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and The Help, and has been nominated for a BAFTA Award and won two Emmy Awards. She was also nominated for highly prestigious Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award.
Cicely Tyson was born to Theodosia and William Tyson in Harlem. Her father worked as a carpenter and painter and did other odd jobs. Her parents migrated to United States from Nevis in the West Indies. Tyson began her career as a fashion model when an Ebony magazine photographer discovered her. In 1951, she was landed her first acting role on the NBC series Frontiers of Faith. She did a few television series, such as the soap opera The Guiding Light and East Side/West Side, before she took up her first film role. In 1956, she was casted in the film Carib Gold. She was an original cast member in the celebrated non-musical longest running Broadway play The Blacks written by Jean Genet’s. Other cast members included names like Godfrey Cambridge, James Earl Jones and Maya Angelou.
Moreover, she made an appearance alongside with Sammy Davis Jr. in the film A Man Called Adam and in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968). She also played a role in the adaptation of Graham Greene’s work of fiction, The Comedians (1967). Her astounding performance in the critically acclaimed film, Sounder, had her nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her other highly acclaimed works include, The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, When No One Would Listen and Roots; King, in which she played Coretta Scott King. For her roles in these series she won several Emmy Awards.
Tyson’s acting career also reflected on all the women and to appreciate her outstanding representation of women in the entertainment industry she received the Women in Film Crystal Award. Besides, she played strong characters such as her role as a civil rights activist and attorney named Carrie Grace Battle in Sweet Justice. In order to render her
