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Judge in South Carolina Throws Out Sit-In Convictions for "Friendship Nine"

By goodblacknews on January 28, 2015

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A judge in Rock Hill, S.C., vacated the convictions of nine black men who were arrested in 1961 for sitting at a whites-only lunch counter. (Photo by Megan Gielow for The New York Times)

Rock Hill, South Carolina (CNN) A South Carolina judge on Wednesday threw out the convictions of the Friendship Nine, who were jailed in 1961 after a sit-in protest in Rock Hill, South Carolina, during the civil rights movement.

“Today is a victory in race relations in America,” said Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., said in a news conference following the ruling. “It is a new day.”

The prosecutor who pushed for this momentous day, 16th Circuit Solicitor Kevin Brackett of Rock Hill, cited King’s father when explaining to CNN on Tuesday why he was motivated to take up the cause of the Friendship Nine: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

The proceedings began at the Rock Hill Law Center with Municipal Judge Jane Pittman Modla reading from the original court record for each of the men. She asked each of the seven men in attendance — one has since died, while another had transportation issues — to stand as their names were called.

“Offense: trespassing. Disposition: guilty. Sentence: $100 or 30 days. Condition: sent to the chain gang,” she said for each of them, reading from the 1961 docket.

Retired state Supreme Court Justice Ernest Finney, who was the men’s defense attorney in 1961, entered the motion to have the sentences tossed out. The 83-year-old required help standing and propped himself on the table in front of him as he spoke.

“May it please the court, today I’m honored and proud to move this honorable court to vacate the conviction of my clients. These courageous and determined South Carolinians have shown by their conduct and their faith that the relief that they seek should be granted. I move for the convictions entered in 1961 to be vacated.”

Marissa Alexander Finally Released From Jail

By goodblacknews on January 27, 2015
Marissa Alexander walks by her dad Raoul Jenkins and surrounded by her legal team and supporters after her sentencing in Jacksonville, Fla., Jan. 27, 2015. (Photo by Bob Mack/Florida Times-Union/AP)
Marissa Alexander walks by her dad Raoul Jenkins and surrounded by her legal team and supporters after her sentencing in Jacksonville, Fla., Jan. 27, 2015. (Photo by Bob Mack/Florida Times-Union/AP)

Marissa Alexander, the Florida mother whose case became a rallying cry for anti-racism activists and survivors of domestic violence, was released today after three years of incarceration.

Alexander had faced up to 60 years behind bars for firing a single shot near her abusive husband, unable to convince a jury she had feared for her life. A hearing Tuesday confirmed the terms: Having pleaded guilty to assault in exchange for credit for time served, she will be subject to two years of electronic monitoring and house arrest, except for approved appointments and employment.
Circuit Court Judge James Daniel acknowledged that the case had drawn national attention but claimed his decision was “not based on any public opinion of any larger issue of public interest or social concern, but on the specific facts of the case.”
Alexander’s case has long sparked outrage about the unequal application of the law for both black Americans and women. Alexander was prosecuted by Angela Corey, who was also the prosecutor in the trial of George Zimmerman, who was acquitted in the February 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin. Corey did not appear at Tuesday’s hearing.
“We are thrilled that Marissa will finally be reunited with her children, her family, and her community,” said Sumayya Coleman, co-lead of the Free Marissa Now Mobilization Campaign. “Today’s hearing revealed that Alexander intends to attend school to become a paralegal and she is a wonderful mother to her children who urgently need her. Amazingly, the State continued their campaign of punishment by trying to add two more years of probation.” But the state didn’t get its way.
In November, Alexander pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated assault with a weapon in exchange for credit for time served. A second trial had been planned for December, when Corey had planned to seek a 60-year sentence, triple the 20-year sentence Alexander got in her first trial.
The Free Marissa Now Mobilization Campaign and The Monument Quilt wrote on Facebook that “350 quilt squares containing stories from survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault will blanket the Duval County Courthouse lawn to let Jacksonville and the world know Marissa is NOT ALONE.” A fundraiser on Alexander’s behalf exceeded its goals, raising $58,297 from 1,122 backers on the site GoGetFunding.
“We have always believed that forcing Marissa to serve even one day in prison represents a profound and systemic attack on black women’s right to exist and all women’s right to self-defense,” the Free Marissa Now Mobilization Campaign said in a statement after Alexander’s plea deal.
The incident in question took place in 2010, nine days after Alexander, now 34, gave birth to a daughter. Alexander testified that her estranged husband, Rico Gray, had physically abused her several times and that on that day, he threatened to kill her. No one was injured, but a jury convicted her in about 12 minutes.
article by Irin Carmon via msnbc.com

Long-Lost Recording of Martin Luther King Jr. Speech at UCLA Discovered (AUDIO)

By goodblacknews on January 25, 2015
Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at UCLA in 1965
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at UCLA about a month after his triumphant march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, that made civil rights history. (Photo: UCLA)

Clarification posted Jan. 21: The UCLA Library also has recordings of the speech in its collection, available for listening by special arrangement but not online.
A long-lost audio recording of a 50-year-old speech delivered at UCLA by the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. has been unearthed in a storage room in the communication studies department, which will put it online. The 55-minute speech (embedded below) went live on January 15, King’s birthday, four days before the national holiday honoring him.
“It’s a speech of importance that deserves to be released on a day of importance,” said Derek Bolin, a 2013 UCLA graduate who found the recording while working as a contract archivist. Over the years, King’s visit to UCLA became a proud part of campus lore. The spot where the civil rights leader stood to deliver his speech, at the base of Janss Steps, is now marked with a plaque and is a stopping point on some campus tours.
The speech, recorded originally on 7-inch, reel- to-reel tapes, will become part of the UCLA Communication Studies Speech Archive, an online collection of more than 400 speeches delivered on campus by politicians, activists, entertainment personalities and other newsmakers primarily during the 1960s and ’70s. Like King, the speakers were brought to campus by UCLA’s now-defunct Associated Students Speakers Program. With donations from alumni, the department began last year to digitize the speeches and upload them to YouTube. So far, more than 180,000 listeners have tapped into the online archive.

Archivist Derek Bolin (left) and Tim Groeling, chair of the UCLA Department of Communication Studies

The timing of the speech is significant. King delivered it on April 27, 1965, one month and two days after the triumphant march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, that is depicted so movingly in the new biopic “Selma.” The film’s director, Ava Marie DuVernay, attended UCLA in the early 1990s as an undergraduate English major, according to registrar records.
The march and protests leading up to it paved the way for passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The federal legislation that prohibits racial discrimination in voting was signed into law four months after King’s UCLA visit, said Paul Von Blum, a senior lecturer in the department and in African American studies, who participated in the civil rights movement as a young man.
“It’s tremendously important,” Von Blum said of the speech. “It shows that Dr. King recognized that American universities were crucial in the movement for social justice. Students, especially at elite universities, were kind of the foot soldiers of the movement.”
The audio recording would have been completely forgotten had Bolin not noticed King’s name on a list of campus speakers. Tapes of the speech weren’t in the two cabinets that stored the recordings of the 365-plus speeches he had already processed. So he scoured the storage room where tape reels had languished for decades. Eventually, he found a cabinet that had been hidden from view by shelving, old beta players and other out-of-date audiovisual equipment.

In a U.S. First, New Orleans Finds Homes for All its Homeless Veterans

By goodblacknews on January 24, 2015
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US Navy veteran Ray Charles Griggs receives keys to his new home in New Orleans, December, 2014. New Orleans became the first US city to end veteran homelessness on Jan. 2 after housing 227 people in less than six months. (Photo Courtesy of UNITY of Greater New Orleans)

Most people celebrate the New Year by making resolutions. The city of New Orleans rang in 2015 by keeping one.

At 6 p.m. on Jan. 2, social workers in New Orleans moved the city’s last known homeless veteran into his new apartment – becoming the first US city to effectively eliminate veteran homelessness.
Homelessness advocates around the country are hailing New Orleans as a model for cities around the country looking to end homelessness, not just for veterans, but for all people needing a permanent home.
“The solutions that work for veterans are the solutions that work for all people,” says Laura Zeilinger, executive director of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness. “The problem is absolutely solvable when we invest in the practices that we know work.”
This time last year, nearly 50,000 US veterans had no home to call their own, according to an annual count. On Independence Day, first lady Michelle Obama launched the Mayor’s Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness. Since that time, more than 300 mayors, six governors, and 71 other local officials have joined the pledge to house every veteran by the end of 2015.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu took that pledge one step further, promising to meet the goal by the end of 2014.
“We owe our Veterans our eternal gratitude for their service and sacrifice to this nation, and making sure they have a place to call home is a small but powerful way we can show our appreciation,” Mayor Landrieu said in a statement Wednesday, announcing that New Orleans had housed all known veterans in the Crescent City.
In total, the city has placed 227 veterans in housing since the start of 2014.
Other cities have made huge strides in this area as well. Both Phoenix and Salt Lake City have managed to house all chronically homeless veterans, who have experienced long-term homelessness. The city of Binghamton, N.Y., successfully housed its 21 homeless veterans in November 2014. However, New Orleans is the first major city to be able to meet the needs of all homeless veterans, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
“There’s been a lot of skepticism as to whether this is a problem that we can actually solve and I think that [New Orleans’ progress] is a proof point for us as a nation that this is something that can actually be done,” says Ann Oliva, HUD’s deputy assistant secretary for special needs.

Retired Brooklyn Bus Driver Frederick McClendon Cruising On Easy Street by Winning $7M Lottery

By goodblacknews on January 23, 2015
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Frederick McClendon (pictured), a Brooklyn retired city bus driver, will be living the good life from here on in, after claiming his winnings in the New York Lottery’s Cash4Life draw game and winning the top prize of $7 million, according to the New York Daily News.

The 51-year-old young retiree purchased his winning tickets from a liquor store in his borough on November 24th then checked his numbers the day after the drawing. When McClendon returned to the liquor store to check on the numbers that had been drawn, the clerk actually told him that a winning ticket had been purchased there.
The news increased his urgency to see if he had won, “I checked my ticket right in the store, and the store clerk gave me a printout of the results,” McClendon told Newsday. “That’s when I knew I had won big.”
When he told his wife and family about his run of luck, they didn’t believe him; they kept saying, “It’s just like, you’re lying.”
McClendon decided to claim his winnings at the Lottery headquarters on December 1 and a lump sum payment of $4.3 million after withholdings is his payment preference.
McClendon plans on spending his winnings on his family and setting up some college funds for the children.  “It’s about my family,” he told the New York Daily News. “I love my family.”
article by Ruth Manuel-Logan via newsone.com

Obama To Visit Selma in March for 50th Anniversary of Voting Rights Marches

By goodblacknews on January 21, 2015
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President Barack Obama, Jan. 20, 2015 (Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo-Pool/Getty Images)
President Barack Obama will visit Selma, Ala., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of historic marches led by civil activists fighting against segregation and seeking to secure African Americans’ right to vote, according to Reuters.
A White House official said Tuesday that the president will make the visit on March 7 as part of his administration’s efforts to highlight the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the report says. Also according to Reuters:

The law, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson 50 years ago this August, banned literacy tests and other tactics used in the U.S. South to block racial minorities from voting. The White House official said more details of Obama’s trip would be announced later.
The 1965 marches from Selma to Alabama’s capital of Montgomery were organized by civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr. to draw national attention to the disenfranchisement of Black voters.
Alabama state troopers tried to stop the protests by attacking the marchers with tear gas and clubs. The violent media images from the marches shocked the nation and eventually spurred the Congress to pass the voting rights legislation.

The marches in 1965 are receiving renewed attention this year after the recent release of the movie, “Selma,” which highlights the campaign leading up to the historic march. On Friday, President Obama hosted a screening of the movie at the White House. Among others, Oprah Winfrey, who produced and had a role in the film, was invited.
article via newsone.com

President Obama’s State of the Union: America is Turning the Page

By goodblacknews on January 20, 2015
President Barack Obama delivers the State of the Union address on January 20, 2015 in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Obama was expected to lay out a broad agenda to address income inequality, making it easier for Americans to afford college education, and child care. (Photo by Mandel Ngan-Pool/Getty Images)
President Barack Obama delivers the State of the Union address on January 20, 2015 in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Obama was expected to lay out a broad agenda to address income inequality, making it easier for Americans to afford college education, and child care. (Photo by Mandel Ngan-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Refusing to bow to the new Republican majority, President Barack Obama was urging Congress Tuesday night to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for reductions for America’s middle class, part of a State of the Union package aimed at building on the nation’s recent economic growth.

Obama, in excerpts released ahead of his prime-time address, said it was time to “turn the page” on years of economic troubles, as well as an era of terrorism and war.
“It’s now up to us to choose who we want to be over the next 15 years, and for decades to come,” Obama said.
Obama was speaking to a Congress controlled by Republicans for the first time in his presidency. And the policies he was calling for suggested he had no plans to curtail his own agenda in favor of GOP priorities.
The president’s bread-and butter Democratic tax plan has drawn immediate scorn from Republicans. But Obama appeared content to instead set a tone for the 2016 presidential election and focus on a story of a U.S. economy now ready to move off austerity footing.

The verdict is clear. Middle class economics works. Expanding opportunity works. And these policies will continue to work, as long as politics don’t get in the way.

While the economy was expected to dominate the president’s address, he was also promoting his recent decision to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba and to launch a military campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. In two potential areas of compromise with Republicans, he was to call on Congress to pass cybersecurity legislation and a new authorization for military action in the Middle East.
“I call on this Congress to show the world that we are united in this mission by passing a resolution to authorize the use of force against ISIL,” Obama said, referring to the Islamic State group.
The centerpiece of the president’s address was to be a tax proposal that could increase the capital gains rate on couples making more than $500,000 annually to 28 percent, require estates to pay capital gains taxes on securities at the time they’re inherited and slap a fee on the roughly 100 U.S. financial firms with assets of more than $50 billion.

"Selma" Cast Marches in Alabama; Free Screenings in 25 Cities Planned

By goodblacknews on January 19, 2015
“Selma” director Ava DuVernay and producer Oprah Winfrey joined their cast and crew to march alongside local residents of Selma, Ala., on Sunday in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

“Selma” dramatizes the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (played by David Oyelowo) in 1965 as he organizes and leads a march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., and on Sunday cast members taking to the streets included Oyelowo and Winfrey, who tweeted, “Happy Super Soul Sunday every 1. We’re in Selma celebrating @SelmaMovie. How cool is that!”
Singer-songwriter John Legend, who won the Golden Globe for original song with Common for the “Selma” song “Glory,” also took to social media to promote the march. The artists performed the song with the Tuskegee University Gospel Choir on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.
“In Selma, Alabama. Meet at City Hall at 4pm and March with us #Glory #MarchOn,” he posted with a photo of the bridge on Instagram.
Paramount Pictures, the film’s distributor, will host two free screenings of the film Monday for the general public at at the Selma Walton Theater.

“We are proud to be a part of this extraordinary effort to bring this poignant and timeless American story to the diverse students of Los Angeles,” said Debra Martin Chase, chief executive of Martin Chase Productions, and T. Warren Jackson, senior vice president and associate general counsel and chief ethics officer of DirecTV, which organized the efforts in Los Angeles.
The film, which cost about $20 million to make, has pulled in about $26 million since its limited release on Christmas Day. It earned an A-plus on CinemaScore and wide praise from critics.
“It’s a really incredible movie, because it’s playing so well in so many diverse places and has all of these organic grass-roots energy around it,” Megan Colligan, president of domestic marketing and distribution, told The Times last week. “It’s big cities, it’s small cities — it’s touching people all over.”
Colligan said one passionate fan in Louisiana reached out to Paramount asking if she could screen “Selma” at the local gym because there was no theater within 50 miles of town.
“The historical drama is a tough nut to crack to make it entertaining and inspiring, and I think Ava DuVernay figured out how to do that,” Colligan said.
article by Saba Hamedy via latimes.com

Ball State Students Work to Transform City Bus into Traveling Civil Rights Museum

By goodblacknews on January 19, 2015

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MUNCIE, Indiana — A team of Ball State University students is advancing the dreams of local leaders to turn a retired Muncie city bus into a mobile museum exploring the history of civil rights in east central Indiana. When completed in early 2016, the Freedom Bus will be ready to roll out for local Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations.
The bus has been an educational project 10 years in the making. “So much of the work and fundraising so far has focused on getting the bus back out on the road,” said Beth Messner, an associate professor of Communications at Ball State and member of Muncie’s non-profit Martin Luther King Dream Team.

Vivian Conley
Vivian Conley

This fall, Messner and 14 students participating in an immersive learning course turned their attention to the inside of the bus, creating prototypes for exhibits showcasing the histories of central Indiana residents active in the civil rights movement. For example, visitors will learn about Muncie resident Vivian Conley, involved with the 1950s campaign to desegregate the city’s public pool, and Anderson sports legend Johnny Wilson, who played a key role in breaking down the color barrier in college basketball.
Jumpin' Johnny Wilson
Jumpin’ Johnny Wilson

This year, work continues on the bus as Ball State students test out a curriculum for its exhibits and Messner seeks grant funding for professional fabrication of the prototypes inside.
Asked what she hopes grade-school students who someday tour it will take away from the bus, junior history major Meghan Waddle said, “I hope it helps them make a more personal connection to history.” Adds junior telecommunications major Casey Marrero, “I want them to learn from it, get to know their community better, and leave feeling inspired.”
Sponsors for The Freedom Bus project include Ball State, Muncie’s Martin Luther King Dream Team, the Muncie Human Rights Commission, Muncie Indiana Transit System (MITS), the city of Muncie, and the university’s Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)

Regina Wilson Chosen as 1st Female President of 75 Year-Old Vulcan Society of Black Firefighters

By goodblacknews on January 18, 2015

FDNY firefighter Regina Wilson has been elected as the first female president of the Vulcan Society of Black Firefighters.
FDNY firefighter Regina Wilson has been elected as the first female president of the Vulcan Society of Black Firefighters.

For the first time in its 75-year history, the Vulcan Society of Black Firefighters has elected a female president.  Regina Wilson’s new role is the latest achievement for the pioneering firefighter from Brooklyn who joined the FDNY in 1999.  “Being named president of such a wonderful organization is somewhat surreal,” Wilson, 45, told the Daily News on Friday.
A graduate of Tilden High School, Wilson joined the department as only its 12th African-American woman.  It was a job she never imagined holding.
Wilson was working as an accountant at a utility company when she attended a job fair at the Javits Center. It was there that members of the Vulcan Society recruited her to join the FDNY.  “I didn’t even think it was something that I could do,” Wilson said.
She’s now based out of Engine 219 in Park Slope and also works as an instructor at the Fire Academy on Randalls Island.  “It’s a full circle experience for me,” said Wilson, of Crown Heights.

“I have the opportunity to help and to mold and nurture people that are trying to be firefighters.”

Wilson, seen with fellow graduates at Brooklyn College, was the only woman in her class and the 12th African-American woman to join the FDNY when she entered the department in 1999. (DAVID HANDSCHUH/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
Wilson, seen with fellow graduates at Brooklyn College, was the only woman in her class and the 12th African-American woman to join the FDNY when she entered the department in 1999. (DAVID HANDSCHUH/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

After 16 years in the department, Wilson said she’s finally seeing a concerted push to make it more inclusive.
“With the new administration, I, for the first time, feel hopeful,” Wilson said.
The FDNY, which was successfully sued by the Vulcan Society for discrimination last year, still has a long way to go.
Wilson remains one of only 10 African-African women on a force of more than 10,000 firefighters and officers, according to the Vulcan Society.
Former Vulcan Society President John Coombs hailed Wilson’s election as a historic moment for an organization dedicated to promoting diversity.  “We stand for what we fight for, which is inclusion and diversity in the FDNY,” Coombs said.
article by Rich Schapiro via nydailynews.com