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Marlene Pinnock, Woman Beaten by California Highway Patrolman, Settles for $1.5 Million

By goodblacknews on September 25, 2014

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Marlene Pinnock, the 51-year-old woman punched repeatedly by California Highway Patrol officer Daniel Andrew on the side of a freeway in an incident caught on video, will receive $1.5 million under a settlement reached Wednesday night, and the officer has agreed to resign.
On July 1, a passing driver captured video of Pinnock being repeatedly pummeled by Andrew, and she filed suit in August.
marlenepinnock_zps31e51969The Associated Press reports that Pinnock and the CHP reached an agreement after a lengthy mediation.
“When this incident occurred, I promised that I would look into it and vowed a swift resolution,” CHP Commissioner John Farrow said in a statement. “Today, we have worked constructively to reach a settlement agreement that is satisfactory to all parties involved.”
The statement said that Officer Andrew, who joined the CHP in 2012 and has been on paid administrative leave since the incident, “has elected to resign.”
Andrew could still be charged criminally in the case. The CHP forwarded the results of its investigation of the incident to Los Angeles County prosecutors last month, saying he could face serious charges but none have been filed yet.
The bulk of the settlement will take the form of a special needs trust for Pinnock, the CHP said. Pinnock’s attorney Caree Harper said the settlement fulfilled the two elements her side was looking for.
“One of the things we wanted to make sure of was that she was provided for in a manner that accommodated her unique situation in life,” Harper said, “and that the officer was not going to be an officer anymore and we secured those things.”
article via forharriet.com

Little League World Series Sensation Mo'ne Davis to Donate Her Jersey to Baseball Hall of Fame

By goodblacknews on September 24, 2014

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Philadelphia Little League sensation Mo’ne Davis is headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Mo'ne Davis
Mo’ne Davis will donate the jersey she wore in becoming the first girl to win a game at the Little League World Series. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Davis, the first girl to win a game at the Little League Baseball World Series, will donate the jersey she wore during the game to the museum Thursday. The top-notch pitcher be accompanied by teammates from her World Series team and the travel team she’s played on since she was 7.
Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, a former pitcher and one of only three women to play in the Negro Leagues, will also attend Thursday’s event at the Hall of Fame. Afterward, Davis and her teammates will face a team from upstate New York in an exhibition game at Doubleday Field.
Davis pitched Taney Little League into the Little League World Series, becoming the fourth American girl to appear in the tournament. In her first game, she shut out a team from Nashville 4-0 over six innings while featuring a fastball that reached 70 mph.
Copyright 2014 by The Associated Press via espn.go.com

Black University Student Leaders Form New Coalition For Racial Equality

By goodblacknews on September 23, 2014
BLACK IVY COALITION

The explosive wave of reactions to the fatal shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri has led Black student leaders to come together in support of racial equality with the formation of a multi-university group, the Black Ivy Coalition.

The coalition dedicated to social change is comprised of members from all eight Ivy League institutions, with plans to gain student memberships from colleges across the nation, and was officiated with the release of a statement summarizing their motivations and ambitions (see full text below). Their tagline? “It is now time for our generation to lead the movement against injustices toward people of color in the 21st Century.”
“We decided that our plan of action would be to create a network of black student leaders nationally to organize joint protests, legislative advocacy, and to also reach out to community organizers in communities like Ferguson so we can be more effective allies and campus advocates,” Denzel Cummings, UMOJA Co-Chair and University of Pennsylvania senior told The Huffington Post. “We felt this was important in creating a revival of collegiate advocacy.”
The revival Cummings mentions draws on the coalition’s inspiration from young leadership during the Civil Rights Movement such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and The Greensboro Four, both which received nods in the group’s official statement.

Michael Brown’s Parents in Atlanta To Push For Police Body Cameras

By goodblacknews on September 23, 2014
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The family of slain teen Michael Brown, who senselessly died early last month at the hands of Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson, are now in Atlanta to kick off a nationwide effort to arm police with body cameras, according to WSB-TV.
Brown’s parents, Lesley McSpadden (pictured right) and Michael Brown Sr. (pictured), are trying to get legislation, the Michael Brown law, passed that will require officers to sport body cameras while on duty.
According to the couple, if Wilson would have been wearing the body camera, there would be no questions as to the tragic turn of events that led to their son’s murder. Wearing cameras have been associated with dramatic reductions in use of force and complaints against officers.
The couple attended a rally on Sunday that was held at a Baptist church in Atlanta. The pair reportedly felt Atlanta was a great place to start with their body camera quest, because the city’s chief of police is already on board with the body-worn camera project. At the rally, McSpadden and Brown met Jacqueline Johnson, the Mother of slain teen Kendrick, whose unusual death still has investigators baffled.
Kendrick, a 17-year-old Georgia high school student, was found dead with his body placed in a rolled-up wrestling mat at his school gymnasium. At first an investigation and autopsy deemed Johnson’s death accidental, but then his family hired a private pathologist who concluded he passed away from blunt force trauma. Johnson’s family members are reportedly convinced the teen’s death was racially motivated as he had been attacked and victimized previously by a white student.
The stop in the southern city is just the first, as McSpadden and Brown are on a tour of gratitude that began in Atlanta and will end on Thursday in Washington, D.C.
In the nation’s capital, both McSpadden and Brown plan on campaigning for the Michael Brown legislation they are hoping will get placed on the books.  The parents also want the federal government to take over the investigation of their son’s murder.
According to Benjamin Crump, the attorney who is representing both the Brown and Johnson families, Atlanta is a great place to begin their mission on getting laws passed for officers to wear body cameras, “We’re trying to make sure that this doesn’t happen to nobody else’s child, so we’re pushing for the Michael Brown laws to have body cameras on all these police officers,” he said.
article by Ruth Manuel-Logan via newsone.com

Earliest Surviving Footage for a Feature Film with a Black Cast to Be Exhibited by Museum of Modern Art

By goodblacknews on September 23, 2014
Footage from what may be the earliest surviving feature film with a black cast, made in 1913. (Credit: Bert Williams, “Lime Kiln Field Day Project”, via Museum of Modern Art)

For decades, the seven reels from 1913 lay unexamined in the film archives of the Museum of Modern Art. Now, after years of research, a historic find has emerged: what MoMA curators say is the earliest surviving footage for a feature film with a black cast. It is a rare visual depiction of middle-class black characters from an era when lynchings and stereotyped black images were commonplace. What’s more, the material features Bert Williams, the first black superstar on Broadway. Williams appears in blackface in the untitled silent film along with a roster of actors from the sparsely documented community of black performers in Harlem on the cusp of the Harlem Renaissance. Remarkably, the reels also capture behind-the-scenes interactions between these performers and the directors.

MoMA plans an exhibition around the work called “100 Years in Post-Production: Resurrecting a Lost Landmark of Black Film History,” which is to open on Oct. 24 and showcase excerpts and still frames. Sixty minutes of restored footage will be shown on Nov. 8 in the museum’s annual To Save and Project festival dedicated to film preservation.

“There are so many things about it that are amazing,” said Jacqueline Stewart, a film scholar at the University of Chicago. “It’s the first time I’ve seen footage from an unreleased film that really gives us insights into the production process.”

She added: “It’s an interracial production, but not in the way scholars have talked about early film history, in which black filmmakers had to rely on the expertise and money of white filmmakers. Here, we see a negotiation between performers and filmmakers.” Of the three directors of the film, one was black and two were white.

Tracey Lewis 1st Black Woman Promoted to FDNY Lieutenant in 12 Years

By goodblacknews on September 20, 2014

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The New York City Fire Department promoted a black woman to the rank of lieutenant for the first time in 12 years.  Tracey Lewis was promoted Wednesday. She’s the second-ever black female firefighter to be promoted to lieutenant in the department’s history.

Lewis has been a firefighter for 17 years, starting off as a cadet. She was an emergency medical technician and later worked on Engine 222 in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn.

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There are only nine black women firefighters at the FDNY. There are about 40 women total at the department of nearly 10,400 people. The department said it has promoted three women to lieutenant and one to captain this year.

Ella McNair was the first black woman promoted to rank of lieutenant in 2002.

article via nbcnewyork.com

President Obama Unveils Push via "It's On Us" Public Service Campaign for Young People to Do More Against Campus Assaults

By goodblacknews on September 20, 2014

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WASHINGTON — President Obama has tried to use the power of his office to combat sexual assaults on college campuses. On Friday, he got some help.
In a speech from the East Room, the president announced “It’s on Us,” a nationwide public service campaign aimed at urging young people to do more to prevent campus sexual assaults. Mr. Obama called for a “fundamental shift in our culture” in the way women are treated and in the response to victims of sexual assault.
“From sports leagues to pop culture to politics, our society does not sufficiently value women,” Mr. Obama said. “We still don’t condemn sexual assault as loudly as we should.”
At the event, the administration debuted a 30-second video, which features celebrities including the actors Kerry Washington and Jon Hamm, the musician Questlove, and NBA star Kevin Love.
Officials said the celebrities involved would know how to get through to the millennial generation.
Mr. Love, who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Olivia Munn, an actress in the HBO series “The Newsroom,” attended the announcement.  Mr. Obama also put a heavy emphasis on engaging men in the conversation.
“It is not just on parents of young women to caution them, it is on the parents of young men to teach them respect for women,” Mr. Obama said. “It is on grown men to set an example and be clear about what it means to be a man.”

After Nearly 23 Years of Legal Struggle, Wrongful Convictions are Reversed for Everton Wagstaffe and Reginald Connor

By goodblacknews on September 19, 2014
A court said Brooklyn prosecutors buried documents in the kidnapping case of Everton Wagstaffe. (Credit: Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times)

Everton Wagstaffe, who refused to leave prison on probation because he viewed it as a surrender of his claim of innocence in the death of a teenage girl, learned on Wednesday that he had prevailed in a struggle that he began from behind bars nearly 23 years ago.

A panel of state appeals court judges unanimously reversed the kidnapping convictions of Mr. Wagstaffe and his co-defendant, Reginald Connor, finding that Brooklyn prosecutors in 1992 and 1993 were responsible for “burying” documents that might have shown that detectives and the prime witness had lied. The panel also dismissed the indictments of the two men.
A spokeswoman for Kenneth P. Thompson, the Brooklyn district attorney, who has pledged to aggressively hunt down injustice, said the decision was being reviewed.

Reginald Connor’s conviction was also reversed. (Credit: Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times)

Mr. Connor, 46, served 15 years, and now works for a film-production company. For the moment, Mr. Wagstaffe, 45, remains in state prison. He has been in custody since his arrest at age 23 in January 1992.
Over the years, he has refused to accept release on any terms — such as parole or probation — that would imply he had something to do with the kidnapping and death of Jennifer Negron, a 16-year-old girl whose body was found on a street in the East New York section of Brooklyn on Jan. 1, 1992.
“Finally,” Mr. Connor said on Wednesday afternoon, sounding dazed. “Finally.”
He learned of the decision just after leaving a meeting with lawyers from Davis Polk & Wardwell, who had been representing him pro bono for the last several years.
Mr. Wagstaffe first heard of the ruling in a call with a family member, who asked not to be identified, but said Mr. Wagstaffe had insisted that the entire ruling be read to him. “ ‘You cry for both of us,’ ” the family member quoted Mr. Wagstaffe as saying. “ ‘I want to research part of it.’ ”

If the case comes to an end now, it would be the final chapter of an epic guerrilla legal battle waged by Mr. Wagstaffe. He entered prison with minimal literacy and taught himself to read. He then wrote hundreds of letters pleading for help in finding the physical evidence from the case so DNA testing could be done, and in finding missing witnesses. For much of that time, he had no legal counsel. He drafted his own legal papers and succeeded in being granted hearings, though not in getting any relief.

Psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, Artist Rick Lowe, Composer Steve Coleman and Poet Terrance Hayes Receive 2014 MacArthur "Genius" Grants

By goodblacknews on September 17, 2014

This morning the MacArthur Foundation named the recipients of the 2014 MacArthur Fellowship, commonly referred to as the “genius grants.” The class includes four visionary members of the African-American community whose work, discoveries, and ideas are advancing their fields and our understanding of our world.  The MacArthur Fellowship is a “no strings attached” award that comes with a stipend of $625,000, paid out in equal quarterly installments over five years. This year’s fellows are:

2014 MacArthur Award Winner Jennifer Eberhardt, Stanford University.
Jennifer Eberhardt

Jennifer Eberhardt, a social psychologist investigating the subtle, unconscious ways people racially code and categorize others, with a particular focus on how race and visual perceptions of people affect policing and criminal sentencing.
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Rick Lowe

Rick Lowe, a public artist using art to reimagine and revitalize struggling communities. His program has transformed derelict properties in Houston’s predominantly African American Third Ward into a visionary arts venue and community center. He has since begun similar work in other cities, including current projects in Dallas and Philadelphia.
Steve Coleman
Steve Coleman

Steve Coleman, a jazz composer and saxophonist infusing traditional jazz with an eclectic range of other musical styles, including music from West Africa, South India, Brazil, and Cuba.
Terrance Hayes
Terrance Hayes

Terrance Hayes, a poet crafting musical, almost improvisational verse that delves into issues of race, gender, current events, and family. He often uses humorous wordplay and references to pop culture, including poems that speak in the voices of David Bowie, Jorge Luis Borges, and Strom Thurmond.
To see the list of 2013 African American MacArthur Fellows, click here.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)
 
 

Black Lawyers to Challenge Police Brutality in 25 Cities

By goodblacknews on September 11, 2014

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – In an effort to combat police brutality in the Black community, the National Bar Association (NBA) recently announced plans to file open records requests in 25 cities to study allegations of police misconduct.

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National Bar Association President Pamela J. Meanes

Pamela Meanes, president of the Black lawyers and judges group, said the NBA had already been making plans for a nationwide campaign to fight police brutality when Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a White police officer following a controversial midday confrontation in a Ferguson, Mo.
Meanes called police brutality the new civil rights issue of this era, an issue that disproportionately impacts the Black community.
“If we don’t see this issue and if we don’t at the National Bar Association do the legal things that are necessary to bring this issue to the forefront, then we are not carrying out our mission, which is to protect the civil and political entities of all,” said Meanes.
The NBA, which describes itself as “the nation’s oldest and largest national network of predominantly African-American attorneys and judges,” selected the 25 cities based on their African-American populations and reported incidents of police brutality.
The lawyers group will file open records requests in Birmingham, Ala.; Little Rock, Ark.; Phoenix; Los Angeles; San Jose, Calif., Washington, D.C.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Miami; Atlanta; Chicago; Louisville, Ky.; Baltimore, Md.; Detroit; Mich.; Kansas City, Mo.; St. Louis, Mo.; Charlotte, N.C.; Las Vegas, Nev.; New York City; Cleveland, Ohio; Memphis, Tenn., Philadelphia; Dallas; Houston; San Antonio, Texas, and Milwaukee, Wis.
In a press release about the open records requests, the group said it will not only seek information about “the number of individuals who have been killed, racially profiled, wrongfully arrested and/or injured while pursued or in police custody, but also comprehensive data from crime scenes, including “video and photographic evidence related to any alleged and/or proven misconduct by current or former employees,” as well as background information on officers involved in the incidents.
Not only will the NBA present their findings to the public, but the group also plans to compile its research and forward the data over to the attorney general’s office.
Meanes said the group’s ultimate goal is to have a conversation with Attorney General Eric Holder and to ask, and in some cases, demand he seize police departments or take over or run concurrent investigations.
Meanes said federal law prohibits the Justice Department from going into a police department unless a pattern or history of abuse has been identified.
“The problem is that the information needed for that action is not readily available in a comprehensive way on a consistent basis with the goal of eradicating that abuse,” said Meanes, adding that the open records request is the best way to get that information.
Meanes said that the NBA was concerned that the trust had already brrn broken between the police force and the residents of Ferguson and that the rebellion and the protests would continue.
“We don’t think St. Louis County should investigate this. We don’t think the prosecutor should investigate this. There should be an independent third-party investigating this and that is the federal government,” said Meanes.
Phillip Agnew, executive director of the Dream Defenders, a civil rights group established by young people of color in the aftermath of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager in Sanford, Fla., said law enforcement officials taunted, antagonized and disrespected peaceful protesters who took to the streets of Ferguson and at times incited the violence they attempted to stamp out in the wake of the shooting death of Michael Brown.
“An occupying force came into the community, they killed someone from the community, and instead of being transparent and doing everything they could do to make sure the community felt whole again, they brought in more police to suppress folks who were exercising their constitutional rights,” said Agnew.“If your protocol results in greater violence, greater anger, and greater disenchantment of the people, you have to chart a different course.”
On the heels of the NBA announcement, Attorney General Holder launched two initiatives designed to calm anxiety and frustration expressed by Ferguson’s Black residents towards the local police department over allegations of misconduct, harassment and discrimination.
The Justice Department also introduced a “Collaborative Reform Initiative” to tackle similar concerns with the St. Louis County Police Department and to improve the relationship between police officers and the communities they serve.