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Posts tagged as “Georgia”

Ahmaud Arbery’s Three Murderers Sentenced to Life in Prison

Judge Timothy R. Walmsley sentenced father and son Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan Jr. to life in prison for their felony murder of Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick, GA in February 2020.

Bryan will be eligible for parole in 30 years; the McMichaels have no possibility for parole. As he sentenced the murderers, Judge Walmsley had the courtroom sit in silence for one minute to have everyone present get a feel for at least a fraction of the five minutes Arbery was chased and terrorized by his now-convicted killers.

(l to r) Travis McMichael, William “Roddie” Bryan, Jr. and Gregory McMichael

“When I thought about this, I thought from a lot of different angles,” Walmsley said, “and I kept coming back to the terror that must have been in the mind of the young man running through Satilla Shores.”

These thoughts were likely never far from Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones,  his father Marcus Arbery, or the rest of his family.

To quote nbcnews.com:

Arbery’s parents and sister, who spoke before the sentences were handed down, asked the judge to show no lenience.

“The man who killed my son has sat in this courtroom every single day next to his father. I’ll never get that chance to sit next to my son ever again. Not at a general table. Not at a holiday. And not at a wedding,” Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery, said before the sentence was announced.

“His killers should spend the rest of their lives thinking about what they did and what they took from us and they should do it behind bars because me and my family have to do it for the rest of their life.”

Attorneys for all three of Arbery’s murderers have said they intend to appeal the convictions.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/three-men-convicted-murdering-ahmaud-arbery-sentenced-life-prison-rcna10901

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/07/us/judge-timothy-walmsley-minute-of-silence-arbery/index.html

All Three Men Found Guilty of Murdering Ahmaud Arbery

The verdicts have just come in.

Jurors found Travis McMichael guilty of murder Wednesday for chasing and fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, as he jogged last year through a neighborhood in Glynn County, Georgia.

Ahmaud Arbery

McMichael now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Jurors convicted him of one count of malice murder and four counts of felony murder.

Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael’s father, has been found guilty of felony murder.  McMichael now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

William “Roddie” Bryan Jr., one of three men, who filmed what they did to Arbery, has been found guilty of felony murder.

Bryan now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.  Jurors convicted him of felony murder but acquitted him of the malice murder charge.

Any other outcome would itself been criminal.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/ahmaud-arbery-killing-trial-verdict-watch-11-24-21/index.html

U.S. Department of Justice Charges Three Georgia Men Accused of Killing Ahmaud Arbery with Federal Hate Crimes

The U.S. Department of Justice, lead by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, today indicted three Georgia men Travis McMichael, 35; Travis’s father, Gregory McMichael, 65; and William “Roddie” Bryan, 51, via federal grand jury in the Southern District of Georgia and charged them with hate crimes and the attempted kidnapping of Ahmaud Arbery.

Each were charged with one count of interference with rights and with one count of attempted kidnapping. Travis and Gregory McMichael were also charged with one count each of using, carrying, and brandishing—and in Travis’s case, discharging—a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.

All three defendants have also been charged in a separate state proceeding with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and criminal attempt to commit a felony. No trial date has been set for the state case.

Counts One and Two of the new federal indictment allege that the defendants used force and threats of force with firearms to intimidate and interfere with Arbery’s right to use a public street because of his race.

Count One also alleges that the offense resulted in Arbery’s death. Count Two alleges that William “Roddie” Bryan joined the chase and used his truck to cut off Arbery’s route.

In addition to the hate-crime charges, Count Three alleges that all three defendants attempted to unlawfully seize and confine Arbery by chasing after him in their trucks in an attempt to restrain him, restrict his free movement, corral and detain him against his will, and prevent his escape.

Counts Four and Five allege that during the course of the crime of violence charged in Count One, Travis used, carried, brandished, and discharged a Remington shotgun, and Gregory used, carried, and brandished a .357 Magnum revolver.

The announcement was made by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Pamela S. Karlan of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Acting U.S. Attorney David Estes of the Southern District of Georgia, and Special Agent in Charge J.C. Hacker of the FBI.

This case was investigated by both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Tara Lyons of the Southern District of Georgia, and Deputy Chief Bobbi Bernstein and Special Litigation Counsel Christopher J. Perras of the Civil Rights Division.

Georgia’s U.S. Senate Run-Off Races in January 2021: List of Links to Donation, Volunteer and Voting Options

[Photos: Jon Ossoff (l) and Rev. Raphael Warnock (r) via commons.wikipedia.org]

On January 5, 2021, Georgia will hold a special election with two run-off races for the two U.S. Senate seats held by that state.

Democratic candidates for Senate Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff will face off against their Republican opponents that will determine the crucial balance of power in the U.S. Senate.

As it stands today, there are 50 Republican senators to 48 Democratic and/or Independent senators (Independent Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine caucus with the Democrats).

If Warnock and Ossoff win, the Democratic Party will gain control of the Senate, as Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris is by law the deciding vote in the event any 50-50 tie happens in that legislative chamber.

To get Mitch McConnell out of the Majority Leader position, it is crucial that both Democratic candidates from Georgia win their difficult run-off races.

People who want to see the above result but don’t live or vote in Georgia, there are still plenty of ways to help!

Good Black News offers sincere thanks to Georgia residents Julie Fishman and Amy Holmes-Chavez for compiling and letting us share the relevant links, resources and information listed below, as well as a this shareable Google Docs link with the same and more:

DONATIONS:

  • Fair Fight https://fairfight.com/Stacey Abrams’ organization that has registered nearly ½ million new voters in GA) will split your vote 3 ways between Fair Fight, Reverend Warnock’s campaign, and Jon Ossoff’s campaign.  
  • Vote Save America Donate – Vote Save America – Has links to 2 funds; one is the same one as the Fair Fight link above. The second supports 12 organizations working on turning out the vote on the ground.
  • Raphael Warnockhttps://warnockforgeorgia.com/
  • Jon Ossoffhttps://electjon.com/

PHONE BANKING/TEXT BANKING/POSTCARD WRITING:

R.I.P. John Lewis, 80, U.S Representative and Civil Rights Movement Icon

John Lewis (photo by Rick Diamond / Getty Images)

Rep. John Lewis, an iconic pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement and Freedom Rider who literally shed his blood in the fight for Black voting rights and went on to become a 17-term Democratic member of Congress, died yesterday from pancreatic cancer. He was 80 years old.

One of the last surviving leaders of the 1960s Civil Rights era and members of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s inner circle, (the Rev. C.T. Vivian passed yesterday as well), Lewis was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer in December.

Regardless of his health issues, Lewis took to the streets again in early June to join protests for racial justice near the White House that were in response to the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks, among others.

Lewis was born in Troy, Alabama and attended segregated schools before earning his college degree at Fisk University in Nashville.

While a student there, Lewis organized his first sit-in demonstration at a lunch counter and was soon arrested for what he started to call “good trouble, necessary trouble.”

R.I.P. Rev. C.T. Vivian, 95, Civil Rights Movement Activist and MLK Adviser

Rev. C.T. Vivian receives 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama (photo: commons.wikipedia.org)

According to nytimes. com, the Rev. C.T. Vivian, a civil rights organizer and adviser for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the struggle for racial justice a half-century ago, died at the age of 95 today at his home in Atlanta. Kira Vivian and Denise Morse, two of Vivian’s daughters, confirmed his passing.

C.T. Vivian was a Baptist minister and member of MLK’s inner circle of advisers, alongside the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy and other civil rights luminaries such as Julian Bond and Rev. Jesse Jackson.

To quote nytimes.com:

Vivian was the national director of some 85 local affiliate chapters of the S.C.L.C. from 1963 to 1966, directing protest activities and training in nonviolence as well as coordinating voter registration and community development projects.

In Selma and Birmingham, Ala.; St. Augustine, Fla.; Jackson, Miss.; and other segregated cities, Mr. Vivian led sit-ins at lunch counters, boycotts of businesses, and marches that continued for weeks or months, raising tensions that often led to mass arrests and harsh repression.

Televised scenes of marchers attacked by police officers and firefighters with cattle prods, snarling dogs, fire hoses and nightsticks shocked the national conscience, legitimized the civil rights movement and led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“Nonviolence is the only honorable way of dealing with social change, because if we are wrong, nobody gets hurt but us,” Mr. Vivian said in an address to civil rights workers, as recounted in “At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68” (2006), by Taylor Branch. “And if we are right, more people will participate in determining their own destinies than ever before.”

Cordy Tindell Vivian was born in Boonville, Mo., on July 30, 1924, the only child of Robert and Euzetta Tindell Vivian. His family moved to Macomb, Ill., when he was 6, and he later graduated from Macomb High School in 1942. He studied history at Western Illinois University in Macomb, but he dropped out and became a recreation worker in Peoria, Ill., where he joined his first protest, in 1947, helping to desegregate a cafeteria.

In 1945, Mr. Vivian married Jane Teague, who worked at a hardware store, and they had one daughter, Jo Anna Walker, who survives him. The couple separated amicably in the late 1940s and divorced later so that Mr. Vivian could marry Octavia Geans, in 1952. She was the author of “Coretta” (1970), the first biography of Dr. King’s wife, Coretta Scott King. She died in 2011.

In addition to his daughters Kira, Denise and Jo Anna, Mr. Vivian is survived by another daughter, Anita Charisse Thornton; two sons, Mark Evans Vivian and Albert Louis Vivian; nine grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; 28 great-great-grandchildren; and two great-great-great-grandchildren. Another son, Cordy Jr., died in 2010.

To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/us/ct-vivian-dead.html

Eugene Bullard, the 1st Known African-American fighter Pilot, Now Has Statue at Museum of Aviation in Georgia

Eugene Bullard statue in Georgia (photo via aero-news network)
Fighter pilot Eugene Bullard (photo via wikipedia.org)

Eugene Bullard, who became known as the Black Swallow of Death, was the first African-American pilot to fly in combat. Bullard now has a statue in his honor, unveiled last week in Warner Robins, Georgia, at the Museum of Aviation next to Robins Air Force Base, and about 100 miles south of Atlanta.

To quote from CNN:

His distant cousin, Harriett Bullard White, told CNN she wept with joy as she placed a wreath at the statue during a ceremony, attended by Air Force officers, nearly two dozen family members and several surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen.

“All my life I’d known how great he was. Of course, no one else knew who he is,” White said. “He’s an American hero and someone all Americans should know about.”

Born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1895, Bullard ran away from home as an 11-year-old, wandering the South for years before stowing away on a freight ship destined for Scotland.

The next year, 1913, he settled in France. When World War I broke out, Bullard enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, serving first in the infantry.

But after being wounded in battle, Bullard made a $2,000 bet with a friend that he could become a military aviator despite his skin color, according to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. He won the bet, receiving his wings as a member of the Aéronautique Militaire in May 1917. That November, he claimed he shot down two German fighters, though accounts vary as to whether those aerial victories could be confirmed.

Black military pilots wouldn’t become common in America until the famed Tuskegee Airmen began training to fly in 1941. President Harry Truman formally desegregated the U.S. armed forces with an executive order in 1948.

To read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/09/us/first-black-fighter-pilot-statue-trnd/index.html

Oprah Winfrey Donates $13 million to Morehouse College

Oprah Winfrey at Morehouse (photo via twitter.com)

According to cnn.com, Oprah Winfrey now has the largest endowment ever at all-male HBCU Morehouse College in Atlanta after donating $13 million.

Winfrey visited Morehouse on Monday for the 30th anniversary of the Oprah Winfrey Scholars Program, the release said. The program started in 1989 and the fund stands at $12 million. Monday’s donation of $13 million pushed her total investment to $25 million.

“Seeing you young Oprah Winfrey scholars here today has moved me deeply,” Winfrey said Monday before announcing her donation. “I am so proud of you, I’m proud of everybody in attendance at this school who is seeking to know more clearly who you are, the value you hold and how you will share that value with the rest of the world.”

Winfrey’s donation comes after billionaire Robert Smith promised to pay off the student loan debt of the 2019 Morehouse graduates in May. Smith donated $34 million to the school last month, making good on his promise.

“I’m grateful to Oprah Winfrey for her generosity,” said Morehouse President David A. Thomas. “I am also feeling hopeful for Morehouse and what it has garnered in terms of philanthropic support with gifts like Oprah’s and Robert Smith’s. I am hopeful that this will also get others to step up with their support of Morehouse, but even more broadly, historically black colleges and universities.”

Future to Give Away College Scholarships via FreeWishes Foundation at Each Stop of New Tour

Future (photo via commons.wikipedia.org)

Good Black News just learned from Hip Hop Wired that rapper Future is working to support students trying to advance their education with college scholarships via his FreeWishes Foundation.

Last week the Atlanta hip hop artist visited his alma mater, Columbia High School, in Atlanta, GA. He and his artist Guap Tarantino surprised undergraduates with an unscheduled performance, specially designed merchandise and a check for $10,000 in the school’s name. Future will continue to pay it forward with a new initiative coinciding with his new “Legendary Nights” tour.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1i-jLqBKO3/

To quote Hip Hop Wired:

“Prospective students around the country can now enter to win a college scholarship in the amount of $2,000.00 via his FreeWishes College Scholarship. 17 scholarships will be awarded in total and gifted at each tour stop. Along with the scholarship, lucky recipients will also receive 2 tickets to the Legendary Nights Tour and an exclusive “I Am A Dreamer” sweatshirt.

Students interested in applying for the grant must follow FreeWishes’ social media feed (@freewishesfoundation) and submit a 500- word essay detailing “How Receiving This Scholarship Would Be A Dream Come True” to info@freewishes.org by noon of each tour date.”

For more information, visit FreeWishes.org.

T.I. Honored by Georgia Senate For His Philanthropy

T.I. (photo by ConcertTour.org via commons.wikipedia.org)

Grammy Award-winning hip hop artist, actor and Atlanta native T.I. was honored at the Georgia State Capitol last Friday.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Democratic State Senator Donzella James sponsored a resolution applauding T.I. (née Clifford Joseph Harris, Jr.), for spearheading several non-profit organizations, including Harris Community Works, which works with the disadvantaged, and For The Love of Our Fathers, which aids people with Alzheimer’s and dementia.

T.I. is also credited for mentoring youth at local area schools in his hometown, hosting Thanksgiving turkey drives and delivering Christmas presents to families in need throughout Atlanta. He also started a real estate company called Buy Back The Block to help rebuild his old neighborhood in the Center Hill section of Atlanta.