National
If one has the time, energy and plan, jump-starting a business can bea cinch. But that's not necessarily the case if the chance at entrepreneurship falls beyond the reach of a deserving
African-American student who welcomes the challenge, but lacks resources and guidance.
That scenario and others were addressed during a recent summit sponsored by the Small Business Association (SBA) and U. S. Department of Education in collaboration with the White House.
"Entrepreneurship and innovation is actually occurring at every one of your institutions," Marie Johns, SBA deputy administrator, told a mixed gathering of business owners, government experts and leaders from several Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) during the April 16 White House summit.
Johns moderated the two-hour meeting that consisted of two panel discussions. She said it aimed to get young people excited about entrepreneurial opportunities and to make sure they get counseling and
other support needed to get businesses up and running.
"We know it's just not business majors who are interested," said Johns. "Our job at the SBA – which boasts 17 development centers on
HBCU campuses across the country – is to ensure that innovative ideas and an entrepreneurial spirit can be harnessed, and then transformed into successful businesses."
Johnathan Holifield, co-founder of The America 21 Project, described the summit as a "wonderful catalytic first step" for getting more black students to consider business ownership.
"We need to create a thrust to complement existing entrepreneurship and small business leadership to ensure that African Americans as well as Latinos and others are connected to the innovation economy," said Holifield. "We have in our communities and in our HBCUs, good programs and good support systems – but we lack emphasis on explosive-growth for the kinds of companies that are responsible for the disproportionately high amount of jobs [created]."
Panelist Julianne Malveaux, president of Bennett College, stressed that African Americans are the original entrepreneurs because many bought their own freedom out of slavery.
She said HBCUs must continually embrace the notion of mentrepreneurship. "It doesn't have to be as extensive . . . but there certainly must be some presence on our campuses . . . to basically assist our communities" as well.
Malveaux said Bennett has been on the entrepreneurial bandwagon for at least four years, with several buildings having been erected on the campus.
"Those four buildings meant that we put $21 million worth of economic development into Greensboro, N. C., at a time when nobody was hiring," said Malveaux, who alluded to the growing number of sub-contractors who became self-employed through campus-oriented opportunities.
"One of the things that I insisted [on], was that the major contractor made sure 50 percent of the [sub-contractors] were people of color. . . [and] that's the role we [currently] play" in creating black-owned and operated businesses," Malveaux said.
When asked what he tells young people bent on becoming their own bosses, panelist D. T. Ogilvie of Rutgers University, responded that entrepreneurship is one of the most important subjects that can be
taught. He noted a campus project which encourages youth to think about owning businesses.
"We're doing something called 'Lemonade Day' in Newark for the first time," Ogilvie said. "Kids from kindergarten to age 12 learn how to be entrepreneurs in the context of developing a lemonade stand. [They learn] all the attributes of business" by putting a stand together to acquiring money for supplies, marketing and hiring.
"And that's important, because our young people need to be aware of entrepreneurship as an alternative career," said Ogilvie. "We believe that entrepreneurship is the key."
Ron Stodgill, director of the Small Business Incubator/Think Tank at Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU), said his campus has already ventured out to the business sector in Charlotte, N. C.
"What's happening in Charlotte is the realization that it's taking more than the banking community to power the economy," Stodgill said of JCSU's effort to align with the city's business district. "But our efforts are embryonic and won't happen overnight," he cautioned.
To that end, Holifield stressed that gatherings like the summit are think tanks that can also offer solutions.
"We want to make sure we not only focus on general entrepreneurship, which is a necessary part of our overall economic development strategy," he said. "But we also have to build a thrust that's focused on innovation at our HBCUs, and converting the intellectual capacity and property that emerge out of them intocommercial opportunities or real enterprise opportunities."
In an unexpected new development, the Florida case of Marissa Alexander, 31, will be the subject of a retrial motion next week with the sentencing delayed. During a pre-sentencing hearing this morning in Jacksonville, FL, Circuit Judge James Daniel agreed to hear arguments from both sides on the question of whether a retrial will be granted in her case.
Arguments will be heard on Monday, April 30. Through a spokeswoman, prosecutor Nicholas Lake said he'd make "no further comments" regarding the case.
New attention on Melissa Alexander's case spearheaded by her first husband, Lincoln Alexander – who created the website, Justice for Marissa – would appear to have had an effect. After telling Marissa Alexander's story during interviews with Black Talk Radio News and Michael Baisden last week, Lincoln Alexander appeared on CNN with Anderson Cooper. A petition drive in support of Marissa Alexander is also underway. Lincoln Alexander attended the pre-sentencing hearing today and informed Politic365 of Judge Daniel's action.
Marissa Alexander faces a mandatory minimum sentence of twenty years in prison after being convicted in 2011 of three counts of aggravated assault with no intent to kill or harm. In 2010, during an argument with her second husband at their home in Jacksonville, she fired a bullet into the ceiling of their home. Alexander asserted that she fired the weapon to ward off an attack from her husband. Alexander shot no one nor was anyone injured during the incident.
During Marissa Alexander's trial, a motion to invoke Florida's stand-your-ground law on her behalf was denied by Circuit Court Judge Elizabeth Senterfitt. Since February 2011, Marissa Alexander, the mother of three children, has been behind bars.
The application of the stand-your-ground law in Florida would appear to be highly subjective. Though Marissa Alexander had no obligation to retreat when her husband allegedly assaulted her, Judge Senterfitt reasoned that Alexander could have exited the home during the attack when she ruled against Alexander's stand-your-ground motion.
Late Sunday night, George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin on February 26, was released from police custody in Sanford, FL after he was granted a $150,000 bond by Judge Kenneth Lester on April 20. Zimmerman had been previously arrested for felony assault on a police officer in 2005. Zimmerman was also granted permission to leave the state of Florida.
Zimmerman had already been free from the night of February 26 until 46 days later when, after much protest and media attention, he was charged and arrested on April 11 with second degree murder by Florida special prosecutor Angela Corey. The U.S. Justice Department is also conducting an investigation of Martin's killing.
Judge Daniel could be taking a new look at the case of Marissa Alexander. The Jacksonville NAACP Chapter President, Isiah Rumlin wrote Judge Daniel regarding Melissa Alexander's case. "We take issue with the State denying her (Alexander's) right to claim self-defense under Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' law.' [Alexander] did all that she possibly could to protect herself from her husband at the time, including an injunction for protection against violence, which was active on the day of the incident," the letter in part read.
The National Bar Association, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the NAACP, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Rev. Al Sharpton and many others are challenging the stand-your-ground laws. The laws, enacted in twenty five states, have coincided with an increase in "justifiable" homicide cases.
LAUREN VICTORIA BURKE, Politic365 Chief Congressional Correspondent, publishes the blog Crewof42 on the Congressional Black Caucus. She is heard every Tuesday on WMCS 1290 in Milwaukee on Earl Ingram's show The Evening Rush as well as on WHUR and WPFW in Washington DC. You can e-mail her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and follow her on twitter at @crewof42
WASHINGTON, D.C. – "Well, who are they coming to get now?" That's what Norman Murray thought as police officers ran in his direction with guns drawn. Murray, a native Washingtonian with a slim build and matted dreadlocks, looked around to see who the cops were chasing through his neighborhood in the Trinidad section of Northeast Washington, D.C.
Then the officers started firing questions at him. "Where's the heroine?" The female police officer barked, "You're a dread. Where's the weed at? We know you called somebody to sell some weed. Who did you call?"
Murray, who was neither using nor selling marijuana, couldn't believe what was happening.
Before he could make sense of the senseless, another officer snatched the can of ice tea Murray was drinking out of his hand and sniffed it for the scent of alcohol. When there was no hint of alcohol, he tossed the can to the pavement, spilling tea on the sidewalk. Unsatisfied, the officers continued to rifle through his pockets. They found his house keys and tossed them aside, too. They found a cell phone, a bag of M&Ms and $1,000 he had to purchase a money order to pay that month's rent. No drugs. No alcohol. No reason to take him to jail.
Murray watched helplessly as one of the officers stuffed his rent money into his pocket. Murray said they kept his cell phone for a month. It took eight months to get his rent money back, and when he did, Murray said, $250 was missing.
"It's not like they don't know who sells drugs," Murray said, recalling the shocking events that took place a little over a year ago.
It's an all too familiar scene played out on the corners of our nation's most impoverished neighborhoods: Black men targeted by law enforcement without cause.
In his 2010 book The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America, Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree found that racial profiling cuts across class and racial divides. Ogletree recounted stories that many prominent Africa-American leaders shared with him about their experiences.
"The examples of it affecting people that were doctors, teachers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, clergy and other professions was a profound reminder that it's very widespread and deeply affects our community," Ogletree said.
Professor Ogletree's book highlights example after example of Africa-American men who were not engaged in any type of criminal activity yet were still profiled by police.
Even Eric Holder, now U.S. attorney general, wasn't able to avoid a plight experienced every day by Black men in America.
Holder shared an experience he had in the 1980s as an undergrad at Columbia University in New York. As he traveled home to Washington, D.C., he was pulled over by police. Even though they told him he had done nothing wrong, they still wanted to search his car for drugs.
A 2008 study conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics illustrated the perils of DWB – Driving While Black.
Although Blacks, Whites, and Hispanics were stopped by police at similar rates, Blacks were three times (12.3 percent) as likely as Whites (3.9 percent) and twice as likely as Latinos (5.8) to be searched during a traffic stop. Blacks were also more likely to "experience the use or threat of force" than other groups.
Other studies have shown that stopping more Blacks doesn't stop more crime.
"The data on racial profiling is unequivocal and it comes from all across the country," said David Harris, a professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on racial profiling.
"When police use race, or ethnic appearance, or religious appearance in this way, they do not become more accurate. In fact they don't even stay as accurate, they become less accurate than police officers and security agents who do not use these practices," Harris said.
More police need to be asking, what makes a person suspicious, said Ronald Davis, Chief of Police for the City of Palo Alto, Calif.
"Is it their behavior? Are they engaged in criminal activity? Or, is it because they're wearing a hoodie and they're Black?"
At a recent Senate hearing Captain Frank Gale, national second vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police, scoffed at the idea that racial profiling even exists
Despite admitting that he, too, had been a victim of racial profiling, Gale, who is Black, said that racial profiling was just "hyped up by activists, the media and others with a political agenda."
Laura Murphy, director of the Washington, D.C. legislative office for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said the problem extends the Black community to other groups such as Latinos, Muslims and Asians.
"The only way that we're going to deal with this is to embrace groups outside the Black community," she said. "We have racial profiling on steroids now. It's hard out here, even when you're trying to do the right things."
Read more: http://www.nnpa.org/news/national/racial-profiling-is-on-steroids-by-freddie-allen/#ixzz1syoEnj3Iwww.nnpa.org/news/national/racial-profiling-is-on-steroids-by-freddie-allen/#ixzz1syoEnj3I
George Zimmerman, who has been charged with 2nd-degree murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, has been released on bail.
Zimmerman, 28, admitted shooting 17-year-old Trayvon on Feb. 26 as the unarmed youth walked along a gated community in Sanford, Fla.
Zimmerman was seen leaving the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Sanford over the weekend, headed for an undisclosed location. The neighborhood watch guard will remain in seclusion and out of touch with his family. He will also have to wear an ankle monitoring device.
Following a bond hearing on April 20, Zimmerman's family came up with the required $15,000 of his $150,000 bond, and will be free from jail until his trial.
Zimmerman offered his apologies to Trayvon's family, saying:
"I wanted to say I am sorry for the loss of your son. I thought he was a little bit younger than I was, and I did not know if he was armed or not."
WASHINGTON — A top lawmaker briefed on the investigation into a Secret Service prostitution scandal said more firings could be imminent following the forced ouster of three agency employees."
"I wouldn't be surprised if you saw more dismissals and more being forced out sooner rather than later," Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said Thursday. King is being updated on the investigation by Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan.
"You may see a few more today or tomorrow," King added.
The Secret Service is moving quickly to quell the scandal that erupted late last week, when at least some of 11 agency employees implicated in the incident brought prostitutes back to their hotel in Cartagena, Colombia, where they were setting up security for a visit by President Barack Obama.
So far, three people involved have lost their jobs. The service said Wednesday that one supervisor was allowed to retire, and another will be fired for cause. A third employee, who was not a supervisor, has resigned.
The two supervisors are in the agency's uniformed division; one is a sergeant, according to a person familiar with Secret Service operations and refused to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
SANFORD, FL — A bail hearing that was held Friday for the neighborhood watch volunteer charged with murdering 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, will enabled him to be set free.
However, Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester -- who set Zimmerman's bond at $150,000 -- said he would not be released yet, pending deliberations about the terms of the release.
Experts say Zimmerman stood a good chance of getting bail since he has proven he's not a flight risk. He turned himself in to authorities last week after he was charged with second-degree murder. He will reportedly not be allowed contact with his family, and will have to wear a monitoring device.
Zimmerman has admitted fatally shooting the unarmed youth during a confrontation last February in a gated community in Sanford, about 15 miles northeast of Orlando. But Zimmerman says the shooting was self-defense.
Election season is here, and jobs are at the top of the agenda for most of the electorate. Members of Congress have invoked the social welfare-sounding term "job creator" to describe businesses, but many are skeptical because businesses often export or terminate more jobs than they create. On the other hand, some corporations have taken positive steps to address the skilled labor shortage that threatens to slow down American productivity and innovation.
Among those companies is Dallas-based telecommunications giant AT&T. Last month, the company announced that it was taking its educational initiative, AT&T Aspire, to another level. AT&T Aspire is designed to help students graduate from high school with career ready skills, thus helping prepare America's labor force to compete on the global front.
While all of America's youth can benefit from such a program, African American and Hispanic American students are in the greatest need of initiatives like Aspire.
According to 2011 educational attainment data from the Census Bureau, the percentage of African Americans 18 years and older with only a high school diploma was 34 percent. The percentage of Hispanics with only a high school diploma was 30.3 percent, while the percentage for White Americans was 30.5 percent.
The percentage of Black Americans whose highest educational level was a bachelor's degree was 11.8. For Hispanics that percentage was 8.9%, while the percentage of Whites was 20.5 percent.
The gap gets no better at the masters level. The percentage of Blacks capping out at this level was 4.4 percent. The percentage for Hispanics was 2.4 percent at the master's level while the percentage of White Americans with the highest attainment at the master's level was 8.1 percent.
These statistics demonstrate to us that society needs to find better ways to invest in our youth, to help create the skills and knowledge young men and women need to pursue higher education opportunities and eventually enter the job market with the background, knowledge and confidence they will need to choose a career path and be successful.
AT&T is making strides in this area. Since 2008, AT&T has invested approximately $100 million to address the problem of students dropping out of high school and focusing on developing their skills to pursue higher education and/or vocational training. The company has pledged to spend an additional $250 million as part of Aspire over the next five years. Through Aspire, students will build their knowledge base and vocational skills through game-based tools, social media, and web-based content as a way to prepare them for college and/or their future careers. AT&T plans to leverage the expertise and spirit of volunteerism of its 260,000 employees to mentor students across the nation and guide them through a wealth of internship opportunities.
A specific highlight of Aspire is its Job Shadow program, which links AT&T employees with students. The employees act as mentors, sharing life skills while exploring real-life business problems. The Job Shadow Initiative will be part of the Aspire Mentoring Academy and starts this coming fall.
"AT&T Aspire works toward an America where every student graduates high school equipped with the knowledge and skills to strengthen the nation's workforce," AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said while announcing the extended commitment during a keynote address at the second annual Building a GradNation Summit on March 19th.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has thrown the support of his America's Promise Alliance behind AT&T Aspire, stating that the Alliance "was founded on the belief that young people must be our nation's greatest priority. Helping youth achieve their full potential is not just good for our country, it's good for business. AT&T understands this and is demonstrating that through its Aspire program."
Politic365′s Jeff Johnson, who spoke at an Aspire event in Washington, DC on March 28, remarked that it's "incredibly important any time young people are connected to a corporation to get a sense of the world around them and the options available to them. Furthermore, it's important that AT&T has these types of programs because the technology available to them will empower instead of entertain these young people, which is what AT&T is doing." Johnson was joined by Derrick Ashong for an informal discussion about education, careers and success.
Aspire is a model national education/vocational program that is making a tremendous difference to youth in minority communities across the country. As a nation, improving the education and jobs skills of our youth through programs like Aspire will go a long way toward turning this promising future into tomorrow's reality for America's youth.
"Today, I personally witnessed how AT&T's commitment to education can transform lives, said Claudia Jones, AT&T Vice President – Media Relations. "The students heard about all the different career options available to them when they persevere and stay in school. Most of all, they learned some powerful life lessons from Derrick Ashong and Jeff Johnson. I'd like to think that in a small way we made a difference in the lives of thirty-two high school students today."
George Zimmerman is behind bars and much of the furor directed toward him by those angered by his murder of Trayvon Martin is cooling.
But the desire by many of these same people to transform the system that led to the death of an unarmed 17-year-old continues to gather steam.
In the 45 days prior to Special Prosecutor Angela Corey charging Zimmerman, 28, with 2nd-degree murder, many of the participants at marches and demonstrations, those on social media sites, and in conversation have made it clear that Trayvon's death means nothing if it doesn't lead to substantive change in racial profiling and police violence against black and brown people.
"People who thought things were OK, this is water thrown in their faces," said longtime activist and human rights advocate the Rev. Graylan Ellis Hagler, senior minister of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Northeast. "They were slumbering. The fact that four young women organized the Trayvon Martin DC Rally for Justice is historic in itself. They are the face of the activism of young people coming out of the Occupy Movement. It can't be put into a box any longer."
"Instead of the idea of being wealthy, people have been asking the Biblical question: 'What does it profit to gain the whole world and lose your soul?' We have been in danger of losing our soul. This awakened us and aroused our sensibilities. This has to continue to be a movement ... we have to build a movement on a broad front. The agenda has to be to stand with people who are immigrants. If it's not us, it's them. One of us is going to be the target. Black folk have to stand with brown folk."
David Maree and Thenjiwe McHarris, both of whom were instrumental in organizing the national Million Hoodie Movement for Justice, said hard work and sound strategies are vital.
"We plan to make it a movement. It has started organically," said McHarris, a 27-year-old Bronx resident. "... We're seeing a lot of organizations and groups of people coming together, which is great. We have to look [to change] institutions, laws, policies and practices."
That those seeking change has reached this point at all, comes primarily from the increased activism, protests and resistance against social, economic and political elements in the U.S. that the poor and middle class are militating against. They are adding to the groundswell of discontent which crystallized in last year's Arab Spring.
Bill Fletcher, Jr., agrees with the need to build a national protest movement, saying it's critical that people see Trayvon's death not as an isolated incident, but just the latest example of lynchings that have snatched the lives of black men and boys for generations.
"We have to look at the broader cases of justice and lynching," said Fletcher, an editorial board member of BlackCommentator.com and a senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies in Northwest. "We have to understand that the Trayvon Martin case is not an aberration. It's part of a long history of lynching. These lynchings have continued and are justified by the demonization of black and brown people."
Going forward, Fletcher said, those seeking to bring about change to the criminal justice system and other racist spheres of American life have "an educational struggle" with whites to get them to understand distinct racial differences when it comes to matters of violence and justice.
"Seventy percent of whites believe that [the case] had nothing to do with race. This goes to the problem where whites are regularly trying to find and are looking at these acts of violence in an isolated fashion," said Fletcher, who succeeded Randall Robinson as president of TransAfrica. " It's hardwired in the way white Americans are taught to believe. They see it as something from the past, not a system; they think it's personal behavior and they see individual acts as racist but don't see what's built into this system. That is a part of the nationalization of this struggle."
Trayvon's death – like that of Emmett Till, Oscar Grant, III, Amadou Diallo, Arthur McDuffie and Sean Bell and countless unknowns – represents a "significant instrument in exercising racist oppression, but they have also been used against political opponents of the dominant forces in this society," Fletcher wrote in a commentary titled, '2, 3 Many Trayvon Martins?' published in the April 12 edition of BlackCommentator.com.
Fletcher, 57, said white Americans will never really understand the toll it takes being a black man in America.
"I thought about the burden we've been subjected to," he said of his initial reaction to Trayvon's murder. "The other thing I thought about – I found myself thinking about the numbers of times that I as a black man has had to think very carefully about where I go, where I walk, and how I dress – things that the average white person would not have to concern themselves with."
Besides organizing people's outrage constructively, Fletcher said the masses must develop a movement against Florida's Stand Your Ground law which is the basis under which Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee and State Attorney Norman Wolfinger declined to arrest Zimmerman.
"... We need to flip these 'Stand Your Ground' acts on their head and show them to be what they are, forms of returning us to the days of the Wild West, the posse and lynch-mobs," Fletcher asserted in his commentary.
Lastly, Fletcher said black and brown people need to rethink neighborhood watch programs. Instead of only focusing on criminal elements entering various communities, members in predominantly black communities should be closely monitoring the police as the Black Panthers did in the late 1960s.
For James Fleming, the case ignited memories of his time as a student at Florida State University and as a Florida resident.
"It was like cold water thrown on my head because 32 years had passed," said the 49-year-old federal government employee. "I remember walking on FSU's campus as a 17-year-old. As black men, our lives were precariously perched. I thought right away of my son who is 14, making 15. The reaction was that it could have been my child."
Fleming said he and a close friend who has a 10-year-old boy discussed the case, with the central question being, how do you protect your children in this type of context?
The case led to discussions between he, his wife and son. The case has introduced a more cautious attitude on Fleming's part, at a time when he had been considering allowing his son more freedom.
"When I talked to [my friend], I remember a feeling I had. It was the same feeling that came back when I heard Trayvon talking to his girlfriend," Fleming said.
"I also remember walking in Tallahassee as an 18 year old and going to buy a Wall Street Journal because [my] subscription hadn't kicked in. When I asked for the paper, a 250-pound good ol' boy swung around and looked at me. It was the first time someone had looked at me with hate. It was a look like he could kill me."
Hagler said America has not been honest with itself and remains divided along racial and class lines.
"In many aspects of American society and law, we have rolled back the clock," he said likening the present day to the backlash after the Reconstruction period in the 1870s. "In [this] culture there is more segregation and a greater increase in fearfulness than ever. It is important to understand that as a society, we have never, ever come to terms with race."
"A man puts the [N word] on Facebook and then goes out and kills black people and somehow we're not sure if it's racially motivated? The reality is that Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder could see that. That's where we are as a society. This is also [an indication] of where we are for electing a black man to the White House. This is a whitewash. It's no different from Reconstruction politics."
As goes the griot goes his audience. Last weekend, within the intimate confines of the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site's visitor center in Anacostia, more than 50 people gathered to hear renowned historian C.R. Gibbs deliver a lecture on the history of D.C.'s Emancipation Day.
Aided by a salvo of slide projections that included historic newspaper clippings advertising rewards for runaway slaves, government documents pertaining to the 1862 District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, and excerpts from forgotten 19th century diaries and books, Gibbs demonstrated the self-agency of African Americans that has been excluded from popular history.
"His presentation brings honor to the struggle of those [who] resisted," said Reuben Steele, 34, a social worker from suburban Maryland. "Another significant part of the lecture was when he challenged the listeners to get involved in the continuous struggle against inequality, injustice, and oppression and to advocate for and discuss the current relevance of D.C. Emancipation Day along with the International Emancipation Day."
Author of the noted book, Black, Copper, &Bright: The District of Columbia's Black Civil War Regiment and other works, Gibbs' presentation was one of the activities coinciding with the city's sesquicentennial commemoration of D.C. Emancipation Day that Civil War reenactor Bernie Siler had circled as a must-attend event.
"He's one of the few researchers that has gone into such detail on the history of national movements in how they pertain to the city of Washington," said Siler, 60, a District resident who has an uncredited role in the 1989 movie "Glory," about the famed 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. "He's grabbed on to a subject that needs to be thoroughly examined."
After taking a tour of Cedar Hill, Regina Blow stumbled upon the lecture. Blow, 51, a U.S. Army retiree, said that she found the discussion to be enlightening.
"It opened the window to me [about] the history that's been unspoken and not taught."
Blow, up from Ruther Glen, Va., with her husband, said Gibbs' lecture "pushed the borders of my understanding of American history. There's so much more to it."
Gibbs' Presentation
Chronicling the history of slavery in the city, D.C. Emancipation, and its celebration in the ensuing decades, Gibbs reached back to shine light on little known facts including William Lloyd Garrison's intention to publish his famed newspaper, The Liberator, in Washington, D.C. If you take a close look at the anti-slavery paper's masthead, in the left foreground is the old United States Capitol, Gibbs pointed out.
Following the Civil War, the celebration of D.C. Emancipation Day was a popular event up until the mid-1880s when a rift in the black community developed around the event. By the early 1900s celebrations had become largely private affairs, recognized by the Association of the Oldest Inhabitants (Colored). In 1962 the centennial passed with little notice. In the 1980s, Gibbs wrote an article that detailed the forgotten history and importance of D.C. Emancipation Day.
Deferential, modest, and empirical, Gibbs is a historian not detached from his subject matter and community.
"As the nation celebrates the Civil War, this may be our last chance for some time to come to celebrate and teach an event that is not taught in the public schools," Gibbs said as he showed a print-out of the home page of the D.C. Public Schools Web site.
"No explanation of the significance of why school is closed Monday. No essay contest, no oratorical contest, no posters," Gibbs lamented.
A true telling of African-American history that's been obscured, forgotten, and lost "helps place you on the landscape of human events. It gives you a reference point," Gibbs said.
"Far too often African-Americans have not seen themselves in the great tide of history either of their country or the world."
In response to the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) April 17 announcement that it will disband its Public Safety and Elections task force, Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network say that while that's a step in the right direction, it does not undo harm created by "Stand Your Ground" and voter suppression laws which ALEC influenced state legislators to pass.
According to NAN, in 26 states, people have to fear that a gun toting vigilante will have the right to kill you even when the situation does not call for violence. Also, millions of eligible voters will not be able to cast their vote in the upcoming election due to new voter suppression laws. Even though ALEC has announced that they will no longer deal with non-economic issues, the National Action Network (NAN) believes that more needs to be done to get justice for the people affected by these unjust laws.
NAN recently marched from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery Alabama, to protect immigration and voter's rights. Immediately after the march in Alabama, protesters traveled to Sanford, Florida, to be with Trayvon's family.
In both locations they were met with resistance from people under the influence of ALEC. Last week at during the 14th annual NAN convention in the District of Columbia, organizers spoke with corporate partners about their relationship with ALEC and how their support of ALEC is detrimentally hurting minority communities. It has been evident that these corporate sponsors have understood our concerns and many have since dropped their financial support of ALEC.
NAN, which is committed to fighting justice, maintains its hope that ALEC will maintain their current stance of only dealing with issues affecting the economy. Meanwhile, NAN will continue to monitor ALEC and we ask that our corporate sponsors do the same.
Despite ambiguity swirling around the Supreme Court on "Obamacare," the creation and establishment of health insurance exchanges continues to be implemented at the state level and is one of the major components shaping the health care market place.
But, exactly what are the health exchanges?
Right now, they allow individuals and small businesses to use a Web-based system to compare private health plans, get information about coverage options, determine eligibility for tax credits, and enroll in a health plan that meets their needs at lower costs. Essentially, consumers have an opportunity to make informed and educated decisions about purchasing health insurance. They can keep the insurance they have, upgrade, or switch to another provider altogether.
In an effort to lower costs and improve quality care, all states are required to implement affordable insurance exchanges by the year 2014. States have the option to establish one or more state or regional exchanges, partner with the federal government to run the exchange, or to merge with other state exchanges. If a state chooses not to create an exchange, the federal government will set up the exchange(s) in the state. As of March 2012, 13 states and the District of Columbia have enacted state-based health insurance exchanges. Massachusetts and Utah passed laws prior to the enactment of Obama Care in March 2010.
Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a final rule on Affordable Health Insurance Exchanges offering a framework to assist states in setting up Affordable Insurance Exchanges. The framework preserves and, in some cases, expands the significant flexibility in the proposed rules that enables states to build an Exchange that works for their residents.
For example, the final rule allows states to decide whether their Exchange should be operated by a non-profit organization or a public agency, how to select plans to participate, and whether to partner with HHS for some key functions. The final rule offers additional flexibility regarding the eligibility determination process. It also makes it easier for small businesses to get coverage through the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP), strengthens consumer protections, and keeps it simple for health plans interested in participating in Exchanges.
Perhaps, even in this uncertain economic and political environment, many of the state based insurance exchanges are being created because there is a perfect fit in the exchange of goods and services with the ideological concepts of a free market place and competition.
For example, Florida which is one of the 26 plaintiff states against Obama Care and the individual mandate, is working on an insurance exchange that would open in 2012 to small businesses only. The exchange will not provide subsidies or tax credits, or have an essential benefits requirement, but will provide an online tool allowing businesses to easily shop for health plans offered in their respective county. Florida's exchange would be implemented to attract employers who are less likely to offer insurance coverage to their employees.
A PwC Health Research Institute Consumer Survey conducted in 2011 showed that 34% of the consumers reported they would have a less than favorable impression of a health insurance company that decided not to participate in their state's exchange. 37% of consumers surveyed think health insurance exchanges will make it easier for them to find and purchase a competitive health insurance plan. 29% of the consumers felt they do not know enough about health insurance exchanges to form an opinion.
As a result, marketing strategies for many insurance providers now consist of targeting specific businesses and population segments, as well as providing information and expanding direct-to-consumer sales while new channels for reaching consumers directly are being explored. These are all signs of the health care market place steadily transforming and providing opportunities to offer health insurance exchanges to different market niches.
MELISSA BYNES BROOKS is the editor of BrooksSleepReview. Contact information: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Follow @Mlbbrooks on Twitter.
Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree, who served as a mentor to both President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama when they studied law at Harvard, will be teaching a course titled, "Understanding Obama," during the 2013 spring term.
According to a description outlined in the schools' course catalog, the class will focus on how race, religion and politics have impacted Barack Obama as a leader.
"We will explore his views as a biracial child, his time as a student at Harvard Law School, the successes and failures of his political campaigns, and the way religion and his views on faith nearly derailed his campaign. Finally, time will be spent analyzing the challenges he faces as president of the United States in establishing both his domestic and global policies," the description states.
Obama graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991 and Ogletree says his mentorship of the president during that time will not be part of the course, which has also been described as a reading group.
"They'll be reading both critical and positive issues about Obama — of what's happened in terms of the way the race and religion have been viewed during his candidacy, his presidency, and how it affects the larger country; and some other classic reading on issues of law and justice," Ogletree said in an interview.
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