50th Anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing - An act of domestic terrorism that took the lives of four little girls

This past week was the 50th Anniversary of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, where 4 little girls were murdered. Melissa Harris-Perry looks back on that incident of domestic terrorism.

Segment 1



Segment 2



Segment 3

The Sad Case of Louis Allen: Why The Civil Rights Era Isn't Over In Mississippi

60 Minutes' in-depth investigation into the unsolved Civil Rights-era killing of Louis Allen in Liberty, Mississippi, brought to life how troubling life can still be for many African Americans in the state and their pursuit of justice. From the files of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, here are links to files on the Louis Allen case. If you don't know, the MS Sovereignty Commission was the taxpayer-financed arm of the state that spied on people and watched and harassed "agitators" working for racial justice.

In the Allen case, it is likely the perpetrators remain hidden in plain view in Liberty, MS, but I could find no evidence that the state's attorney general, Jim Hood is investigating the case. Instead, I found an article touting his advocacy of a new execution drug. That's Mississippi-style progress.

Like many things in Mississippi, Louis Allen's death appears to only bother black Mississippians with white Mississippians and local law enforcement quite blasé about the whole matter. The FBI has given the matter one part-time investigator who is rather overwhelmed given that she has more than 100 cold cases to work on.

Bishop Arthur M. Brazier passed away at the age of 89

When a whole lotta Negroes were scared of upsetting King Richard Daley I, and turned their backs on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he came to Chicago, Brazier was not one of them. He welcomed Dr. King and marched with him proudly.

It was Brazier's Apostolic C.O.G.I.C. where then candidate Barack Obama came to deliver his Father's Day speech in 2008, after the whole Rev. Wright fiasco.

from the Chicago Tribune:

Bishop Arthur M. Brazier, 1921-2010
Civil rights legend, founder of The Woodlawn Organization
By Margaret Ramirez, Tribune reporter
9:00 p.m. CDT, October 22, 2010

In the 1960s, Bishop Arthur M. Brazier marched through the streets of Chicago alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the struggle against segregation in housing and schools.

He helped start The Woodlawn Organization to shepherd his South Side community through racial unrest and neighborhood upheaval. A spiritual leader as well, Bishop Brazier was Pentecostal pastor of the Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn for more than 48 years, building a congregation of nearly 20,000 members before handing church leadership over to his son, the Rev. Bryon Brazier, in 2008.

Bishop Brazier, 89, who influenced generations of pastors and parishioners and who was praised by President Barack Obama as "one of our nation's leading moral lights," died Friday, Oct. 22, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, after a five-year struggle with prostate cancer, his family said.
.............................................

For decades, Bishop Brazier fought gangs and crime and pushed for more affordable homes and better schools. As founding president of The Woodlawn Organization, he opposed plans by the nearby University of Chicago to expand, which would have displaced residents and use land he hoped to develop for low-income housing.

While he refused to preach politics from the pulpit, his wide influence made the Apostolic Church of God an obligatory campaign stop for politicians.

On Father's Day in 2008, presidential candidate Obama delivered a key campaign speech on the importance of family in Bishop Brazier's church. The president issued a statement Friday saying he and the first lady were "deeply saddened to learn of the passing of our dear friend, a stalwart of the city of Chicago."

"Bishop Brazier … promoted spiritual empowerment and economic development through his pastorate of Apostolic Church of God and leadership of numerous community organizations and charitable efforts," Obama said.

rest of obituary at link above.

Dr. Dorothy I. Height's Funeral

US President Barack Obama wipes away a tear as he sits next to First Lady Michelle Obama at the funeral service for Dr. Dorothy Height at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, April 29, 2010. Height, who led the National Council for Negro Women for four decades, and was present at the key battles for racial equality since the 1930s, died at age 98 after a lifetime devoted to the fight for equality.
----JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

See Full Post

Read more »

Dr. Dorothy Height Has Passed Away at the age of 98

From The Washington Post

Dorothy I. Height, founding matriarch of civil rights movement, dies at 98
By Bart Barnes Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, April 20, 2010; 7:34

Dorothy I. Height, 98, a founding matriarch of the American civil rights movement whose crusade for racial justice and gender equality spanned more than six decades, died early Tuesday morning of natural causes, a spokesperson for the National Council of Negro Women said.

Ms. Height was among the coalition of African American leaders who pushed civil rights to the center of the American political stage after World War II, and she was a key figure in the struggles for school desegregation, voting rights, employment opportunities and public accommodations in the 1950s and 1960s.

Ms. Height was president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years, relinquishing the title in 1997. The 4 million-member advocacy group consists of 34 national and 250 community-based organizations. It was founded in 1935 by educator Mary McLeod Bethune, who was one of Ms. Height's mentors.

As a civil rights activist, Ms. Height participated in protests in Harlem during the 1930s. In the 1940s, she lobbied first lady Eleanor Roosevelt on behalf of civil rights causes. And in the 1950s, she prodded President Dwight D. Eisenhower to move more aggressively on school desegregation issues. In 1994, Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

"She was a dynamic woman with a resilient spirit, who was a role model for women and men of all faiths, races and perspectives. For her, it wasn't about the many years of her life, but what she did with them," said former U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman, a close friend who has been running day-to-day operations at the National Council.

Herman called Ms. Heights "a national treasure who lived life abundantly. She will be greatly missed, not only by those of us who knew her well, but by the countless beneficiaries of her enduring legacy."

In the turmoil of the civil rights struggles in the 1960s, Ms. Heights helped orchestrate strategy with movement leaders including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, Whitney Young, James Farmer, Bayard Rustin and John Lewis, who later served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia.

Ms. Height was arguably the most influential woman at the top levels of civil rights leadership, but she never drew the major media attention that conferred celebrity and instant recognition on some of the other civil rights leaders of her time.

In August 1963, Ms. Height was on the platform with King when he delivered his "I have a dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. But she would say later that she was disappointed that no one advocating women's rights spoke that day at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Less than a month later, at King's request, she went to Birmingham, Ala., to minister to the families of four black girls who had died in a church bombing linked to the racial strife that had engulfed the city.

"At every major effort for social progressive change, Dorothy Height has been there," Lewis said in 1997 when Ms. Height announced her retirement as president of the National Council of Negro Women.

Rest of obituary at link above.


POST CONTINUED INSIDE

Read more »

A Discussion With Dr. John Hope Franklin

Hear a special interview with Dr. John Hope Franklin from 2006. The interview was part of an event at the Los Angeles Public Library, and was conducted by Tavis Smiley.

Hear an additional interview from NPR.


See post on the passing of Dr. Franklin (Thanks to Rikyrah).

Corporate Pimp Bob Johnson Now a Spokesman for Civil Rights?

Bob Johnson, a man who made a fortune perpetuating negative images of Blacks and destroying Black Culture in this Country, is now positioning himself as a spokesperson for Civil Rights and proclaims to know what is best for Black voters. It wasn't that long ago that Johnson was a minion for the Bush administration. Now he is supporting Hillary Clinton.

Johnson's recent comments about Barack Obama's drug use was a clear attempt to demonize the candidate and to scare voters. This is part of what has turned out to be a pattern from the Clinton camp. It is true that the media has been hyping the Clinton/Obama mess for ratings purposes (the whole reason why these candidates were even made frontrunners by the media in the first place was because of the ratings potential) but the Johnson comments really seemed to be over the top. And it appeared to be an attempt by Clinton to sanitize the remarks and blunt any possible criticism by having the comments made by another Black person, instead of having the guts to say it herself.

Bob Johnson's latest hustle is telling Black folks how hard the Clintons have worked for so-called "Black issues", which is a bunch of nonsense. The Clintons have become this mythical couple in the "Black Community" mostly because of folks like Bob Johnson inflating their record. The hyperbole has gotten so bad in the years since Bill Clinton left office that some have called Clinton the first Black President.

But do Blacks really know about the history of the Clinton's or are they simply going by what the TV pundits have been saying? I believe the latter is the case. What exactly have the Clintons specifically done for Black Americans? If you pose that question to Black folks, most would not be able to recall two things that the Clintons have come up with to help the so-called "Black Community". That's because the Clintons record does not live up to the hype.

Just because Slick Willy loved to visit Black Churches and schmooze with Black ministers and celebs, does not make him a champion for Black Causes. But I guess all of the hype sounds good to certain ears in the "Black Community".

Bob Johnson partying with thug rapper Ludacris at the entertainers 30th Birthday bash
Take a look at the work of street thug Ludacris, enabled by Bob Johnsons BET. Warning: The Following Videos Are Not Safe For Work (or any other setting for that matter). This is generally the kind of garbage that Bob Johnson peddled to Blacks, & Black youth in particular, when he owned the network. It's still being pumped into Black households to this day. What a nice legacy of uplifting Black Americans. Video One, Video Two, Video Three.

In their attempt to be gain the so-called "Black vote" the Clintons have been reaching out to all of the wrong people. Last week, Bill Clinton ran to Rev. Al Sharpton (that guy who White Americans see as the "go to" man for all Black issues and who represents all Black people) in an attempt to clean up remarks from an earlier spat. Now they drag in Bob Johnson. They already have their hooks in the CBC (Congressional Black Circus) and those from the group who represent the traditional Civil Rights Industrial Complex. The Problem is.... none of these high profile figures represent the whole, or even a significant part of so-called "Black America". They don't represent the needs and concerns of real people on the ground in South Carolina, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, St. Louis, Dallas, Houston, Baltimore, Memphis, Philly, Cleveland, Oakland, Miami, or any other place in the Country with a high concentration of African Americans in communities that are devastated.

Every week I am seeing a new clown on mainstream media who claims to be my representative. When will mainstream media, and phony politicians, stop playing this Rent-A-Negro game? When will they realize that Blacks in this Country are not part of a monolith? Blacks are more diverse than ever, socially, economically, and politically. If the Clintons are so comfortable with Black people, then why do they feel the need to use other people to speak to Blacks on their behalf? Why not speak directly to voters? What are they afraid of? Stop going out and renting people, or using other Blacks as some sort of filter to speak through....or as a source for validation.

See Post from Democratic Underground

The New America - How Bush & Co. Created A Climate of Intolerance

The following story highlights the importance of Church and State separation, and what can happen in a climate of cultural and religious intolerance. It also shows how profoundly 9/11 and the subsequent socio-political and religious climate (allowed by the Bush Administration) changed the Nation.

The following audio was taken from the public radio program, This American Life. It originally aired a year ago, but I caught a re-airing of the program over the weekend and it shook me. It made me ask the question - What Has Happened to This Country? The same question that many other Americans have asked over the past several years. I basically know the answer...but stories like this one make you ask anyway... in disbelief at how bad the problems have been allowed to get. Is the U.S. allowing the terrorists to win?

(fast forward to the 6:20 mark to get to the main story)

See page from This American Life

Amy Goodman Discusses The Gutting of U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

Amy Goodman reports on continued Bush Administration efforts to gut the Commission on Civil Rights. We know that Bush & Co. decided to gut the organization years ago, but new information shows how they did it. Ironically, many of these events took place in 2004, right around the time of the phony Republican campaign to reach out to Black voters. Alberto "Gone-zales" (former Attorney General & the perhaps soon to be indicted Bush crony) was apparently in on the effort to stack the Commission.

Watch/Listen Here

Congress Grills Justice Department Voting Rights Chief

Congress set its sights on the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division in hearings yesterday. John Tanner, the head of the Civil Rights Division's Voting Rights Unit testified before the House Judiciary's Subcommittee on Civil Rights.

Congressmen Keith Ellison, Artur Davis, and others grilled Tanner until he was well cooked. Members of the Committee specifically called attention to Tanner's recent controversial comments about Blacks dying early....

From TPM:

Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) laid into voting section chief John Tanner during the hearing today over his comment earlier this month that "our society is such that minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first." Tanner made the remarks as justification for his conviction that voter ID laws actually discriminate against whites. In Tanner's calculus, since minorities don't age "the way white people do," the effect of voter ID laws on the elderly means that whites are disproportionately affected. And since younger African-Americans frequently carry IDs because of racial profiling and the need to cash checks at "a check cashing business," voter ID laws actually favor African-Americans.

Watch a short video of Tanner's comments and his exchanges with members of the Sub-Committee on Civil Rights. Congressman Davis crushes the rationale for Tanner's comments.




Committee members also focused on the lack of overall enforcement of existing voting rights laws, and the lack of enforcement by the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division In General. A former employee of the Voting Rights Unit testified about how Tanner has contributed to the politicization of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division. There have been numerous reports about the lack of enforcement from within the Civil Rights Division, due to political interference. Several experienced career attorneys have left the Civil Rights Division within the last several years (under the Bush Administration).

Under the Bush Administration, the Civil Rights Division reportedly moved away from aggressive enforcement of Civil Rights Laws to more of a political wing of the White House, engaging in actions having little to do with Civil Rights and Voting Rights. The Division has been involved in numerous efforts that appear to be motivated by politics...such as aggressive enforcement of certain voting rules, in certain key battleground States at election time.

Watch Full Video of Hearing

(video may only be available for approximately 15 days from date posted) ____________________________


Related Postings

See PBS Investigative Report on Voter Suppression efforts under the Bush Administration

Greg Palast Reports on Fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias

The Justice Department and Voter Suppression

Bloggers Inspire New Civil Rights Wave

This was one of the headlines on the front page of The Chicago Tribune today. In a story by Howard Witt, he puts forth that none of this would be happening with The Jena Six without Black bloggers. He wrote:

JENA, La. - There is no single leader. There is no agreed schedule. Organizers aren't even certain where everyone is supposed to gather, let alone use the restroom. The only thing that is known for sure is that thousands of protesters are boarding buses at churches, colleges and community centers across the country this week, headed for this tiny dot on the map of central Louisiana.

What could turn out to be one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in years is set to take place here Thursday, when Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III, popular black radio talk show hosts and other celebrities converge in Jena to protest what they regard as unequal treatment of African-Americans in this racially fractured Deep South town.

Yet this will be a civil rights protest literally conjured out of the ether of cyberspace, of a type that has never happened before in America—a collective national mass action grown from a grassroots word-of-mouth movement spread via Internet blogs, e-mails, message boards and talk radio.

Jackson, Sharpton and other big-name civil rights figures, far from leading this movement, have had to scramble to catch up. So, too, has the national media, which has only recently noticed a story that has been agitating many black Americans for months.

As formidable as it is amorphous, this new African-American blogosphere, which scarcely even existed a year ago, now comprises hundreds of interlinked blogs and tens of the thousands of followers who within a matter of a few weeks collected 220,000 petition signatures—and more than $130,000 in donations for legal fees—in support of six black Jena teenagers who are being prosecuted on felony battery charges for beating a white student.

Rest of the article is here:

Mr. Witt is the journalist that brought Shaquanda Cotton to the attention of Black bloggers. Sometimes when I feel discouraged or overwhelmed, I think about the community that is forming everyday. I think about the Black minds that I have the pleasure of reading. And, even if I am frustrated, what blogging has meant to me is to get in touch with other people with a similar spirit and fight. I have learned a great deal from bloggers, and the ability to connect with others is one of the greatest benefits from blogging. Whatever happens tomorrow, however many people show up in Jena, Louisiana, they are there because we were able to find a common voice and display our collective displeasure over obvious injustice.

And, if people think that Black-owned media isn't important, this story and others should point out that that's simply not the case. They might not have been the leaders, and had to be pushed into it, but pushed into it they were, and far earlier than the MSM, who still doesn't quite get it. While I have been blogging about this case for some months, I have routinely sent notices to other ' mainstream' bloggers with links and information about the case. Their willingness to completely disregard this case only makes me more determined in my own blogging. They have the 'option' to disregard cases like The Jena Six, while we, as a community, simply don't have that 'choice', because we know that if we don't speak up for these young men, the NEXT TIME, it will be a young Black male that WE KNOW. There are no six degrees of separation for Black folk and bad stories about the Criminal Justice System. If there are two degrees, you feel lucky.

This case, at its core, is about a town and system that continues to think that they can abuse our children, have two sets of rules, and judge our children more harshly while we stand around doing nothing. Doing nothing is no longer acceptable, not that it ever was.


FREE THE JENA SIX!