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Fifty years after the riots that shook America, has anything changed?
On the hot summer night on of July 12, 1967, two white policemen in Newark, New Jersey, arrested an African-American cabdriver named John Smith for “tailgating” and driving in the wrong direction. The police also accused Smith of physical assault and using offensive language. Race relations had been growing more tense over the year as Newark Mayor Hugh Addonizio announced a series of decisions that had angered the African-American community.
Some of the residents who were living across the street from where the arrest took place walked out of their homes to watch the incident. Smith was badly beaten. As the police hauled him to the Fourth Precinct station, word spread within the community about what was happening. African-American taxi drivers sent out reports through their radios. A crowd slowly gathered to monitor and protest Smith’s treatment. Word quickly spread about the arrest and what was taking place inside the station.A total of five days of brutal rioting rocked Newark. There were violent clashes between the rioters and the National Guard, who were instructed to use their weapons whenever necessary. One African American man recalled that, as a child living through the riots, “my mother was so afraid, because she has eight kids, she had us under the bed hiding. I remember bullets and stuff coming through.”When the riots ended on July 17, there were 26 people dead and hundreds injured. But this was not the end of chaos for the country. The riots in Newark were followed by equally devastating riots in Detroit and several other smaller cities across the nation.
A man gestures with his thumb down to an armed National Guard man, during a protest in Newark, New Jersey, July 14, 1967.On July 23, undercover police in Detroit raided an unlicensed bar where a crowd of working class African-Americans had gathered to welcome home some returning Vietnam War veterans. The raid sparked five days of rioting. After the police rounded up 82 people, a crowd surrounded the police and yelled: “Black power. Don’t let them take our people away.”Violence quickly escalated as the officers took the men to jail, and President Johnson signed an order authorizing federal troops to intervene. Forty-three people died, more than a thousand were injured; about seven thousand were arrested.When the Detroit riots ended, the nation was stunned by what had occurred in this turbulent month. The promise of civil rights progress seemed to have fallen apart.Soon after the Kerner Commission produced its shocking report, Richard Nixon was elected President and national politics moved in a more conservative direction. Rather than focusing on reforming our criminal justice system to achieve racial justice, the nation focused on President Nixon’s call to “law and order”– which entailed more punitive policies and sentencing, the militarization of local police forces, and the expansion of the carceral system.
The fiftieth anniversary of these riots is a troubling reminder of the distance that we have not traveled as a nation since the 1960s. Some of the same problems that were evident when violence shook the streets of Newark remain with us today.It would be wrong to say that the nation has not made any improvements since July of 1967. There have been reforms to policing, public attitudes about race have changed, and the growth of African-American representation has changed the political dynamics surrounding these issues.In recent years, these issues received renewed attention when citizens used their smartphones to capture videos of police engaging in violent and lethal behavior against African-American men. The videos spawned the most robust civil rights movement that we have seen in decades with Black Lives Matter, which put criminal justice front and center on the national agenda. Toward the end of President Obama’s term there was even evidence that a bipartisan coalition was taking form to push for legislation addressing this problem.But after the movement built momentum, national politics once again moved in a different direction with the election of President Trump. The problems exposed with the images from Ferguson, Staten Island, Cincinnati and elsewhere have not been addressed. The recent court decisions that freed several police officers involved in the shooting of African-Americans offered further evidence for many civil rights advocates that the final years of the Obama presidency did not bring as much progress as they hoped they would.Follow CNN OpinionLike Richard Nixon, President Trump pushed the national debate about policing in a very different direction. He expressed little sympathy for civil rights advocates and has been vocal about the need to provide full and unquestioning support for existing police and carceral institutions. There is little evidence that reform efforts at the local level are making any headway, either, as was evident with the recent decisions on police incidents that occurred.
As a result, we still live with many of the conditions that afflicted African-Americans fifty years ago. The Kerner Commission warned that if we did not take action the situation would only deteriorate and anger would continue to explode into violence. Policymakers and elected officials might want to take a look back at what the report had to say about the outbursts in Newark and Detroit, for their findings are still extremely relevant in our current era.To read more Click or Copy link: http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/11/opinions/newark-riots-opinion-zelizer/index.html -
What Does The Black Community Have To Show For Their $420 Billion In Tithe Money?
By FuriousHarlem World – LiveSteez research shows that Black churches, in aggregate, have collected more than $420 billion in tithes and donations since 1980. With a Senate investigation into the finances of several mega churches underway, the “Prosperity Movement” has been the target of mounting criticism from inside and outside the Black Church. Specifically, the affluent ministries of The Reverend Creflo Dollar, Bishop Eddie Long and others have drawn the attention – and ire – of some clergy and laypeople alike.
Researcher Henry E. Felder’s study of Blacks’ donation habits demonstrated per capita spending of $508 per year in 2009 dollars. Another source, Tyler Media Services, estimated that Black Church revenue approached $17 billion in 2006.
One church, the Reverend Dollar’s World Changers, reported $69 million in 2006 income, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Mainstream politicians and Black community leaders are demanding a better accounting of the “return on investment” offered by churches to the communities that fund them. Meanwhile, legions of faithful churchgoers defend their pastors and accuse their detractors of applying a double standard that ignores the largesse of wealthy, white televangelists, while underplaying the economic development and social service functions provided by the Black Church.
“The church has gotten caught up in materialism and greed, a lifestyle. Many ministers today want to live like celebrities and they want to be treated like celebrities. In other words, instead of the church standing with the community, the church has become self-serving. It has strayed away from its mission” according to Dr.Love Henry Whelchel, professor of church history at The Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.
Few people – not even the ongoing Congressional investigation by Senator Chuck Grassleyaccuse the mega church pastors of outright larceny, and congregants generally approve of their pastors’ luxurious lifestyles. However, in a blatant recent example, a father-son pastor team, 76-year-old Richard Cunningham of Moreno Valley and his son, 52-year-old Philip Cunningham of Laurinburg, N.C., pleaded guilty to felony grand theft and fraud charges. The younger Cunningham also pleaded guilty to forgery. Over five years, prosecutors say, the Cunninghams stole from Calvary Baptist Yorba Linda Church and School bank accounts and used the money to buy time shares in Hawaii and Palm Springs, golf club memberships and a Cadillac. Prosecutors say the men have paid $3.1 million in restitution to the church.LiveSteez’s investigative series will take a forensic editorial approach to quantifying the return to Black America for the $350 billion in tax-favored donations it has given to the Black Church, examining the arguments on both sides of the pulpit. In this series we will seek answers and advisory to the following questions:
– How often and how much do church leaders take advantage of the faith of poor black people?
-We will investigate and indentify the churches they are showing a strong return on investment that goes beyond inspiration.
– What does the black community have to show for the $350 billion in tax free dollars?
– Expert analysis on what could potentially be done with such a huge amount of money and how it could improve the state of our communities.
– Why do some church leaders refuse to participate in the Grassley congressional Investigation, which requested the financial records of several mega-churches.
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‘Victory Is Mine’: Lumumba Landslide Win Defies Conventional Wisdom, Polls
Chokwe Antar Lumumba likely claimed the Jackson mayor’s seat, winning the Democratic primary by a landslide against other candidates, drawing more than twice the votes as the second-place candidate. Photo by Imani Khayyam.
JACKSON— “Victory is mine. Victory is mine. Victory today is mine,” attorney Chokwe Antar Lumumba, 33, sang as he grabbed the microphone last night and led a packed room at the King Edward Hotel in singing the gospel hymn, “Victory is Mine,” by Dorothy Norwood.
“I say that because it is not about me. I say that because you defied conventional wisdom today,” Lumumba boomed to his crowd of supporters just after 10 p.m. after leading the field of 10 candidates throughout the evening. “… Conventional wisdom said that Jackson could not come together, but we saw today in this election, we saw northeast Jackson agree with south Jackson, (and) southwest Jackson agree with northwest Jackson,” Lumumba said.
Lumumba indeed delivered a resounding victory, taking 55.11 percent of the vote and his next closest challenger, state Sen. John Horhn, following with 21.21 percent. That win means the young attorney is likely to be the next mayor, even though he still has to defeat Republican nominee Jason Wells in the June 6 general election, which is typically perfunctory in such an overwhelmingly Democratic city.
The presumptive mayor, supported by national progressives including Bernie Sanders devotees and Democracy for America, did not mince words when it came to the need to increase prosperity throughout the city instead of in just parts of it. “We have two options,” Lumumba told his crowd to loud cheers. “We have the option of economics by the people and for the people or economics by a few people for themselves. And so we’re making the decision that we’re going to have a solidarity economy that works for all of Jackson.”Lumumba called out members of his father’s Taliaferro family from Michigan. (His father Chokwe Lumumba, the previous mayor who died in office in 2014, was first named Edwin Finley Taliaferro before he later changed it.)
“Today would have been the 96th birthday of my grandfather, the day his grandson wins the Democratic primary,” Lumumba said. “So what we’re going to do is broaden the ticket. We’re going to make certain that we all work together, that we identify our collective interests. We’re going to love each other.”
Lumumba made the point that everyone in the city pays when one neighborhood struggles. “We’re going to show support to south Jackson. Because we know that when the people in south Jackson aren’t treated right, the tax burden will fall on the people in north Jackson,” he said.
‘One City, One Aim’
As primary night wore on, supporters waiting at Lumumba’s watch party became increasingly adrenalized with the promise of a win as spirits dropped at most competitors’ gatherings. At approximately 9:50 p.m., the crowd began cheering, blowing colorful noisemakers like it was New Year’s Eve, and raising their fists to the sky as the candidate’s sister Rukia Lumumba led the chant, “One City, One Aim.”
Rukia Lumumba, who moved back to Jackson from New York City in time to help lead her brother’s 2017 campaign, did not need a microphone as her strong and passionate voice filled the room. “It is an honor. It is a pleasure, to stand in this room with you tonight,” she told the crowd. “But most importantly as I stand here, it is an honor and a pleasure to be the sister of this great human being. He stood up after our father passed to continue that vision. A vision that was a selfless vision. A vision to unite a city.”
Mayor Tony Yarber, who only drew 5.39 percent of the vote in his re-election bid, conceded at his subdued watch party at the Next Level nightclub. “The city will gain an advocate that will have something to say without giving a damn,” Yarber told the Jackson Free Press and WLBT while sitting next to his wife, Rosalind.
The mayor later officially conceded, offering full support to presumptive Mayor Lumumba and continuing devotion to the city. “This isn’t a loss for us … you move forward,” he said.
Both Ronnie Crudup Jr., a political newcomer who took 2.34 percent of the vote in fifth place, Crudup and his wife, Andre’a Crudup, showed a positive attitude and good vibes while watching results with their family and supporters all evening at the New Horizon Center.
However, Hinds County Supervisor Robert Graham, who hosted his watch party at Eddie’s Soul Food on Bailey Avenue, left supporters standing outside waiting impatiently for him to arrive. The flustered Graham supporters did not allow the press to take any photos of them. He took 15.2 percent of the vote, coming in third.
Horhn, who came in second, posted a gracious message on his Facebook page late on primary night: “It’s been a great day, and a great competitive season. I wish to compliment each of my competitors on their respective campaigns. The dialogue has been excellent, the interaction lively and robust, and the relationships between us all respectful and productive.”
“Each of the men running in the Democratic primary are good men, each with significant skills and true passion. Going forward, let’s keep the momentum. … I look forward to the opportunity for us all to work together for the benefit of each of our supporters. Because, when we remove the part that says; “I’m for candidate X, Y or Z,” we then get to the part that says; “I’m for JACKSON.” So, let’s all be for JACKSON tomorrow morning,” Horhn added.
A ‘Miracle’ in the Primary
Conventional wisdom, and recent polls, predicted that Lumumba would take around 30 percent and then face one of two older candidates in the runoff—Horhn or Hinds County Supervisor Robert Graham. But Lumumba had predicted on social media throughout the day that he would top the margin needed to escape a run-off: 50-percent plus one vote.
Turnout in the Jackson Democratic primary election was typically low but similar to recent years, with 33,839 Jacksonians casting ballots in the Democratic primary, and 34,169 Jacksonians voting in total. The much less popular Republican primary brought in 330 total votes for mayor. Jason Wells won the Republican mayoral primary election on Tuesday night with 174 total votes.
Few people—save Lumumba and his supporters—seemed to believe that a candidate winning a majority with predicted low turnout and nine candidates was possible. Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann predicted low turnout in statewide municipal elections, telling reporters Tuesday morning that the Jackson Democratic primary would more than likely go to a run-off. He said it would be a “miracle” if someone managed to take home 50 percent of the vote plus one.
Lumumba pulled off more than a miracle and then some, in that case.
The Jackson City Clerk’s staff counted ballots in the basement of the Hinds County Courthouse with the assistance of the Hinds County Clerk’s office last night. Initial returns showed Lumumba out ahead of other candidates, first over 50 percent with Graham in second place, then dropping under when Horhn pulled ahead of Graham. Yarber, however, clearly was out of the running even with a third of precincts’ votes counted. He conceded the race around 8:30 p.m., endorsing Lumumba.
By about 9:30 p.m. more than 80 percent of the precincts’ votes were in, and Lumumba had a sizeable lead at 54 percent of the total votes. Sen. Horhn conceded the race around this time.
#Then the vote-counting halted after a technical glitch in the basement of the Hinds County Courthouse. Clerks needed access to a machine to download votes from one of the flash drives, which did not work at first, but the room where the machine they needed was—was locked. By 10 p.m. clerks and election-commission staff were able to download the rest of the votes and report the final results.
Lumumba ended the night with more than 55 percent of the total votes cast in the election, garnering 18,617 votes. Horhn, in second place, drew 21.21 percent of total votes. The results on election night included absentee ballots cast before the election but excluded affidavit ballots cast at the polls when a person went to the wrong precinct. Clerk staffers said that while there were several affidavit ballots to be counted on Wednesday, there were not enough to change the results and edge Lumumba out of winning a majority.
The presumptive mayor came close to winning the emergency mayoral run-off election back in 2014, after his father unexpectedly died. Mayor Tony Yarber and Lumumba emerged from the primary election with each candidate winning 31 percent of the vote. Yarber then took 54 percent in the 2014 runoff to defeat Lumumba then.
In the 2014 primary emergency primary election, 35,522 Jacksonians voted (about 1,000 more than last night’s election). More than 100,000 Jacksonians are registered to vote.
As far as city council races go, all incumbents running for re-election won: Ward 2 Councilman Melvin Priester Jr., Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes, Ward 4 Councilman De’Keither Stamps and Ward 5 Councilman Charles Tillman. Virgi Lindsay took home 65 percent of the vote to easily replace Margaret Barrett-Simon’s Ward 7 spot on council and beat out 25-year-old newcomer Ladarion Ammons, who still had a good showing.
The Ward 6 council race will go to a run-off in two weeks between Aaron Banks, a Yarber campaign staffer in 2014 who received 32 percent of the votes, and Ernest Slaughter, who received 23 percent of the votes. Banks or Slaughter will replace Council President Tyrone Hendrix, who retired to take a job with the Mississippi Association of Educators. Republican Ward 1 Councilman Ashby Foote faces independent William “Bill” Jordan in the general election, but no Democratic challenger.
To read more Click or Copy link below:
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2017/may/03/victory-mine-lumumba-landslide-win-defies-conventi/
