Florida Courier - February 13, 2015

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FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2015

VOLUME 23 NO. 7

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THE DEBATE BEGINS

BY LESLEY CLARK AND WILLIAM DOUGLAS MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU / TNS

WASHINGTON – President Obama is asking Congress for authorization to fight Islamic State terrorists in Iraq, Syria and beyond without ruling out ground troops, opening a debate on Capitol Hill over the extent of U.S. military involvement in fighting the group Obama says poses a “grave threat” to U.S. national security.

“With violent groups like this, there is only one option,” Obama said at the White House. “With our allies and partners, we are going to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group.”

Obama said his request – which would sunset after his presidential successor takes office – does not call for the deployment of ground troops to Iraq or Syria and is not “authorization of a ground

Obama opens door to American ground troops in fight against Islamic State

war like Afghanistan or Iraq.”

But he does call for ground troops in “more limited circumstances.” That could include the use of special operations forces to take military action against the group’s leadership, Obama said.

“We need flexibility, but we also have to be careful and deliberate,” he said. “And there’s no heavier decision than asking our men and women in uniform to risk their lives on our behalf.”

Bipartisan consultation Obama said the authorization was written after considerable consultation with congressional

Democrats and Republicans. He said he believes it can win bipartisan support and show “the world that Americans are united in this mission.”

But the White House faces a daunting task of satisfying disparate factions in Congress over the depth and scope of his request.

Several Democrats want to further limit the use of U.S. troops on the ground in the Middle East, while some hawkish Republicans say there should be no restriction on the use of U.S. ground forces.

Obama also faces criticism from nearly every side that the White House hasn’t produced a coherent strategy on how to combat the Islamic State.

“I’m not even quite sure what our policy is,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. “The question I RAJA ABDULRAHIM/LOS ANGELES TIMES/MCT keep asking is, ‘How does this all Members of a Syrian civil defense team scramble at the scene of end?’ And I can’t seem to get a See DEBATE, Page A2

a bomb attack to rescue a woman trapped in her home, which was cut in half by the blast.

‘Gov. FCAT’ defends himself

WHITNEY ELIZABETH HOUSTON, 1963-2012

Jeb’s education legacy uncertain

No peace for her family

COMPILED FROM WIRE AND STAFF REPORTS

Now weighing a run for president, former Gov. Jeb Bush appeared Tuesday in Tallahassee to discuss one of the cornerstones of his legacy, the state’s education policy, even as his accomplishments in that area have come under increasing pressure.

The school-accountability system pioneered by Bush during his eight years as govJeb ernor has ranBush kled parents who say that the state’s high-stakes testing regime has gone too far.

Wednesday was the third anniversary of Whitney Houston’s death. It was also a day in which her family denied that life support would be withdrawn from Houston’s daughter, 21-year-old Bobbi Kristina Brown, who remains hospitalized after being found face-down in a tub of water – as was her mother.

Mass protests In 2000 and 2004, Miami-Dade activist Bishop Victor T. Curry helped mobilize thousands from South Florida and around the state to converge on Tallahassee to protest, among other things, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), the high-stakes standardized test of Florida’s public school students. The test was reviled and feared by many parents and teachers in Florida.

A series of Florida Courier articles written in 2006 confirmed a statewide trend that schools with predominately Black or Hispanic student populations were disproportionately likely to fall below See JEB, Page A2

SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3

NATION | A6

Win didn’t boost Scott’s popularity

Voting Rights Act hearing canceled

BLACK HISTORY

Rosa Parks’ collection at Library of Congress B3 Firsts for Blacks in politics and law B4 BOOK REVIEW | B3

Book reveals range of reaction to Lincoln’s assassination

ALSO INSIDE

GINA FERAZZI/ LOS ANGELES TIMES/MCT

Black Little League team stripped of national title

BY MICHELLE MANCHIR CHICAGO TRIBUNE /TNS

CHICAGO – The boundary map Jackie Robinson West submitted to Little League officials after an investigation into possible rules violations began included portions annexed from three other leagues without their permission, Little League International CEO Stephen Keener said Wednesday.

The other Little League organizations knew Jackie Robinson West officials had gerrymandered a map to recruit ineligible players but kept quiet because

they didn’t want to cause trouble, Keener said.

The map submitted by Jackie Robinson West was “redrawn and backdated and signed to make it appear it had been the map used during the entire tournament,” Keener said.

He said officials with the neighboring leagues said nothing to Little League authorities about the falsified map until Jan. 31, when Little League International officials met with them privately in Chicago.

“They didn’t want to rock the boat,” Keener said. “It was a great story. They were happy for

OLIVIER DOULIERY/ABACA PRESS/MCT

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama met with the Jackie Robinson West All Stars at the White House in November 2014. the kids.”

After that meeting, Little League International decided to strip Jackie Robinson West of its national title.

Keener said at least two mem-

bers of the Jackie Robinson team lived outside appropriate boundaries. “Certainly not the whole team,” he said.

See TEAM, Page A2

COMMENTARY: CHARLES W. CHERRY II: RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A FREE BLACK MIND | A4 COMMENTARY: GLEN FORD: WINFREY AND SHARPTON ATTACK BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT | A5

FOCUS

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FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2015

Why we should care about the ‘digital divide’ The Internet is just a few decades old, but today it is vital to the success of virtually every American. Yet millions of Americans – particularly people of color – are missing out on the many opportunities afforded by broadband (high speed) Internet access.

Our struggle began as one for civil and human rights, but even with great progress, when it comes to digital literacy, an egregious number of AfricanAmericans and Hispanics remain locked out of net equality, trapped on the wrong side of a widening gap that we call the “digital divide.”

The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) and our partners, including National Urban League, the National Coalition for Black Civic Participation, and many others, are committed to addressing – and finding solutions for – this social justice issue, starting with our seniors.

KIM KEENAN GUEST COMMENTARY

cess to the Internet. As wonderful as smartphones are, children cannot do their homework on a smartphone – but for some, this poor option is their only option.

Research shows that the main reasons people give for not using the Internet are a perceived lack of relevance; affordability; and lack of Internet-capable devices, namely personal computers. Our goal is to shed light on these issues and fix these barriers to an Internet where everyone is connected. Black and Hispanic seniors who do not have broadband or high speed Internet at home are missing out on opportunities to connect and improve their quality of life through telehealth monitoring, staying in touch with family members, accessing education and financial tools such as mobile banking, accessing government services, and locating jobs and educational opportunities online.

Black seniors offline Recent data from the Pew Research Center found that African-Americans age 65 and older have the lowest rates of Internet adoption (meaning they do not use the Internet) in the U.S. It is vital that we get our seniors connected because it’s no secret that many African-American seniors are raising grandchildren.

If the grandparents do not have access to or are not using the Internet at home, it is likely that the grandchildren do not have ac-

Black kids and STEM It’s also important to get more Black and Hispanic youth into the technology pipeline so they can take advantage of career and business opportunities in the high-tech fields. African-Americans and Hispanics have histori-

cally fared poorly when it comes to taking advantage of high-tech industry employment opportunities. Jobs in the high tech sector are plentiful and they pay well, but they require that youth take the essential science and math courses that are necessary to obtaining degrees and jobs in the high-tech field, often referred to as STEM careers: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Jobs of the future Media and telecommunications make up a staggering onesixth of the global economy, and technology is a growing part of it.

This is where the jobs are now, and this is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. While the cable and telecom sectors are fairly diverse, the extremely low representation of minorities and women in Silicon Valley hightech companies is an issue that demands our attention.

Last year, after pressure from Rev. Jesse Jackson, top Silicon Valley companies finally released data on the diversity of their workforce. The truth was sobering. USA Today reported that African-Americans and Hispanics are being hired in the hightech sector at only half the rate at which they are graduating with math and science degrees.

The majority of top Silicon Valley companies have all-White boards, and their workforce is only made of up 1.8 percent African-Americans and 3.2 percent Hispanic Americans. Even

Asian Americans are concentrated in midlevels without reaching the upper levels of tech management.

These companies have a responsibility to employ a workforce that looks like America at all levels. Net equality means we own as well as consume technology, and that we and participate at every rung of the tech corporate ladder.

Since these profoundly low diversity numbers were released, Intel has set a positive example for the industry with the announcement of its $300 million Diversity in Technology Initiative with the goal of creating a workforce in tech that looks like America. Apple recently included minority-owned brokerage firms in its $6.5 billion bond sale, similar to what Verizon has been doing for the past few years.

These efforts represent steps in the right direction to achieve more diversity in jobs and entrepreneurship, but there is much more to be done to prepare our communities for the jobs and the business opportunities in the here and now as well as the future.

What you can do My organization, MMTC, partners with dozens of other civil rights organizations, including the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the National Urban League, the Hispanic Telecommunications and Technology Partnership, the NAACP, the National Coalition for Black Civic Participation,

JEB

government-mandated FCAT performance standards.

A de facto voucher system that the governor pushed has been challenged in court by the Florida Education Association, the state’s main teachers union and Bush’s longtime arch-nemesis. And the Common Core State Standards, which Bush advocated after leaving the governor’s mansion, have largely been disowned, at least in name, by his fellow Republicans.

In some ways, Bush has adjusted with the times, agreeing that perhaps students are now tested too much. And during his remarks at an education summit in Tallahassee hosted by the Foundation for Florida’s Future – a group Bush founded – the potential GOP presidential candidate didn’t utter the words “Common Core” from the stage.

But in other respects, chiefly in pointed remarks about the union’s attempt to unwind the state’s Tax Credit Scholarship Program, Bush hewed close to the formula he pushed until leaving office in 2007.

The changed atmosphere in Florida was clear

Kim Keenan is the president and CEO of the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and preserving equal opportunity and civil rights in the mass media, telecommunications and broadband industries, and closing the digital divide. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

ucation.”

“Giving billions of taxpayer dollars to private, for-profit corporations has done nothing to improve schools for millions of Florida children,” she said. “No amount of gimmicky summits can undo the damage Jeb Bush did to Florida’s education system. Florida’s parents, students, and teachers remember all too well the slashes in school funding, the dramatic increases of college tuition, and the radical overemphasis on high-stakes testing that Bush brought to Florida.”

from A1

Bush ‘adjustment’

and many others, to ensure communities of color are included in innovation age. We have advocated extensively for the extension of federal programs like “ERate,” which provides funding to low-income schools and libraries to get them connected to highspeed broadband.

We will continue to urge the addition of broadband service to the Universal Service Fund, which currently helps low-income Americans connect to and pay for telephone service. We will not rest until top technology firms take action to improve employment diversity at all levels within their companies and supply chains. Visit our website, www.mmtconline.org, and sign our online petition urging your representatives to close the digital divide and advocate to add broadband to the Universal Service Fund.

It takes a village to close the digital divide, and together we have the power to make a difference – and attain net equality for all.

Defends his tenure FLORIDA COURIER FILES

Black students all over the state struggled to pass the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) that was hatched during Jeb Bush’s gubernatorial administration.

Rick Scott

Allison Tant

almost from the beginning of the education summit.

House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, spoke about the Legislature’s drive to ease back on testing after years of parental outcry – even though he

DEBATE from A1

satisfactory answer. We’ve been at war in the Middle East for a long, long, long time, and I’m not sure we have very much to show for it.”

“The challenge is not just there between people who want to do something and people who want to do nothing,” said Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

“It’s between people who want to do more of something and people who want to do less of something.”

Neither satisfied Indeed, while some such as McGovern said the proposed authority was too broad, others said it does not go far enough and appears to handcuff the military.

“Rather than expanding his legal authority to go after (the Islamic State), the president seems determined to ask Congress to further restrict the authority of the U.S. military to

cast those remarks in terms that even Bush’s supporters in the audience clearly agreed with.

“But to be clear: While we address these concerns about testing, we will not retreat from accountability,” Crisafulli said to applause. “And we will not retreat from high standards.”

Gov. Rick Scott, who has ordered a review of testing, has also thrown his support behind the issue.

“My goal this year, and it’s this year, is to work with the Legislature to come up with how we reduce the testing – keep the account-

confront this threat,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

Obama said the authority would allow the U.S. to continue waging airstrikes and provide support and training for Iraqi forces and the moderate Syrian opposition.

“I’m convinced that the United States should not get dragged back into another prolonged ground war in the Middle East.

Local forces on the ground who know their countries best are best positioned to take the ground fight to ISIL, and that’s what they’re doing,” Obama said, using the government’s preferred acronym for the terrorist group.

The authorization stops short of allowing for what Obama called an “enduring” ground troop presence but would permit ground troops in “limited circumstances.”

That could include rescue operations or authorizing special operations forces to take military action against the group’s leadership, Obama said. In a letter to Congress, Obama said it also would authorize the use of U.S. forces in situations where ground combat operations are not expected, such as intelli-

ability that we have, but how do we reduce the testing?” Scott said.

‘Cheerleading session’ Democrats made it clear they would use Bush’s education policies to hammer him if he moves forward with a 2016 campaign. In a statement, Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Allison Tant slammed the summit as “nothing more than a cheerleading session with right-wing politicians and wealthy special interests looking to turn a profit on our children’s ed-

gence collection and sharing.

Intentionally vague White House press secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged the language was intentionally fuzzy to give Obama and the military flexibility. But it may prove a sticking point with lawmakers.

“Vague language is going to be a concern for everybody about limiting ground troop introduction,” said Rep. Peter Welch, DVt. “If not for this president, for future presidents.”

The authorization includes no geographic limits, in essence allowing the U.S. to strike members of the group outside of its current theaters in Iraq and Syria.

The administration doesn’t “want to send a signal to ISIL that they may be able to establish a safe haven somewhere else,” Earnest said.

Obama proposes to sunset the provision in three years, unless it’s reauthorized, guaranteeing it will play a role in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Obama said the expiration date was not a timetable and called it “conceivable that the mission is completed earlier,” a prospect military officials, who’ve pre-

Speaking with reporters after his own remarks, though, Bush brushed off the idea that the talk amounts to a repudiation of his tenure.

“The foundation I used to be a part of and myself personally (have) always believed that we should be reviewing this, that there should be fewer tests, they should be better tests –as good as they can be – and that they should be measuring critical thinking skills, which is really what at the end of the day students are going to need to go forward,” Bush said. “So we’re totally supportive of this review. I am, at least.”

Bush also backed moving to fewer tests during his remarks to the summit, while at the same time defending the idea of testing itself.

dicted a years-long campaign, have said is unlikely.

Moving quickly Deliberation could take weeks, but lawmakers moved quickly to consider the request.

Republican senators were meeting late Wednesday to review Obama’s proposal and the House Foreign Affairs Committee planned a Thursday hearing.

Republican senators met late Wednesday to review Obama’s proposal and appeared to have more questions than answers.

“What is important is what is the president going to do with this authorization, what is he going to do to be successful in Syria,”’ Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said after the meeting. “I don’t think we know what that is right now.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the Senate would review Obama’s request “thoughtfully” and senators and committees would “listen closely to the advice of military commanders as they consider the best strategy for defeating ISIL.”

“But they really need to continue to be part of a robust accountability system, for sure,” he said.

The former governor also downplayed the significance of changes that have been made to Florida’s standards, which were initially based on Common Core. Bush said the subject didn’t come up at a Tuesday meeting with Scott.

“The standards are still high, which is really the thing that most matters,” he said.

Bush also said he supported policies that might ease the fears of some conservatives that the federal government could use Common Core to try to impose a national curriculum on local schools.

Willing to fight In other ways, though, Bush showed that he was still willing to fight for his signature policies. He blasted the union-led challenge to the scholarship program, which provides tax credits to companies that donate money to nonprofit entities that pay for children to go to private schools. Bush said public schools have improved since the voucher-like system was approved.

“If the data matter, then they wouldn’t be suing. ... I don’t get the argument on the other side, except for the fact that this is about the economic interests of the adults,” he said.

TEAM from A1

Wouldn’t agree He said team officials and Michael Kelley, administrator of the Little League district that includes Jackie Robinson West, at some point met with officials with the three neighboring leagues in an effort to get them to sign off on the map.

The other leagues did not agree to do so, Keener said.

“Those are clearly violations of regulations of Little League … and certainly a clear violation of the spirit of how our organization is run,” he said.

Kelley, who has been suspended from his role as district administrator, could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

Keener called revocation of the national championship title “painful and troubling,” but necessary.

“Whether it’s sport at the highest level – of MLB or the NFL – right down to the grassroots level, adherence and conformity to rules and regulations are what make our programs possible,” he said.

FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2015

FLORIDA

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Governor still unpopular despite win But new poll shows voters optimistic about next four years with Scott in control

BY JIM SAUNDERS THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Republican Gov. Rick Scott rallied supporters in November to grab a come-from-behind victory over Democratic challenger Charlie Crist in one of the nation’s fiercest gubernatorial races.

But that doesn’t mean Scott is popular with voters.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday indicated that 42 percent of Florida voters approve of the way Scott is handling his job, while 47 percent disapprove.

Those numbers are similar to the way voters viewed Scott throughout his first four years in office. In a January 2014 Quinnipiac poll, for example, 41 percent of voters approved of the way Scott was handling his job.

‘Never been popular’ Somewhat ironically, Scott’s low numbers continued as Florida voters expressed optimism about

the next four years and their financial conditions, according to the poll.

“Florida Gov. Rick Scott has never been popular,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a prepared statement accompanying the results.

“He spent virtually his entire first term with a negative job approval and was reelected by the narrowest of margins. Now he is back underwater with voters. But it doesn’t matter because the one time he had more supporters than opponents was when it counted – on Election Day. Even though Florida voters have a negative view of him, they are optimistic about the next four years with him in control.”

FDLE not included The poll of 936 Florida voters was conducted from Jan. 22 to Feb. 1. That came amid a controversy about the way Scott and his aides ousted former Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey. Scott acknowledged last week that he could have “handled it better.”

The poll did not ask voters about the Bailey issue, so it is not clear whether the controversy affected opin-

HECTOR GABINO/EL NUEVO HERALD/TNS

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is shown visiting volunteers at his campaign headquarters in Miami on Aug. 26, 2014, the day of the primary election. ions of Scott.

But the governor, who has focused heavily during the past four years on economic issues, can take away some positive indicators from the poll.

For instance, 53 percent

of voters said they were generally optimistic about the next four years with Scott as governor, while 39 percent said they were pessimistic. Also, 59 percent said they thought the state of Florida’s economy was

good or excellent, while 38 percent said it was “not so good” or poor.

The Connecticut-based Quinnipiac frequently conducts polls in Florida and other states. The new Florida poll came at the same

time Quinnipiac surveyed votes in Ohio and Pennsylvania – with the states chosen because they are expected to be crucial during the 2016 presidential election.

Several missed opportunities to help slain girl Father accused of dropping Phoebe Jonchuck from Tampa Bay bridge

BY MARGIE MENZEL THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – A report released Monday by

the Florida Department of Children and Families shows that child-protective officials missed several opportunities to help Phoebe Jonchuck’s troubled family or to intervene in the last

days of her life.

In particular, the state abuse hotline did not act on two final calls on Dec. 29 and Jan. 7 – the last one coming less than a day before John Jonchuck was

accused of dropping his 5-year-old daughter from a bridge into Tampa Bay. Nor was the family referred for intervention services in 2013, when the hotline accepted a call about an earlier threat to Phoebe.

Protocol changed

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The report was the work of the Critical Incident Rapid Response Team, which Department of Children and Families Secretary Mike Carroll sent to Tampa to investigate after the girl drowned Jan. 8. The team was created last year as part of a sweeping childwelfare law that came after a series of child deaths.

As has been widely reported, the Jan. 7 call was made by John Jonchuck’s lawyer, who warned that Jonchuck was “driving all over town in his pajamas with Phoebe” and “seems depressed and delusional.” It was not investigated – and according to the report, “the counselor did not consult with a supervisor.”

Following the girl’s death, Carroll changed a hotline protocol to require an immediate response when a case involves a potential mental-health crisis.

Call not investigated The new report also revealed that on Dec. 29, a call “alleged past harm to Phoebe and current concerns regarding her living arrangements.”

In addition, on Jan. 8, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office had an open child-welfare investigation related to the girl’s mother, Michelle Kerr, and allegations of family violence, inadequate supervision and substance abuse, the report said.

The Dec. 29 call wasn’t investigated. The hotline counselor who took that call “informed the caller that the report was being investigated, but then terminated the call before verifying the address that had been given for Mr. Jonchuck.”

Hotline reorganization According to the report, the hotline counselor didn’t then call back the person who had made the report, as DCF protocol requires, to say it hadn’t been accepted after all.

“The Florida Abuse Hotline is in the midst of a reor-

After the death of Phoebe Jonchuck, the state has changed a hotline protocol to require an immediate response when a case involves a potential mentalhealth crisis. ganization and alignment with Florida’s new child welfare practice model that will impact every part of its operation,” noted the report. “However, it does not currently have a consistent quality assurance process to evaluate screened-out reports or a training plan to build internal expertise regarding mental health, substance abuse and domestic violence.”

The hotline reorganization began last month, and Sen. Eleanor Sobel, chairwoman of the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee, said she would examine the hotline issues during the upcoming legislative session.

Staff reassignments She also pointed out that in 2012, the Legislature spent $20 million to revamp the hotline so that counselors could quickly research a family’s history and send data to child-protective investigators.

“What kind of training do these people have? Who are their supervisors?” Sobel, D-Hollywood, asked.

“And how can we bring them up to speed so that they can size up a situation in a very short amount of time, given the information they’re given?”

Three of the hotline’s four supervisors and nine of its 220 counselors have been “reassigned to provide internal training and quality assurance,” according to the report.

Additionally, the report found that in 2013, the hotline accepted a call about

the Jonchucks, warning that “family violence threatens (the) child” – but that the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office, which conducted the investigation, did not refer the family for services that could have reduced the risk to Phoebe.

“The investigation initiated on June 7, 2013 should have resulted in a referral for services,” the report found. “The belief that the separation of the parents had remediated the primary safety threats for the family significantly impacted the direction of the investigation, while insufficient examination or interpretation of family functioning or lack of follow-up contributed to the investigation being closed without services in place.”

Impact of vacancies The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office released a statement that did not take issue with this finding.

However, sheriff’s spokeswoman Debbie Carter disputed another finding that “(t)he rate at which new cases are received and the number of ongoing staff vacancies” had a detrimental effect on the effectiveness of the child protective investigators.

“It is our opinion that the vacancies that we experience are challenging, but in no way had any impact on the Jonchuck case,” Carter wrote in an email.

“The Sheriff’s Office has a standard for hiring and will not compromise our standards in order to fill vacancies.”

EDITORIAL

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FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2015

The Carter G. Woodson legacy The racial differential in the poverty rate is staggering. Last time I checked, about 12 percent of people in the United States, one in eight people are poor. Depending on race and ethnicity, however, poverty is differently experienced. Fewer than one in ten Whites are poor, more than one in four African-Americans and Latinos are poor. Differences in occupation, income, employment and education are considered the main reasons for poverty, with current and past discrimination playing a role in educational, employment and occupational attainment.

Do something The three steps in social change are organization (especially protest), which leads to legislation (width pressure) and litigation (when legislation is not implemented). Often laws

DR. JULIANNE MALVEAUX TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

preventing discrimination have been passed but not adhered to, forcing litigation to get offenders to “do the right thing”. Of course, it takes more than a minute. It takes people who are committed to the long run. “The arc of the moral universe is long”, Dr. Martin Luther King said in 1964, “but it bends toward justice.

Dr. Carter Goodson Woodson understood the long arc when he founded the Journal of Negro History and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915. The organization and the journal have changed their names to reflect the nomencla-

ture of these times, and they are now called The Journal of AfricanAmerican History and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.

Both the organization and the journal have now existed for one hundred years which is perhaps why ASALH chose “A Century of Black Lives, History and Culture” as its 2015 theme. (ASALH, as founders of Black History Month, choose a theme each year). This year their focus on the long arc of African-American life in our nation and asserts that “this transformation is the result of effort, not chance.”

Woodson’s choices Dr. Carter G. Woodson made many choices that led to his education and to the creativity and brilliance that motivated him to uplift Black History through Negro History week, now called

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: BLACK HISTORY ABORTED

Black History Month.

Woodson was born the son of former slaves, and a family that was large and poor. By 28 he earned his bachelor’s degree. He was only the second African-American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard (WEB DuBois was the first). He was a member of the Howard University faculty; later he was the Dean. He wrote, “If you can contrail a man’s thinking, you don’t worry about his action. If you can determine what a man thinks you do not have to worry about what he will do. If you can make a man believe that he is inferior, you don’t have to compel him to seek an inferior status, he will do so without being told, and if you can make a man believe that he is justly an outcast, you don’t have to order him to the back door, he will go to the back door on his own and if there is no back door, the very nature of the man will demand that you build one.”

Not a state of mind In other words, poverty can be

Random thoughts of a free Black mind, v. 245 U.S. vs. ISIL – I’ve been critical of Bro. Prez’s general Middle East strategy. He’s been missing in action with regard to advocating for the rights of Palestinians, and has stood by and watched as Israel has aggressively moved to expand its territory.

He used the U.S. military to assist the same jihadists who are now America’s sworn enemy to kill Muammar Gaddafi – which plunged Libya into a civil war, got a U.S. ambassador killed, and eliminated Gaddafi, one of Africa’s historical visionaries.

One thing Obama has gotten right is his restraint in the battle against ISIS/ISIL. He’s refused to unconditionally commit American ground troops to the fight.

Now he’s forcing Congress to go on the record to make some hard decisions about whether somebody’s son, daughter (or both) will be deployed to fight in the Middle East – where the main American interest is protecting our access to relatively cheap oil.

I’ve written before that jihadists want to pull the United States into what is essentially a 1,300 year-old religious war between two branches of Islam, the Sunni (including Saudi Arabia) and the Shia (including Iran.) When Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the other Arab nations make a commitment to destroy ISIS/

QUICK TAKES FROM #2: STRAIGHT, NO CHASER

CHARLES W. CHERRY II, ESQ. PUBLISHER

ISIL and start deploying their own ground troops, perhaps America will have something to consider. Until then, all America should offer is reconnaissance, technical assistance, air support, and ammunition.

Not ONE drop of American blood should be spilled until the Arab nations decide to save themselves…

Super Bowl 49 – Everybody who’s played a team sport in high school or later knows that player selection and play calling can be political. In the pros, coaches insert players and remove players to allow them to achieve (or fall short of) financial incentives. Given that, is it hard to believe that Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll would prefer that “golden boy” quarterback Russell Wilson win the Super Bowl rather than the NFL’s worst public relations nightmare, Marshawn Lynch who’s shouting out to “real Africans”?

Contact me at ccherry2@gmail.com.

Opinions expressed on this editorial page are those of the writers, and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of the newspaper or the publisher.

THE CREDO OF THE BLACK PRESS The Black Press believes that Americans can best lead the world away from racism and national antagonism when it accords to every person, regardless of race, color or creed, full human and legal rights. Hating no person, fearing no person. The Black Press strives to help every person in the firm belief...that all are hurt as long as anyone is held back.

Section five Vital to the continuing fight was the Voting Rights Act, particularly section 5 which gave the Department of Justice the right of pre-clearance of any substantial change in voting procedures or laws in states that had a history of racial suppression of the vote. But in the 2013 Supreme Court case of Shelby County vs. Holder, the five person right-wing majority of the Court ruled, in an opinion written Chief Justice John Roberts, that Section 5 was outmoded and unnecessary, and thus a violation of the Constitution. This breathtaking leap of judicial activism disabled the key enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Immediately, Republicans across the country began to pass laws designed to constrict the vote, as well as elaborate gerrymanders designed to magnify the effect of White votes.

Voter suppression continues And these laws are having the effect intended. In North Carolina’s tight Senate

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race in 2014, Republican Tom Tillis beat incumbent Kay Hagen by about 43,000 votes (1.7 percent of the vote). Tillis had ushered through the state legislature one of the harshest voter suppression laws, eliminating seven days of early voting (and at least one Sunday of “get your souls to the polls” rallies at African-American churches), eliminating same day registration, forcing voters to vote in their own precinct and more. 700,000 voters had voted in the now eliminated early seven-day window in 2012, 200,000 in the 2012 bi-election.

100,000 largely African-American voters took advantage of same day registration in 2012. The voters eliminated may well have exceeded the vote margin.

Similarly in Florida, Governor Rick Scott reversed his predecessor’s reforms that allowed former convicts who had served their time to regain the right to vote. That disenfranchised far more than Scott’s margin over his Democratic opponent. In Florida, an ugly one in three African-American men is permanently disenfranchised. This is the new Jim Crow on the march.

Making registration and voting easy and accessible to minorities, students, the elderly, the disabled, the working class isn’t hard. We know what works.

Jesse Jackson is the president and founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. Click on this article at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

Super Bowl rematch needed “Every setback has a major comeback.#GreaterisComing.”

– Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks Quarterback, via Twitter (@DangeRussWilson) Far be it from me to join the legions of Monday morning quarterbacks for a game that has been, and will be, dissected for days, weeks and years to come. But whatever one may think of the outcome of the Seattle Seahawks’ decision to have QB Russell Wilson throw from the 1-yard line in Super Bowl XLIX’s nail-biting, final seconds, it accomplished something more than sealing the fates of two championship teams. It shifted our attention from “DeflateGate” and pre-game sniffles to Wilson – where arguably much of the focus before the big game should have been considering that this 26-year-old from Richmond, Virginia stood on the precipice of both NFL and American history.

‘Pass the peace’

W W W.FLCOURIER.COM

Julianne Malveaux is an author and economist based is Washington, D.C. Click on this article at www.flcourier.com.

Beyond the bridge: The suppression never ended The stirring film Selma ends with Dr. King leading civil rights marchers across the bridge and to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It will help a new generation of Americans appreciate that historic accomplishment.

But what should not be forgotten is that the passage of the Voting Rights Act wasn’t the end of the battle. The effort to suppress the rights of African-Americans to vote continued. Southern states and localities invented a range of techniques – from making voting and registration difficult to gerrymandering districts to get the right results. African-Americans made progress, but not without a fight.

GARY MCCOY, CAGLE CARTOONS

the reality of living, but it doesn’t have to be a state of mind. Many are trapped in poverty because that may be all they know, and because protest, legislation, and litigation have not provided passages out of poverty. No one provided a passage out of poverty for Woodson. He worked as a miner to earn a living, and he transcended his status as a miner to make a life of embracing his people and our history.

He is a role model and example for African-Americans today because, motivated by a desire to be educated, he fought his way out of poverty. There is a difference between thinking you can live like Carter G. Woodson, and thinking that you can’t. (Check out www.ASALH.org for more information on Carter G Woodson and his organization.)

So, with a media landscape as vast and varied as ours, why was this story drowned out by so much less-worthy noise in the days leading to the Super Bowl?

Whether you prefer to call it “DeflateGate” or “Ballghazi,” the allegation of underinflated balls is a serious one for the NFL to investigate. The act itself strikes at the very heart of the game and its obligation to fairness. But for a nation known for its love of feel-good, inspirational stories, putting a spotlight on Wilson’s historymaking rise could have been a reminder that cheating allegations do not define the pastime – and that “nice guys” are champions too. However, as many media chose to not focus on this angle, in the few words that I have here, I will.

Of course, there is more to Wilson than his prowess on the field. Last year, he launched “Pass the Peace,” an initiative to raise awareness and money for victims of domestic violence through his “Why Not You Foundation.” In an environment where the NFL remains under a cloud of scandal after a number of highprofile abuse cases, the story of Wilson’s effort to help combat this insidious prob-

MARC H. MORIAL TRICE EDNEY WIRE

lem should be able to generate as much press interest as Marshawn Lynch’s media stand-off or Patriots’ QB Tom Brady’s preSuper Bowl cold.

Keep evolving If history had been on the side of the Seahawks, the national conversation the morning after the NFL’s biggest game would have been about Wilson being the youngest starting quarterback ever to win two Super Bowls, the only one to win two Super Bowls in his first three seasons and the only Black quarterback to have more than one Super Bowl ring. Instead, many people are discussing an ill-fated pass that Wilson refuses to become his lasting legacy. Making his feelings clear on his Twitter account, he responded that “At 26 years old I won’t allow 1 play or 1 moment define my career. I will keep evolving. #Motivation.”

When Wilson was a teenager, his father, who died in 2010 from diabetes complications, would conduct mock interviews with him, asking him how he prepared for an imaginary Super Bowl in the future. This wasn’t his first Super Bowl run – and I have a strong feeling it will not be his last. I believe Wilson will rise above the noise of the NFL and the media’s silence both on-andoff-the-field and continue to make history.

The final-minute interception snatched a hard-fought victory from the Seahawks, but if Wilson’s story speaks to us in volumes about anything, it tells us that defeat will never have the last word in his game called life.

Marc Morial is president of the National Urban League. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2015

Oprah and Sharpton attack Black Lives Matter movement Al Sharpton and Oprah Winfrey are scared witless that the Black Lives Matter mobilization will become a sustained, independent political movement – one that challenges both the rich White rulers and their junior partners in the Black Misleadership Class.

The viciousness of Winfrey’s and Sharpton’s assaults on the new crop of organizers is a good barometer of the nascent movement’s effectiveness, to date, in discomforting the comfortable. If one thing is clear to African-American youth, it is that socalled Black leadership has been complicit in the catastrophe that has engulfed their communities – that the “leaders” are part of the problem, not the solution. Therefore, although the movement-inthe-making is not yet large and coherent enough to shake the foundations of the State or cause Wall Street to shudder, it has already created a crisis of legitimacy for the Black Misleadership Class.

GLEN FORD BLACK AGENDA REPORT

plished whores in Black American history.

Al Sharpton, a highly ecumenical prostitute who has serviced clients ranging from the most rightwing, down-and-dirty Republicans (Roger Stone, 2003-04); to plutocrats from Hell (Michael Bloomberg); to his current (but now endangered) hookup as the snitching King Rat and activismdeflator for a corporate Democratic president; a man who has lain down with whole kennels of flee-bitten dogs, now defames as “tricks” the young people who stood up to militarized police and dared to make grassroots politics a reality in 21st century America.

“Although the movement-inthe-making is not yet large and coherent enough to shake the ‘Being tricked’ foundations of the State or cause Sharpton’s and Winfrey’s de- Wall Street to shudder, it has alfense is to infantilize the young ready created a crisis of legitimacy activists, to deflect the implicit in- for the Black Misleadership Class.” dictment of what currently passes for Black leadership by fram- Pimp status ing the conflict as generational, The jackleg preacher with the rather than substantive. Sharpton signature pimp-adour hairstyle – launched into a panicked rant at a whose self-proclaimed heroes are recent meeting of his National Ac- not MLK or Malcolm X, but sports tion Network, in Harlem: “Anytime gangster Don King and entertainyou have movements, whether it’s er James Brown – appears to bein Ferguson, whether it’s in New lieve the young organizers are as York, whether it’s in Denver, wher- morally debased and materially ever it is, when they got you more obsessed as himself; that self-agangry at your parents then they grandizement is their real motivagot you at the vote you’re sup- tion. “And they play on your ego. posed to be out there for, you’re ‘Oh, you young and hip, you’re full being tricked and you’re trying to of fire. You’re the new face.’ All the turn the community into tricks. stuff that they know will titillate And they are pimping you, to do your ears. That’s what a pimp says the Willie Lynch in our commu- to a ho.” nity,” said one of the most accomSharpton is actually confessing

EDITORIAL

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VISUAL VIEWPOINT: RUBBER STAMP

to his own deepest yearnings.

The youth have scoped Sharpton’s whole card: he is a fraud, an activist-for-hire who has found his niche in the bosom of the beast.

But he strains to maintain the posture of Movement Man. “How you going to be more mad at folk that are marching for the same cause then you are against the folks y’all are marching against? Don’t you see a trick in there?” Sharpton asked.

Yes, they do – they see that Sharpton is the trickster, whose aim is to Shanghai Black people’s energies and grievances into service to the Democratic Party – just as did an earlier generation of misleaders. What followed was 45 years of demobilization, a “Winter in America,” as Gil Scott-Heron put it, “where “ain’t nobody fighting, cause nobody knows what to save.” The rulers used this long period of non-resistance to build the Black Mass Incarceration State that the Ferguson-inspired rebellion seeks to dismantle. To accomplish this, the new activists have no choice but to challenge the legitimacy of the State’s Black operatives, like Sharpton.

BILL DAY, CAGLE CARTOONS

opinions and privileges of Black billionaires, and wishes only that there were more of them. As Black Lives Matter activists have tried to remind her, they have been promulgating public demands and taking them to the streets since the middle of August. Oprah, the journalist, should know that. Her beef is the same as Sharpton’s: she rejects the validity of activism outside electoral politics. Indeed, for Oprah, periodic exercise of the ballot is the only serious kind of politics. Selma, the movie proValidation of self duced by her company, put words Oprah Winfrey, the media mo- to that effect in Dr. Martin Luther gul who began her self-marketing King’s mouth – a crime against journey on the beauty pageant cir- truth and Dr. King’s legacy. cuit, claims that the young activists don’t have goals. “I think it’s ‘Allegiance to power’ wonderful to march and to protest The problem with Winfrey and and it’s wonderful to see all across Sharpton is not their ages (61 and the country, people doing it,” she 60, respectively), but their allesays. “But what I’m looking for is giance to power. (Based on her some kind of leadership to come wealth, Winfrey is one of the very out of this to say, ‘This is what we few genuine Black members of want. This is what has to change, the ruling class, while Sharpton and these are the steps that we is a mere servant.) To describe need to take to make these chang- their conflict with the burgeones, and this is what we’re willing to ing movement as generational is do to get it.’” an insult, not only to young acWhat Oprah is really looking tivists, but to the Black strugglers for is a movement that reveres the of the sixties and early seventies,

some of whom remain in prison two and a half generations later.

Many of those who participated in the grassroots struggles of this period are only a couple of years older than Winfrey and Sharpton, but younger than lots of the misleaders in the Congressional Black Caucus.

The budding new movement confronts the same power relationships that crushed a previous generation of activists, leaving Black American political leadership in the hands of the most opportunistic, self-serving elements of the community – men and women who made common cause with the growing Mass Black Incarceration State. They are still in place, and more duplicitous than ever. The fight against them – that is, the internal Black struggle – is inseparable from the fight against what we used to call The Man.

Glen Ford is the executive editor of Black Agenda Report and can be contacted at Glen.Ford@ BlackAgendaReport.com. Click on this article at www.flcourier. com to write your own response.

Use patents to protect innovation, not restrict competition In December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit heard arguments in the long running patent war between Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. over claims that the South Korean tech firm infringed upon Apple’s design patents. While that case has been discussed quite broadly, there is another case with the same parties that has garnered less attention but could have severe consequences. This time around, Apple is claiming loss of market share and injury to its “reputation for innovation” – all due to Samsung’s alleged infringements.

For consumers, and particularly minorities, this case raises important questions of business competition, innovation, and social justice. That’s why the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) recently filed a brief in support of Samsung’s position. Patents serve a very useful purpose for protecting companies that innovate and invest in new technologies and products. But care should be taken to prevent a company from using its self-proclaimed “reputation for

HARRY C. ALFORD NATIONAL BLACK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

innovation” to “leverage” its patents for competitive gain far beyond what the intrinsic value of the patent should warrant.

Disputes of technology The dispute at hand now concerns three utility patents held by Apple: 1) recognizing certain patterns in data such as phone numbers and email addresses and linking them to actions like touch to dial; 2) “slide-to-unlock” to prevent accidental activation; and 3) automatically correcting spelling errors on the touchscreen. The courts awarded Apple $119 million plus supplemental damages for any future violations, and Apple sought a permanent injunction to bar Samsung entirely from using features of Samsung’s products found to infringe.

Injunction claims, as Apple is

asserting, have traditionally been applied where reputational harm was caused by consumer confusion over a product. Apple claims that it will suffer irreparable harm if its patented features are included in the “products of a less prestigious competitor” – a reason in itself for skepticism of the accusing brand’s intentions. NBCC thinks it is fair to state that consumers rarely, if ever, confuse Samsung and Apple devices generally, and would certainly not mistake them based on the three features in question.

That leads us to the court stating that in order to “satisfy the irreparable harm factor in a patent infringement suit,” a patentee must establish a strong causal nexus between the irreparable harm and alleged infringement. The lower court rightfully rejected Apple’s argument that the mere potential for harm to its “reputation as an innovator” does not justify injunction against Samsung.

If the features are as minor as to not even drive demand for the products at issue, then there is absolutely no reason to suggest

Racist Klansmen movie with Black-face is officially 100 years old Feb. 8, 2015 marks the 100-year anniversary of the airing of the film, The Birth of a Nation. This was one of the most racist, hateful and propaganda-based films released in America. It was originally entitled The Klansman, and the setting was cast during the postcivil war reconstruction era.

The film was produced by D.W. Griffith. The plot involved White men dressed in black-face depicting African-Americans as sex crazed, belligerent monsters with an uncontrollable urge to ravage white women for their pleasure and carnal desires. Various portrayals of ignorance and incompetence were also placed on the black-faced characters.

The cinematic portrayal of African-Americans as untamed monsters was propped up against White men and positioned the Ku Klux Klan as saviors or a res-

DR. SAMORI SWYGERT YOUR BLACK WORLD

cuing authority that would protect the white damsel in distress from black monsters.

The film exploited the medium of the performing arts. The production fostered and cultivated resentment between Blacks and Whites. It’s reported that there were many protests in Boston by AfricanAmericans and a pushback against the film by the NAACP. The irony of this film’s history is that it was actually shown at the White House.

Under President Woodrow Wilson, the film would become the first to ever

be screened at the White House. It has also been said that the film became a recruiting tool for the Ku Klux Klan. Furthermore, the motion picture made it to the Top 100 All-time American Films list of the American Film Institute.

100 years post-production of The Birth of a Nation, we still see the same tactics of character assassination of African-Americans through news outlets, music videos, and movies.

Let’s use the remembrance of this film to be more socially aware of how media can be used as a tool to manipulate public sentiment for a predetermined agenda.

Dr. Samori Swygert can be reached on Twitter @ Docswagg06. Click on this article at www.flcourier. com to write your own response.

that these isolated features are so percent of all American businesspowerful as to harm Apple’s very es and an even smaller – 4 percent reputation as an institution.

– of high-tech businesses.

Black owned businesses thereDamaging effects fore rely on open competition in Apple’s patents are meant to the technology sector, includserve as only a small part of its ing the ability to at least compete own complex, multi-feature de- on a level playing field with their vices. When Samsung and oth- more-established, better funded, er developers build products to patent-wielding rivals, in order to compete, their devices will inovercome these historic disparievitably have many similarities.

It is reasonably expected that ties.

The National Black Chamber of new ideas are built upon existCommerce is concerned that ining frameworks. The addition of a few alleged infringements on dustry leaders like Apple will misa feature will not drive consum- use their patents, and their claims er’s assumptions about the in- of needing to protect their reputanovativeness of the companies tions for “innovation,” to prohibit whose products they buy, and are legitimate competition from lesstherefore unlikely to lead to cata- established minority owned busistrophically harmful effects on a nesses. That’s bad not only for patentee’s reputation. But these minority inclusion and our comtypes of injunction claims can munities, but American business cause damage to companies, especially smaller ones without a competitiveness overall. global reputation and capital to support lengthy legal disputes.

Many of the Black owned businesses NBCC represents own patents, and many compete for business against others that own patents. Blacks today own only 5.5

Mr. Alford is the co-founder, President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce®.

Click on this article at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

When fashion clashes with religious customs I’ve been thinking a lot about curious customs lately in view of the first couple’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia – and the chatter over what the Washington Post called the first lady’s “fashion diplomacy.” Michelle Obama met the Saudi’s new King Salman dressed in dark pants and with her head uncovered.

It was a blatant political statement.

In Saudi Arabia, it is still illegal for women to drive or vote. The kingdom places a premium on access to education for males and females but with the exception of medical schools, educational institutions are segregated by gender. There are strict rules for the mingling of the sexes. Dress codes are just as strict, particularly for women. Women are expected to dress modestly and to cover their bodies from head to toe. Out of deference for this custom, Queen Elizabeth wore an ankle length dress and covered her hair during a state visit to Saudi Arabia in the 70s.

LEKAN OGUNTOYINBO NNPA COLUMNIST

bia, she has also been hailed for flouting the tradition of this desert kingdom.

To win the hearts and minds of those who think differently from us, it is important to first try and understand those differences and the rationale behind them. It is also important to strive to respect these customs whenever possible.

That’s precisely the same point Senegal’s president tried to impart a few years ago when the Obamas visited Senegal, another conservative, predominantly Muslim nation. In a speech, the American president urged his West African counterpart to lead his nation toward showing more tolerance for homosexual rights.

When in Rome In his response, the Senegalese presiViewed from a Western lens, such cus- dent firmly but politely told Obama to retoms may seem arcane, perhaps even spect his nation’s culture. backward. But are they? And is it disreMore Westerners need to hear that. spectful when outsiders insist on not following them?

Lekan Oguntoyinbo is a national While Michelle Obama has taken some award-winning journalist. Email him flak for not covering her hair during a at oguntoyinbo@gmail.com. Follow brief visit with her husband to Saudi Ara- him on Twitter @oguntoyinbo.

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FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2015

Voting Rights Act hearing called unnecessary Congressional committee’s decision angers civil rights leaders

BY JAMES WRIGHT TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sparked controversy on Jan. 14 saying that, “The Voting Rights Amendment Act” – which would restore the pre-clearance requirement by the Justice Department for states mainly in the South – “is not necessary.”

He has decided not to hold a hearing on the bill that would restore key elements of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and this has outraged African-American and civil rights leaders.

Goodlatte said the watered down Voting Rights Act (VRA) that is presently in effect protects voters from discrimination.

But Rep. George Butterfield (D-N.C.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, disagrees.

“I am deeply troubled that Goodlatte doesn’t think it is necessary to restore the Voting Rights Act,” Butterfield said. “We began this Congress very hopeful to build upon the bipartisan work of Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.).

If this is indeed the position of the entire Republican Conference, then they have clearly drawn a line in the sand – one in which they are on the wrong side of.”

More objections The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat. It has been renewed with amendments by Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush – all Republicans. However, the Supreme Court gutted Section 4B and 5 of the VRA that required states and lo-

President Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr. are shown at the signing of the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6, 1965.

Rep. George Buttterfield

Wade Henderson

cal jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting to approve election law and practices with the Justice Department.

The court’s conservative majority said the VRA was outdated and that Congress should update it to reflect the changes that have taken place.

Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, also disagrees with Goodlatte’s decision.

“Chairman Goodlatte has paid no attention to the rampant voting discrim-

ination still happening throughout the country, most recently in the 2014 midterm elections,” Henderson said. “The nowweakened [VRA] lacks the ability to protect voters from discrimination before they are denied the right to vote. The remedies that the chairman says still exist are costly and time consuming to pursue through the courts and decisions in these cases often come long after voters have been excluded from elections that they have every right to participate in.”

NAACP responds Hilary Shelton, Washington NAACP bureau chief, said his group met with Goodlatte last year to discuss legislation to restore the VRA to its original form.

“We made it clear that we supported hearings on the VRA and we have bipartisan support on this,”

Shelton said. Shelton said that representatives of the Virginia NAACP, including those who live in Roanoke, a major city in Goodlatte’s district, met with him, too.

One of the arguments anti-VRA advocates make is the election and re-election of President Obama in 2008 and 2012, respectively. They say that minorities cannot be considered disenfranchised when the country, still majority White, elected an AfricanAmerican to its top political position.

Obama backlash?

However, Kathleen Collier-Gonzalez, senior attorney and director of the voter protection for the Advancement Project, counters that view.

“The measure of success is not the re-election of an African-American president,” she said.

“You still have very serious problems in terms of peo-

ple who don’t having ‘acceptable’ voting identification and states reducing the early voting period and eliminating Sunday voting.

As a matter of fact, I think there is a backlash because of our first African-American president.”

Shelton said it was because of the VRA that Obama became president and it should be preserved as a tool to help people become more involved in politics.

Butterfield: Reverse it Collier-Gonzalez said government identification as the only acceptable form for citizens to be able to vote is similar to the poll taxes that some Southern states in the pre-Civil Rights era levied against its citizens with the subtle purpose of disenfranchising Blacks.

She notes that many

young people, seniors and low-income citizens don’t have government identifications that are acceptable to voter registrars.

Butterfield is urging the House Republican leadership to override Goodlatte’s decision.

“I call on Speaker [John] Boehner, Majority Leader [Kevin] McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise to reverse this decision and make restoring the VRA a priority,” the representative said. “The weakening of the VRA left millions of Americans vulnerable to discriminatory state laws.

To do nothing sends a terrible message, not only to minorities, but to anyone who believes the right to vote is essential to our democracy and way of life.”

This story is special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper.

Waitress’ blog post about interracial relationship creates viral stir “The first day it was kinda rough,” Green said.

“She likes to cry anyway, she gets emotional, sheds tears, gets shaky.”

BY ROY WENZL WICHITA EAGLE (TNS)

WITCHITA, Kan. — Before she got hate mail and death threats last Christmas, Ashlyn Sullivan was just a 20-year-old Wichita waitress working tables at a Buffalo Wild Wings.

But on Dec 22, Sullivan said, six drunken customers taunted her with racial slurs after she told them she dates a Black man. Sullivan is White. She thought about saying nothing, walking away. But she decided to make a stand.

She got up mad the next morning.

She found a photo of herself with her arms wrapped around her boyfriend’s neck.

She stuck it up alongside a fiery, poetic rant, as she calls it, that she composed on her personal blog.

Her blog post, “I am not dating a racial slur,” went viral almost instantly, collecting 300,000 page views that first day. More than a month later, it had 192,112 shares and more than 1.8 million page views. Also Cosmopolitan magazine had been in touch and had posted an update, written by her, describing her viral post and the hate it has prompted.

Death threats, hate notes In her original post, she denounced the drunks for snarling the “N” word at her. She described boyfriend Ra’Montae Green in lines that sound like blazing, chantlike poetry.

“I am dating a man with the smoothest brown skin, and curly hair. I am dating a respectable, hardworking

Pleasant life in Wichita

TRAVIS HEYING/WICHITA EAGLE/TNS

Ashlyn Sullivan and her boyfriend Ra’ Montae Green have been dating for a couple of years. man that would do anything to make me smile at the end of the day. I am dating a man who helps me buy groceries, wash laundry, and even clean my apartment even though he has other things to do, works 40 hours a week, and it’s not his job.”

The death threats began immediately. She had never received more than 181 page views on any blog post before; she’s just a waitress with a fondness for the written word. She

has no journalism or other formal training in writing; she wants to rescue children as a social worker someday. So she knows, she said, that her blog went viral in part because hate groups shared her blog with fellow haters.

She got death threats.

Hate notes. “And I got Bible verses,” Sullivan said.

“Verses from the Bible telling how God doesn’t want humans laying with animals.

And the hate is still com-

ing in, from anonymous attackers. Many of the comments she called up on her laptop in her apartment on a recent weekday used the hardest of hard-core obscenities and racial slurs.

“She’s just bragging about polluting the white gene pool.”

“Pleeease, liberal hordes of the world, pay me attention and tell me how such a good people and incredible person I am because I am dating a ——-. Please please pleeease.”

Green himself said these loons were clearly from out of town. This is only the second time he has ever encountered racism up close in 20 years of growing up in Goddard, Kan., and Wichita, he said.

About a month ago, he said, “an old White guy” at a stoplight pulled up alongside, extended a finger and called Green the “N” word.

Before that, no one in Goddard or Wichita had ever harassed him for being Black, he said. No one had harassed him for dating a White woman.

“I know that for some people in some places in Wichita, racism can be bad,” he said. “Other than that thing a month ago, the only time I’ve ever seen racism is in the movies. In Goddard, not to sound offensive here, but once you go to a White school for a while, everybody likes you.”

He and Sullivan grew up in Goddard and got serious about each other while working together at a McDonald’s in Goddard two years ago. They’d known each other for years before that, as kids.

He works full time at Protection One as a monitoring representative, he said. She works nearly full time as a waitress and goes to Butler Community College full time as a sophomore. She hopes to earn a degree in social work at Wichita State University,

she said. She wants to rescue children and puppies.

Green and Sullivan do not live together; they live in separate apartments.

Because Green told her to calm down and not worry about anonymous people, she’s coping now with all the hate notes.

And she’s glad she wrote what she wrote, especially what she wrote about Green.

Dating a man with a future It reads almost like a chant.

“I am dating a man that holds doors open for me and everyone else behind him EVERY TIME. “I am dating a man who has never been arrested, and doesn’t walk around acting like a fool.

“I am dating a humble man, someone who puts others before himself.

“I am dating a man who loves motorcycles, and music. I am dating a man with a future.

“I am dating a man with a great sense of humor. I am dating a man who cuddles his puppy like a newborn baby.

“I am dating a man that will eat hot Cheetos with me while binge watching Netflix.

“I am dating a man who tells me I look pretty in glasses, and pajamas that I haven’t taken off for two days in a row.

“I am dating a man who loves to cook, and is sooooo good at it.

“I am dating a man that spoils me.

“I am dating a man who loves God. “I am dating a man who loves me unconditionally.”

HEALTH FOOD || HEALTH TRAVEL | |MONEY SCIENCE | BOOKS | MOVIES | TV | AUTOS LIFE | FAITH | EVENTS | CLASSIFIEDS | ENTERTAINMENT | SPORTS | FOOD COURIER

IFE/FAITH

FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2015

Mellow vibe at Grammys See page B5

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

Caramel treats for your sweetheart See page B6

SOUTH FLORIDA / TREASURE COAST AREA

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WWW.FLCOURIER.COM

Black history KNOWLEDGE

3 What religious denomination was founded by Blacks who objected to sitting in a separate gallery during church services?

7 In 1924, Gwendolyn Brooks was the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize, winning for poetry. True or False?

8 The movie “Something The Lord Made” is based on the true life of:

6 Where was the first sit-in at a segregated lunch counter, staged by four Black students in 1960?

J E R RY W E S T / C H I C A G O T R I B U N E

CHUCK KENNEDY/MCT

O L I V I E R D O U L I E RYA B A C A P R E S S / M C T

12 Name the Edward P. Jones book that won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize.

11 What Supreme Court case established the “separate but equal” doctrine in 1896, laying the groundwork for Jim Crow laws all over the South?

13 Name the first Black male and female winners of the Grammy awards.

C O R E Y L O W E N S T E I N / M C C L AT C H Y N E W S PA P E R S

t’s Black History Month and time to focus on the outstanding achievements of African-Americans. Think you’re a Black history buff? Let’s see. Test your knowledge by tackling this Black History Month quiz. The quiz includes questions on entertainment, politics, religion, sports and more. No multiple choice guesses here. You’re on your own. You’ll find the answers at the bottom of the page.

2 Name the first Black actress to win an Academy Award for Best Actress.

4 President Barack Obama talks a lot about his mixed heritage. Identify where his mother and father were born.

5 What constitutional amendment, ratified in 1868, guaranteed equal protection under the law for all people?

9 Name the Black filmmaker who made a documentary about Hurricane Katrina.

10 Charles Waddell Chesnutt, an honoree in the popular Black Heritage commemorative stamp series issued by the U.S. Postal Service, is considered the first Black writer to receive major acclaim.

True or False?

14 What events prompted the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (popularly, the Kerner Commission) to warn in 1968, “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one Black, one White — separate and unequal”?

15 Who is Joseph Lowery?

J O H N N Y C R AW F O R D / AT L A N TA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION

ANSWERS: 1. Both the Chicago Bear’s Lovie Smith and the Indianapolis Colts’ Tony Dungy became the first Black head coaches to take their teams to the Super Bowl, when the two met in the 2007 game. The Colts won the game 29-17. 2. Halle Berry won the Best Actress Oscar in 2002 for her roll in “Monster’s Ball.” 3. African Methodist Episcopal. 4. Barack Obama, Sr., was born in Kenya. Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in Kansas. 5. The Fourteenth Amendment. 6. At a Woolworths department store in Greensboro, N.C. 7. False. Brooks became the first Black Pulitzer winner in 1950. 8.

Vivien T. Thomas, a Black surgical technician. 9. Spike Lee made the documentary, “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.” 10. True. 11.

Plessy v. Ferguson. 12. “The Known World.” 13. In 1958, both Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald won at the first Grammy Awards. 14. More than 100 inner city riots in the summer of 1967. 15. Rev. Joseph Lowery in a United Methodist minister and a leader in the Civil Rights movement. He delivered the benediction at the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama.

B

S

TEST YOUR

1 Name the first Black head coaches to lead their teams to the Super Bowl.

SECTION

CALENDAR & EVENTS

B2

FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Jacksonville: The legendary Diana Ross is scheduled on Valentine’s Day at the Florida Theatre Jacksonville, The Mahaffey Theater in St, Petersburg on Feb. 18 and Hard Rock Live Hollywood on Feb. 19.

Orlando: Catch rapper Waka Flocka Flame on Feb. 28 at Firestone Live.

FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2015

SHEILA E

Renowned drummer and singer Sheila E will perform at the 2015 Jazz in the Gardens. It takes place March 21-22 at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens.

Miami: The legendary Grammy-nominated gospel group will perform free along with the Miami Mass Choir on Feb. 22 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of MiamiDade County.

MIGHTY CLOUDS OF JOY

Jacksonville: Catch K. Michelle on March 1 at the Florida Theatre Jacksonville.

The show starts at 7:30 p.m.

The Mighty Clouds of Joy and Lee Williams will be at the War Memorial Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale on April 5.

St. Petersburg: The Ramsey Lewis Quintet with special guest Philip Bailey will perform Feb. 24 at the Mahaffey Theater.

Jacksonville: Actress and comedian Wanda Sykes takes the stage on Feb. 26 at the Florida Theatre Jacksonville. The show begins at 8 p.m.

Tampa: The Tampa chapter of the Florida A&M University National Alumni Association will host a scholarship gala on Feb. 20 at the Doubletree

by Hilton Hotel. The speaker will be FAMU President Dr. Elmira Mangum. More information: 813-238-7235.

Pompano Beach: A literacy fundraiser will feature a soul food dinner and blues by the Joey Gilmore band on Feb. 16 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

STOJ

KEVIN HART

Actor and comedian Kevin Hart has a show scheduled at the Germain Arena in Estero near Fort Myers on March 27. at the Jan Moran Collier City Learning Library, 2800 NW 9th Court. Details: 954-3577670.

Fort Lauderdale: Dr. Umar Johnson, a relative of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, will speak on Feb. 18 about the learning disabilities and their effect on Black children. The event starts at 4 p.m. at the African-

AKA’s regional conference coming to Orlando in April Sorority expected to bring more than $4.5 million to local community SPECIAL TO THE COURIER

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority will hold its 62nd South Atlantic Regional Conference April 15-19 in Olrando at the Rosen Shingle Creek. Nearly 5,000 members from Florida, Georgia and South Carolina are expected to attend, delivering an economic impact of more than $4.5 million dollars to the I-4 corridor and the Central Florida community.

During the conference, members will focus on five key program target arDorothy eas that address educaBuckhanan tional enrichment, famWilson ily strengthening, health awareness, environmental ownership and global impact issues.

Members also will collect and distribute backpacks in support of the sorority’s 1 million backpack initiative. Other special activities are planned for family members, guests and the community including

B-CU to launch environmental science and research programs with support of EPA The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Bethune-Cookman University (B-CU) will become official partners to incorporate programs in environmental science, research, education and workforce development.

The signing of a memorandum of understanding will be held at noon, Feb. 18 at the Mary McLeod Bethune Performing Arts Center Banquet Room, 698 West International Speedway Blvd., Daytona Beach.

According to B-CU President Dr. Edison O. Jackson, the partnership will prepare more minorities for careers in environmental science. As B-CU continues to progress and grow, the administrators could not overlook the need to offer avenues within environmental science and research,

American Research Library and Cultural Center, 2650 Sistrunk Blvd. More info: www.flccenter.org or call 754-242-4778.

West Palm Beach: The Eva Williams Mack Sickle Cell Foundation luncheon is March 7, 11:30 a.m. at the Palm Beach Airport Hilton.

More information: 561-8333113.

West Palm Beach: Gladys Knight takes the stage at the Kravis Center on March 5.

The show starts at 8 p.m.

Naples: Journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault will be the speaker at a March 15 Hattitude luncheon hosted by the Collier County Alumnae of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. www.Collierdeltas. org.

Tampa: Candy Lowe hosts Tea & Conversation every Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. at 3911 N. 34th St., Suite B. More information: 813-3946363.

St. Petersburg: The legendary Smokey Robinson performs April 12 at The Mahaffey Theater.

Tampa: Tickets are on sale

for the Nephew Tommy Comedy Tour featuring Thomas Miles at the University of South Florida’s Sun Dome on April 18.

Boca Raton: Catch the Four Tops, Supremes, Temptations, Miracles and Marvelettes at Florida Atlantic University’s Carole & Barry Kaye Performing Arts Auditorium on Feb. 14.

a HBCU college fair at Walt Disney World Resort.

Oldest sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) is the oldest Greek-letter organization established in America by Black women and was founded on Jan. 15, 1908, at Howard University. Led

by International President Dorothy Buckhanan Wilson, the organization connects thousands of college-trained women who give of themselves to support community service projects and scholarship programs.  Hostess chapters for the South Atlantic Regional Conference, consist of 11 graduate chapters and three undergraduate chapters from the Space Coast to Fort Myers. The South Atlantic Region is noted as the largest of the 10 regions in the sorority  The region, under the leadership of Regional Director Sharon Brown Harriott of Columbia, S.C., is comprised of 165 graduate and undergraduate chapters and 10,000 members.

With a membership internationally of over 265,000 women, the sorority has more than 986 chapters in the United States, the Caribbean, Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea and Africa.

Special recognition will be given to members who have served the sorority for 25, 50 and 75 years.

For more information, visit www.AKASouthAtlanticRegion.org. which is underrepresented by minorities, Jackson said.

Seven focus areas “This is a great accomplishment for BCU. We will now be able to efficiently compete for relative research grants and take advantage of other great environmental opportunities. Most importantly, we will open up many avenues for our students, faculty and surrounding communities, as well,� Jackson said.

B-CU and the EPA will focus their efforts in seven areas: faculty research participation, student internships and employment, technical assistance, staff/faculty appointments, seminars/mini courses, outreach programs, and infrastructure. The implementation of these initiatives will happen over a three-year period.

For more information, contact Keisha Pickett at Keisha@pickettpr.com or 813903-9247.

UNIVERSAL PICTURES AND FOCUS FEATURES PRESENT A MICHAEL DE LUCA PRODUCTION “MUSIC FIFTY SHADES OF GREY�EXECUTIVE DAKOTA JOHNSON JAMIE DORNAN JENNIFER EHLE AND MARCIA GAY HARDEN PRODUCED

BY DANNY ELFMAN PRODUCERS MARCUS VISCIDI JEB BRODY

BY MICHAEL DE LUCA p.g.a. E L JAMES p.g.a.

BASED ON SCREENPLAY DANA BRUNETTI p.g.a. THE NOVEL BY E L JAMES BY KELLY MARCEL DIRECTEDBY SAM TAYLOR-JOHNSON A UNIVERSAL PICTURE SOUNDTRACK ON REPUBLIC RECORDS

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LOCAL LISTINGS FOR STARTS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13 CHECK THEATERS AND SHOWTIMES

S

FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2015

BLACK HISTORY

B3

Rosa Parks Collection now open to researchers SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

The Rosa Parks Collection at the Library of Congress opened to researchers on Feb. 4, on the birthday of the civil-rights icon.

The collection contains about 7,500 manuscripts and 2,500 photographs.

Later this year, selected items will be accessible online. The Rosa Parks Collection is on loan to the library for 10 years from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.

From Monday, March 2 through Monday, March 30, a sampling of approximately two dozen items from the collection will be on view in three glass cases on the first floor of the Library’s

Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. The one-month display is free and open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

Drafts, writings, medals In addition, starting on March 7, several items from the collection will be included in the ongoing major exhibition “The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom,” which is open through Sept. 12, 2015. Located on the second floor of the Jefferson Building, the exhibition is free and open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Mon-

day through Saturday.

The Rosa Parks Collection includes personal correspondence and family photographs, letters from presidents, fragmentary drafts of some of her writings from the time of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, her Presidential Medal of Freedom, additional honors and awards, presentation albums, drawings sent to her by schoolchildren and hundreds of greeting cards from individuals thanking her for her impact on civil rights.

On Dec. 1, 1955, Parks was arrested when she refused to surrender her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus to a White passenger. The arrest led to the Montgom-

ery Bus Boycott, a seminal event in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

“The Rosa Parks Collection is a very important acquisition for the Library of Congress. Mrs. Parks has inspired people worldwide through her contributions to civil rights and her work with children. The Library is the ideal steward for her papers because people will be able to study Parks’ writing and activities alongside the records of many other civil-rights leaders and organizations,” said Helena Zinkham, director of Collections and Services at the Library of Congress.

For more information, visit the Library of Congress website at www.loc.gov.

PHOTOGRAPH BY MCLAIN’S PHOTO SERVICE.

Rosa Parks collecting NAACP membership dues of $2.00, likely during her trip to Los Angeles in 1956.

Book reveals range of reaction to Lincoln’s assassination the solemn public ceremonies, Hodes reminds us, African-Americans, abolitionists, members of the Republican Party, former Confederates, and northern “Copperheads,” expressed feelings of sadness, uncertainty, anger, gratitude and glee that reflected different understandings of the Civil War and what should come next.

BY DR. GLENN ALTSCHULER SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on Good Friday, April 15, 1865, a few days after General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate forces at Appomattox Court House, about a hundred miles west of Richmond, Va. When Lincoln died, at 7:22 a.m. the next day, at a boardinghouse across the street from Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., Secretary of War Edwin Stanton reportedly said, “Now he belongs to the ages.”

News of Lincoln’s death spread across telegraph wires, with dispatches and newspaper headlines often read aloud to bystanders.

Many mourners comforted themselves with the belief their grief was shared by all their fellow citizens.

It wasn’t. Drawing on the diaries, letters and other writings of more than 1,000

‘Part of everyday life’

REVIEW Mourning Lincoln. By Martha Hodes. Yale University Press.

396 pp. $30. “ordinary” Americans during the spring and summer of 1865, Martha Hodes, a professor of history at New York University, reveals the wide range of real-time reactions to Lincoln’s assassination.

Beneath the surface of

Although her book contains few surprises, Hodes does capture the depth of feeling stimulated by the assassination. The news, she points out, competed with more mundane concerns. And, given high child mortality rates, low life expectancy and frequent epidemics, it came at a time when death “was part of everyday life.”

For some, Hodes writes, the death of an intimate “eclipsed” the murder of Lincoln and the victory of the Union.

Nonetheless, Americans arrayed across the political spectrum sensed the assassination affected the nation’s future. Rodney Dorman, a Confederate lawyer from Jacksonville, was defiant. For the Emancipation Proclamation alone, he fumed, Lincoln deserved a public execution. Dorman was by no means certain that Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, would be able to control the fractured country he had inherited.

Return to slavery feared Black Americans, of course, had the most at stake. Laying claim “to a special place in the outpouring of sorrow,” many of them wondered whether the death of “The Great Emancipator” would bring a return of slavery.

“In what skin will the old snake come forth?” Frederick Douglass, the Black abolitionist, asked. Southerners, he feared, would re-

impose bondage and call it “some other name.”

Americans who wanted what Douglass called “an abolition peace” (government guarantees of land, education and voting rights for African-Americans), Hodes points out, suggested that the assassination was God’s way of removing Lincoln, who would have treated the South with “malice toward none and charity for all.”

It would rouse people to vigilance, ensuring the impotence of Confederates and the political power of the agents of reconstruction.

Paradoxically, when Lincoln was gone, mourners could again cast their martyred leader as an advocate of freedom and equality.

Unfinished work In the end, Hodes concludes, “revenge and its fruits came more readily, not to Lincoln’s mourners, but to his enemies.” To be sure, Congress did pass – and the states did ratify

– the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

President Johnson, however, pardoned Confederates and vetoed legislation aimed at “an abolition peace.” Ku Klux Klan riders became an intimidating presence in the South.

Following the election of 1876, the Confederacy was “redeemed” from Yankee rule – and White supremacy was restored. Had Lincoln lived, Frederick Douglass now claimed, with a prediction born of despair, “The negro of the South would have more than a hope of enfranchisement.”

George Conrad, an African-American from Oklahoma City, said simply – and accurately – “I don’t think his work was finished.”

Dr. Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He wrote this review for the Florida Courier.

BLACK HISTORY

B4

FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2015

STOJ

Barack Obama is the first African-American president of the United States. Here’s a look at other firsts for American Blacks in politics and law: EVENTS 1861 Civil War begins.

1863 President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing most slaves.

1865 to 1877 Reconstruction.

Constitution amended three times to provide equal rights to Black Americans.

1865 Civil War ends.

The 13th Amendment ratified, outlawing slavery.

1868 The 14th Amendment ratified, granting citizenship to any person born or naturalized in the United States.

1870 The 15th Amendment ratified, guaranteeing Black Americans the right to vote.

1896 Plessy vs.

Ferguson.

Supreme Court decides “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

1954 Brown vs.

Board of Education.

Supreme Court finds segregated public schools unconstitutional.

1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin.

— Karsten Ivey, Sun Sentinel

1865

J.S. Rock Lawyer admitted to practice before U.S. Supreme Court

1870

Hiram R. Revels U.S. senator (Miss.)

Joseph Rainey

U.S. Rep. (S.C.)

1865

Rev. Henry Highland Garnet Give a speech in the U.S. Capitol

1871

Jefferson F. Long Speak in House of Representatives as congressman (Ga.)

1872

Charlotte Ray Female lawyer allowed to practice in Washington, D.C.

1911

William Henry Lewis Appointed to a sub-Cabinet post

1926

Violette N. Anderson Female lawyer admitted to practice before U.S. Supreme Court

1967

Thurgood Marshall U.S. Supreme Court Justice

1944

Harry S. McAlpin Reporter to attend White House press conference

1955

E. Frederic Morrow Hold an executive position on a president’s staff

1960

1966

1977

1977

1989

1989

Andrew Hatcher Assistant presidential press secretary

Patricia Harris Female Cabinet secretary (HUD*)

L. Douglas Wilder Elected governor of a state (Va.)

1966

Robert C. Weaver Edward Brooke U.S. senator (first since Recon- Cabinet secretary (Housing and Urban struction) (Mass.)

Development)

1967

Carl Stokes Mayor of a large city (Cleveland)

1968

Shirley Chisholm Female U.S. representative

Clifford Alexander Jr. Secretary of the Army

Colin Powell Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

1992

Carol Moseley Braun Female U.S. senator (Ill.)

2000

Donna Brazile Manager of a presidential campaign

2001

Condoleezza Rice National security advisor Colin Powell Secretary of State

SOURCES: AFRICAN AMERICAN REGISTRY, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, INFOPLEASE.COM, BLACKPAST.ORG, MCT

PHOTOS COURTESY OF: MCT, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

STOJ

FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2015

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

Meet some of

FLORIDA’S

finest

submitted for your approval

B5

Think you’re one of Florida’s Finest?

E-mail your high-resolution (200 dpi) digital photo in casual wear or bathing suit taken in front of a plain background with few distractions, to news@flcourier. com with a short biography of yourself and your contact information. (No nude/ glamour/ fashion photography, please!) In order to be considered, you must be at least 18 years of age. Acceptance of the photographs submitted is in the sole and absolute discretion of Florida Courier editors. We reserve the right to retain your photograph even if it is not published. If you are selected, you will be contacted by e-mail and further instructions will be given.

Florida Courier photojournalists have been onboard past Tom Joyner Foundation Fantastic Voyage cruises.

We’re featuring some of the “Finest” cruisers. This year’s cruise is April 1115. Details: http:// fantasticvoyage. blackamericaweb. com.

PHOTOS BY TONY LEAVELL/ FLORIDA COURIER AND DELROY COLE/ FLORIDA COURIER

Grammys 2015: A mellow vibe, powerful singing EURWEB.COM

Sam Smith may have been the big winner at this year’s Grammy Awards, but a mellow vibe with powerful singing stole the show.

For Smith, the night was his as he took home Grammys for song of the year and record of the year for “Stay With Me” as well as best new artist and best pop vocal album for “In the Lonely Hour.”

“Thank you so much for breaking my heart. You bought me four Grammys,” Smith said during his final acceptance speech about the man who inspired “Stay With Me.” In addition to collecting Grammys, Smith also performed the remix to “Stay With Me” with a radiant Mary J. Blige and a backing orchestra.

New spin on ‘Happy’ Other winners included Pharrell Williams, who took home best pop song for “Happy,” which he put a new spin on with a spoken word beginning that segued in to a display of opera and gospel styling’s along with a break for a piano solo as choir members in white came down the aisle.

Beyoncé also did double duty as she accepted the best R&B performance Grammy for “Drunk in Love” and came back at the end of the more than three and a half-hour Grammy broadcast to help close the show with a stirring rendition of “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.”

The performance, which included dancers dressed in white making the hands up, don’t shoot sign in unison, was part of a mini-tribute to the film “Selma” that concluded with an equally grabbing performance of the Academy Award-nominated tune “Glory” from John Legend and Common, who warmed up for their time on the Oscars stage while taking the audience into the message of the song

Beyonce wears an angelic-looking gown for her performance of “Precious Lord’’ at the Grammys. She asked to sing the song at the awards program. Ledisi performed it in “Selma.’’

with thoughtful hand gestures and movements with an all-male choir in the background.

Music legends perform In all, there were 23 performances during the Grammys this year as Kanye West took to the stage for a solo performance of his Paul McCartney collaboration “Only One” before gathering the former Beatle and Rihanna for a stripped down epic performance of Ri-Ri’s new single “FourFiveSeconds.

Other performers included Madonna singing amongst an army of horned masked dancers for “Living for Love,” Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga proving good music crosses all generational lines with “Cheek to Cheek,” Sia being present via her voice and Kristen Wiig for “Chandelier” and Miranda Lambert brining some “backyard swagger” with “Little Red Wagon.’’

In addition, there was Ariana Grande doing the serious crooner thing with “Little Bit of Your Heart” and Hozier and Annie Lennox performing his hit “Take Me to Church” and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ classic “I Put a Spell On You,” of which Lennox made sure to let everyone know that she did indeed come to sing as she took over the set.

‘Precious Lord’ slight On the Grammy red carpet, Ledisi was asked about the show’s decision to have Beyonce sing “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” during a “Selma” segment, when Ledisi – who was in the building – actually sings the gospel standard in the film as part of her portrayal of Mahalia Jackson.

“I don’t have a clue,” she told “ET’s” Kevin Frazier, “but I will say what I’m excited about is I got the chance to play an iconic figure in ‘Selma’…”

She continued her pivot toward the film, then gracefully

the song - no spirit, no soul, no feeling. And singing gospel in a see thru gown. How trifling.’’

Standing ovation for Prince

Above left: Sam Smith wins four awards for his song, “Stay With Me.’’ Above right: Best Jazz Vocal Album winner Dianne Reeves accepts her award at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony on Feb. 8 in Los Angeles. brought it back to Beyonce, giving Mrs. Carter her props in a lineage of female vocalists who have performed the gospel classic.

Ledisi fans outraged Ledisi said she’d rather look at it “like that, instead of looking at it as a negative.”

But Ledisi’s fans were upset.

After all, Golden Globe win-

ners Common and John Legend did their “Selma” song, “Glory” at the awards show. So why was Ledisi told to take a seat?

“No one is saying Beyonce shouldn’t perform at #GRAMMYs. What we’re saying is it should be Ledisi performing the song for #Selma perf,” one fan tweeted.

Another fan stated on Eurweb’s website: “Beyonce did a poor job of so-called singing of

While performers provided heartfelt and powerful vocals to earn their applause, one presenter commanded a standing ovation from just his presence alone.

While presenting the Grammy for album of the year, Prince provided a bit of real talk while making one of the best statements of the night which rang true for music artists as well as those watching at home.

“Albums still matter,” he said.

“Like books and Black lives, albums still matter.

For those curious, album of the year went to Beck for “Morning Phase.” Shades of the MTV Video Music Awards were recalled as West almost stormed the stage to steal the spotlight away from Beck like he did Taylor Swift back in 2009. Fortunately, it was all in good fun as Yeezy sat down with a smile on his face and Beck began his acceptance speech.

For the full list of winners, visit www.grammy.com.

B6

FOOD

FEBRUARY 13 – FEBRUARY 19, 2015

TOJ

some love caramel Time to show

BY JUDY HEVRDEJS CHICAGO TRIBUNE (TNS)

Chocolate may be the go-to sweet for Valentine’s Day, but it’s time to show caramel a little love.

It’s been relegated to a supporting role in beribboned boxes of candy for too long.

So this year, we’re letting caramel star.

Golden brown caramel is versatile enough to hold its own as a candy, plain or embellished with sea salt or a dip in chocolate. Tuck a softer version of its buttery sweetness between cake layers or use it to sandwich cookies. As a sauce, it gilds so many desserts.

It begins simply enough by caramelizing sugar — gently melting until it begins to turn golden brown — then adding milk or cream.

“Transforming cloying white sugar into nuanced teetering-on-the-edge-of-bitter caramel is an example if what I love most about cooking,” writes Martha Holmberg in “Modern Sauces” (Chronicle Books, $35). “You can start with one thing and you turn it into another, much better thing.”

So why don’t more people make it from

GINGER CARAMEL SAUCE Prep: 20 minutes Rest: 20-30 minutes Cook: 25 minutes Makes: 1 1/2 cups In this recipe adapted from Martha Holmberg’s “Modern Sauces” (Chronicle Books, $35), fresh ginger delivers spicy heat and citrus notes. The author suggests serving the sauce with apple desserts.

1 cup whipping cream 1 1/2 tablespoons peeled, finely grated fresh ginger 1 cup granulated sugar 1/4 cup water 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt Combine cream and ginger in a small, heavy saucepan; heat just to a simmer over mediumhigh heat. Remove from heat; let cream infuse, 20 to 30 minutes. Taste cream; if not gingery enough, let stand another few minutes. Strain through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl, pressing gently on the solids. Do not press hard or cream will have a vegetal taste.

Combine sugar and water in a medium, heavy saucepan; heat to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring just until sugar is moistened. Let mixture boil without stirring, but with an occasional swirl of the pan, until it is a deep amber and smells like caramel, 9 to 11 minutes. Caramel will be very hot. Remove saucepan from heat. Carefully add a little ginger-infused cream; caramel will bubble up furiously.

Return pan to low heat. Whisk in remaining cream a little at a time to avoid bubbling over, then whisk in butter and salt. Continue whisking another minute until sauce is very smooth.

Remove pan from heat; let sauce cool in pan. It will thicken as it cools. Serve warm or at room temperature. Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks.

Nutrition information per tablespoon: 76 calories, 5 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 16 mg cholesterol, 9 g carbohydrates, 0 g protein, 14 mg sodium, 0 g fiber

Consider making these homemade treats for your valentine scratch? Perhaps there’s the fear of failing.

The key to success, no matter the method: Ready all ingredients before you start cooking, then pay attention, especially as the mixture starts to color. In a matter of seconds, it can go from perfect to burned.

Should you mess up (i.e. the sugar browns too much so it has a burned flavor or it crystallizes and gets lumpy), dump it and start again, suggests Holmberg. Most importantly, she cautions, respect how very hot the caramel is and keep little kids, dogs and cats away from the stove when making it.

Ker-e-mel or kar-mel?

There is one other issue with caramel: How you pronounce it. Do you give the sweet confection three syllables — ker-e-

SOFT CARAMELS Prep: 30 minutes Cook: 20 minutes Makes: about 72 pieces Adapted from “Chocolates and Confections at Home with the Culinary Institute of America” (Wiley, $34.95). You’ll need a candy thermometer for this one because cooking it to the right temperature is crucial, notes chef-author Peter P. Greweling. Undercooked caramel will not hold its shape, and overcooked caramels will be too hard to bite.

He suggests leaving caramels plain or dipping them in melted chocolate. We sprinkled ours with a pinch of sea salt.

1/2 cup water 2 cups sugar 1 vanilla bean, pod split lengthwise and seeds scraped 1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk

mel or ka-ra-mel? Or do you trim a syllable and call it kar-mel?

Before you start arguing, consider this.

Several years ago, Josh Katz, then a doctoral candidate in statistics at North Carolina State University, crunched data from a Harvard Dialect Survey, then created maps showing regional dialect variations in the U.S. for many words, including caramel.

Those on the East Coast and South apparently prefer three syllables, while folks west of the Ohio River favor dropping an A for the two syllable pronunciation, according to Katz, who is now a New York Times graphics editor.

Argue if you like over how to pronounce it, but try it and give its prep your undivided attention.

Caramel-making tips Caramels tend to foam during cooking. Use a saucepan larger than you might think for the amount of ingredients (at least three times the volume) to prevent boil-overs.

• Do not use a pan with a nonstick surface; caramel temperatures are too hot for it.

1 cup light corn syrup 1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened 1 teaspoon salt Butter well a 9-by-13-inch baking pan.

Combine water, sugar, vanilla bean pod and seeds, condensed milk, corn syrup and butter in a heavy-bottomed 4-quart saucepan. Heat to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly with a heat-resistant rubber spatula. Continue stirring while cooking, lowering heat to medium-high or medium, to keep mixture at a gentle boil, until mixture reaches 245 degrees on a candy thermometer.

Remove saucepan from heat; stir in salt.

Pour into prepared pan; use a fork to remove vanilla bean pod. Cool completely at room temperature, at least 2 hours. Remove sheet of caramels from pan. If caramel sticks, use an offset spatula to loosen from the pan. Cut into desired size pieces; we cut them about 1 by 1

SALTED CASHEW CARAMEL CHOCOLATE TARTLETS Prep: 20 minutes Cook: 12 minutes Makes: 12 to 18 tartlets Adapted from Nick Malgieri’s “Pastry” (Kyle Books, $29.95). He suggests almonds as an alternative to the cashews and finishing each tart with a pinch of fleur de sel. For the tartlets, use a flaky buttery dough or French-style cookie dough; we found store-bought rolled crusts worked well too. You’ll need enough dough for a 9-inch double-crust pie.

Filling: 2 tablespoons water 2/3 cup sugar 1 tablespoon honey 1/3 cup whipping cream 1/2 cup roasted salted cashews, rubbed in a paper towel to remove excess salt, chopped into 1/4-inch pieces 12 fully baked 2 1/2-inch tartlet crusts Topping: 3 ounces dark chocolate (60 percent cocoa solids), melted, cooled 1/2 cup whipping cream 1 tablespoon light corn syrup For the filling, combine water and sugar in a medium saucepan; stir to mix. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until syrup turns a deep amber caramel color.

Meanwhile, stir honey into cream in a small saucepan; heat to a slight simmer over low heat. Cover; set aside.

When the sugar mixture is ready, remove pan from heat and begin pouring in hot cream-honey mixture a little at a time to avoid caramel boiling over. Stir until caramel is smooth, returning pan to heat for a few seconds if caramel hardens.

Stir in cashews. Divide filling among baked tartlet crusts, using about 1 tablespoon for each and filling within 1/4-inch of the top.

For the topping, place chocolate in a mixing bowl. Heat cream and corn syrup to a simmer in a saucepan over medium heat; pour over chocolate. Whisk smooth.

Spoon topping onto each tartlet, smoothing surface. Cool tarts to room temperature.

Nutrition information per serving: 176 calories, 11 g fat, 5 g saturated fat, 15 mg cholesterol, 18 g carbohydrates, 2 g protein, 84 mg sodium, 1 g fiber

1/2 inches. Wrap individually in cellophane or waxed paper if they won’t be consumed in a day or two.

Nutrition information per serving: 70 calories, 2 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 7 mg cholesterol, 12 g carbohydrates, 0 g protein, 43 mg sodium, 0 g fiber Note: A candy thermometer is the most accurate way to test the temperature of cooking sugar syrup. Experienced cooks, suggests Greweling, will find this reasonably accurate. For these soft caramels, a second method can help determine the exact point when the proper texture is reached. At 240 degrees, begin using the spoon to remove small samples of syrup from the saucepan and immerse in ice water. After several seconds, remove sample from ice water; squeeze between your thumb and forefinger to evaluate consistency. Caramel is properly cooked when the cooled piece is firm but not hard.