Florida Courier - April 10, 2015

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APRIL 10 – APRIL 16, 2015

VOLUME 23 NO. 15

DEPARTMENTAL DISGRACE

Florida legislators refuse to take strong measures to control the violently dysfunctional Florida Department of Corrections despite the arrest of White supremacist prison guards who plotted to kill a Black ex-inmate.

COMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS

Thomas Jordan Driver – a Florida prison guard until last week – is getting a taste of life on the other side of the bars.

Driver and two buddies, all of whom prosecutors say belonged to an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan, were charged with plotting to kill a former inmate at a North Florida prison.

Driver, 25, David Elliot Moran, 47, who goes by the name “Sarge,” and Charles Thomas Newcomb, identified as an “Exalted Cyclops” of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, each face one charge of conspiracy to commit murder. If convicted, they could get a maximum sentence of 30 years imprisonment.

Unarmed, shot dead S.C. cop charged with killing fleeing Black man

More drama

ruling that dismissed their First Amendment claims about facing retaliation for reporting alleged wrongdoing in the prison system.

Attorneys for inspectors Aubrey Land, David Clark, Doug Glisson, John Ulm and James Padgett filed a notice of appeal last week with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case, in part, stems from claims of retaliation related to information that inspectors disclosed about the 2010 Franklin Correctional Institution death of inmate Randall Jordan-Aparo and a potential cover-up.

But Senior U.S. District Judge William Stafford on March 4 dismissed the inspectors’ complaint against high-ranking officials at Appeal filed the Department of Corrections On Wednesday, five DOC in- and in Gov. Rick Scott’s adminisspectors appealed a federal judge’s tration.

The arrests are the latest blow to Florida’s Department of Corrections (DOC), which has endured months of news stories about unexplained inmate deaths and allegations of systemic corruption.

The arrests come after months of turmoil in the state’s prison system, including allegations of suspicious inmate deaths, a doubling of use-of-force incidents in the past five years, and claims by whistleblowers that investigations into corruption and inmate abuse within the DOC have been ignored or torpedoed.

COURTESY OF ALACHUA AND UNION COUNTY JAILS

Thomas Driver, left, and David Moran, center, were both Florida correctional officers. Charles Newcomb unsuccessfully applied for a job as a correctional officer.

‘Mental stress’ Moran and Driver were guards at the state’s Reception and Medical Center, a prison that processes incoming inmates and provides medical care to others. Located in Lake Butler, it houses a maximum of 1,503 inmates. Newcomb was a former prison employee who was let go during his probation period.

The three are alleged to have plotted the murder as retaliation for a fight between the unidentified inmate, who is Black, and Driver. In a secretly recorded conversation with a federal informant, Driver complained that the inmate had a contagious disease and that the prisoner had tried to infect him by biting him.

See DISGRACE, Page A2

2015 NCAA WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Huskie women celebrate in Tampa

COMPILED FROM STAFF REPORTS

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. – A South Carolina police officer was charged with murder in the shooting death of an unarmed Black man after police obtained a video that showed him unleash a volley of gunfire while the victim ran away, officials said.

North Charleston Police Officer Michael Thomas Slager was charged Tuesday in the death of 50-year-old Walter Lamer Scott.

The charges were filed less than an hour after the city’s mayor and police chief received a cellphone video recorded by Feidin Santana, a native of the Dominican Republic who worked at a nearby barbershop.

Santana brought the video to Scott’s family, who turned it over to state law enforcement officials, North Charleston Mayor R. Keith Summey told reporters.

The video shows Scott fleeing as Slager fires at least eight shots in his direction.

“It’s not about race. It’s about power,” attorney L. Chris Stewart, who is representing the Scott family, said in a telephone interview with the Los Angeles Times. “That officer thought he could just shoot this man. He thought Mr. Scott was expendable.”

Stop turns tragic The clash between Slager and

CLOE POISSON/HARTFORD COURANT/TNS

The University of Connecticut women’s basketball team erupts in celebration after defeating Notre Dame, 63-53, Tuesday in the NCAA Championship game at the Amalie Arena in Tampa.

It is UConn’s 10th national women’s basketball championship.

See SCOTT, Page A2

SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3

BY STEPHEN DEERE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH / TNS

Scott flipflips on Medicaid expansion NATION | A6

115 in U.S. killed by cops last month BUSINESS| B3

SPORTS| B4

Gator meat in big demand in Florida

Mission accomplished for Duke freshmen

ALSO INSIDE

Ferguson City Council will include three Blacks FERGUSON, MO.– For the first time in Ferguson’s 120-year history, its city council will have three Black members.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the results for the Ferguson City Council election was that 30 percent of the city’s 12,738 registered voters cast ballots – more than double the typical turnout.

In any other year, it is not uncommon for candidates in Ferguson to run uncontested, and turnout typically hovers around a paltry 12 percent.

But in the aftermath of the

Brown shooting, numerous protests, riots and federal investigations, the election featured eight candidates vying for three council seats, and it attracted the attention of media outlets from California to New York.

Ferguson’s population is 67 percent Black, but as of Tuesday, just one of six council seats was held by a Black: Dwayne James in the 2nd Ward.

Favored candidates lost In the 1st Ward, Ella Jones, a Black woman, garnered nearly 50 percent of the vote in a fourway race. But the high turnout did not favor two candidates

supported by protesters: Bob Hudgins and Lee Smith.

Hudgins, a self-identified protester and independent journalist who ran in the 2nd Ward, lost to former Mayor Brian Fletcher, founder of the “I love Ferguson” campaign.

Smith, a retiree, ran against Wesley Bell in the 3rd Ward. Bell is a municipal court judge in nearby Velda City.

Current Ferguson Mayor James Knowles won an uncontested race last year. But he may soon be forced to mount another campaign; a group of residents recently announced they would work to recall him from office.

Work to do The next council will be seated in the middle of significant upheaval.

Both City Manager John Shaw and Police Chief Thomas Jackson resigned after a Department of Justice investigation accused the city’s police department of routinely violating residents’ civil rights and acting as a collection agency for Ferguson’s municipal courts.

Nancy Cambria and Nicholas J.C. Pistor of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

COMMENTARY: CHARLES W. CHERRY II: RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A FREE BLACK MIND | A4 COMMENTARY: GLEN FORD: WHEN THE JIHADISTS TURN ON THEIR MASTERS | A5

A2

FOCUS

APRIL 10 – APRIL 16, 2015

JOHN WOIKE/HARTFORD COURANT/TNS

University of Connecticut Head Coach Kevin Ollie is one of a handful of African-American who are coaching big-college basketball teams.

Recent firings sound alarms for Black college coaches

BY SHANNON RYAN CHICAGO TRIBUNE / TNS

When Tracy Dildy was growing up, watching men like Nolan Richardson roam the sideline at Arkansas and John Thompson win an NCAA Tournament championship at Georgetown inspired his career choice.

Now the former DePaul assistant and current Chicago State head coach wonders about the future of his profession.

“Is the African-American coach becoming extinct?” he asked. “I’m wondering is anyone paying attention?”

Blacks fired The names of fired coaches came in a flurry as they do every season. But this season, almost half were Black.

Eleven of 25 coaches who left their positions are African-American, eliminating many positions from an already small fraternity.

Two of the coaches were from Chicago teams: DePaul’s Oliver Purnell, who resigned, and the University of Illinois Chicago’s Howard Moore, who was fired.

Disturbing trend An annual report from Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport noted that head coaching opportunities for people of color “declined significantly” in 2013-14. Just 22 percent of men’s Division I basketball coaches were African-American, down from 23 percent the year prior.

The all-time high for Black head coaches came in 2005-06 when 25.2 percent were African-

American. The lowest rates came in 2011-12 when only 18.6 percent were African-American.

The inequity is striking given that 58 percent of college basketball players are African-American and nearly every bench includes at least one Black assistant.

“We can talk about rules and one-and-dones, but this is the elephant in the room,” said Richard Lapchick, the institute’s director.

“We’re silent on issues of race and gender.”

Replaced with Whites Of the eight African-American coaches who have been replaced, seven have been with White coaches. Of the 25 openings in college basketball, two Black coaches have been hired, Dave Leitao at DePaul and Shaka Smart at Texas.

SCOTT

DISGRACE from A1

“That blood work … I had to go through,” Driver said. “The mental stress of it … I wouldn’t want anybody to have to go through that.”

Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones said that the three were “part of a White supremacist group that was targeting inmates.” She called the incident “disquieting.”

Small group The Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is headed by a Missouri man, selfproclaimed Imperial Wizard Frank Ancona, who has made headlines lately for trying to modernize his Klan group while remaining faithful to its Whitesupremacist origins.

The Knights’ website allows followers to join the group online, and provides a 24-hour “Klanline” for prospective members. Ancona’s “official” Twitter account has 741 followers. Ancona wears a white robe and poses before a flaming cross in his profile picture.

In recent months, the group’s activities have consisted largely of distributing leaflets, including a flier last November in which the group threatened to use “le-

Donors, search firms Many coaches point to the increased influence of big-money donors and the common use of search firms to identify candidates rather than old-fashioned networking by athletic directors.

Merritt Norvell was one of a handful of Black athletic directors when he worked at Michigan State before becoming an executive vice president at the search firm DHR International. He said his firm is committed to presenting the most diversified pool of coaching candidates.

“There is some truth that the search firms can influence the selection,” he said. “But for the most part, we present what the institution is looking for. But we should also present a diversified group. There’s enough qualified candidates to do that.”

Frazier said university presidents and athletic directors need to “work harder.”

“It takes majority males to be part of the solution too,” said Frazier, who’s conducting doctoral research on racial and gender barriers in sports administration.

Recruiters, not coaches Connecticut coach Kevin Ollie

Different story

from A1

Scott followed an April 4 traffic stop.

In the video, Scott, wearing a green T-shirt, appears to drop something near the officer’s feet and sprints in the opposite direction. The officer fires seven times, pauses, and then fires an eighth round as Scott slumps to the ground.

When the officer fires, Scott appears to be 15 to 20 feet away and he falls after the last of eight shots.

Some of the shots hit him in the back, the family’s lawyer said.

The officer then walks slowly toward Scott’s prone body and begins yelling, “Put your hands behind your back,” the video shows. Other officers are then seen arriving as Santana mutters

The numbers are even more dire for African-Americans coaching women’s teams. That number dropped from 20.6 percent in 2012-13 to just 14.3 percent the following year.

These issues are quite obviously on display during college basketball’s marquee event. In the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16, there were no Black coaches in the men’s field.

“I don’t think any one particular race or any group has cornered the market on basketball knowledge,” former Notre Dame assistant and ex-Toledo head coach Gene Cross said. “You can’t just throw out a blanket statement and say (Black coaches) are hired and fired because of race. It goes a lot deeper than that. But it is a factor and it should be part of the conversation.”

“It’s hard to say, ‘Oh, it just worked out that way,’ ” Northern Illinois athletic director Sean Frazier said. “Our business is built on outcome. You have to get those things right. But I am alarmed by the numbers. It looks nefarious.”

COURTESY OF YOUTUBE

Walter Scott was shot eight times by North Charleston (S.C.) Police Officer Michael Thomas Slager and died almost instantly. the word “abuse” as well as profanities.

The officer then runs to where the original confrontation takes

place and picks up something off the ground. Moments later, he drops an object near Scott’s body.

thal force” against protesters in Ferguson, Missouri – the group called them “terrorists” – who were holding rallies following the shooting death of a Black man by a White police officer.

Although Ancona claims his group has attracted thousands, a spokesman for the Alabamabased Southern Poverty Law Center, which long has tracked hate groups, said he would be “shocked if there were 100 members.”

added that the group could “do a complete disposal,” and “chop up the body.”

Eventually, court records say, the three men agreed to allow the federal informant to arrange the murder, and the federal “source” later showed the three men staged pictures of the man’s corpse.

“Are you happy with that, brother?” the informant asked Driver, a transcript says.

“Yes, sir, very much so,” Driver reportedly replied.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters during a conference call late Thursday that the case will be tried in Columbia County by Statewide Prosecutor Nick Cox.

Phony hitman The investigation began in November 2014 when Driver, Moran and Newcomb sought the help of the unidentified federal informant, referred to in court papers as ‘CHS’, which stands for confidential human source. The informant was recruited to help the three alleged Klan members commit the killing, records show.

Newcomb, Moran and the informant drove to Palatka, near Gainesville, a sworn statement says, to “conduct surveillance” of their target’s home. They also discussed how they would kill the man, alternating between shooting him with a 9mm gun or injecting him with insulin.

“We could grab the package up and take him to the river, which is not far from him,” Newcomb is quoted as saying, and “put his ass face-down and uh, give him a couple of shots.” Moran later

Checkered histories Driver, hired as a corrections officer on July 23, 2010, received a written reprimand in April 2012 for willful violation of rules, and another two months later for absence without authorized leave.

Moran, whose employment history goes back to 1996, was promoted to sergeant in April 2004. He received written reprimands in October 1999 and February 2006 for conduct unbecoming a public employee, and a supervisory counseling memorandum in May 2010 for abuse of sick leave.

Newcomb, hired Oct. 12, 2012, as a trainee-status correction-

The video differs drastically from an account Slager gave two days after the shooting. Slager, a five-year veteran of the city police force, had originally told authorities that he feared for his life during the confrontation.

Slager, 33, previously served in the U.S. Coast Guard. Ironically, Scott served four years in the Coast Guard in the 1980s.

Mayor Summey announced the murder charge at a news conference Tuesday. Slager was also fired from his post as a North Charleston police officer.

Few Black cops North Charleston is South Carolina’s third-largest city, with a population of about 100,000 and 343 police officers. AfricanAmericans make up about half of the residents with Whites about al officer, was dismissed the following Jan. 6 for failure to meet a correctional officer’s minimum training requirements.

Legislators act In an effort to right the troubled DOC, the Florida Senate passed a bill last week aimed at giving sweeping new investigatory powers to an independent oversight commission that could subpoena agency administrators suspected of wrongdoing.

The Senate’s plan would create a nine-member, governorappointed panel that would have broad investigatory powers and essentially take over the job now performed by the agency’s inspector general, who answers to Scott’s chief inspector general.

Saying that reform must happen, a Florida House panel on Tuesday pushed forward a plan aimed at increasing oversight of the state’s troubled prison system but stopped short of endorsing an independent commission included in the Senate’s corrections overhaul.

House Criminal Justice Chairman Carlos Trujillo, the prison reform bill’s sponsor, amended the proposal to add two more administrative regions to the agency’s three current regions, which he said would increase accountability over the state’s 56 prisons.

Establishing five regions – a revival of the same number of

said at last year’s Final Four, “We don’t want to look at ourselves as African-American coaches, we want to look at ourselves as a coach. Hopefully our coaching ability (isn’t judged by) the color of our skin.”

But too often, many said, they’re pegged as recruiters instead of coaches who can run a program.

“This is something we’ve been trying to fight,” Cross said, noting more coaches are being given associate labels to fight this stigma.

“The African-American coach or the minority coach is the one who would be out on the road more and it takes you away from practice and being involved in coaching.”

Few top jobs Of Power Five conference jobs, only 20 percent (13 of 65 coaches) were held this season by African-Americans, and two of those have been fired. The Big Ten has only one African-American coach (Eddie Jordan at Rutgers), and it includes four programs – Illinois, Michigan State, Nebraska and Purdue – that have never hired a Black head basketball coach.

Lapchick suggests college athletics implement what he calls the “Eddie Robinson Rule,” akin to the NFL’s Rooney Rule to increase minority hiring through a more diverse interview process.

New coalition Black coaches also have banded together again after the oncepowerful Black Coaches Association faded away. Norvell is helping organize the newly formed National Association for Coaching Equity and Development, which includes a who’s who of successful African-American coaches, including Tubby Smith, Shaka Smart, Johnny Dawkins and Paul Hewitt.

“The coaches have said, ‘We’ve lost our voice,’ ” Norvell said. “We want to change that.”

“It’s got to be discouraging,” said Dildy, a coach for more than two decades. “You’re not seeing a lot of people who look like you in those positions. It kills your dream. If we ignore it, people are going to start looking to do other things. It’s looking like a can’twin situation.” a little over a third. The police department is about 80 percent White, according to the Justice Department in 2007.

The family plans to file a wrongful death suit against the city and police department, according to Stewart – who believes the video is the only reason Slager is facing criminal charges.

Scott was engaged to be married and worked for a trucking supply company, Stewart said.

He was driving a used Mercedes he had recently purchased from a neighbor and was on his way to buy parts for the car when Slager encountered him.

Scott is survived by four sons, ages 16, 21, 22 and 24.

David Zucchino and Michael Muskal of the Los Angeles Times / TNS and Tina Susman contributed to this report. regional divisions once employed by the corrections agency decades ago – would introduce “more eyes, more bodies, more people, more boots on the ground,” Trujillo told reporters after the meeting.

‘Structurally broken’ “Part of the problem is you have to attack the culture,” Trujillo, a lawyer, said. “In some facilities there’s this camaraderie and this culture of, ‘This is our house and you people just have to live by whatever rules we pass,’ whether they conform with the laws of morals and ethics of everything we live by in society.

That’s what has to stop.”

But Allison DeFoor, a prison-reform advocate who heads Florida State University’s Project on Accountable Justice and has pushed the oversight commission, told the panel that adding more regions won’t solve the prison system’s woes.

“It’s structurally broken. It’s not a crisis situation. It’s much worse than that,” DeFoor, a former judge and sheriff, said.

“You can’t lift a car with good intentions. You have to have a posse. You need people to do it,” he said.

Carol Marbin Miller and Mary Ellen Klas of the Miami Herald / TNS and Dara Kam of The News Service of Florida all contributed to this report.

APRIL 10 – APRIL 16, 2015

FLORIDA

A3

Governor flip-flops on Medicaid expansion Gov. Scott now backing off support of a proposal that would extend federally subsidized health insurance to nearly 800,000 poor Floridians.

BY DARA KAM THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Adding more drama to a $5 billion budget standoff between Republican legislative leaders, Gov. Rick Scott on Monday reversed course on his one-time support for providing health coverage for low-income Floridians as part of the federal health-care law known as Obamacare.

Scott blamed his rejection of a state Senate plan on a distrust of the federal government, the result of an apparent breakdown in negotiations between his administration and federal officials over a program that pays hospitals and health providers for unreimbursed care. The feds contribute at least $1.3 billion a year toward the Low Income Pool, or LIP, program.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last year gave the state a one-year extension on LIP – set to expire on June 30 unless Scott and federal officials reach a new agreement – but the Obama administration is unwilling to renew the program in its current form.

The Senate and Scott included $2.2 billion to cover the costs of LIP in their budget plans, but Republican House leaders did not.

LIP linked to FHIX To sweeten the deal for the feds, the Senate linked the revised LIP program with another $2.8 billion

for the “Florida Health Insurance Affordability Exchange,” or FHIX, to pay insurance premiums for about 800,000 Floridians with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty level.

Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government would pay the state about $47 billion over the next eight years for the program. That money would come from a pot that is earmarked for Medicaid expansion across the country, though Senate officials have tried to distance their proposal from the Medicaid program.

The House has balked outright at a Medicaid expansion – or anything that looks like a Medicaid expansion – and on Monday Scott joined the chorus of Republican naysayers. “… Given that the federal government said they would not fund the federal LIP program to the level it is funded today, it would be hard to understand how the state could take on even more federal programs that CMS could scale back or walk away from,” Scott said in a statement.

Campaign talk As a candidate seeking re-election to a second term, Scott gave tepid support in 2013 to a similar Senate plan but failed to campaign for the doomed proposal’s passage.

“While the federal government is committed to pay 100 percent of the cost, I cannot, in good

MICHAEL LAUGHLIN/SUN SENTINEL/TNS

Gov. Rick Scott smiles while debating Charlie Crist in the second of three Florida gubernatorial debates on Oct. 15, 2014, at Broward College in Davie. In February 2013, he said he would support Medicaid expansion. conscience, deny Floridians the needed access to health care,” Scott, who made his fortune in the hospital industry, told reporters in February 2013.

It may not come as a surprise that Scott, who ran as a tea party “outsider” in 2010, has shifted his position on Medicaid expansion. The conservative Americans for Prosperity has targeted Republican senators, including Senate President Andy Gardiner, for supporting the issue, part of what was once considered a cornerstone of the Affordable Care Act but which the U.S. Supreme Court left up to the states in a seminal ruling upholding the federal law.

‘A way forward’ Scott’s turnaround didn’t

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persuade Gardiner to back down from his chamber’s proposed fix for hospitals and low-income, uninsured Floridians.

In a statement issued Monday in response to Scott, Gardiner made a veiled threat about Scott’s push for record-high public school funding and nearly $675 million in tax cuts.

“The Senate also shares the governor’s commitment to tax relief and record funding for education; however, if our state is forced to make up the difference of $2.2 billion in hospital funding, every area of our budget will be impacted,” Gardiner, R-Orlando, said.

“Moving forward the Senate will continue to advance the conservative, Florida-based, free-market solutions we have proposed. We believe these innovative, bipartisan proposals can gain the approval of our federal partners, and we stand ready to meet with the House or Governor Scott at any time to discuss a way forward.”

‘In a box canyon’ Without telling Scott, Gardiner last week dispatched two senators to meet with federal health officials to discuss the Senate’s plans. The next day, Scott’s office announced that the Obama administration official in charge of negotiations had abruptly ended the talks. It was later learned that the lead federal negotiator, Eliot Fishman, had left the country

for a long-planned trip to Israel.

Senate budget chief Tom Lee, who met with Scott and his top aides late last week, said Monday that the governor made it clear “he was no big fan of dealing with the uninsured in Florida.”

Lee likened the Legislature’s position to being in a “box canyon,” another term for a three-sided, deep ravine with only one way in or out.

“Behind us, we have the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services telling us that we don’t have a budget solution on the one hand. And we have the governor saying you can’t fix this problem using general revenue. And on the other hand, we’ve got people saying they’re re not going to talk about insuring low-income Floridians, which is part of the problem here. We have too many Floridians creating this unreimbursed care. So we’re very much in a box canyon right now,” Lee, RBrandon, said.

Session ends May 1 A fiery speech last week by Lee’s House budget counterpart Richard Corcoran, slated to take over as House speaker after the 2016 elections, deepened the divide between the two chambers over the coverage expansion.

“We’re not dancing this session, we’re not dancing next session, we’re not dancing this summer,” Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, said before a House vote

USTA hires Blackman to head player development Boca Raton’s Martin Blackman has been named the general manager of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) Player Development. He will oversee the USTA’s Player Development staff and partner with the U.S. tennis community to identify and develop the next generation of world-class American tennis players.

“The USTA is lucky to have secured an individual with as well-rounded a background as Martin Blackman,” said USTA Chairman, President and CEO Katrina Adams.

Martin “I have known Martin for Blackman many years and I am confident that he is the right person at the right time to continue to lead USTA Player Development in the right direction moving forward.”

Blackman, who will report to USTA Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer Gordon Smith, succeeds Patrick McEnroe, who held the position since 2008.

Former player, coach Blackman has a diverse and extensive background as a coach and a player, beginning with his days as a junior, when he trained with legendary coach Nick Bollet-

on the budget last week.

The showdown between the two chambers, coupled with the breakdown in talks between the Scott administration and federal officials over LIP, heightens uncertainty about whether lawmakers will finalize budget negotiations before the scheduled May 1 end of the legislative session.

What’s next Politically, the House has more to lose than the Senate by caving on the Medicaid-expansion issue, said GOP strategist J.M. “Mac” Stipanovich.

“There’s only one person here who has to prevail in his position, and that’s Rep. Corcoran. Can President Gardiner not exert himself? Can he not lay waste to all the priorities of the House? Can he not show the Senate’s strength and its outrage? Of course he can. He doesn’t have to win on Medicaid. He has to be strong and purposeful and he has to punish what is a pretty flagrant breach of protocol. But he doesn’t have to win on Medicaid,” Stipanovich said.

Meanwhile, House Republicans – and Scott – are relying on the Obama administration to come up with the LIP money left out of the House spending plan.

“In an ironic way, the perception of victory for the conservatives probably lies in the hands of their arch-enemies in Washington,” Stipanovich said.

tieri, alongside Andre Agassi and Jim Courier.

Blackman, who won the USTA Boys’ 16s National Championship in 1986 and reached the Boys’ 18s final two years later, went on to become a member of two NCAA Championship teams at Stanford University. He continued his play at the Association of Tennis Professionals level from 1989 to 1995, reaching a career-high of No. 158.

Blackman then became the head men’s tennis coach at American University in 1998. During his tenure at American, Blackman was named conference Coach of the Year three times, leading American to three conference titles, two NCAA Tournament appearances and its first-ever national ranking.

In 2004, Blackman was hired as director of the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md., and began to help build it into one of the premier junior training centers in America.

Diversity leader He was hired by the USTA in 2009 as senior director of talent identification and development, a role that saw him oversee the implementation of the Regional Training Center program, serve as a co-leader of the Coaching Education Department and be USTA Player Development’s leader for Diversity and Inclusion.

Blackman left the USTA in late 2011 to found his own tennis academy, the Blackman Tennis Academy, in Boca Raton. After only its second year of full-time programming, Blackman’s Academy sent all eight of its graduating students to college on tennis scholarships.

He holds an economics degree from George Washington University.

Blackman lives in Boca Raton with his wife and their four children.

EDITORIAL

A4

APRIL 10 – APRIL 16, 2015

Lessons about leadership On Monday, (April 6th) the Duke Blue Devils Men’s Basketball Team added their name to the history books by winning their 5th NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship. No matter if you’re a fan of the Duke Blue Devils, you have to give them credit for their play on the court.

In addition to their play on the court, one can’t help but admire and appreciatively applaud the leadership style of their coach Mike Krzyzewski, better known as ‘Coach K.’ Because of what Kryzewski brings to his players, there’s no wonder why he is the winningest basketball coach in NCAA history. It’s not luck that his teams win. It’s his leadership style and understanding of what it takes to produce champions.

What Coach Mike Kryzews-

DR. SINCLAIR GREY III THE G GUEST COLUMNIST

ki has done and continues to do throughout his tenure at Duke University is remarkable. Not only coaching young college men to reach their potential, he has taken his talents to coach the U.S. Men’s Basketball Team in Olympic competition and garnered the same results – Winning and Success. How does he do it? How is he able to produce top talent year and year?

Here’s the challenge for all of us. Become the leader in our family and community that will transcend down to future generations.

True leadership Here’s a list of leadership traits

that make individuals like Coach Mike Kryzewski successful.

• Leaders have a vision and work towards accomplishing that vision • Leaders make sure they com-

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: ISISTOONS

MILT PRIGGEE, WWW.MILTPRIGGEE.COM

Random thoughts of a free Black mind, v. 253 Ferguson elections – When it comes to life and living, I’m optimistic, almost to a fault. But when it comes to Black people and American politics (at all levels), call me a hopeful pessimist.

Ferguson is an example. You’d think that after all the hullabaloo after Mike Brown’s tragic killing and the damning Department of Justice report recommending dismantling the Ferguson Police Department, that Ferguson’s Black voters would have every reason to turn out in droves to take control of the city council that will be responsible for rebuilding FPD and the city’s leadership.

Did that happen? Hell, no. “Voter turnout tripled,” you say. Yeah, it did – from about 12 percent in previous elections to about 30 percent this week. So that means that 7 of 10 registered voters, in a city that is 67.4 percent Black (according to the U.S. Census Bureau), didn’t vote?

As a result, a former Ferguson mayor is now on the city council?

I’m glad I didn’t even think about marching in a Ferguson rally. I’m not trying to save anybody who’s too dumb, hopeless, or lazy to save him or herself…

Walter Scott death – I’ve watched that

QUICK TAKES FROM #2: STRAIGHT, NO CHASER

CHARLES W. CHERRY II, ESQ. PUBLISHER

video over and over. Scott was 50, and he ran away like a 50-year-old with bad knees. He was a threat? What bothers me is the clinical, unemotional way Officer Thomas Slager went about his ‘business’ and shot Scott like he was shooting at target practice on a gun range, then throws his Taser next to Scott’s body to support his alibi.

Thank God for the bravery of the young man, Feidin Santana, who kept recording a police murder in broad daylight, thus putting his own life on the line.

Slager didn’t even seem to notice Santana recording the incident from a few yards away, behind a wire fence. Without the video Slager knows he walks, which would have been motive enough for him to kill Santana, too…

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family and community that will transcend down to future generations. No longer can the leaders of today and future leaders of tomorrow point fingers and play the victim role. Those who act as the victim and preach ‘victimology’ will never empower people to aspire to go higher. Being a leader does require having a commitment to a cause that’s bigger than himself/herself. It’s time that we learn the lessons of leadership and implement them into our lives on a regular basis.

Dr. Sinclair Grey III is an activist, speaker, writer, author, life coach, and host of The Sinclair Grey Show heard on Mondays at 2p.m. on WAEC Love 860am (iHeart Radio and Tune In). Click on this article at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

One million strong: Where are they now?

Having seen how Black people are mistreated in country, not only historically but presently, I thought about that gloriously perfect day on which more than one million strong Black men stood on Washington’s Mall loving, trusting, and respecting one another. I thought about those I met that day, not having seen them since, and relished the notion of over one million strong Black men coming to the rescue of our children; I smiled at the thought of us standing up for Eric Garner and all the others; I beamed at the image of our brothers taking up the mantle of the legacy left us by the likes of Marcus, Malcolm, and Martin. Where are they now, I wondered.

In the nearly twenty years since “The” Million Man March (MMM), we have seen many events that continue to let us know our lives are less valued than the lives of others. We have seen murders, abuse, beat-downs, abandonment, injustice, and intimidation by the authorities and by regular citizens of this country against Black people.

We have been put on notice by the courts and the penal system that we count for nothing more than another occupant for an $80,000 prison cell and $30,000 annual upkeep. We have been given a reality check, and the point has been made, repeatedly and with emphasis, that we do not count. Even when we returned from the MMM, the media said we were only 425,000 strong, obviously they were still counting each of us as three-fifths of a man. Where are those men now?

Abuse on the rise The abuse of Black life is not waning, rather it is on the rise, from both outsiders and insiders, those who hate us and those among us who are selling us out and acting just plain foolish and trifling. We are being killed and imprisoned at an alarming rate while we stand idly by in our respective cities and do little or nothing to curtail the violence against ourselves and the violence perpetrated against us by this evil corrupt system under which we live. Where are the million strong?

A few years ago, the newest and latest weapon of choice for zealous police officers, which was also a huge money-maker for Rudi Giuliani’s boy, Bernard Kerik, was the infamous 50,000-volt “portable electric chair” known as the Taser. It killed Black folks across the country, but we failed to come out by the millions to pro-

JAMES CLINGMAN NNPA COLUMNIST

test this cash cow, this so-called less-thandeadly weapon, and now there are actually laws on the books that allow it to be used on 7 year-old children.

Tasers are passé; guns and chokeholds are in vogue. Now, in light of all of the dreadful statistics about Black people, if we ever needed a million strong Black men (and women) we definitely need them now. Where are they?

Do something now If you attended the MMM, if you supported the MMM, if you wanted to go but could not, if you participated in some of the post MMM initiatives, if you were too young and could not go because of school, I want you to do something now. You are twenty years older and, I trust, twenty years wiser, twenty years more experienced, twenty years more committed, and twenty years tired of the rhetoric regarding “what we need to do.” Whether you know it or not, or even believe it or not, you are part of the group that will take Black people to a higher level of responsibility, respect, and commensurate action vis-à-vis those alarming statistics found in all the reports and most recently in the Urban League’s State of Black America Report.

I want you to go www.iamoneofthemillion.com and add your name to the list, that is, if you are conscious and committed. Let’s begin the process of recapturing the strength and resolve of one million Black men who were so intimidating that the federal government virtually shut down the day we came to town. This time, however, I want us to demonstrate that same strength by turning it into real power. How? Sign up, and then follow through on the simple but vital criteria for membership in this growing body of Black people.

Where are the one million strong?

Where are you?

James E. Clingman is one of the nation’s most prolific writers on economic empowerment for Black people. Click on this article at www.flourier.com to write your own response.

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.

Central Florida Communicators Group, LLC, P.O. Box 48857 Tampa, FL 33646, publishes the Florida Courier on Fridays. Phone: 877352-4455, toll-free. For all sales inquiries, call 877-352-4455; e-mail sales@flcourier.com.

municate their vision to their supporting cast and have everyone buy into it • Leaders demand excellence from everyone on their team Leaders show no favoritism but are consistent with praise and discipline of all persons • Leaders understand the importance of delegating responsibility without feeling threatened or insecure • Leaders are professional in their demeanor • Leaders prepare their team for success • Leaders keep learning and refuse to think they know it all • Leaders are respected by those they lead • Leaders don’t see problems as obstacles but as stepping stones • Leaders make everyone around them better Here’s the challenge for all of us. Become the leader in our

Charles W. Cherry, Sr. (1928-2004), Founder Julia T. Cherry, Senior Managing Member, Central Florida Communicators Group, LLC Dr. Glenn W. Cherry, Cassandra CherryKittles, Charles W. Cherry II, Managing Members Charles W. Cherry II, Esq., Publisher Dr. Glenn W. Cherry, Sales Manager

How to make sure your well never runs dry Multiple income streams will make sure your well never runs dry.

Your well running dry is a saying that’s been around for centuries. It’s from a time when people needed a well to supply water to drink, to cook, to bathe, to wash clothes and other essential tasks.

Nowadays, your job is like a well. It provides the income to buy drinks, to pay your electric and water bills, to afford transportation and other essentials.

But if you only have one source of income in the form of a job, your wellbeing can be jeopardized if you lose your job because that was your source to provide for everything. That would be like the dry wells caused by droughts that caused famines in ancient times.

Dr. Valerie Rawls-Cherry, Human Resources Jenise Morgan, Senior Editor Angela VanEmmerik, Creative Director Chicago Jones, Eugene Leach, Louis Muhammad, Lisa Rogers-Cherry, Circulation Ashley Thomas, Staff Writer Delroy Cole, Kim Gibson, Photojournalists MEMBER National Newspaper Publishers Association Society of Professional Journalists Florida Press Association Associated Press National Newspaper Association

Multiple income streams But if you have multiple streams of income, you will be able to adjust when your main income source runs out. Wealthy people have at least seven income streams.

I have more than seven income streams as I acquire wealth. My main source of income is enrolling people into healthcare under the Affordable Care Act also known as Obamacare, but it takes 30 days to be paid. So I have other income sources such as life insurance enrollments and retirement planning that pays me in a few days.

Medicare enrollments pay me in a week or

TENESHIA LAFAYE MISS MONEY SENSE

two. Additionally, I teach financial workshops that produce lump sum payments in order to pad my savings. I also bring in income from book sales, enrolling people into free cell phones, reducing people’s household bills and teaching people the insurance business.

So it’s safe to say my well, my source of survival, will never run dry, and neither will yours if you build multiple income streams. Reach out to me if you would like my guidance in creating multiple income streams for yourself.

Teneshia LaFaye is a former awardwinning newspaper journalist and a nationally certified financial education instructor. She owns a health insurance agency and has written two books, What My Mom Taught Me About Money and Mom’s Money Lessons. Click on this article at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

APRIL 10 – APRIL 16, 2015

When the Jihadists turn on their masters “Should the Saudi-led aggression in Yemen succeed in crushing the Houthis, al Qaida would be the clear winner.”

In Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya, the decades-long U.S.-Saudi strategy to deploy Islamic jihadists as foot soldiers of imperialism is disintegrating – in flames.

Although western and royal Arab media depict this week’s murderous Saudi assault on Yemen and the formation of a combined Arab military force as a counterweight to both Iran and Islamist “extremism,” it is not Shiite Tehran, but Sunni Muslim jihadists that represent an existential threat to the oil-rich rulers of the Gulf. The leader of Shiite Hizbullah movement put it best, in a televised speech from Lebanon, last weekend. “Your intelligence...financed and armed ISIL,” said Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, directing his remarks to the Saudi regime. “Then, tables were turned. You were terrified by ISIL, which escaped your grasp and control as Al Qaeda did before.”

The jihadist genie has been definitively out of the bottle since ISIS declared war on all rival “emirates, groups, states and organizations” within range of its fighters, last summer, lumping Saudi Arabia and the neighborhood’s other hereditary regimes into the same heretic-infidel camp as American “defenders of the cross” and “the dirty French.”

fight on the ground in Yemen. It would not be the first time. Half a century ago, pan-Arab socialist president Gamal Abdel NassGLEN er sent 26,000 Egyptian soldiers FORD to their deaths in an attempt to BLACK AGENDA REPORT crush royalist Shiite Houthi fighters in northern Yemen. Saudi Arabia and Jordan took the Shi‘Crisis of legitimacy’ ite Imam’s side against his secular Al Qaida, from which ISIS rivals – proof that the Saudis are sprang, will almost certainly ar- much more concerned about royrive at a similar theological-polit- al privileges than “heresy.” ical juncture at a time of its own choosing, pulling with it most of Cruel persecution the remainder of the armed IsThe Houthis are al Qaida’s fierclamist spectrum. Not just a crisis of legitimacy, but the prospect of est opponents in Yemen, having physical annihilation by Sunni been marked for extermination jihadists, hangs over the House by the jihadists – a rough replica of Saud and all its royal breth- of the situation in Syria, where the ren. What goes around, comes secular government and the Shiaround. The swords of the Sunni ite population are the bulwark faithful are a far greater danger against ISIS/al Qaida. Should the to royal Arab necks than Persian Saudi-led aggression in Yemen succeed in crushing the Houthis, Shiite mullahs.

The jihadist storm troopers’ al Qaida would seem to be the declaration of independence – clear winner. However, in the new an inevitability that we at Black jihadist environment, such an Agenda Report predicted four outcome can no longer be countyears ago – necessitates a cir- ed as a plus for the Saudis, who cling of conventional Arab armies will also face the wrath of every around the filthy-rich potentates genuine Yemeni nationalist. If the of the Gulf. Egypt’s army, the larg- war devolves into a quagmire, it est in the Arab world, is to be rent- will likely destabilize Saudi Araed out as a mercenary force in bia, itself. Many Yemenis live and lieu of the tens of billions gifted work in the Kingdom, and Sauto Dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for di Shiites, who make up 15 to 25 toppling the democratically elect- percent of the population and are ed Muslim Brotherhood govern- concentrated near the eastern oil ment, in 2013. El-Sisi has agreed, fields, suffer cruel persecution. in principle, to send troops to Wahhabist war hysteria will fur-

EDITORIAL

A5

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: ROLLING STONE

RICK MCKEE, THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE

ther alienate the Shiite minority, while fueling sectarian passions among jihad-prone Sunni youth in the Kingdom and the region – chickens that will, sooner rather than later, come home to abolish the throne.

The jihadist cancer is metastasizing in the body politic of its royal hosts – a catastrophe for the United States, which depends on the royals to project power in the region. The U.S. is so universally hated in the Arab world that a sustained American “boots on the ground” strategy is unthinkable. In Iraq, the U.S. is reduced to withholding air support for the fight to dislodge ISIS from the city of Tikrit. The Americans brag that they insisted the Iraqi government withdraw its militias and, presumably, their Iranian advis-

ers, from the battlefront before resuming air reconnaissance and bombing. The fit of imperial bullying may have made Washington feel “indispensable,” but the ability to withhold assistance is not the same as the power to project decisive force. The episode only served to demonstrate that Washington is only interested in turning Iraq’s perils to U.S. advantage. Rather than limiting Iran’s influence with Iraq, the incident showed Iraqis that the U.S. is incapable of behaving being like an ally, under any circumstances.

Glen Ford is the executive editor of Black Agenda Report.

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

Physical murder and political asphyxiation An 11 year-old Black girl is raped twice by men and winds up jailed and institutionalized for years by a callous and predatory system. The abomination lays bare the thin line that many African-American children and families tread “between physical murder and spiritual death.” Washington DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier must be made to answer for the crime. Meanwhile, “behind the scenes in the courts and judicial system, the bodies are piling up.”

In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, we explore the pain of Black families scratching to survive under the tentacles of White supremacy and the thin line between physical murder and spiritual death. Morrison uses the marigold flower as the metaphor to underpin the notion that human societies, like the biological world, require a nourishing environment, i.e., water, soil, air, space and sunlight in order to produce a root system that allows it to survive. It is the root system that anchors and transports the nutrients to the plant. In human societies, the root system is called the family and when it is undermined and destroyed by political power the consequences are not only physical death but political asphyxiation. The only response to such a system is mass resistance.

DR. MARSHA COLEMANADEBAYO BLACK AGENDA REPORT

families tread between physical murder and spiritual death. Both forms of death provide the platform to maintain power, intimidation and dominance in Black communities.

The account

agents of violence, are paid to carry out and cover-up the genocide occurring in Black communities while allowing the exploitation of labor and the accumulation of wealth by those in power. As a reward, those in power provide salary, status and permission to kill with impunity.

The Black Lives Matter movement has focused on the extrajudicial assassinations of Black boys and men as well as identifying the agents of the state who carry out these murders, called at various times in American history, slave patrols, vigilantes, White Citizens’ Council, Klu Klux Klan, White Knights and police departments. The names of these organizations that defend the 1% change but the functions remain the same. Black girls are being killed, perhaps not at the same statistical rate as black boys but, behind the scene in the courts and judicial system, the bodies are piling up.

A recent March 13th Washington Post article entitled “A SevenYear Search for Justice” provides ‘Bodies piling up’ one onerous example of the thin Police, as state-sponsored line that many African-American

Summary: An 11 year old African girl, Danielle Hicks-Best, reported to Washington, DC police that she had been raped twice by older men (in their early to late 20’s) in her neighborhood.

In both cases, forensic medical evidence supported her claims.

Considering her age and the ages of the assailants, one would have assumed that the police would have conducted an investigation into statutory rape. Instead under the mis-leadership of DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier, Danielle, then 12 years old, was charged with filing false police reports.

“After 11, she lost the rest of her childhood,” her mother Veronica Best lamented.

The family devoted their limited financial and emotional resources to addressing their daughter’s legal entanglement and providing psychological support against a system with unlimited financial resources.

For DC police, little African girls like Danielle are neither children nor accorded the dignity of being fully human. According to the Washington Post, DC police violated standard guidelines

for handling child sexual assault cases and “many officers treated her with extreme skepticism; in one internal e-mail, a lieutenant called her “promiscuous” and the “sex” consensual.”

Six days after the second rape and inhuman interrogation by DC police, Danielle was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Children’s Hospital for observation as a suicide risk.

Arrested at 12 DC police however, were on a mission. Two months after Danielle’s first reported rape prosecutors requested an order for Danielle’s arrest based on “Complainant/Respondent’s admission of lying to Detective Weeks and her subsequent arrest for filing a false police report.” It was recommended that this case be classified as “Unfounded for sexual abuse.” Shortly after Danielle turned 12 years old, a warrant for her arrest was issued and she, accompanied by her parents, turned herself in to DC police. Ms. Best, Danielle’s mother, remarked how difficult it was to “watch her daughter shuffle into court in shackles.”

Danielle’s case is not an isolated incident. Danielle was not physically killed but her spirit was murdered by a system that denied her and her family’s humanity. Danielle was never considered a child. She was simply

used to justify the salaries and maintenance of a system based on the decapitation of Black bodies. She became another statistic in the long list of US crimes against humanity. The Washington Post article features a picture of Danielle in a long blond wig reminding us of Pecola, the character in Morrison’s Bluest Eye, an African girl like Danielle, who dreamed of having blue eyes.

Any accountability?

The purview of the Black Lives Matter movement should expand to include Black girls, like Danielle, destroyed by a vicious judicial system whose mission is to seek and destroy. Danielle, now 18, was eventually released from state control after being shuffled for years between detention and secure treatment centers.

She never finished high school and had a baby at 15. Danielle is now living at home again with her parents. The question is, will anyone be held accountable for the barbaric treatment inflicted upon Danielle at the hands of the DC Police Department?

Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is the author of "No FEAR:A Whistleblowers Triumph over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA.''

Common’s song for Black America: Extend hand of love to White supremacy The rapper/actor Common’s “plea to Black America to get past White supremacy is actually a request for support for his endeavors from the Empire’s Black corporate club. Race and class betrayal is a highly profitable enterprise in America.

Common’s appearance on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show officially anointed the veteran hip-hop artist into Black misleadership status. The interview was a blatant display of affection for the rule of White supremacy and US Empire.

In response to a question on the relevancy of institutional racism, Common shamelessly promoted a politics of respectability by explaining that Black Americans should extend a “hand of love” to White America. Black people should also forget about the past as someone would do to mend a romantic relationship. And similar to a fight with a romantic partner, Black America’s motto should be “baby, let’s get past this.”

Black misleadership These comments propelled Common into the club of HipHop artists that have jumped on the backward politics of the Obama era. Jay-Z, Nas, Chuck D and scores of other hip-hop artists have sought to capitalize on Obama’s influence on the Black

Jump on the bandwagon

DANNY HAIPHONG BLACK AGENDA REPORT

political landscape. Jay-Z’s cozy relationship with Obama, Nas’s admiration of Obama and Skip Gates, and Chuck D’s plea that Black America re-elect Obama in 2012 are all examples of the way the Black misleadership class has thrived in the corporate hiphop machine. For a long time, young people of my generation saw Common specifically as a “conscious” rapper that promoted positive political messages in songs like “6th Sense” and “Song for Assata.” Ironically, his Daily Show comments place him in the same plane as those working to murder Assata Shakur and erase hip-hop’s radical roots.

Common’s induction into the Black misleadership class should come as no surprise. As the corporate media has consolidated into six mega corporations, monopolies like Viacom have virtually erased grassroots hip-hop from mass accessibility. The corporatization of hip-hop has occurred alongside the rise of the Black misleadership class.

the genocidal and oppressive sys- any), he’s gained in a new found tem of white supremacy. alliance with Oprah and the rest Barack Obama was Wall Street’s of the Black misleadership class. top choice to lead this class in an era of permanent capitalist cri- Worse off after Obama The dominance of respectabil- Appease the sis. Wall Street expected the wellgroomed Obama to defend and ity politics in the Obama era has establishment expand its policy of permanent brought White supremacy to criHis plea to Black America to get war, repression, and austerity. He sis level contradictions. White past White supremacy is actually Americans in the 21st century trudid so with flying colors and made sure to keep Jay-Z on speed-di- ly believe that racism affects them a request for support for his enal as an added public relations more than it does Black America. deavors from the Empire’s Black boost. Hip-Hop artists past and Throughout the Obama era, polls corporate club. Common and the present jumped at the opportuni- have shown that Black Ameri- rest of the Black misleadership ty to solidify their careers through cans believe that conditions bet- class know full well that the only the promotion of the anti-Black, tered under Obama when the op- way to enjoy the spoils of imperiwar criminal Commander in posite was in effect. The Black alism is to appease White AmeriChief. This is where the corporate Lives Matter Movement has be- ca and most importantly, the inmedia and the Obama era con- gun to expose these contradic- terests of establishment. tions through the struggle against verged most acutely.

What makes Common’s comCommon’s advice to exoner- the daily police murder of Black ments so peculiar is the direct ate White America of its crimes is Americans by police. In response, nature in which he made them. all Black America has heard over the Empire has sent out its Black While Obama and his followers the last seven years from Obama misleadership class in full force usually drape color-blind rhetoand the media. In every speech to stifle the development of this ric and historical fallacies with or statement where Obama felt movement. coded babble, Common outright Common took full advantage compelled to chastise Black stated that not only should Black Americans, the primary message by gladly accepting the request has been to forgive, to forget, and to star in Selma. The film blatant- America extend a hand of love to remember that his presiden- ly glorified the Black misleader- to White America, but do so uncy is all the oppressed Black ma- ship class, especially in the mov- der the pretenses that racism is a jority should ever demand from ie’s conclusion. Common poten- thing of the past. racist America. Common’s words tially earned himself a promising Danny Haiphong is an orare thus a mere reinforcement of acting career for his willingness the neo-liberal, Obama consen- to play distorted and destructive ganizer for Fight Imperialsus that Black Americans and all caricatures of Black American ism Stand Together (FIST) in oppressed people for that matter history. What Common lost in Boston. Click on this article at should focus on making a career musical value to the ruling class www.flcourier.com to write within empire instead of fighting (one could argue he never had your own response.

NATION

TOJ A6

APRIL 10 – APRIL 16, 2015

115 shot to death in US by cops in March ACLU report shows most of those killed were Black men

BY FREDERICK H. LOWE TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

If Murder Inc. was still operating, the nation’s police would be its top competitor.

Murder Inc., which was headed by Louis “Lepke” Buchalter and later by Albert “The Mad Hatter” Anastasia, was the enforcement arm of organized crime in the 1930s and 1940s. During those two decades, Murder Inc. carried out 1,000 contract killings.

Anastasia also was known as the “Lord High Executioner.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has reported that 31 days since the release of the White House Task Force report on 21st Century Policing, police have shot and killed 115 people in March, which is an average of more than three people per day, according to a report released by Kanya Bennett, Legislative Counsel for the ACLU in Washington.

“Too many of this [last] month’s victims fit a profile we know all too well — unarmed men of color, some of whom have psychiatric disabilities. Victims like Charly Keunang in Los Angeles, Tony Robinson in Madison, Wisc., Anthony Hill in Dekalb County, Ga. and Brandon Jones in CleveCharly land, confirm that Keunang the problems with policing are national in scope,” Bennett said.

There also were large numbers of White and Hispanic men shot and killed by the police.

Disproportionate use In February, police shot and killed 85 people and in January, 91 people were killed by police, according to the ACLU. “This isn’t a problem concentrated in a few rogue police de-

AL SEIB/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

Protestors are shown on March 3 at the downtown Los Angeles site where a homeless man was killed by LAPD officers on March 1.

Charly Keundeu Keunang, 43, was killed by police officers answering a robbery report. partments. Even those police departments with the best of intentions need reform. Take for example the Department of Justice report that Philadelphia police shot 400 people — over 80 percent of them African-American — in seven years. This is in a city where the police commissioner is an author of the very same White House task force report calling for police reform,” Bennett said.

She noted that excessive and deadly use of force, disproportionately used against people of color and people with psychiatric disabilities is driving a nation-

al discourse.

“Jaywalking and selling individual cigarettes should not result in death, nor should failing to take [psychiatric] medication,” Bennett said.

‘Iron Fist’ research The history of American policing is rife with racism, dating back to slavery, according to the book “The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove: An Analysis of the U.S. Police,” which was first published in 1975 by the Institute for the Study of Labor and Economic Crisis.

The book notes that slave pa-

trols established through state legislatures by plantation owners were the first police organizations.

“These legislatures established slave codes, starting with South Carolina’s 1712 copy of the Barbados statute. The slave codes, which provided for the brutal slave patrols, both protected the planters’ property rights in human beings and held slaves, despite their chattel status, legally responsible for misdemeanors and felonies.”

patrols became police departments, according to the book.

The ACLU released several, single-lined pages of the names of people killed by police in 2014, 2013 and so far this year.

The organization gathered the data from Google searches, but the ACLU argues that the public needs and deserves legitimate data-collection practices that promote transparency and accountability whenever police use unreasonable force.

ACLU releases names

This story is special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com.

After

Reconstruction,

slave

First you cry: ‘Blackonomics’ columnist shares battle with ALS Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series.

HAZEL TRICE EDNEY TRICE EDNEY NEWS SERVICE

For the past 22 years, Jim Clingman has published his cutting edge “Blackonomics” column in Blackowned weekly newspapers (including the Florida Courier) around the country. The column mainly pushes for economic justice, which he views as a core necessity for Black progress in America.

But as this award-winning columnist, author of four books, college professor, entrepreneurship expert, speaker and businessman continues to fight with his pen, Clingman, a Cincinnati, Ohio native, is suddenly engaged in an unexpected and devastating personal battle. It is a battle for his own life – and quality of life.

Eighteen months ago, doctors diagnosed Jim Clingman with ALS, the gradually debilitating disease that leads to partial or total paralysis of the body and a most often two to five year lifespan after diagnosis. It is the ailment that has become known as “Lou Gehrig’s disease”, named for the professional baseball player that died from it in 1941 at the age of 37.

Clingman recalls his initial response after receiving the diagnosis, captured in his now daily journal writings. In a nutshell, he says, “First you cry.”

Meaning of ALS Many have learned of ALS from the so-called “ice bucket challenge” that has raised more than $100 million to research the mysterious illness. Despite the popularity and positive results of the challenge, it can effectually belie the physical, emotional and mental suffering of those who have been diagnosed with it.

“We should not let the celebrity and the novelty

KIAH CLINGMAN

Black Press columnist Jim Clingman has been diagnosed with ALS. overshadow the seriousness of this disease. It’s a terrible disease,” Clingman says in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire.

“It’s a terminal illness.’’

According to the ALS Association (ALSA.org), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body.

The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to

their death.

When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.

A slow process Clingman, in his vintage, matter-of-fact style of communicating, makes it simple: “It’s like having a stroke one neuron at a time,” he said. “It’s very slow. It’s subtle. But it’s determined.

It’s deliberate. It’s a literal

assault on your body. And every day you get up you do inventory: ‘Let me see, is this still working okay?

Is that still working okay?’

And you know we have billions of neurons, so it’s like a death by a thousand cuts.

A slow process, but a deliberate process.”

So far, the creeping symptoms which he first noticed six years ago in 2009 with a weak foot that caused him to stumble when he tried to bowl, have gradually grown into the loss of his ability to walk without help from a walker to sturdy himself.

The weakened muscles in his feet and calves have ended his beloved 35-year bicycling activity. But because the disease is so mysterious, he recalls how just getting to an actual diagnosis was literally a roller coaster.

First, in 2010, he went to a doctor who said he had a spinal stenosis, which means a nerve in someone’s back, protruding through the vertebrae and irritably rubbing on the bone.

The doctor said, “it’s pretty simple to fix” by shaving the bone so the rubbing couldn’t happen, Clingman recounts.

Attempting to avoid the surgery, he went through a few months of therapy first.

But, then he noticed that his left calf was becoming smaller than the right and that his left leg had become weaker.

Surgery, more tests So, in November 2011, he went ahead and got the back surgery, which healed in a few weeks. But, it was his wife, Sylvia, a nurse, who said “it didn’t look like my walk was getting any better...I had back surgery for nothing.”

Then, “I did every test known to man. I went to two neurologists who just threw up their hands and said, ‘I don’t know what this is.’”

Finally, a doctor gave him a battery of tests, “An MRI, cat scans, blood work.

He had to rule out everything: Cancer, MS, Parkinson’s disease.”

Then, on Aug. 23, 2013, he received the devastating news. For a healthy man then 69, an avid cyclist who could ride a hundred miles on his bicycle, the diagnosis literally rocked his world.

Now, 18 months since the diagnosis, Clingman is beginning to feel the effects in his upper limbs.

“I can feel a little something in my fingers and arms feeling weaker than normal. As I sit here and write, I sometimes miss the keys, making more mistakes,” he related.

And then there’s the mind-numbing prognosis.

Typically, ALS patients live between two and five years after diagnoses, according to the National Institute of Health.

Faith, medicine But Clingman - and his family - are anything but typical. Alongside his wife, Sylvia, a neo-natal intensive care nurse, and his daughter, Kiah, a graduating senior at the Howard University School of Communications, this family is standing on their spiritual faith in God while doing all they can in the natural to fight.

The ALS Association reports that about 30,000 people in the U.S. are currently diagnosed with ALS. About 5,600 people are diagnosed with it each year.

Meanwhile, there is only one drug for ALS that is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It’s called Riluzole. A blue bottle of it sits on Clingman’s desk in a den otherwise surrounded by photos of loved ones, books - lots of books - of course his computer, and his walker nearby.

Riluzole “slows progression of ALS but does

not cure it,” according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The agency also reports studies that conclude that Riluzole only prolongs life for a range of months.

“It keeps your diaphragm from collapsing, which would prevent breathing,” Clingman explains. But, other, even better medications are being studied.

Petition for drug The New York Times reported in February this year that a new ALS medication called GM6 - still in experimental stages - has now shown to “dramatically slow down the progression” of ALS. The article reports that after using the drug, at least one man “showed small improvements in speech and swallowing, and certain proteins used to signal disease progression actually moved back toward the normal range.”

Genervon, the maker of GM6, which it calls GM604, posted a press release on its website March 21 saying it met with the FDA in February and “we have filed a formal request for the Accelerated Approval (AA) Program and are now waiting for a final decision.”

Meanwhile Genervon stresses, “In the U.S., it is illegal to access GM604 without FDA approval or outside a clinical trial.”

An online petition, already signed by a half million people at Change.org, offers some hope to influence the FDA to accelerate approval. Here’s the URL: https://www.change. org/p/lisa-murkowski-fdaaccelerated-approval-ofgenervon-s-gm604-foruse-in-als.

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See page B5

SOUTH FLORIDA / TREASURE COAST AREA

APRIL 10 – APRIL 16, 2015

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

Latifah to portray Bessie Smith See page B2

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WWW.FLCOURIER.COM

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A salute to the ‘Matriarch of the Voting Rights Movement’

PHOTO COURTESY OF ONYX AWARDS

Mrs. Amelia Boynton Robinson, escorted by Lateefah Muhammad, receives special recognition at the 11th Annual Onyx Awards in Orlando.

Mrs. Amelia Boynton Robinson among honorees at 11th Annual Onyx Awards in Orlando COMPILED BY FLORIDA COURIER STAFF

M

rs. Amelia Boynton Robinson, known globally as the “Matriarch of the Voting Rights Movement,’’ was the special guest of honor last month in Orlando for the 11th Annual Onyx Awards.

Robinson, who is over 100 years old, was presented with the Onyx Special Recognition Award by Martin Luther King III and Congresswoman Corrine Brown.

Robinson was a key figure in the March 7, 1965 march in Selma, Ala., across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. She was savagely beaten by officers on that date known as “Bloody Sunday. It was an attempted march from Selma to Montgomery to protest Blacks’ exclusion from voting, In the days that followed, an iconic photograph of her after the beating was published around the world.

At the Onyx Awards, Robinson shared pearls of wisdom; encouraging parents to instill in their children the importance of their history and taking their place in the world through service to others.

“As mothers and fathers, for God’s sake, don’t think about yourselves. Think about your children. Train up the child in the way they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it,” Robinson urged. “We’re not perfect, but God gives us the mind, he gives us the heart and the conscience. Take the hate out of your mind and be still in love. These young people who have gone astray, we try to destroy them rather than lift them up.”

Teacher, activist Robinson, born Aug. 18, 1911 in Savannah, Ga. to George and Anna Platts, said that one of her proudest accomplishments was being able to encourage the U.S. Department of Agriculture to assist children who could not afford to buy school lunch. She took a representative to Alabama to witness children sitting in the lunchroom crying because they were hungry. Shortly thereafter, the first National School Lunch Program was implemented in public schools beginning in 1946.

According to her website, the thenSee AWARDS, Page B2

Above: Mrs. Amelia Boynton Robinson is next to President Obama on March 7 during a 50th anniversary observance at the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Ala. LAWRENCE JACKSON/ THE WHITE HOUSE

Left: Martin Luther King III kisses Amelia Boynton Robinson as she is honored at the 11th Annual Onyx Awards.

Also shown is Lateefah Muhammad and Congresswoman Corrine Brown.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ONYX AWARDS

CALENDAR

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APRIL 10 – APRIL 16, 2015

STOJ

FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Orlando: The third annual International Christian Film Festival takes place April 23-25 at the Crowne Plaza Downtown Orlando: More information: www.internationalcff.com.

Tampa: Omega Psi Phi Fraternity’s sixth annual Black Owt event takes place April 11. More information: Call 813-508-9805 or visit www.piiota.org.

Fort Lauderdale: See the legendary Roberta Flack on April 24 at the Au-Rene Theater at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.

WANDA SYKES

Catch her on April 25 at Hard Rock Live Orlando.

MICHAEL YO

Hannibal Buress, David Chappelle and Michael Yo are among the comedians performing April 11 at the South Beach Comedy Festival at the Fillmore Miami Beach at Jackie Gleason.

Orlando: Jazmine Sullivan performs April 13 at the House of Blues Orlando.

Aventura: Jazz singer Nicole Henry is scheduled April 9 at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center at 8 p.m.

Miami Gardens: An International Festival of Praise takes place April 18 from 4 to 11 p.m. at the Betty T. Ferguson Recreation Complex, 3000 NW 199th St., Miami Gardens. Free admission and parking. More information, call the Word of Life Bible Ministry at 954-604-5724.

Orlando: Actor and comedian Kevin Hart’s tour makes stops on April 25 at Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena, Amalie Arena in Tampa on May

NAS

The rapper performs April 23 at Club Skye in Tampa’s Ybor City. The show starts at 10 p.m.

AWARDS Amelia Platts began her career as a teacher in Dallas County, Ala., and became a Demonstration Agent for the Department of Agriculture, for which she teaches every phase of home economics and employs the Booker T. Washington new idea of a “Moveable School” by giving instruction and demonstrations in farming and homemaking out in remote farming communities and homes, in 1930.

She becomes a registered voter in 1932, one of the first Alabama AfricanAmericans not stopped by the tests held to prevent African-Americans from voting. She married Sam W. Boynton in 1936, beginning a 30-year partnership in bringing voting rights, property ownership and education to Blacks in poor, rural areas of Alabama.

The 11th Annual Onyx Awards also recognized the achievements of leaders making a difference in the African-American community. This year’s honorees included: • Business Award – Christopher Riley, CEO, Endurance Communica-

St. Petersburg: The legendary Smokey Robinson performs April 12 at The Mahaffey Theater and April 14 at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall in Fort Myers.

Tampa: “Save Our Girls: A Nation Can Rise No Higher Than Its Woman’’ will be subject of Minister Louis Farrakhan’s address at 10 a.m. on April 18. It will be telecast in Tampa at The Embassy Suite’s ballroom, 3705 Spectrum Blvd. Details: 813205-6665 or 813-507-7480.

Churches and organizations are invited to this free female-only event.

Gulfport: The A.C.T. Arts Conservatory will present a Soul Train ’70s Throwback Party Inaugural Gala at 7:30 p.m.

May 8 at the Gulfport Casino Ballroom. More information: 727-346.8223 or act1midtown@gmail.com.

Tampa: Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor and retired Hillsborough County Judge Perry Little will be part of a panel discussion on human rights, civil responsibility and police safety on April 18 at a free youth symposium hosted by Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority. The event is 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Nuccio Park Boys and Girls Club, 4805 E. Sligh Ave. More information: www.sgrhotampa.com.

Orlando Commissioner Regina King poses with Onyx Magazine Publisher Richard Black.

First boycott

Other honorees

Clearwater: Catch Dave Chappelle at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater on April 13.

The presidentâs of Florida’s four HBCUs were celebrated during the Onyx Awards. From left to right are BethuneCookman University President Edison O. Jackson, Congresswoman Corrine Brown, Edward Waters College President Nathaniel Glover, Florida Memorial University President Roslyn Clark Artis, Arndrea Waters King, Martin Luther King III, Florida A&M University President Elmira Mangum, and Small Business Administration Regional Administrator Cassius Butts.

from B1

In 1955, she organized the first boycott by Blacks in Alabama after a Selma woman died from a bus dragging her. In 1964, she also became the first Black woman from Alabama to seek a seat in Congress in Alabama.

After “Bloody Sunday,” a meeting with civil rights leaders and Congressmen was held in her home to produce the first draft of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Later that year, she goes to the White House when President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the act into law.

“I know that I would not be in the position that I am today if it were not for the ability to stand on the shoulders of giants like Mrs. Amelia Boynton Robinson,’’ U.S. Rep. Brown said at the March 28 event.

Likewise, Martin Luther King III saluted Robinson and thanked her for her dedication to the movement that continues to this day.

8 and AmericanAirlines Arena on May 9.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ONYX AWARDS

Florida Rep. Alan Williams presents the Onyx Black Archivist Award to Lizzie Robinson Jenkins. tions and Electrical, LLC., Orlando.

• Business Empowerment Award – Inez Long, president, Black Business Investment Fund, Orlando • Black Archivist Award – Lizzie Robinson Jenkins, president and founder, The Real Rosewood Foundation, Inc., Archer • Cultural Diversity Award – Mercedes-Benz Orlando/Maitland, Maitland • Visionary Award – Sevell Brown, president and founder, National MLK Parade, St. Petersburg • Founder’s Award – Coach Luther J. Blackshear, Orange County • Founder’s Award – Coach Buster Raggs Sr., Polk County • Publisher’s Award –

John Crossman, president, Crossman & Company, Orlando • Public Service Award – Retired Commissioner Mable Butler, Orlando • Leadership Award – Dr. Bobby Doctor, civil rights activist, Tallahassee • Lifetime Achievement in Sports Award – Larry Little, NFL Hall of Famer -Miami Dolphins • Lifetime Achievement – The Chestnut Dynasty Celebrating 100 Years of Family Owned and Operated Business, Gainesville Riley has successfully spearheaded two Blackowned businesses, one which wired the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts where the Onyx Awards took place.

Jenkins serves as a histo-

rian documenting the importance of the Rosewood history, which was recognized nationally.

Brown founded the first traditional parade in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in St. Petersburg, in 1985.

Crossman helps to train students at HBCUs in the skills needed to conquer the real estate industry.

Before he became an NFL Hall of Famer and member of the undefeated Miami Dolphins team of 1976, Little faced setbacks that he realized were setups for his finest hour.

“We are honored to recognize these giants of industry because the world needs to know about the dynamic individuals produced in the great state of

Florida,” said Onyx Magazine Publisher Rich Black.

Tribute to HBCU presidents A special tribute was presented to the presidents of Florida’s four historically Black colleges and universities. The schools are led by President Edison O. Jackson of Bethune-Cookman University, President Nathaniel Glover of Edward Waters College, President Elmira Mangum of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, and President Roslyn Clark Artis of Florida Memorial University.

The Onyx Awards, presented by title sponsor Bright House Network, has consistently garnered sold out crowds for the past

four years. It is a funding engine to support health and education initiatives of the LBS Foundation, Inc., a 501©(3) organization.

This year’s beneficiaries were the Tri-County Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation, Young Fathers of Central Florida, United Negro College Fund, and the Junior Florida Classic for Literacy.

“The Onyx Awards is Florida’s largest award show to celebrate and recognize the accomplishments and contributions of African-Americans and those of the African Diaspora,” said Black. “In the near future, we look forward to televising this event to share with the entire nation.”

For more information, visit www.onyxawards.com.

STOJ

APRIL 10 – APRIL 16, 2015

BUSINESS

B3

Market for alligator meat way up in state Tail and jaw meat most desirable; price for pound about $8.75 now in Florida

BY SUSAN JACOBSON ORLANDO SENTINEL/TNS

SANFORD — When outof-town friends visited Brian Hayes last week, he took them out for alligator meat at the aptly named Gator’s Riverside Grille.

“I just like it because it’s something different,” said Hayes, 36, of Osteen.

“You can eat chicken every day of the week, but you can’t get gator meat everywhere.”

Many people apparently feel the same way. The market for gator meat has exploded in the past couple of years, pushing the price in Florida to its highest level ever.

The upswing is a relief for alligator farmers and trappers whose businesses were devastated by the recession.

“As a trapper, I went through some very, very challenging times in the past few years, and it’s just starting to come back,” said Jerry Flynn, 52, who traps in Volusia and Seminole counties and supplements his income with construction work. “Meat definitely is on the rise, and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.”

Jump in price Allen Register, chairman of the Florida Alligator Marketing and Education committee and owner of the Gatorama alligator and crocodile attraction in Palmdale, agreed.

“We sell more meat now than we ever sold,” Register said. “We can’t produce

GATOR FACTS There are about 1.3 million alligators in Florida.

Alligators have about 80 teeth, which are replaced with new teeth when they wear down.

An adult male can grow to 14 feet long and weigh more than 1,000 pounds.

Alligaators can rip and swallow their food, but they can’t chew.

Alligators can live up to 50 years in the wild, longer in captivity.

It is illegal to feed wild alligators in Florida.

SOURCE: ORLANDO SENTINEL RESEARCH

enough on our farm to take care of our customers.”

The wholesale price of alligator meat hovered between $4 and $5.50 a pound from 1980 until 2011, when it rose to $5.75, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, although some farmers and trappers say it dipped as low as $3 during the recession.

The price took off in 2012, jumping to $7.50, and rose to $8.25 in 2013, the last year for which the state has records. It’s about $8.75 now, Register said.

Tourist attractions The price of the hides is more volatile and took a beating during the reces-

PHOTOS BY SUSAN JACOBSON/ORLANDO SENTINEL/TNS

These alligators will be a meal someday. For now, they live at Jimmy and Linda Boston’s alligator farm in Seminole County sion, when it plummeted from $43.75 a linear foot in 2008 to $15 in 2009 and 2010, according to the commission. For two or three years, it was impossible to sell hides because people weren’t buying high-end leather goods, trappers and farmers said.

“You have to have the value of the meat and the skins to make any money off it,” said Terry Parlier, a former nuisance-alligator trapper who owns a gatorprocessing plant near Clermont.

To survive the ups and downs of the market, some alligator farmers turned

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their businesses into tourist attractions.

Others, such as Jimmy and Linda Boston of Seminole County, rely on crab, catfish and some eel sales.

Jimmy Boston, 71, rises before dawn to catch the catfish and eel himself and buys the crabs from his son, who traps them.

“If we hadn’t diversified, we’d be out of business a long time ago,” said Linda Boston, 66, who sells gator meat to walk-up customers at the farm near Sanford and to several Central Florida restaurants.

Although the alligatormeat market is rebounding, the couple aren’t experiencing a windfall. That’s because gator-feed prices have doubled, and freight and other charges have risen, Jimmy Boston said.

Used in tacos too The Bostons sell their meat, which they process themselves and then vacuum-pack and freeze, for less than many retail outlets: $8 a pound. At Bar Harbor Seafood in south Orange County, by contrast, the price has held steady at $12.99 for the past few years, retail manager Scott Charron said.

Gatorama charges $12 a

Jimmy and Linda Boston packaged this gator meat at Boston’s Fish Processing Facility near Sanford. pound for ribs and about $18 a pound for tail meat, but some online stores get as much as $25 for tenderloin, which comes from the tail.

The tail and jaw meat is considered the most desirable, although soup and jerky can be made from the darker, tougher leg meat.

The Florida Department of Agriculture says gator meat can be used in sausage, patties and taco filling, but fried gator bites are most popular and often are served with sauce.

Farmed meat is more consistent in taste and texture, Register said.

TV shows helped Flynn and the Bostons credit TV reality shows

Federal reserve official: Weak job growth probably temporary

BY JIM PUZZANGHERA LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

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WASHINGTON — A top Federal Reserve official said Monday that last month’s weak job growth probably was temporary, part of a first-quarter economic slowdown triggered by unusually bad winter weather in the Northeast and Midwest.

William C. Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve William Bank of New York, estimatDudley ed that the economy expanded at just a 1 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year.

That would be less than half the previous quarter’s growth rate and the worst performance since a weather-induced 2.1 percent contraction in the first quarter of last year.

Dudley warned of “some downside risks” to the economic outlook that will continue through the spring. Those are “a further sharp drop in U.S. oil and gas investment” because of low crude oil prices and weaker U.S. trade because of the soaring value of the dollar.

126,000 new jobs The timing of the Fed’s first hike in its benchmark interest rate since 2006 will depend on “how the economic outlook evolves,” Dudley said in a speech at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.

such as “Swamp People,” “Gator Boys” and “Growing Up Gator,” which last fall featured the alligatorfarming Brooks family of Christmas, with raising the profile of alligator meat and increasing its value.

Danny Lam, 28, who was visiting from Toronto last week, said he wanted to try gator because it’s a novelty.

Like many other people, he said he liked it but found the texture chewy and tougher than other meats.

Some diners say it tastes similar to chicken.

“I consider it exotic,” Lam said after sharing a plate of battered gator-tail bites with friends at Gator’s Dockside in Baldwin Park in Orlando. “Up where we are, you rarely see gators.”

And if the labor market continues to improve and inflation begins to pick up, as he expects, “then it would be appropriate to begin to normalize interest rates.”

Job growth slowed sharply in March, with the economy adding just 126,000 net new jobs, the Labor Department said on April 3. Recent labor market weakness has led to speculation that the Fed might hold off on raising interest rates, which analysts had expected could begin as early as June.

“The March labor market report is another indicator that the first quarter is likely to be quite weak,” Dudley said in the first comments from a Fed policymaker on the employment data released April 3.

‘Downside surprises’ Dudley said the report showed a broadbased slowdown in job creation last month.

He added that “it will be important to monitor developments to determine whether the softness in the March labor market report … foreshadows a more substantial slowing in the labor market than I currently anticipate.”

The recent “downside surprises” in key economic data reflect “temporary factors to a significant degree.”

His staff found that the effects of snow and winter weather in the Northeast and Midwest were 20 percent to 25 percent more severe than the five-year average.

“Such large deviations appear to have meaningful negative impacts on a number of economic indicators,” Dudley said.

When the Fed starts raising the benchmark federal funds rate from its current level near zero, the central bank will move slowly because “headwinds in the aftermath of the financial crisis are still in evidence, particularly the diminished availability and tougher terms for residential mortgage credit,” he said.

At this point, Dudley projected the federal funds rate eventually would rise to 3.5 percent, “but I wouldn’t bet the farm on this.”

“I have considerable uncertainty about this estimate,” he said.

SPORTS

B4

APRIL 10 – APRIL 16, 2015

STOJ

Mission accomplished for Duke freshman Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones help Blue Devils defeat Kaminsky and Wisconsin

BY DAVID HAUGH CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TNS

INDIANAPOLIS — Somewhere beneath Jahlil Okafor’s bear hug Monday night, Duke teammate Tyus Jones smiled on the Lucas Oil Stadium floor as Blue Devils danced around him.

Jones had just taken America’s breath away with a clutch comeback performance that gave Duke a 68-63 victory over Wisconsin in the NCAA championship game, and now he was gasping for air under Okafor.

As soon as the buzzer sounded and confetti started to fly, Okafor made a beeline for his buddy. They were the first ones to hug because, perhaps, the fellow freshmen were the first ones to envision celebrating something this special as boys shortly after they met on the AAU circuit when they were 8.

Okafor comes from Chicago and Jones from Minnesota, but, through modern technology and the support of family, the giant center and the point guard kept in touch and ultimately agreed to align themselves in college. They agreed to travel together to Tobacco Road where they paved the way for coach Mike Krzyzewski’s fifth national title. Jones scored 23 points — 19 in a second half nobody in Durham, N.C., will soon forget.

SAM RICHE/TNS

Duke Blue Devils guard Tyus Jones (5), center, and his teammates celebrate their 68-63 win over Wisconsin in the NCAA National Championship game on April 6 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

UConn women No. 1

No stopping Duke Duke’s dynamic freshman duo, along with classmate Grayson Allen, clearly didn’t care about the sweet Wisconsin narrative about seniors. The Blue Devils arrived having won five games by an average of 17.6 points but never flinched when the Badgers looked poised to pull off their first title in 74 years.

Youth 1, Experience 0.

Not even Okafor’s foul trouble, which limited the big man to 22 minutes, was going to stop Duke on this night. The longer Okafor sat in the second half, the more he stewed. So when Okafor returned for crunch time, he imposed his will in a battle with Wisconsin star Frank Kaminsky he had been losing.

But with 3 minutes, 14 seconds left, Okafor spun and drew a foul on Kaminsky to make it 61-58. Then he blocked Kaminsky’s shot at the other end before scoring again on a putback with 2:10 left.

Until then, Kaminsky’s savvy had countered Okafor’s strength.

Foul trouble When Kaminsky unleashed a torrent of emotion after scoring a layup with 4:47 left in the first half, it wasn’t because the ball went in. Or because the basket tied the game at 23. Or because Kaminsky’s move was all that special.

SAM RICHE/TNS

Wisconsin Badgers forward Frank Kaminsky (44) gets past Duke Blue Devils center Jahlil Okafor (15) during the second half of the NCAA National Championship game on Monday.

Kaminsky reacted that way because the whistle signaled the second foul on Okafor and he knew what that meant.

Okafor sat out the rest of the first half and Wisconsin, shaky early, rediscovered its poise with Duke’s big man on the bench.

With confidence came composure and with composure came the Badgers team that had embodied all that’s good about college basketball in the tournament.

With Okafor watching the final 4:47 of the half, Duke never countered

Wisconsin’s 7-0 run that got the Badgers back in it.

A similar surge in the second half came after Kaminsky drew Okafor’s fourth foul with 9:18 left.

Chicago connection Chicagoans savored the matchup because the game to determine a national champion carried a distinct local flavor. Kaminsky and Okafor share a connection to Chicago even if their ascent to the top of college basketball took dramatically different paths.

Just before Okafor’s freshman year in high

CLOE POISSON/HARTFORD COURANT/TNS

UConn forward Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis (23) hoists the NCAA championship trophy after they defeated Notre Dame, 63-53, in the title game at the Amalie Arena on Tuesday in Tampa. school at Young, he already had received a scholarship offer from DePaul. Tracy Webster, the Blue Demons’ interim coach at the time, extended it with hopes of reviving a program still in need of revival.

Okafor became known as a basketball prodigy shortly after moving to suburban Rosemont from Oklahoma to live with his father, Chucky, after his mother died when the boy was 9. Coaches everywhere heard of the 14-year-old in size-16s.

Okafor always seemed destined to stand on his sport’s biggest stage; Mon-

Illinois State coach among 7 killed in plane crash

BY PATRICK M. O’CONNELL AND ALEXANDRA CHACKKEVITCH CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TNS

CHICAGO — Two members of Illinois State University’s athletic department were among seven people killed when a small plane crashed early Tuesday near the airport in Bloomington, Ill., while returning from the NCAA basketball men’s championship game in Indianapolis, authorities said.

Aaron Leetch, 37, deputy director of athletics for external operations, and Torrey Ward, 36, associate head coach of the Redbirds men’s basketball team, were on board the twin-engine Cessna 414 that crashed into a bean field on approach to the Central Illinois Regional Airport

in a dense fog.

“The entire campus (is) in mourning,” university President Larry Dietz said in a statement.

The other victims were identified by the McLean County Coroner’s Office as Thomas Hileman, 51, the pilot; Terry Stralow, 64, a partner in a popular bar in Normal, Ill.; Scott Bittner, 42, owner of a meat-processing company and owner of the Cessna; Andrew Butler, 40; and Woodrow “Jason” Jones, 45.

Plane hit heavy fog The athletic department was “heartbroken” over the news, staff members said. A moment of silence was held for the crash victims and their families before the start of the Redbirds home

baseball game Tuesday afternoon against Northern Illinois, and the American flag beyond center field was lowered to halfstaff. A bouquet of daisies and tulips was left on a basketball statue outside Redbird Arena.

The plane left the Indianapolis Torrey airport about 11 Ward p.m. Monday and hit heavy fog over central Illinois, authorities said.

About 12:15 a.m., radar contact with the plane was lost, McLean County Sheriff Jon Sandage said.

Todd Fox, an air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said the

day it was to decide an NCAA title and in June it likely will be as the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. Everything happened naturally.

Great effort Kaminsky, on the other hand, never would have guessed all that lay ahead for him at Wisconsin. Just before Kaminsky’s freshman year at Benet Academy in Lisle, Ill., in contrast to Okafor at the same age, he began wondering whether he ever would outgrow his awkward phase.

He was a shy, skinny

plane was cleared for approach on a runway at the Bloomington airport, but “made a turn away from the predetermined course to the runway” and crashed. Debris on the field was limited, he said, and most parts of the aircraft were still attached to the frame.

Investigation continues Investigators will continue to examine the airplane, as well as air traffic communications and radar, voice and weather data.

“We’re in the fact-gathering stage of the investigation,” he said.

The pilot had a valid flying certificate with a February medical check. He had about 12,000 hours of flight time.

The plane was in contact with air traffic control in Peoria, which handles communication with airplanes after the Central Illi-

6-foot-3 perimeter player who liked to shoot 3s. Even after young Frank began to grow physically into his body, the biggest metamorphosis came after he failed to make the Illinois Wolves AAU team when he was 15.

When he broke into tears on the car ride home, his dad, a product of the South Side who believed it was more important to be his son’s parent than his friend, told him to quit crying or go play soccer. A competitive fire was lit. It didn’t go out until Monday night in a game in which Duke simply had too much firepower.

nois Regional Airport radio tower closes at 10 p.m., said Carl Olson, director of the airport.

Fox said there was no indication of distress or trouble in communication between the plane and air traffic control.

The airport control tower normally closes at night, but it is common for planes to land after hours, with runway lights illuminated. Pilots also have the ability to remotely indicate they need the runway lights turned on.

The plane went down in a farm field about 2 miles east of the airport, north of two-lane Illinois Route 9 off a paved county road.

Bittner was from Towanda, a small town north of Bloomington-Normal. The others were all from Bloomington or Normal. Hileman, Leetch, Jones and Stralow were identified through dental records, according to the coroner’s office.

STOJ

APRIL 10 – APRIL 16, 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.

Born and raised in Florida, Sara Hollywood enjoys working out and spending time with her family. She has been modeling for years and is striving toward a cover on Sports Illustrated.

Contact Sara at facebook.com/ sarahollywood or on Twitter @ MsSarahollywood.

Cristopher Gray is a model from Ormond Beach who has attended school in Los Angeles.

He can be reached at mistirchris08 @aol.com.

sara

christopher

First lady sparks outrage over appearance on ‘Black Girls Rock!’

BLACKAMERICAWEB.COM

First Lady Michelle Obama’s appearance on BET’s “Black Girls Rock!” show that aired on Easter Sunday was a definite plus for some, but for others, it was more of a downer.

In a series of complaints left on Obama’s Instagram page, folks voiced their disappointment with the first lady for participating in an event that solely highlighted African-American girls.

“I am all for the empowerment of disadvantaged groups, I just don’t see how alienating an oppressed group i.e. women by focusing on a subset of that group, helps anyone,” one commenter wrote.

“If a white person posted this and it said white girls rock…the sh-t would hit the fan,” wrote another person voiced.

‘ALL girls rock’

The negative feedback from Obama’s appearance at “Black Girls Rock!” comes after #whitegirlsrock became a trending topic on Twitter during last year’s broadcast of the event. On March 28, Obama’s personal aide Kristin Jones announced that she would be taking over the first lady’s Instagram account.

“Black Girls Rock is leaving out all other girls of color. Brown is a color, yellow is a color, red is a color and yes, white is still a color. One day racism will end because we no longer NOTICE the color of our fellow human beings.

ALL girls rock,” an Instagram user posted.

Badu, Tyson honored Despite the criticism, there were many people on Instagram who voiced their support of Obama’s involvement in “Black Girls Rock!”

“To all my fellow white wom-

en: Why is uplifting our sisters of color a bad thing for us, exactly?

Go read the news, see a movie, or watch TV, and look at the stereotypes of African-Americans still face, especially young women.

This group of ladies need to know that that image is not their reality #BlackGirlsRock,” an Instagrammer expressed.

Nadia Lopez (Brooklyn’s Mott Hall Bridges Academy), Cicely Tyson, Erykah Badu, Ava DuVernay, Helene D. Gayle (CARE USA) and Jada Pinkett Smith were among the honorees at the event, which featured performances by Badu, Ciara, Faith Evans and Fantasia.

Other performers included Estelle, Sheila E., Lalah Hathaway, Cheryl Lynn, Alicia Myers, Jill Scott and Kathy Sledge. Tracee Ellis Ross and Regina King again hosted the event.

Check BET for the next airing of the show.

BET

Michelle Obama sits by Cicely Tyson and BET CEO Debra Lee during the show.

‘Too Darn Hot Party’ boosts OWN’s cable rating TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

OWN and Tyler Perry decided to celebrate their winning collaboration on “Love Thy Neighbor,” “For Better or Worse,” “The Haves and the Have Nots” and “If Loving You is Wrong” with the successful “Too Darn Hot Party” special.

The show gave the network another winner in its lineup during the third week of March and the star-filled program held on to 1.6 million of its lead-in audience, the season finale of “The Haves.”

The Perry special also gave OWN the week’s most-watched cable network title among the Top 25 with a total of 5.9 million across four shows. VH1 took second place with 4.6 million for three shows, and Bravo closely followed in third with 4.1 million for three of its programs.

The “Too Darn Hot Party” honored Tyler Perry for his popular shows, “Love Thy Neighbor,” “For Better or Worse,” “The Haves and the Have Nots” and “If Loving You is Wrong,” on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).

The total number of viewers for the Top 25 cable shows in Black households, according to Nielsen, was virtually unchanged from the previous week at 27.5 million.

Bessie Smith (left) will be portrayed by Queen Latifah (right).

Latifah to star in HBO’s film ‘Bessie’ EURWEB.COM

Queen Latifah is no longer gracing the airwaves with her daily talk show, but she will be back on the small screen shortly.

If you haven’t heard, Lafifah is bringing blues pioneer Bessie Smith back to life in the HBO

film, “Bessie.”

The 45-year-old Oscar nominee plays the “Empress of the Blues” in a role that chronicles Bessie’s rise to fame to become one of the world’s most soulful blues singers.

“Bessie” also stars Michael K. Williams of “Boardwalk Empire’’

and Oscar winner Mo’Nique, as Ma Rainy. As well as bringing the music, “Bessie” brings the drama as it focuses on the singing legend’s turbulent personal life and climb to stardom in the 1920s.

“Bessie” debuts Saturday, May 16, at 8 p.m. on HBO.

FOOD

B6

APRIL 10 – APRIL 16, 2015

TOJ

CHICKEN PAELLA WITH FRENCH GREEN BEANS Hands-on: 30 minutes Total: 60 minutes Servings: 6 (1 2/3 cups each) 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided 1 pound boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 1 small onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 teaspoons smoked paprika 1 1/2 cups parboiled white long-grain rice, uncooked 2 cups chicken broth 1 can (14.5 ounces) Hunt’s Diced Tomatoes, undrained 1 package (11 ounces) Alexia French Herb Green Beans 1/3 cup sliced ripe olives 2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley Lemon wedges Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add chicken, salt and pepper. Cook 7–9 minutes or until golden brown on all sides. Transfer to plate.

Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil to skillet and heat. Add onion, garlic and paprika. Cook 3–5 minutes or until onion is tender, stirring often. Stir in rice; cook 1–2 minutes or until coated well.

Stir in broth, tomatoes and chicken; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook 12 minutes.

Stir in frozen green beans; cook covered 8–10 minutes more or until rice is tender and chicken is cooked through. Remove from heat; let stand covered 5 minutes.

Stir in olives. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with lemon wedges.

Simplify weeknight MEALS FROM FAMILY FEATURES

Busy weeknights call for meals you can prepare quickly, but there’s no need to compromise on flavor and quality.

One way to save time is combining fresh ingredients with frozen sides, such as those offered by Alexia Foods. Made with premium, natural ingredients and creative flavor com­binations, they lend a deliciously gourmet complement to any meal.

Don’t be fooled by the complex flavors of these dishes — they’re surprisingly fast to prepare, requiring only about thirty minutes of hands-on time (or less).

For more time-saving recipes featuring real ingredients that serve-up exceptional taste, visit www.alexiafoods.com.

ITALIAN HERB CORN AND RICE ZUCCHINI BOATS Hands-on: 25 minutes Total: 50 minutes Servings: 4 (2 halves each) 4 medium zucchini 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 clove garlic, minced 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 1 package (12 ounces) Alexia Italian Herb Corn with Sundried Tomatoes 3/4 cup cooked white basmati rice (or quinoa for added protein and fiber) 1 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley, optional Preheat oven to 425°F. Cut zucchini in half lengthwise.

Using melon baller or spoon, scoop out zucchini flesh, leaving about 1/4-inch border.

Brush zucchini halves with oil.

Sprinkle with garlic, salt and pepper.

Place zucchini on parchment paperlined baking sheet. Bake 13–15 minutes or until tender.

Meanwhile, prepare corn accord­ing to package directions. Toss corn with rice and cheeses. Spoon mixture evenly into zucchini halves.

Return to oven. Bake 8–10 minutes more or until filling is hot. Place zucchini under broiler for golden brown top. Sprinkle with parsley, if desired.

ALMOND CRUSTED TILAPIA WITH PARMESAN PEAS Hands-on: 30 minutes Total: 30 minutes Servings: 4 (1 filet and 1/2 cup peas each) 1/3 cup dry unseasoned bread crumbs 1/3 cup finely chopped almonds 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 4 tilapia fillets (6 ounces each), or any white-fleshed fish such as cod, haddock or sole

1/3 cup all-purpose flour 1 egg, beaten 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 package (12 ounces) Alexia Parmesan Peas Lemon wedges Combine bread crumbs, almonds and cheese in shallow dish.

Sprinkle salt and pepper on fish.

Coat fish with flour; shake off excess.

Dip in egg until coated well. Place in bread crumb mixture and turn to coat completely.

Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add fish; cook 3–4 minutes on each side or until fish flakes easily with fork and is golden brown (145°F internal temperature).

Meanwhile, prepare peas according to package directions. Serve peas and lemon wedges with fish.

SOUTHERN SWEET POTATO HASH Hands-on: 35 minutes Total: 35 minutes Servings: 4 (1 1/4 cups hash with 1 egg each) 1 pound fresh hot Italian turkey sausage, casings removed 2 packages (11 ounces each) Alexia Southern Sweet Potato Blend 2 green onions, sliced 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro 1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar 4 cold eggs Heat large skillet over medium-high heat; add sausage. Cook 5–7 minutes or until crumbled, stirring occasionally.

Drain.

Add sweet potato blend. Cover and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Uncover and cook 5–7 minutes more or until vegetables are cooked, stirring occasionally. Stir in onions and cilantro.

Meanwhile, fill saucepan with about 3 inches of water. Heat until water simmers gently; stir in vinegar. Break 1 cold egg into small dish or saucer.

Holding dish just above simmering water, gently slip egg into water.

Repeat with remaining eggs.

Cook eggs in gently simmering water 3–5 minutes or until white is set and yolk is cooked to desired doneness. Remove eggs with slotted spoon. Drain on paper towels.

Divide sweet potato mixture among 4 plates. Top each with poached egg.