Florida Courier - July 26, 2013

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The Trayvon Martin speech Obama should have given Page A5

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JULY 26 - AUGUST 1, 2013

VOLUME 21 NO. 30

IMPACT

In 2011, Black tourists spent $1.8 billion just in the Fort Lauderdale area alone.

But could a boycott seriously hurt Florida?

Obama pivots from Trayvon Speech focuses on middle class

BY KATHLEEN HENNESSEY AND CHRISTI PARSONS TRIBUNE WASHINGTON BUREAU (MCT)

GABRIEL B. TAIT/DETROIT FREE PRESS

An exhibit at the Rosa Park Library and Museum in Montgomery, Ala. shows Black residents preparing to carpool in a station wagon similar to one churches used to transport people during the year-long Montgomery bus boycott in 1955.

COMPILED FROM WIRE AND STAFF REPORTS

Hurting the ‘brand’ Meanwhile, negative perceptions of the state have been fostered on venues such as, “The Daily Show,” which has labeled Florida “the worst state.” A sister program, “The Colbert Report,” added that Florida “apparently no longer has rules or laws.”

Last week, Scott expressed “hope” that boycotts don’t work. Business groups preferred to quietly wait to see how the public perception plays out rather than stoking the issue by commenting.

Meanwhile, grassroots boycott activities continue.

Critics of the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law and George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin hope to make Florida pay.

Their message as they implore state lawmakers to change the law: Don’t travel to Florida, and don’t buy Florida oranges and other Sunshine State products.

The drumbeat of opposition has quickly grown on social media, while a group call the “Dream Defenders” continues to camp outside Gov. Rick Scott’s office in the Capitol demanding action against the law that remains strongly support- In New Jersey Gerald Marion spent his ed by Florida’s Republican leaders. career fighting fires, not ra-

Purge lawsuit thrown out after voting rights decision FROM THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

A lawsuit against Florida’s efforts to remove suspected non-citizens from the voting rolls has been dismissed following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month to throw out a key part of the federal Voting Rights Act. The lawsuit, filed by voting-rights groups and two citizens, argued that the state should have waited to begin the purge until it first won “p re c l e a rance” of the change from the U.S. Department of Howard Justice unSimon der a provision of the Voting Rights Act requiring state or local governments with histories of racial discrimination to get approval for major voting changes.

The Supreme Court ruled last month that the formula used to select states for “preclearance” was antiquated and unconstitutional. The

ALSO INSIDE

decision by a three-judge federal panel Wednesday to dismiss the case followed a request from both Secretary of State Ken Detzner and the groups challenging the purge.

“This is the first shock wave of the Supreme Court’s devastating decision crashing into Florida,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, one of the groups involved in the case. “ ... You can believe that Florida’s Legislature is chomping at the bit for the next legislative session to see what other voter suppression tactics they can get away with now that the Voting Rights Act no longer keeps our legislature in check.”

Opponents argued the purge disproportionately targeted Hispanic voters.

The program was eventually put on hold by the state, though Detzner later said it would continue after the state secured access to a federal database that could make the work more accurate.

cial injustice. The lifelong Englewood, N.J. resident rose through the ranks and became the city’s second Black fire chief, earning a reputation as a calm, steadfast advocate for his department who stayed out of the political fray.

But Marion reached a breaking point when the Sanford jury acquitted Zimmerman. He asked the Englewood City Council to boycott businesses in Florida and other states with Stand Your Ground laws.

Marion, a firefighter for 24 years, said the laws disproportionately affect Blacks, especially when law enforcement and others assume Black youths have criminal intent; White youths get the benefit of the doubt.

“We read the news every day and you’re always coming across a story… an African-American gets shot because the shooter was threatened by their presence or the shooter was reacting to a stereotype,” he said. “It could be me. It could be my son. It could be my nephew.”

Marion may be the first public official in New Jersey to ask a local government to shun Florida businesses in the wake of the verdict.

‘Devastating’ possibilities When the possibility of a tourist boycott was first mentioned in April 2012 – just prior to Zimmerman’s See IMPACT, Page A2

GALESBURG, Ill.President Obama sought on Wednesday to steer the nation’s attention back to his stewardship of an improving economy with a high-profile speech that took credit for a comeback but warned that persistent “inequality of opportunity” and fights over the federal budget could undo the progress.

Speaking from a college gymnasium in this economically distressed town, Obama issued his sunniest description yet of the economy and praised the “resilience” of Americans in the face of diminished income, a sluggish job market and a widening gap between rich and poor.

America is back “Today, five years after the start of that Great Recession, America has fought its way back,” Obama said. “As a country, we’ve recovered faster and gone further than most other advanced nations in the world.”

Economists agree the United States is gaining ground with steady job growth and increasing investor confidence. But a large share of the new jobs this year have come in lower-paying businesses, and analysts question whether

the economy can sustain the rate of growth as the year wears on.

Obama acknowledged “we have more work to do,” and for more than an hour he spoke on his economic agenda, including proposals for expanding public preschool, raising the minimum wage, overhauling the tax code, and curbing the rising cost of higher education.

The speech and another later Wednesday at the University of Central Missouri offered broad, familiar themes, only hinting at specific policy actions to come.

Details later Obama promised he would outline details in future remarks.

He also vowed to use his executive authority whenever possible to override the Republican opposition that has thwarted much of his economic agenda for the past two years.

“With an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball. And I am here to say this needs to stop,” Obama said. “This moment does not require short-term thinking. It does not require having the same old stale debates.”

The speech was an attempt to revive the populist economic message that helped propel Obama to reelection but has recently faded from view, crowded out by months of unwelcome news on other fronts.

See RALLY, Page A2

MISS FLORIDA USA / PHENOMENAL WOMEN

Breaking beauty barriers

CHARLES W. CHERRY II/FLORIDA COURIER

Five years ago this week, the Florida Courier published this picture of 12 beautiful Black women who competed for the Miss Florida USA title, the most in the pageant’s 58-year history at the time.

They are, left to right, Denesha Jenkins, Delpha Clarke, Lucette Pierre-Louis, Courtney McKenzie, Kourtney Gallego, Laurie Conley, Lulu Orange, Ashley Washington, Vida Sheffield, Miss Florida USA 2009 Anastagia Pierre, Benecia Toyloy and Kimyatta Perry.

SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3

NATION | A6

Jackson: ‘There is a Trayvon in every town’

Change coming for GED test

METRO | B1

Tampa educator elected national president of Delta Sigma Theta

NATION: PANEL AT NAACP NATIONAL CONVENTION PUSHES FOR VOTING RIGHTS ACT FIGHT | A3 guest COMMENTARY: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: ‘A HISTORY THAT DOESN’T GO AWAY’ | A4

FINEST | B5

Meet

Dione

FOCUS

A2

JULY 26 – AUGUST 1, 2013

Do not schedule a vacation in Florida until victory is won There are times when there is a convergence of ideas, a meeting of minds, such that a particular strategy has the potential to galvanize a movement to achieve a major victory. It appears that such a convergence of ideas has occurred around at least one strategy to translate the anger and frustration over the George Zimmerman verdict into justice in the Trayvon Martin tragedy – economic sanctions/Boycott Florida.

Taking action Dr. Patricia Newton, president emeritus of the National Association of Black Psychiatrists, was so outraged by the Zimmerman verdict that she cancelled a $1 million dollar contract she was about to sign for a conference in Florida.

When I asked an elderly Black professional couple I met at Penn Station in Baltimore (who were returning from a conference in Jacksonville, Fla.) whether they would be going back to Florida next year… Before I could get the words out of my mouth, the wife defiantly proclaimed that they discussed the murder of Trayvon Martin at the conference and had already resolved that they would not hold another convention in that state until there is justice in this case!

Then music legend Stevie Wonder issued a statement at a concert in Canada proclaiming, “Until the Stand Your Ground Law is abolished, I will never perform there again.” Since his pro-

DR. RON DANIELS VANTAGE POINT

nouncement Eddie Levert, Stephanie Mills, Dionne Warwick and Mary Mary are among the artists who have publicly come out saying they will not perform in Florida until this abhorrent law has changed.

While celebrities like Stevie Wonder provide credibility for the boycott, it will be the actions of the multitude of conscious and committed conventiongoers, vacationers and consumers that will make the campaign effective.

Scab is off Just as Katrina ripped the scab off and exposed the raw naked structural and institutional racism in distressed Black neighborhoods in America like those in New Orleans, the murder of Trayvon Martin has ripped the scab off the persistent phenomenon of the criminalization of young Black men, racial profiling, “stop and frisk” and the structural institutional racism in America’s criminal justice system.

The problem is that despite episodic protests and periodic mobilizations, there has not been a persistent sense of urgency in Black America about these issues. One week after the

Zimmerman verdict, rallies and prayer vigils were held across the country to demand that the Justice Department bring criminal charges against George Zimmerman for violating Trayvon Martin’s civil rights.

However, even if the Justice Department does find sufficient cause to bring charges, the economic sanctions/boycott Florida campaign is necessary. Not only must we seek a conviction of Zimmerman; we must also indict and fight to change the law that is so flawed that it would permit an armed adult to pursue an unarmed teenager deemed “suspicious” and permit a grown man to kill a kid who fearfully sought to stand his ground against a menacing stranger.

Fighting to change this flawed law is about justice for Trayvon Martin, but it is also about all of the Trayvons in the state of Florida and across the nation who are victims of criminalization and racial profiling.

Standing our ground It is about Black people consciously and collectively standing our ground against the attacks on the gains of the civil rights/human rights/Black power movements, the abandonment and disinvestment in distressed Black communities and the daily indignities we have quietly suffered for far too long.

In his last speech the night before he was assassinated in Memphis, Dr. Martin Luther King urged Black people to use

boycotts to achieve justice. He said, “Now we must kind of redistribute the pain.” As IBW said in its press release on this issue, “Blacks and all people of conscience and good will should inflict some non-violent pain on the state of Florida and keep inflicting it until business leaders and the politicians scream for help and plead for the economic sanctions to be lifted.”

But to achieve our goal we need a targeted (not scattered or “shotgun”) approach to succeed.

The major component of the campaign should be to shut off tourism to Florida. This means Black organizations should not schedule conferences or conventions in that state until the law is changed.

No longer safe Groups that have already scheduled conferences six months to a year out should seek to cancel the agreements and notify the venues that Black people no longer feel safe to travel to Florida, particularly with their sons. An option is to hold conferences/conventions at a Black college/university or Black-owned retreat centers.

In the event that your conference is already scheduled in the next few months, resolve to spend as little cash in the state as possible. This campaign requires that kind of discipline.

Do not schedule a vacation in Florida until victory is won. Do not travel to an amusement park in the “tragic kingdom” or golf

RALLY Controversial leak investigations, wariness about the economy, a stalled immigration bill and public surliness directed at Washington have blunted the president’s post-election momentum.

Low ratings

IMPACT from A1 arrest – Nicki Grossman, president of the Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, mentioned her concern about “economic injury” to the state.

“Anything that disrupts the ability of Florida’s economic engine to move forward is devastating,” she said then, pointing to a 2012 article on the online site Huffington Post calling for tourists to go elsewhere other than the Sunshine State.

Grossman said the irony is that Blacks benefit enormously from Florida’s tourist economy. In 2011, 11.1 million tourists visited Greater Fort Lauderdale, she said, and 20 percent were Blacks who spent $1.8 billion there.

“People of color would be the first and worst affected,” Grossman said. “As long as Florida depends on tourists’ money – to the tune of roughly 9.3 percent of GDP (gross domestic product, a measurement of Florida’s economy) and a million jobs – the state’s government has a motivation to protect citizens of Oregon, Illinois and, for that matter, Brazil, Germany and Japan.”

Competitive haters In addition to political considerations, Grossman

Our marching orders No conferences or conventions; no vacations; no amusement parks or golf tournaments; no Florida orange juice. We also hope the major civil rights leaders will embrace this righteous campaign and mobilize their constituents to actively support it. The people are ready and the train is already leaving the station.

IBW has posted a petition on its website www.ibw21.org where organizations, leaders and individuals can sign a pledge to boycott Florida.

Finally, while Black people spearhead this campaign, we obviously appeal to and welcome the support of our friends and allies of all races and ethnicities who believe that “an injury to one is an injury to all,” that “an injustice anywhere to anyone is an injustice to everyone everywhere.”

Dr. Ron Daniels is president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century and Distinguished Lecturer at York College City University of New York. Contact him at info@ ibw21.org.

no candy in it,” he said.

Noting that the White House had billed the speech as a major address, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., quipped, “With all the buildup, you’d think the president was unveiling the next Bond film or something, but in all likelihood it will be more like a midday rerun of some ’70s B movie,” he said.

from A1

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday put Obama’s approval rating at 45 percent, the lowest since August 2011, when Congress and Obama flirted with default in a showdown over raising the debt ceiling.

A replay of that fight may be on the horizon, and Obama’s two-day economy tour – which takes him to Jacksonville on Thursday, after the Florida Courier’s press time – is, in part, aimed at positioning the White House for the next go-around. Congress will have to raise the debt limit this fall to allow the nation

tournament until victory is won.

Refusing to buy Florida orange juice is an excellent way to “democratize” the economic sanctions/Boycott Florida campaign by creating an avenue for ordinary people everywhere to participate in the effort, whether they had planned to travel to Florida or not.

Second appearance

ZBIGNIEW BZDAK/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/MCT

President Obama delivered an address on economics at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, on Wednesday. to pay its bills, and funding will need to be approved to keep the government running after Sept. 30.

Obama called proposals aimed at the middle class his “highest priority.” “When the economy is working for middle-class

families it solves an awful lot of other problems,” he told students in Warrensburg, Mo. His remarks were laden with harsh attacks on a “faction” of Republicans in the House, while praising some Republican senators,

his most-likely first targets for outreach.

House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said Obama should help the economy by approving the Keystone pipeline and delaying the 2010 health care law. “It’s an Easter egg with

said, other states might also have an interest in undermining Florida’s tourism industry.

“It would not be the first time,” she said. “Arizona competes against us and our weather all the time.”

She said tourism-propelled states have publicized Florida hurricanes and other negatives – like the shooting of British tourists. “Our competitors are outspending us everywhere.”

In 1993, two British tourists were shot – and one killed – in a robbery attempt at a rest stop on Interstate 10 east of Tallahassee. Within hours, Gov. Lawton Chiles, facing reports that frightened vacationers were canceling their travel plans, ordered Florida law-enforcement agencies to guard all interstate rest areas.

then you start to worry,” said Abraham Pizam, dean of the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management.

Pizam cited the case of Arizona, where many activists called for travel boycotts after the state passed its controversial anti-immigration law in 2010.

Pizam said Arizona’s tourism industry experienced a “tiny drop” in the immediate aftermath of the law’s passage but that it quickly recovered.

Opponents of the immigration law hoped their boycott would result in empty convention centers and sports venues. The Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C.based liberal policy group, projected that Arizona’s convention business was down $45 million in the first four months after the law was enacted.

While a few musicians and business groups stayed out of the state, the Associated Press estimated that by the end of 2010 the state had taken a $145 million hit.

declaring “The Sunshine State becomes a State of Terror.”

“That was a significant crime against tourists, violent crimes, but in time people forgot it,” Pizam. “…

If you have a beef with the ‘Stand Your Ground’ law, there are 19 other states that have the law as well,” Pizam said.

But in the court of public opinion, the beef right now is with Florida.

Cancellations could hurt A spokesman for Visit Orlando, the region’s publicly subsidized marketing agency, said it is too early to tell whether boycotts will have a significant effect.

An Orlando area hospitality expert said that in looking at similarly proposed boycotts, such as the reaction in Arizona to its stringent 2010 immigration law, there may be little economic dent unless groups start to cancel longplanned conferences.

“Within the next couple of weeks, if any major conferences are canceled,

No lasting impact Pizam noted that Florida’s tourism industry did suffer about an 8 percent drop in visitors after nine tourists were killed in 1993, but the impact didn’t last long, even with the worldwide attention heightened by screaming British tabloid headlines and the Philadelphia Daily News

Supporters, detractors Music legend Stevie Wonder says he will boycott Florida until the state abolishes the controversial law. During last week’s NAACP convention in Orlando, Martin Luther King, III proposed a boycott of Florida orange juice.

The reaction to the case has reached the Facebook page for Visit Florida, the state’s tourism arm. Under photos promoting the state’s sunny vistas, people are posting messages such as, “I will make an effort to boycott all Florida products and to spread the word until this situation is fixed.”

Meanwhile, other comments are critical of protesters, with one saying, “to all African-Americans boycotting Florida … Please don’t stop! It’s is much more pleasant here without you.”

Online activity MoveOn.org, a liberal public policy advocacy

The White House tried to distinguish the speech from other similar and failed attempts to refocus on the economy by staging it at Knox College, where Obama delivered his first major economic address as a new senator in 2005.

That speech, delivered during relatively good economic times, discussed the plight of workers at a Maytag refrigerator plant in a town whose jobs were moved to Mexico. Obama offered an optimistic view of a new economy driven by green technologies, medical research and innovation. group, has started a petition drive calling for a boycott of tourism to Florida until the law is overturned.

“If the murder of Trayvon Martin isn’t enough to get lawmakers’ attention, maybe a loss in revenue to the state would be,” MoveOn said in an email seeking signatures. As of the Florida Courier’s press time late Wednesday night, four separate MoveOn petitions to boycott Florida had a total of 15,000 signatures.

“If my sons are not safe in Florida against gun-toting vigilantes, then neither is my money,” wrote Kimberly Melancon of Atlanta on the petition.

“How about boycotting their produce as well?” added petition signer Judith Cahill of El Prado, N.M. Julius Denson, a MoveOn member from Temple Terrace, near Tampa, promoted another petition that simply seeks to amend the law so an individual would be prevented from “pursuing another person and being able to claim self-defense.”

“It is completely irresponsible and dangerous to have such an ambiguous law in place that doesn’t consider the full circumstance of a given situation,” Denson stated in a release.

His petition had more than 11,100 signatures this week.

On Twitter and Facebook a number of hashtags --#BoycottFlorida, #Boycot-

Galesburg has not seen that hope come to life. The town’s unemployment rate of nearly 8 percent masks persistent underemployment and hardships. In the city of 32,000 people, nearly 23 percent of residents live below the poverty level and nearly 40 percent of those are under the age of 18.

Nine years after the last 1,600 people were laid off from the Maytag plant, only 1,000 people in Galesburg work in manufacturing. The main street leading to the private liberal arts school is lined with weather-beaten homes, fast-food restaurants and dollar stores.

On Wednesday, Obama acknowledged the continued struggle of places like Galesburg.

“The trend of a winnertake-all economy where a few are doing better and better and better, while everybody else just treads water — those trends have been made worse by the recession,” he said. “This growing inequality is not just morally wrong, it’s bad economics.” tFloridaTourism and #NotFlorida --- have been created in support of boycotting Florida over the Zimmerman ruling.

‘Innocent bystanders’ Still, Pizam said most boycotts in reaction to court rulings or new state laws in the past haven’t had a significant impact.

“For one, you might see those on the other side show their support for Florida, which could help balance things,” Pizam said.

“And even those who think about boycotting realize sooner or later that this is collective punishment and collective punishment hits innocent bystanders.”

Asked about a boycott having an impact on the state’s important hospitality sector, Scott said during an appearance on CNBC’s “Mad Money that he hopes not. He pointed to the state’s reduced crime rate as evidence of efforts to keep Florida safe.

“We are having record tourism, 91 million tourists last year, two record years in a row, we’re on track, up about 4 percent last year, so we’re heading in the right direction,” Scott said.

Rebecca Baker of The Record, Hackensack, N.J. (MCT), and Jim Turner and Margie Menzel of the News Service of Florida contributed to this report.

JULY 26 – AUGUST 1, 2013

A3

FLORIDA

‘There is a Trayvon in every town’

DUANE FERNANDEZ, SR./FLORIDA COURIER

The Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King III all spoke at the NAACP’s national convention on July 17.

Slain teen remembered by civil rights leaders at NAACP convention

BY JAMES HARPER FLORIDA COURIER

The shadow of the George Zimmerman trial still was hovering over the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando on July 17, the last day of the NAACP’s 104th national convention.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III told a packed hall at the convention that they will not let the murder of Trayvon Martin be in vain despite a jury finding his killer not guilty in Sanford just days before, on July 13. Sanford is about 20 miles away from where they were meeting.

Before addressing thousands of NAACP members gathered from across the country, Jackson told a group of reporters, “There is a Trayvon in every town.”

Time to vote en mass Jackson, who called Zimmerman a “wannabe cop,’’ also said the jury of five White women and one Hispanic showed their cultural bias.

The killing of Trayvon Martin

has illuminated similar cases and racial injustice around the country, Jackson said.

He noted the jury hearing the Zimmerman case should have been integrated with at least one Black.

“Turn anger into massive registration. The burden is to go to every hill and molehill. There may be more Trayvons. It’s hope time.

It’s healing time,” he told the audience.

From rally to verdict Sharpton said he had never heard of Sanford or Martin until contacted by Attorney Ben Crump 15 months ago. After hearing the circumstances of Martin’s death, he decided that the case shouldn’t be decided in the back of a police station, but in a court of law.

Along with pastors in Central Florida, Sharpton organized a March 2012 rally that attracted 30,000 attendees to a Sanford park, which eventually led to the arrest of Zimmerman.

“The jury has spoken. Now the people are going to speak,” said

Sharpton about the non-guilty verdict by the Zimmerman jury.

Prepared for vigils Sharpton is upset the media is implying that Martin’s family and supporters are demanding the Department of Justice investigate if Martin’s civil rights were violated because of the verdict.

“Some are trying to act as if we are raising civil rights charge after the verdict. We raised (that issue) before there was a special prosecutor assigned,” Sharpton explained.

Sharpton had organized vigils in over 100 cities across the country for Saturday, July 20, to show the nation there is support for the Department of Justice to investigate the case.

Stand your ground fight next Sharpton said the next fight is the overturning of the “Stand Your Ground” law in Florida.

He said getting rid of stand your ground in Florida is a test case.

“If we can do it in Florida, we

can go after other states. Until we overturn Stand Your Ground laws, (there will be) more Trayvon Martins,” he continued.

“We are going to Washington in August but will stop by Tallahassee on the way,” said Sharpton, referring to a march in D.C. he has helped organize to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Jr. “I Have A Dream” speech on the Washington Mall.

“Aug. 24, this is not a reunion.

We are going to stand up, fight back and march again. Forward ever, backward never,” he said.

Sharpton said there is an illusion by some that since a Black president has been elected, “We are post racial.”

“Those that say that have never been profiled,” he explained.

“Today we are dealing with Jim Crow’s children. They are more polished. Just like Jim Crow had children, (Dr.) King had children, (Roy) Wilkins had children, (Dorothy) Height had children,” he declared, hinting that the battle will continue for civil rights for all.

‘Tamper-free lock’ wanted on Voting Rights Act Panel urges NAACP members to keep up fight for voting rights

BY JAMES HARPER FLORIDA COURIER

Elaine Jones is no stranger to putting out fires when they have been set by those who want to take away the voting rights of Blacks.

The “firestarter’’ she took aim at during a July 17 panel discussion on the Voting Rights Act at the NAACP’s 104th national convention in Orlando was the Supreme Court.

Last month, the court decided to kill Section 4 of the act, which has protected the voting rights of Blacks since it was first passed in 1965.

Section 4 is the coverage formula the federal government uses to determine which states and counties are subject to continued oversight. Section 5 of the law effectively cannot be enforced because it relies heavily on the coverage formula.

‘Bled, died and marched’ for it Under Section 5, any changes in voting laws and procedures in those covered states had to be “precleared” with Washington.

Nine states, mostly in the South, and parts of six others, including Florida, had been subject to the law.

The affected Florida counties were Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough and Monroe.

Jones, a prominent civil rights attorney and activist, who also is the first female director/counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, told a packed hall at the Orange County Convention Center that the Supreme Court has always been known to put the brakes on social change.

“We bled, died and marched and got something – the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court has never liked the Voting Rights Act,” she said.

‘Tamper-free lock’ needed “Section 5 is the automobile. Section 4 is the key.

They took away the key –

DUANE C. FERNANDEZ, SR./HARDNOTTS PHOTOGRAPHY

Elaine Jones, formerly of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court at the 2013 NAACP convention in Orlando. say the formula is too old, intrusion in rights of states.

The Supreme Court got out of their lane,” said Jones, noting it is now up to Congress to rewrite the law.

She said they will now have to spend money to fight the change because Section 4 was struck down.

Jones called on the NAACP members to help them come up with evidence to convince Congress the Voting Rights Act is still needed.

“They are betting we can’t get it done,” she remarked.

“We will go where evidence takes us. We may include more jurisdictions (covered by the law),” she said, adding that when the law is rewritten it will need a “tamper-free lock.”

Too many times Jones said the court has looked at the Voting Rights Act at least four times since it was passed almost 50

No Florida orange juice?

Martin Luther King, III hints that a boycott of Florida orange juice may be necessary.

Martin Luther King III followed Sharpton and said he came to the convention with a heavy heart.

“The system has failed people of color. History has a way of repeating itself,” he said.

“This should be a wakeup call for America. Profiling has been consistently going on. Our children are targeted. Our community is targeted,” King added.

“The dream of my father has not been fulfilled. The dream cannot be fulfilled unless we stay engaged,” he concluded.

King also is pushing for a change with the Stand Your Ground law.

“We have to change the laws in over two dozen states with Stand Your Ground. We might have to look at not consuming Florida orange juice – exercising our buying power elsewhere,” he concluded, falling short of calling for a boycott of one of the state’s most important exports.

years ago, which she said is unheard of when it comes to laws passed by Congress.

“Usually when the Supreme Court makes a decision, it can rest 15, 20 years.

Not so when it comes to race. When it comes to race, it is a different ball game,” Jones said about the court taking cases presented before them.

Jones also noted that affirmative action is another law that has been unfairly targeted by the Supreme Court.

Also participating on the panel were the Rev. Jesse Jackson; Barbara R. Arnwine, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; and Derek Johnson, president of the Mississippi State NAACP. Hilary Shelton, NAACP Washington Bureau Director and Senior Vice President for Advocacy, presided.

Gerrymandering concerns Jackson said the court’s decision is the beginning of unraveling the entire infrastructure of the Voting Rights Act. The decision can lead to a “radical scheme of gerrymandering,’’ he noted.

“We could lose half of the Black Caucus because of gerrymandering. We must move right now. Keeping voting rights oversight is

the right fight,” he concluded.

Henderson said the NAACP is needed now more than ever.

“We will not stand for this travesty. It’s a challenge, but we can strengthen the Voting Rights Act,” he added.

‘Strategic and focused’ Arnwine said June 25 will be known as the “Day of Infamy.’’

“The decision of the court was not based on justice. The court said because we had huge Black voter turnout, Section 4 not necessary,” she said, echoing Jones’ pleas for NAACP members “to be our eyes and ears.”

“If it smells like discrimination, call us. We will rise up for justice,” she said.

Mississippi NAACP President Johnson said the only way they are going to win the fight to rectify what Supreme Court has done “is to be strategic and focused.”

“We are the eyes and the ears on the ground. Anytime there is change (in voting laws), we must report it. Build a record, no matter how insignificant; information is power,” he noted.

Henderson came back and reminded the members that the decision by the court “can’t be allowed to languish.”

“We have to strike now that momentum is there,” he added.

EDITORIAL

A4

JULY 26 – AUGUST 1, 2013

‘A history that doesn't go away’ Editor’s note: President Obama spoke about Trayvon Martin and the George Zimmerman verdict in a surprise appearance at the regular daily White House press briefing on July 19.

First of all, I want to make sure that, once again, I send my thoughts and prayers, as well as Michelle's, to the family of Trayvon Martin, and to remark on the incredible grace and dignity with which they've dealt with the entire situation.

I can only imagine what they're going through, and it's remarkable how they've handled it.

The second thing I want to say is to reiterate what I said on Sunday, which is there's going to be a lot of arguments about the legal issues in the case – I'll let all the legal analysts and talking heads address those issues.

The judge conducted the trial in a professional manner. The prosecution and the defense made their arguments. The juries were properly instructed that in a case such as this reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict.

And once the jury has spoken, that's how our system works. But I did want to just talk a little bit about context and how people have responded to it and how people are feeling.

Could have been me You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African-American community at least, there's a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it's important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away.

There are very few African-American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.

There are very few AfricanAmerican men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me – at least before I was a senator. There are very few African-Americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.

Experiences matter And I don't want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the

African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida. And it's inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.

The African-American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws – everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws.

And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case.

Now, this isn't to say that the African-American community is naïve about the fact that African-American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system; that they're disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. It's not to make excuses for that fact – although Black folks do in- of that stuff is just goterpret the reasons for that ing to have to work its way in a historical context. through, as long as it remains nonviolent. If I see Blacks understand any violence, then I will reThey understand that mind folks that that dishonsome of the violence that ors what happened to Traytakes place in poor Black von Martin and his family.

But beyond protests or neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very vigils, the question is, are violent past in this country, there some concrete things and that the poverty and that we might be able to dysfunction that we see in do. I know that Eric Holder those communities can be is reviewing what happened traced to a very difficult his- down there, but I think it's tory. important for people to And so the fact that some- have some clear expectatimes that's unacknowl- tions here. Traditionally, edged adds to the frustra- these are issues of state and tion. And the fact that a lot local government, the crimof African-American boys inal code. And law enforceare painted with a broad ment is traditionally done brush and the excuse is giv- at the state and local levels, en, well, there are these sta- not at the federal levels. tistics out there that show That doesn't mean, that African-American boys though, that as a nation we are more violent – using can't do some things that I that as an excuse to then think would be productive. see sons treated differently So let me just give a couple of causes pain. specifics that I'm still bouncI think the African-Amer- ing around with my staff, so ican community is also we're not rolling out some not naïve in understand- five-point plan, but some ing that, statistically, some- areas where I think all of us body like Trayvon Martin could potentially focus. was statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he What we can do was by somebody else. So Number one, precisefolks understand the chally because law enforcelenges that exist for Africanment is often determined American boys. at the state and local level, I think it would be producHistorical context tive for the Justice Departdenied ment, governors, mayors to But they get frustrat- work with law enforcement ed, I think, if they feel that about training at the state there's no context for it and and local levels in order to that context is being de- reduce the kind of mistrust nied. And that all contrib- in the system that someutes I think to a sense that times currently exists.

When I was in Illinois, I if a White male teen was involved in the same kind of passed racial profiling legscenario, that, from top to islation, and it actually did bottom, both the outcome just two simple things. One, and the aftermath might it collected data on traffic stops and the race of the have been different.

Now, the question for me person who was stopped. at least, and I think for a lot But the other thing was it of folks, is where do we take resourced us training pothis? How do we learn some lice departments across the lessons from this and move state on how to think about potential racial bias and in a positive direction?

I think it's understand- ways to further professionable that there have been alize what they were doing.

And initially, the police demonstrations and vigils and protests, and some departments across the

VISUAL VIEWPOINT

state were resistant, but actually they came to recognize that if it was done in a fair, straightforward way that it would allow them to do their jobs better and communities would have more confidence in them and, in turn, be more helpful in applying the law. And obviously, law enforcement has got a very tough job.

So that's one area where I think there are a lot of resources and best practices that could be brought to bear if state and local governments are receptive. And I think a lot of them would be. And let's figure out are there ways for us to push out that kind of training.

Examine state laws Along the same lines, I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it – if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations.

I know that there's been commentary about the fact that the "stand your ground" laws in Florida were not used as a defense in the case. On the other hand, if we're sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there's a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we'd like to see?

And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these "stand your ground" laws, I'd just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?

And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had fol-

lowed him in a car because he felt threatened? And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.

Number three – and this is a long-term project – we need to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our African-American boys. And this is something that Michelle and I talk a lot about.

There are a lot of kids out there who need help who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement. And is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them?

No federal programs I'm not naïve about the prospects of some grand, new federal program. I'm not sure that that's what we're talking about here.

But I do recognize that as president, I've got some convening power, and there are a lot of good programs that are being done across the country on this front. And for us to be able to gather together business leaders and local elected officials and clergy and celebrities and athletes, and figure out how are we doing a better job helping young African-American men feel that they're a full part of this society and that they've got pathways and avenues to succeed – I think that would be a pretty good outcome from what was obviously a tragic situation. And we're going to spend some time working on that and thinking about that.

And then, finally, I think it's going to be important for all of us to do some soulsearching. There has been talk about should we convene a conversation on race.

I haven't seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being stilted and politi-

cized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have.

On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there's the possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about, am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can? Am I judging people as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.

And let me just leave you with a final thought that, as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don't want us to lose sight that things are getting better.

Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race.

It doesn't mean we're in a post-racial society. It doesn't mean that racism is eliminated. But when I talk to Malia and Sasha, and I listen to their friends and I seem them interact, they're better than we are – they're better than we were – on these issues. And that's true in every community that I've visited all across the country.

Work to do And so we have to be vigilant and we have to work on these issues. And those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to encourage the better angels of our nature, as opposed to using these episodes to heighten divisions.

But we should also have confidence that kids these days, I think, have more sense than we did back then, and certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did; and that along this long, difficult journey, we're becoming a more perfect union – not a perfect union, but a more perfect union.

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.

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JULY 26 – AUGUST 1, 2013

‘Fear of Black men is still a reality in modern-day America’ Publisher’s note: If I were Bro. Prez, here’s the Trayvon Martin speech I would have given.

I send my thoughts and prayers, as well as my immediate and extended family’s, to the family of Trayvon Martin, and to remark on the incredible grace and dignity with which they've dealt with the entire situation. I can only imagine what they're going through, and it's remarkable how they've handled it.

I'll let all the legal analysts and talking heads address the legal issues in the case. I want to talk about the historical and cultural context and how Black people have responded to it and how people are feeling.

Lots of pain In the African-American community, there's a lot of pain around Trayvon Martin’s violent death.

It's important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away.

There are very few African-American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store – or being mistaken for a waiter at a corporate reception when you are one of the few Black people there. This has happened to me.

There are very few African-American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street, or speeding down an interstate highway at 70 miles an hour – and hearing or seeing the locks click on the doors of cars. It’s happened to me.

There are very few African-American men who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off – even when you are dressed in a coat and tie, and carrying a briefcase. It’s happened to me.

There are very few African-American criminal defense attorneys who haven't had the experience of going to a local courthouse, standing before a criminal court judge with a White client, and then having the judge ask the White client what crime am I charged with. It’s happened to me.

This “pre-judging” of Black men happens in a number of ways. Occasionally, people underestimate your capabilities, as they did when I was mistaken for a waiter and for a criminal defendant.

Most often, this “prejudging” of Black men – which is actually the meaning of the word “prejudice” – often displays itself as fear.

Whether you believe fear of a tall Black boy– a fear that results in a presumption of guilt – is at the root of Trayvon Martin’s death or not, fear of Black men is a reality in modern-day America. And it manifests itself in the strangest, most irrational places, such as in a car going 70 miles an hour on an interstate highway.

Experiences matter Sets of experiences like that inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida. And it's inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.

The African-American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws – everything

EDITORIAL

A5

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: STANDING YOUR GROUND

quick takes from #2: straight, no chaser

Charles W. Cherry II, Esq. PUBLISHER

from criminalizing Black elementary schoolchildren to enforcement of our drug laws to the death penalty.

And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case.

Now, this isn't to say that the African-American community is naïve about the fact that African-American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system; that they're disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. It's not to make excuses for that fact – although Black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. That historical context is older than America itself.

History does matter. Decisions – good and bad – that America’s founders and leaders have made over the course of almost 250 years still impact our lives today.

Long history The fear of Black manhood has historical roots dating from the foundation of the United States of America, when Black men and their families had to be terrorized, brutalized and controlled to maintain the institution of American slavery.

From the time they were young, and for hundreds of years, Black boys and the Black men they grow up to be have been perceived to be problems, threats to be dealt with – managed, controlled, minimized, and marginalized.

That fear continued through the post-Civil War era, when Southern Whites formed the Ku Klux Klan to defend themselves against the threat of vengeful exslaves – a threat that never materialized. Official federal government policies and legal decisions like the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court’s Plessy vs. Ferguson case approved the “separate but equal” doctrine, and enshrined racial segregation and discrimination in law for the next 50 years.

And though a nonviolent civil rights movement personified by a Black man, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has made America more just, the fear of Black men has not diminished. It’s never been publicly discussed.

It has remained America’s dirty racial secret.

It’s time for that to change.

The impact We don’t often speak about how the fear of Black men impacts the minds of America’s Black boys, who will one day become men themselves.

Some Black boys do not see themselves as worthwhile human beings. They become hopeless and decide to live just for today, because they don’t see a tomorrow for themselves.

Some Black boys immerse themselves in the vicious, hyper-masculine prison culture that is trumpeted by some of today’s popular music to compensate for those feelings of unworthiness, helplessness and hopelessness.

Some Black boys become fearful of others who look just like them. Others strive to become the object of fear, perhaps in a dysfunctional attempt to add meaning to their own lives.

This is especially true in the mean streets of American cities and towns with fractured families, high adult and youth unemployment, few adult role models, bad schools, nonexis-

tent health and afterschool care, substandard housing, minimal recreational facilities, and weak social structures and community institutions like churches and civic organizations.

Some of our Black boys are growing up in these almost chaotic environments, without experienced, long-term adult supervision or consistent moral support, like weeds growing in an inner-city vacant lot.

Some right-wing pundits think it’s all about making good decisions and rebuilding Black families. To an extent, that is true.

But how can children be taught to make good decisions without good adult guidance, including effective teachers? How can the Black family be rebuilt if parents can’t get good jobs with living wages? How can a family function if its members are struggling to survive in abandoned, unsafe neighborhoods?

Blacks understand African-Americans understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor Black neighborhoods, and the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities, can also be traced to a very difficult history that included hundreds of years of racially discriminatory laws, rules, regulations, court rulings, and public policy.

And so the fact that sometimes that's unacknowledged adds to the frustration. And the fact that a lot of African-American boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given, well, there are these statistics out there that show that African-American boys are more violent – using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain.

I think the African-American community is also not naïve in understanding that, statistically, somebody like Trayvon Martin was statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else. So folks understand the challenges that exist for African-American boys.

Historical context denied But they get frustrated, I think, if they feel that there's no context for it and that context is being denied.

And that all contributes I think to a sense that if a White male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.

Where do we take this?

How do we learn some lessons from this and move in a positive direction?

It's understandable that there have been demonstrations and vigils and protests, and some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through, as long as it remains nonviolent. If I see any violence, then I will remind folks that that dishonors what happened to Trayvon Martin and his family.

The Justice Department is reviewing what happened down there. Career federal prosecutors will make a decision as to whether Trayvon’s federal civil rights were violated. People should moderate their expectations here.

Law enforcement is traditionally done at the state and local levels, not at the federal levels.

That doesn't mean,

JOHN COLE, THE SCRANTON TIMES-TRIBUNE

though, that as a nation we can't do some things. Today I am rolling out a fivepoint plan that includes areas on which we will focus.

End profiling Number one: I am directing the Justice Department to work with law enforcement to establish training at the federal level in order to reduce the kind of mistrust in the system that sometimes currently exists.

State and local law enforcement personnel must use best practices for traffic stops and arrests based on behavior and not racial profiling. Traffic stops and arrests must be tracked by race and other demographic criteria, and federal financial support of law enforcement will be tied to tracking these statistics to ensure accountability.

I’m also urging Congress to pass a bill introduced by Rep. John Conyers that makes racial profiling illegal, and today I have signed an executive order doing exactly that.

Examine state laws Number two: I am directing the Justice Department to examine state and local laws to see if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations. A report, which will include recommendations as to whether such laws should be repealed, modified, or left as-is, will be on my desk within 45 days.

I know that there's been commentary about the fact that the "stand your ground" laws in Florida were not used as a technical defense in the case.

However, “stand your ground” was a critical part of the jury instructions in the case.

If we're sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there's a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we'd like to see?

And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these "stand your ground" laws, I'd just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?

And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened?

And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.

Unintended consequences Number three: I am also directing the Justice Department to examine state and local laws with regard to voting rights, voter registration and registration drives, and restoration of constitutional rights of exfelons. These laws have unintended consequence

that detrimentally impact African-Americans disproportionately.

For example, though African-Americans are disproportionately arrested and convicted, relatively few African-Americans serve on juries for criminal trials.

Why not? Because most jurors are selected from the rolls of registered voters.

And in many states, anyone convicted of a felony loses his or her right to vote.

In many states, being convicted of a crime also prevents people from doing volunteer work with children. So the very laws that mean to protect children from criminals also prevent Black men who may have nonviolent criminal records from legally coaching or mentoring the Black boys who need them so badly. That must change.

A report including recommendations will be on my desk within 45 days. I am also urging Congress to immediately restore the enforcement mechanisms of the Voting Rights Act that the U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated in its recent decision.

Invest in Black boys Number three – and this is the beginning of a longterm project – we WILL bolster, reinforce, and invest in our African-American boys.

We will start with establishing an inventory of successful mentoring, recreational, anti-gang, conflict resolution, and cultural enrichment programs that exist in neighborhoods around America.

Congress has proven itself to be an obstruction, and this initiative is too important to be caught up in petty politics. My administration will facilitate development of collaborations and partnerships between successful community-based organizations, with funding and administrative support provided by the private business community and from private donations.

If we can privately finance inaugural balls and parties this way, surely we can privately finance programs that will save the lives of our Black boys and make such programs sustainable over the long term. This initiative will be operated from the White House, away from the political gamesmanship of Washington, D.C. That’s how we begin to give our Black boys the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them. And it’s just the beginning.

Continue the struggle Number four: Due to an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals, Washington – including me – has taken its eye off the ball.

And I am here to say this needs to stop. Short-term thinking and stale debates are not what this moment requires. Our focus must be on the basic economic issues that the matter most to you – the people we represent.

For the rest of my administration I will fight to re-

duce and eventually eliminate the disproportionate pain that Black America suffers, from the womb to the tomb. We must improve education, economics, housing, public safety, and health care in Black America.

This is an intergenerational struggle that won’t end when Michelle, the girls and I leave the White House in January 2017. But “without struggle, there is no progress,” as Frederick Douglass told us more than 150 years ago.

Search our souls And then, finally, I think it's going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching, particularly with regard to our Black boys.

There has been talk about should we convene a conversation on race. I haven't seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have.

On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there's the possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about, am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can? Am I judging people as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character?

That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.

Getting better And let me just leave you with a final thought that, as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don't want us to lose sight that things are getting better.

Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race.

It doesn't mean we're in a post-racial society. It doesn't mean that racism is eliminated. But when I talk to Chayla and Charles III, and I listen to their friends and I see them interact, they're better than we are on these issues. And that's true in every community that I've visited all across the country.

Still, Charles III, who will be in fourth grade this year, has had nightmares about getting shot like Trayvon was. Why should that be on the mind of any nine-yearold in America, whether they live in Chicago, Newtown, or Plantation, Fla.?

Work to do And so we have to be vigilant and we have to work on these issues. And those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to encourage the better angels of our nature, as opposed to using these episodes to heighten divisions.

But we should also have confidence that kids these days, I think, have more sense than we did back then, and certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did; and that along this long, difficult journey, we're becoming a more perfect union – not a perfect union, but a more perfect union.

TOj A6

NATION

JULY 26 – AUGUST 1, 2013

GED students scrambling to finish test this year Scores from old test sections won’t count after December

BY THERESA HARRINGTON CONTRA COSTA TIMES/MCT

WALNUT CREEK, Calif.

— Across the nation, adults are racing to earn their GED high school equivalency certificates by December — or start all over again with tougher, computerized tests next year.

The process to get the certificate — a vital badge of achievement for those who never earned a diploma — is going through a major overhaul that happens about once a decade. GED hopefuls will have to pass each section of a new, multipart test, and those will be so different that scores from the old test sections won’t carry over from one year to the next, as they do now.

Students who fail to take and pass all five parts of the old General Education Development test by the end of this year will have to start fresh with the new version.

More classes Registration for tests and preparation classes in some areas has increased in advance of the switch-over.

In San Jose, Calif., the Metropolitan Adult Education program is offering the test more often and has added an extra prep class for GED, said Principal Susan Glass.

Classes are offered during the day and in the evenings in many areas.

Glass said her school has created a new registration policy giving priority to those who have already

NEW TEST FOR 2014

passed some GED test sections to ensure that those who are furthest along have the best chance of finishing by the end of the year.

A rule that allows people to take each section only three times a year is adding to their stress, Glass said.

“If someone’s taken the math test twice (and failed),” she said, “between now and December, they’ve only got one more shot.”

More difficult questions The new tests, overseen by the national GED Testing Service — which is jointly owned by the Pearson learning company and the American Council on Education — will condense five subjectmatter exams into four and will include more difficult questions aligned with new Common Core Curriculum Standards that have been adopted in California and most other states.

Instead of taking tests with pencil and paper, students will have to take the exams on computers. The good news is the new computerized tests will immediately tell students whether they passed or failed.

The new exams are designed to better prepare students for vocational training, college or careers by testing the skills employers are looking for now, said Armando Diaz, spokesman for the GED Testing Service.

For example, many multiple choice, fill-in-the-bubble questions will be replaced with in-depth questions that require test-takers to read longer passages and show understanding by defending opinions in short answers or essays.

“It’s more critical thinking instead of plug and chug,”

JOSE CARLOS GAJARDO/BA AREA NEWS GROUP/MCT

Philip Yega takes a GED practice test while attending a six-week summer class at the Pittsburg Adult Education Center in Pittsburg, Calif., on June 24.

Details about the GED test and upcoming changes are available by calling 800-6269433 or going online to www.gedtestiingservice.com.

Diaz said.

The pass rates for the current GED tests have ranged from 66 percent to nearly 73 percent each year between 2002 to 2011.

Mixed reaction Reactions to the changes are mixed. Some adult education principals say it’s important for the tests to keep up with current technology, while others fear the computer-only administration may hinder or deter people unfamiliar with computers from obtaining their high school equivalency certificates.

The California Department of Education is seek-

ing permission from the state Board of Education to pursue an alternative high school equivalency test that could be taken either using pencil and paper or on a computer, said Denise Moore, education program consultant. However, the idea is still in its early stages and the alternative test might not be available until later next year, she said.

In the meantime, the state has seen a 9 percent spike in GED test-taking between the first five months of 2012 and the same period in 2013, Moore said, growing from 38,496 in the first part of 2012 to 42,115 in the first part of 2013. People who have already passed some of the tests and are cramming to finish by the end of the year account for the majority of the increase.

California’s statistics mirror a national upsurge, which has grown from a steady 700,000 test-takers a year since 2002 to an estimated 1 million this year, said Diaz of the GED Testing Service.

Diaz also attributed the increase in part to an influx of new test-takers inspired by the federal deferred action program, which allows young adults who have come into the country illegally to stay temporarily if they are pursuing educational opportunities, such as a GED.

Not too old Philip Yega, 57, of Antioch, said he has a diploma from Cameroon but wanted to get the American equivalent.

He passed three sections of the test a long time ago, then decided to take a break. But when he found out he had to complete the other two by the end of the year to get his certificate, he headed to the Pittsburg Adult School to avoid retaking the tests on a computer next year.

“At my age, I just want to know that if I start something, I will be able to complete it,” Yega said. “And I want to show my children that it’s not too late to learn and they can do anything at any time.”

Here is a sample social studies question from the 2014 GED test: Excerpt: “There would be an end to everything, were the same man, or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and of trying the causes of individuals.”

Based on the excerpt, which important principle held by America’s founders did Montesquieu help shape?

A. Wider participation in government is essential to democracy.

B. Government will fail unless it performs a variety of functions.

C. Divisions of powers within government are necessary to prevent abuses.

D. Government power should be shared among the different classes of society.

(Option C is correct.)

Source documentation: This excerpt is taken from “The Spirit of Laws,” written in 1748 by Baron de Montesquieu, who had significant influence on the American founders.

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IFE/FAITH

Mediterranean grilling techniques See page B4

100 years

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE www.flcourier.com

of public service

D S Q Nearly 40,000 attend Delta Sigma Theta Sorority’s centennal celebration this month in D.C. FROM STAFF REPORTS

D

elta Sigma Theta Sorority turned the nation’s capital into a sea of red and white earlier this month as it celebrated its 100th anniversary with nearly 40,000 members converging on the city where the largest AfricanAmerican public service organization was founded.

Speakers during the weeklong celebration included former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton whose July 16 speech turned to the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial.

“In a week that I know has brought heartache – deep, painful heartache – to many across our country, the solidarity and solace you find here is all the more important,” Clinton said. “My prayers are with the Martin family and with every family who loves someone who is lost to violence. No mother, no father should ever have to fear for their child walking down a street in the United States of America.”

Tampa resident elected president

At the end of the July 11-17 convention in Washington, D.C., Dr. Paulette Walker, a retired educator in Tampa, was elected president of the sorority. Walker, former director of undergraduate programs at the University of Florida’s College of Education, had been first vice president of the organization. Walker, a member of the Tampa Alumnae Chapter, replaces Cynthia M.A. Butler-McIntyre, a Louisiana-based educator.

During the sorority’s 51st national convention and Centennial celebration held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in D.C., members addressed issues related to the socioeconomic conditions impacting communities across the

The sorority also added more prominent women to its membership.

WNBA Los Angeles Sparks and African Channel owner Paula Madison; U.S. Ambassador at large for International Religious Freedom, Suzan Johnson-Cook; former Essence editor Susan Taylor, former Environment Protection Agency director Lisa Jackson; actress Angela Bassett; and Zimbabwean scholar and global humanitarian, Dr. Terari Trent were initiated into the century-old sisterhood on Sunday, July 14.

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority was founded in 1913 on the campus of Howard University to promote academic excellence; to provide scholarships; to provide support to the underserved; to educate and stimulate participation in the establishment of positive public policy; and to highlight issues and provide solutions for problems in communities.

Today, the sorority has more than 900 chapters worldwide and has initiated over 250,000 members. The sorority is a five-point program thrust of economic development, educational development, international awareness and involvement, physical and mental health, and political awareness and involvement to create its national programs.

Delta Sigma Theta’s immediate past president reflects on sorority’s impact, anniversary

BY ZENITA PRINCE TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

C

ynthia M.A. Butler-McIntyre led Delta Sigma Theta Sorority through a tumultuous period in U.S. and world history. It is an era of inspiring highs, such as the election and re-election of America’s first Black president and the 100th anniversary of the organization’s founding. It includes debilitating lows, such as the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010, the rise of obstructionist conservative politics on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures across the country, and the rolling back of civil rights victories, such as the recent gutting of Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court.

Through it all, Butler-McIntyre has led “with a servant’s heart,” as she often describes her approach, which is informed by her faith.

A native of New Orleans, La., ButlerMcIntyre was elected as the 24th president of the 200,000-member Delta Sigma Theta Sorority by a unanimous vote of over 800 voting delegates at the organization’s 49th National Convention in Orlando on Aug. 18, 2008.

Longtime educator

Butler-McIntyre has been a member of the sorority for 35 years and held several

local, regional and national offices.

A 1976 Dillard University alum, ButlerMcIntyre is an educator who has impacted the lives of countless young people for over 30 years as a teacher, assistant principal, summer school principal and now a director of human resources for the Jefferson Parish Public School System in Harvey, La. In addition to her bachelor’s degree, Butler-McIntyre earned a master of education degree from the University of New Orleans at the age of 20 and also holds an honorary doctorate of divinity degree from the Christian Bible College of Louisiana.

She has received numerous recognition for her service, which includes membership on Cynthia M.A. Butler- the boards of several other organizations inMcIntyre cluding as national board member of the National Council of Negro Women; a past national board member of the National Alliance of Black School Educators; the state secretary of the Louisiana Association of School Personnel Administrators; and founding president of Algiers-Gretna Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Christopher Columbus Fel-

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

Smiley stands by comments on Obama See page B5

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Leaders of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., met with President Obama in the Oval Office on July 16. Along with Cynthia M.A. Butler-McIntyre, the outgoing president (seated at right), were former presidents of the organization. Also in the meeting were Alexis Herman, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, and Obama’s senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.

globe, especially the African Diaspora.

The organization continued its legacy of promoting political awareness and involvement through voter education, advocacy for health care reform and equal eduDr. Paulette cational opportunities.

Walker Delegates also addressed physical and mental health challenges that continue to plague children and adults worldwide.

There were a number of social events too held around D.C. that week in which sorority members were seen decked out in the sorority’s colors of red and white, snapping photos with their “line sisters’’ and other sorors.

Honorary members

July 26 - August 1, 2013

In top photo, Florida Courier’s Lisa Rogers-Cherry, left, poses with other Fort Lauderdale Deltas.

Sabrina Aiken and N’Keiba Estelle of Valrico express their excitement about Dr. Paulette Walker’s election.

Above, Florida Courier’s Dr. Valerie Cherry (in red) caught up with her Spelman College line sisters.

Inducted as 2013 honorary members: Paula Madison, Suzan JohnsonCook, Susan Taylor, Lisa Jackson, Angela Bassett and Dr. Terari Trent.

Members of the Tampa Alumnae Chapter are all smiles in D.C. during the convention.

Photos Courtesy of Sabrina Aiken, Lisa Rogers-Cherry, Dr. Valerie Cherry, Estella Gray and the Tampa Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority

lowship Foundation, to which President Barack Obama appointed her in 2011.

In an interview with the Afro American Newspaper before the sorority’s 51st national convention in Washington earlier this month, Butler-McIntyre reflected on the organization’s legacy.

Q: How has the sorority evolved over the past century?

A: The sorority has grown substantially over the past century, going from an intimate group of socially conscious college women seeking to affect change on the campus of Howard University and throughout the country to an organization that spans around the globe – consisting of hundreds of thousands of members, representing over 900 chapters in the U.S. and abroad. So, as you can see, we have grown and will continue to expand our reach.

Q: What factors have distinguished the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority from other sororities/fraternities/social groups?

A: I am proud to say that all the sororities and fraternities of the National PanHellenic Council have programs and initiatives geared towards the betterment of our communities. I think what sets Delta Sigma Theta apart from them and other organizations is the fact that we are the single largest predominately AfricanAmerican women’s organization in the country.

Not to imply that the others do not, but we also make social action a top priority – as we commit to staying abreast of key legislation that dramatically affects the African-American community and relay the necessary information to our respective communities. During our Delta Days in the Nation’s Capital and Delta Days at the UN, we make our presence known and our voices heard.

Q: What factors were responsible

for the sorority’s ability to survive and thrive throughout the past century A: As an organization founded on Christian principles, I can say with confidence that it was God’s never-ending grace that has allowed us to survive.

The tenacious spirit of our founders; the awesome leadership of the 23 women that came before me to serve as the national president of this dynamic organization; the commitment of our members to be public servants have definitely propelled us forward over the past century and allowed us to thrive.

Q: How has the sorority been involved or influenced by some of the defining moments in U.S/Black history?

A: Delta Sigma Theta and its members have been and remain in the forefront of some of this country’s most world-changing events. U.S. history, Black history and Delta history are all intertwined, as Delta Sigma Theta has incited change, demanded equality, and fought injustice since its creation.

The first public act of social advocacy Delta Sigma Theta participated in – two months after its founding – was the 1913 Women’s Suffrage March. As the only African-American organization present, our founders made the determination in that very moment that Delta Sigma Theta would not sit idly by while any group of individuals were denied their basic human freedoms. And since then, we have not strayed from that fighting stalwart spirit that has been engrained in every Delta woman.

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

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Plan to visit the Statue of Liberty? What you need to know before you go

BY KATHY LAUER-WILLIAMS THE MORNIGN CALL/MCT

After being closed for eight months, the Statue of Liberty reopened on the Fourth of July, and visitors flocked to see her.

The National Park Service spent $77 million to fix infrastructure on Liberty Island and nearby Ellis Island, which were damaged by Superstorm Sandy. Fortunately, the statue itself wasn’t harmed by the storm.

Here’s what you need to know before you visit: Ellis Island and its immigration museum remain closed.

The ferry from Liberty State Park in New Jersey is not running yet. So you must now take a ferry from Battery Park in Manhattan.

(See facebook.com/statuelibrtynps to see when Liberty State Park ferry service will resume.)

There are lots of openings to take a ferry ride and get off at Liberty Island,

where you can view the statue. It’s smart to reserve a ticket at http://www.statuecruises.com or 877-5239849.

There are few tickets still available in July and August to climb inside the statue, and they must be purchased in advance through http://www.statuecruises.com or 877-523-9849.

(About 3,000 people per day are allowed to climb into the pedestal; access to the crown is limited to 315 people per day.) If you order now, there are lots of tickets available starting in September to go inside the statue.

Liberty Island is accessible only by the official ferries, and everyone must go through security before boarding. Visitors should arrive about 30 minutes before the ferry departure time.

Viewing the crown Crown ticket holders are required to check all belongings. The only items

you can carry with you when entering the statue are a camera, your ticket and medication. Lockers are available for rental for $2 during your climb. Cash only is accepted.

It takes about 90 minutes to two hours to see the crown, pedestal and statue interior.

Be aware that climbing to the crown is like walking up a 22-story building.

Visitors climb 377 steps from the main lobby to the crown platform. The most difficult part of the climb is the final 146-step circular stairway leading up into the crown. The steps are only 18 inches wide, and head clearance is only about 6 feet. The park service warns the climb is strenuous.

Once in the crown, visitors get a birds-eye view of the harbor. They get just a glimpse of lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Verrazano Bridge and Staten Island, because Lady Liberty faces out to sea.

HANNIBAL BURESS

Shut Up and Laugh presented by WiLD 94.1 will feature comedians Bruce Bruce, DeRay Davis and Hannibal Buress on Aug. 16 at The Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg.

CAROLYN COLE/LOS ANGELES/TIMES

The Statue of Liberty reopened on the Fourth of July after being closed from damage by Superstorm Sandy.

The pedestal offers views of Ellis Island, New York, New Jersey and the New York harbor.

The only restrooms inside the statue are in the lobby.

In the museum The Liberty Island Museum, which is inside the statue, chronicles the difficulties and triumphs of building and locating the symbol of liberty, which was a gift of friendship from the people of France

Tampa: State Rep. Janet Cruz will host a West Tampa Job Fair July 30 from 10 a.m.

- 2 p.m. at Higgins Hall, 5255 N. Himes Ave. Admission for job seekers is free and an eight-foot table is free to employers. More information and to register as an employer: 813-673-4673.

Orlando: 2013 “American Idol’’ winner Candace Glover and finalists on the Fox show will be on tour at the Amway Center in Orlando on Aug. 1 and AmericanAirlines Arena

BIGG ROBB

A Southern Soul Blues Concert featuring Mel Waiters, Sir Charles Jones and Bigg Robb is scheduled Oct. 5 at the Mary McLeod Bethune Performing Arts Center in Daytona Beach.

FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Orlando: Ladies Night Out starring Dru Hill, K-Ci & JoJoe, Silk and Melanie Comarcho takes place on Aug. 10 at the Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre.

St. Petersburg: A ground breaking for the new Youth and Family Empowerment Initiative, a comprehensive community service program to be housed at the former Campbell Park Neigh-

4:30 p.m. daily and costs $17; $14 for seniors 62 and older; $9 for children 4-12.

Add $3 for crown access.

How to get tickets: http:// www.statuecruises.com, 877-523-9849.

Restrictions: Only four tickets allowed per household, and only one reservation allowed every six months. Children must be at least 4 feet tall to climb to the crown.

in Miami on Aug. 2.

between Second and Third Avenues from 5:30 p.m.10:30 p.m. More information: 727-393-3597.

St. Petersburg: Youths ages 7 to 11 can enjoy a night of football, kickball, ping-pong, foosball, video games and dance parties during “Freestyle Fridays” at the Fossil Park and Willis S. Johns Center, 6635 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N. First visit free; $6 each following visit. More information: 727-893-7756.

St. Petersburg: First Fridays are held in downtown St. Petersburg at 250 Central Ave.

The Morning Call is based in Allentown, Pa.

Miami: Join AileyCamp Miami for “Reflections,’’ featuring ballet, jazz, modern, West African and spoken word performed by AileyCampers. The free summer day camp is for students 11-14.

The event is Aug. 3 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of MiamiDade County. More information: www.arshtcenter.org.

INDIA.ARIE

Soulbird presents a SongVersation with India.Arie on Oct. 17 at the Florida Theatre Jacksonville.

borhood Family Center, takes place July 30 at 10:30 a.m. at 201 Seventh Ave. S. More information: 727-894-1393.

St. Petersburg: July 29 is the voter registration deadline to vote in the Aug. 27 City of St. Petersburg primary election. More information: or 727-464-8683.

Orlando: 102 Jamz presents Hook Up #4 starring Jason Derulo and Kat Dahlia at the House of Blues Orlando on July 26. The show starts at 7 p.m.

Tampa: Bruno Mars’

to the United States. The museum also covers how the Statue of Liberty’s interpretation has changed since its construction in 1886.

From the base to the top of the torch, the statue is 151 feet high. The exterior is made of copper that has developed a green patina from oxidation over the years. The interior support structure is made of steel.

Her official name is “Liberty Enlightening the World.”

It’s open from 9:30 to

Moonshine Jungle world tour makes a stop at the Tampa Bay Times forum on Aug. 28.

Hollywood: The legendary Diana Ross is scheduled Sept. 4 at Hard Rock Live.

St. Petersburg: Tickets are on sale for a concert at the Mahaffey Theater with Maze featuring Frankie Beverly.

The show is Sunday, Sept.

15.

Miami Gardens: The Legends of the Summer tour featuring Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z takes place Aug. 18 at Sun Life Stadium.

South Florida’s Caribbean community schedules emancipation events FROM STAFF REPORTS

The Greater Caribbean American Cultural Coalition, under the auspices of Florida State Rep. Hazelle Rogers and the Caribbean Consular Corps, will host educational and commemorative events of Caribbean enslavement, resistance and emancipation Aug. 1 and 2.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Aug 1, a discussion is scheduled titled “Teach the ChilRep. Hazelle dren the Truth.’’ It is geared toward children ages 8-18.

Rodgers The program will include films, storytelling and reflection on the history, culture and continued significance of Caribbean emancipation. Refreshments will be served.

The program will be held at Atonement Episcopal Church, 4401 W. Oakland Park Blvd, Lauderdale Lakes.

West Indies speaker Also on Aug. 1, there will be a lecture and book launch by Sir Hilary M. Beckles. The

renowned professor’s new book is “Britain’s Black Debt: Reparations for Caribbean Slavery and Native Genocide.”

The event, which starts at 6 p.m., will be held at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center, 2650 Sistrunk Blvd., Fort Lauderdale.

Beckles is principal of the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados and an internationally reputed historian.

‘Queh-Queh’ celebration On Aug. 2, a “Queh-Queh” celebration will begin at 7 p.m. It is organized by the Consulate of Guyana, Rogers, the Caribbean Consular Corps and the Greater Caribbean American Cultural Coalition.

The celebration will be held at the German American Society of Greater Hollywood, 6401 Washington St., Hollywood.

The celebration will highlight Afro-Guyanese culture. There will be music, dance and food.

All of the events are free and open to the public.

UNIVERSAL PICTURES AND EMMETT/FURLA FILMS PRESENT A MARC PLATT PRODUCTION IN ASSOCIATION WITH OASIS VENTURES ENTERTAINMENT LTD/ENVISION ENTERTAINMENT/HERRICK ENTERTAI NMENT/ BOOM! STUDIOS A BALTASAR KORMAKUR´ FILM DENZEL WASHINMUSICGTONMARK WAHLBERG“2 GUNS”CO- PAULA PATTONBILL PAXTON JAMES MARSDEN FRED WARD AND EDWARD JAMES OLMOS BY CLINTON SHORTER PRODUCERS BRANDON GRIMES JEFF RICE EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS BRANDT ANDERSEN JEFFREY STOTT MOTAZ M. NABULSI JOSHUA SKURLA MARK DAMON PRODUCED

BY MARC PLATT RANDALL EMMETT NORTON HERRICK ADAM SIEGEL GEORGE FURLA ROSS RICHIE ANDREW COSBY ´ BASED GRAPHIC SCREENPLAY DIRECTED ON THE BOOM! STUDIOS NOVELS BY STEVEN GRANT

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HEALTH

JULY 26 – AUGUST 1, 2013

ca believed it was a curse.

Many Western patients use that word to describe it, Haywood says. He doesn’t blame them.

He remembers childhood as a blur of pain crises, breathing tubes and oxygen masks. The weeks he spent in hospitals were lonely and frightening.

The episodes struck 10 or 12 times a year, usually starting in his chest or arms and spreading like a slow-burning fire to other parts of his body.

“Think of the worst pain you’ve ever had — a broken bone or a migraine — and imagine it as a steady rainfall,” he says. “Then it blossoms into a thunderstorm that lasts for hours.”

Nothing could kill the pain, but doctors prescribed morphine and other opioids to reduce it — just enough to bring relief without causing organ failure.

The discomfort went beyond the physical.

A bit of hope

KIM HAIRSTON/BALTIMORE SUN/MCT

Dr. Carlton Haywood, Jr., a faculty member at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, has sickle cell and uses his own experience to teach others on ethical treatment of patients. He is shown on June 6, undergoing a monthly red blood cell exchange in Baltimore, Md.

A researcher’s personal experience with sickle cell Bioethics and hematology professor at renowned university suffers with disease that primarily affects African-Americans

BY JONATHAN PITTS THE BALTIMORE SUN/MCT

BALTIMORE — The tall, lanky patient enters the room bent over and shuffling like a man twice his age. He climbs on a gurney and lies back, head throbbing. Then Carlton Haywood pulls out a bottle of Tums, relief-in-waiting for the nausea he fears will come.

“You never know how bad it’s going to get,” he says with a cordial smile.

Haywood, 37, belongs to the 0.003 percent of the U.S. population that suffers from sickle cell disease, which predominantly affects Blacks and which he has battled since birth. A health care team at the Johns Hopkins Outpatient Center is about to remove 75 percent of his blood and replace it with donated units, a procedure he undergoes monthly.

As rare as the blood disorder is, Haywood’s situation is even rarer.

A bioethics and hematology professor at the Johns Hopkins University, he’s one of the few academicians studying the illness who has personal experience.

Some horror stories Haywood the scholar knows Haywood the patient, a fact that

imparts a special meaning and power to an often-lonely mission.

“There’s so much Carlton brings to our work that no one else can,” says Dr. Sophie Lanzkron, the director of the Adult Sickle Cell Clinic at Hopkins. “He has significant illness, lives with this discomfort every day and manages it incredibly well. It’s one reason he knows as much about (sickle cell) as anybody I’ve met.”

On this June morning, Haywood reclines in fatigue as the bad blood flows from his body and the good enters through tubes in his chest. If he’s lucky, he’ll be well enough soon to return to a schedule of lecturing, writing and researching the state of sickle cell treatment in the U.S. On that last subject, he turns learned professor.

Most sufferers, Haywood says, have horror stories of locking horns with their health care providers. Many in the general population still believe the “Black disease” they heard so much about 40 years ago has been cured.

Worse, funding for research is 1/300ths of that available for comparable genetic illnesses.

“Sickle cell disease represents a uniquely bad confluence of problems,” he says in a voice far gentler than his disorder.

Haywood pops a Tums.

“We have a long way to go, mm-hmm,” he says

Traced back to Africa Medical historians have traced sickle cell disease to four regions of Africa, where they say it developed thousands of years ago and

was first described in medical literature in 1870. Today it affects about 100,000 people in the United States.

It strikes individuals of many ethnicities, including Whites, though more than 90 percent of sufferers are Black.

The medical system calls it an “orphan disease” — that is, like muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis and other disorders, it affects fewer than 200,000 people. But to those who have it, the numbers are more than big enough. And the problems start early.

Haywood was born in Atlanta, and for the first three years of his life, he screamed so often and so terribly that his parents, Carlton Sr., and Harriett Haywood, thought they must be doing something wrong. By 1979, when his sister Tammy was born, they had moved to Alabama, a state that mandated sickle cell testing for all newborns. She didn’t have the disease but carried some of its traits, so doctors suggested they test their son.

The results were “devastating,” says Harriett, now 61 and living in Columbia, S.C. “The doctors told us Carlton wouldn’t live through childhood. It was very, very difficult to deal with.”

Mishapen blood cells The condition refers to misshapen red blood cells, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Normal red blood cells are doughnut-shaped and malleable, and contain hemoglobin, a protein that allows the cells to carry oxygen throughout the body. He-

moglobin-A — the normal kind — is ball-shaped, allowing the cells to move smoothly around even the sharpest turns in the body’s vascular system, reaching every organ.

Those born with sickle cell disease, though, inherit from both parents hemoglobin-S, which causes the cells to develop a crescent shape. The cells clump together and get stuck in curves and crannies, causing dangerous blockages that can last for hours.

As he explains the impact, a gentle smile crosses Haywood’s round face, his default expression whatever the subject. “During those crises, otherwise known as vaso-occlusive episodes, my organs are being starved of blood and oxygen,” he says.

The emergency is immediate — and has wide-ranging implications.

Intense pain The pain is overwhelming, often so severe that only extremely powerful opioids can touch it. The affected organs can fail, sometimes fatally. And possibly most maddening, there exists no medical test to prove any attack is happening.

“Imagine you’re a 20-year-old African-American male in Baltimore City. You’re having intense pain. You go to the ER, where you’re appropriately pleading for narcotics, but you can’t prove anything is wrong,” says Lanzkron, who has treated Haywood as a patient and co-authored some of his research work. “You can imagine how that goes: often, not well.”

Haywood’s unsure why, but he always got fair treatment from physicians when growing up. It wasn’t until later that he realized how lucky that was.

Sickle cell disease is so painful, complicated and poorly understood that for generations, medicine men in certain parts of Afri-

Like many boys, Haywood loved sports, and he inherited a competitive nature from his father, the first African-American to win a full football scholarship to the University of South Carolina.

But those who have sickle cell must monitor their activity.

Overexertion, like dehydration, extreme weather, poor diet and stress, can spark attacks.

He landed in the emergency room so often that his mother drew a line. “I told him, ‘If you can’t strike a balance, I’m going to keep you in the house,’ ” she recalls. Between the ages of 11 and 14, he watched through a window as his friends played ball.

He threw himself into reading: science fiction, Stephen King and especially comic books, his preference during hospital stays. His parents discouraged him from delving into sickle cell, but he couldn’t help it. What he learned shocked him.

“Thinking about dying (as a child) is a nightmare,” Haywood says. He’d cry and scream and ask his parents, “Why?” They didn’t know, they said, but their answers gave him a bit of hope.

Carlton Sr., a manager for a credit company, taught him statistics. “Those are broad figures,” he’d say. “If 17 is the median (life span), some people live longer.”

“Everyone has an issue they’re dealing with,” said Harriett, a homemaker and devout Baptist.

“This is yours. The question is, how will you deal with it?” Both told him to trust God. They fetched his school assignments and made sure he kept up when he was out sick. He became a straight-A student.

When he was 13, a doctor in yet another emergency room asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. Carlton wasn’t sure, but he did know that many comicbook superheroes were born of physics accidents.

“A physicist,” he said.

“Well, you already know more about sickle cell than I do,” the doctor replied. “What about medicine?”

Years later, Haywood narrows his eyes at the memory.

“Isn’t it interesting,” he says, “how a well-timed question can change the way you view what you might be able to do?”

Inexpensive test is saving infants’ lives

BY MARIE MCCULLOUGH THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER/ MCT

of her 9-month-old daughter. “She’s growing, eating, and her heart looks good.”

PHILADELPHIA — At birth in September, Moriah Mudd seemed strong and healthy. Her physical exam by a pediatrician at Riddle Hospital was completely normal.

But then a nurse put a sensor on her foot and, within minutes, a machine called a pulse oximeter revealed that her blood oxygen level was alarmingly low — a sign that something could be critically wrong with her heart.

Three weeks later, Moriah underwent surgery at A.I duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del., to correct a severe congenital heart defect diagnosed by follow-up tests.

Had it gone undetected, she would have gone into respiratory distress at home in Sicklerville, N.J., said her mother, who is a family physician.

“She’s doing great now,” Kimberly Jones-Mudd said

Standard practice Pulse oximetry screening for congenital heart disease has become standard practice across the country. Less than two years after New Jersey became the first state to require it, surveys show. Even in states such as Pennsylvania and Delaware that do not mandate it, the simple, noninvasive, few-dollar test is now done in almost all birthing hospitals, surveys show.

It’s too soon to know the impact of screening, but anecdotal cases like Moriah’s and early reports are all good. In New Jersey, hospitals identified two newborns with critical congenital heart defects out of more than 25,000 babies tested in the first three months after universal pulse ox screening began in August 2011, according to the U.S. Centers for Dis-

ELIZABETH ROBERTSON/PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER/MCT

Harry Mudd and Kimberly Jones-Mudd hold their nine-month-old Moria in Sicklerville, New Jersey, on June 29. A pulse oximetry test revealed a heart defect in the infant that was corrected with surgery. ease Control and Prevention.

The CDC review also found that 10 infants with positive screens turned out not to have heart defects, a false alarm rate lower than in large European studies.

“It’s a highly useful test.

It’s both cost-effective and

life-saving,” said Samuel Gidding, head of cardiology at duPont Hospital for Children.

“It’s a screening program that people are embracing.

They realize they should be doing this as part of good medical care,” said Pittsburgh neonatologist Rob-

ert Cicco, vice chair of a committee that helps the Pennsylvania Department of Health develop newborn-screening guidelines.

Recommended

by US Of the 40,000 babies

born with congenital heart problems each year in the U.S., about 10,000 have a defect so severe they need corrective surgery or other procedures in infancy, research shows.

Many of these defects show up on fetal ultrasound. But experts estimate as many as 200 babies a year die from critical defects that go undetected until too late.

In Europe, studies show that about one in four newborns with positive pulse ox screens — that is, blood oxygen saturation below 95 percent — have a heart defect that could cause disability or death. Lung problems are also sometimes detected through positive screens.

In 2011, following advice from leading medical groups, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services recommended that pulse oximetry be added to the uniform screening panel for newborns.

Since then, all but four states have added screening laws, rules, or pilot programs, according to the Newborn Coalition, an advocacy group. Even in the four states without formal initiatives, most hospitals screen.

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FOOD

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JULY 26 – AUGUST 1, 2013

Master

Give your grill a much-needed makeover

Mediterranean Grilling FROM Family Features

A

bundant plates of fresh vegetables, delicate fish from the nearby sea and splashes of olive oil are all hallmarks of traditional meals found in the Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean diet has been embraced for thou­sands of years by those living along the Mediterranean Sea, and is now followed around the world as con­sumers discover its delicious flavor components and researchers uncover its countless health benefits, including helping to prevent heart attacks and strokes according to a study conducted by The New England Journal of Medicine.

It’s easy to embrace this healthy lifestyle during grilling season by giving your grill a Mediterranean diet makeover with the Pompeian family of oils and vinegars. You can enjoy the benefits of the diet with­out leaving home by making simple changes, such as swapping butter and vegetable oil for Grapeseed Oil or OlivExtra Premium Mediterranean Blend, and making homemade dressings and vinaigrettes by combining oils and vinegars in place of bottled versions.

Grapeseed Oil, which has one of the highest smoke points of all oils and is a rich source of Vitamin E, has a light taste that will not disrupt the flavors of food while cooking. This versatile, all natural oil is great to line your grill or pan with before cooking to prevent food from sticking. OlivExtra Mediterranean Blend, a healthy combination of canola, extra virgin and grapeseed oils, is the perfect all-purpose oil that represents key components of the Mediterranean diet and provides essential Omega-3 and Omega-6, mono­ unsaturated fat and Vitamin E. Ready to adopt a Mediterranean lifestyle at home? Check out these easy grilling recipes from Hungry Girl Lisa Lillien. For more information, visit www.Pompeian.com.

Spicy Mustard Chicken Kebabs Servings: 4 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard 2 tablespoons Pompeian OlivExtra Premium Mediterranean Blend 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder 1 tablespoon Pompeian White Wine Vinegar 1 pound raw boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch cubes 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and black pepper 1 medium red onion, cut into 1-inch chunks To make sauce, place 3 tablespoons mustard in medium bowl. Add oil and garlic powder, and whisk until uniform.

Cover and refrigerate.

To make marinade, in small bowl, com­bine vinegar with remaining 2 table­spoons mustard. Stir until uniform.

Season chicken with salt and pepper. Place chicken and marinade in large sealable plastic bag. Remove as much air as possible and seal. Gently knead marinade into chicken through bag. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, if using wooden skewers, soak 4 in water for 20 min­ utes to prevent burning.

Alternately thread marinated chicken and onion chunks onto 4 skewers.

Bring grill to medium-high heat.

Brush both sides of kebabs with sauce. Grill kebabs for 5 minutes with grill cover down.

Flip kebabs and grill for 6 to 8 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Enjoy.

Nutrition per serving: 215 calories; 8.5g fat; 415mg sodium; 5g carbohydrate; 0.5g fiber; 2g sugars; 26.5g protein

Hungry Grilled Romaine Salad Servings: 2 1 tablespoon Pompeian Extra Virgin Olive Oil 1 large heart romaine lettuce, halved lengthwise 2 dashes each salt and black pepper 1/4 cup diced tomato 1/4 cup diced red onion 1/4 cup crumbled reduced-fat feta cheese 2 tablespoons finely chopped basil 2 tablespoons Pompeian Balsamic Vinegar Bring grill to high heat.

Drizzle and brush 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil onto cut sides of each romaine half. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Lay romaine halves on grill, cut sides down.

Grill until slightly charred, 1 to 2 minutes.

Plate romaine halves, cut sides up. Top with tomato, onion, cheese and basil.

In small bowl, whisk vinegar with remaining 2 teaspoons of olive oil. Drizzle atop salad and enjoy.

Nutrition per serving: 135 calories; 10g fat; 340mg sodium; 9.5g carbohydrate; 3g fiber; 5g sugars; 5g protein

Jalapeño Peach Shrimp Skewers Servings: 4 2 cups canned peach slices packed in juice, drained and blotted dry 2 tablespoons Pompeian Grapeseed Oil 2 tablespoons chopped seeded jalapeño pepper 1 teaspoon Pompeian White Wine Vinegar 1 teaspoon brown sugar (not packed) 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1/2 teaspoon onion powder 1/8 teaspoon salt 12 ounces (about 20) raw large shrimp, peeled, tails removed, deveined If using wooden skewers, soak 4 in water for 20 minutes to prevent burning.

To make sauce, place 1/4 of the peach slices in small food processor or blender. Add the rest of the ingredients except shrimp and remaining peach slices and puree until smooth. Transfer half of the sauce to small bowl and refrigerate until ready to serve (for dipping).

Bring grill to medium-high heat.

Evenly thread shrimp and remaining peach slices onto 4 skewers. Brush both sides with some of remaining sauce. Grill until shrimp are cooked through, 1 to 2 minutes per side, brushing with remaining sauce as they cook.

Serve with refrigerated sauce for dipping.

Nutrition per serving: 185 calories; 8g fat; 415mg sodium; 6g carbohydrate; <0.5g fiber; 4.5g sugars; 21g protein

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JULY 26 – AUGUST 1, 2013

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

Meet some of

FLORIDA'S

finest

More than 4,000 cruisers joined nationally syndicated radio talk show host Tom Joyner on the 13th annual Tom Joyner Foundation Fantastic Voyage 2012 aboard Royal Caribbean’s “Navigator of the Seas,” one of the world’s largest cruise ships. The Florida Courier spotlights some of the best-looking people on board.

submitted for your approval

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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.

dione ross

Dione, a native of Atlanta, was on her second Tom Joyner cruise.

Ross of Portsmouth, Va., was on his third Tom Joyner cruise.

He was previously featured as one of Florida’ Finest after the 2010 cruise.

DELROY COLE / FLORIDA COURIER

James’ wedding invite leaves out date, details of ceremony EURWEB.COM

Tavis Smiley wants the president to take the lead on a conversation about race.

Smiley stands by comments about Obama’s ‘weak’ statement on trial EURWEB.COM

Public radio and PBS host Tavis Smiley is not backing away from his derisive comment about President Obama’s statements regarding the George Zimmerman acquittal.

On July 21 on “Meet the Press,’’ Smiley basically doubled down on what he said about the president that got him excoriated online, especially on Twitter. Smiley said POTUS’ comments were “weak as pre-sweetened Kool-Aid.” Smiley made a point to note on July 21 that the president had to be “pushed” into speaking out on the Zimmerman acquittal and didn’t decide to do so by choice.

“I appreciate and applaud the fact that the president did finally show up. But this town has been spinning a story that’s not altogether true. He did not walk to the podium for an impromptu address to the nation. He was pushed to that podium. A week of protests outside the White House, pressure building on him inside the White House, pushed him to that podium.”

Nagging question So even though president spoke out on the situation, Smiley didn’t feel Obama’s remarks were strong enough. He told “Meet the Press” host David Gregory that when Obama “left the podium, he still had not answered the most important question, that Kingian question, where do we go from here?”

“That question this morning remains unanswered, at least from the perspec-

tive of the president,” said Smiley. “And the bottom line is, this is not Libya. This is America. On this issue, you cannot lead from behind. What’s lacking in this moment is moral leadership. The country is begging for it. They’re craving it.”

Wants discussion on race When reminded of the president’s statement that politicians might not be the best people to lead a real national discussion on race, Smiley responded with this: “I disagree with the president, respectfully, that politicians, elected officials, can’t occupy this space on race. Truman did, Johnson did, President Obama did.

He’s the right person in the right place at the right time, but he has to step into his moment. I don’t want him to be like Bill Clinton, when he’s out of office, regretting that he didn’t move on Rwanda.

I don’t want the president to look back and realize he didn’t do as much as he could have in this critical moment.”

Congressional Black Caucus chair and Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge, former RNC chairman and MSNBC political analyst Michael Steele, Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree and National Urban League President Marc Morial were also a part of Sunday’s “Meet the Press” panel.

To add to his argument against the president, Smiley stated there is no record of Obama having a conversation about race in America and questioned his need to take leadership on the issue of gay rights, but not on race.

LeBron James and fiancée, Savannah Brinson, have sent out wedding invitations to their guests without disclosing any real details on the ceremony.

According to TMZ, in an attempt to keep the details a secret, the invitations list only a “Welcome Barbeque” at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13, and a “Farewell Brunch” on Sunday, Sept. 15 with the big day presumably taking place in between the two on Saturday, Sept. 14.

Guests were instructed to call a secret phone number before Aug. 1 to get all the details on the wedding day.

Brinson is the mother of James’s two sons and was his high school sweetheart.

“Now that I’m getting married, I’m coming out from behind his shadow, but I just

Miami Heat’s LeBron James is shown with fiancée Savannah Brinson. thought it was time,” she has told Associated Press.

With only a save the date card listing the weekend of the ceremony and a general location, San Diego, it seems the couple is doing a good job in keeping the paparazzi in the shadows.

Jet magazine revamped again

BY TONYA PENDLETON BLACKAMERICAWEB.COM

“Jet” magazine launched in 1951 and has since become one of the most enduring magazines reflecting the Black experience. Today, it experiences a rebirth with a redesign. Coming off a revamp in 2010, Jet has again tweaked its look and feel to be even more attractive to today’s reader. Given the popularity of the Internet, where people have increasingly turned for news and information, magazines have to keep finding new and creative ways to attract and keep readers.

“We’ve got a new logo, we’ve got brighter colors, we’ve got more white space, overall it’s a more modern book,” Mitzi Miller, Jet Magazine’s editor-in-chief told the Tom Joyner Morning Show. “The size is still the same and the “Beauty of the Week” is still there,” Miller says.

“Those were the top two questions. The text is a little bit bigger, so it’s easier to read and there are more infographics, the colorful charts that tell the story, so that it can be a faster read.”

‘Fruitvale Station’ featured in new issue The latest cover features Octavia Spencer and Michael B. Jordan, the stars of

The latest Jet cover features Octavia Spencer and Michael B Jordan, who star in the new movie “Fruitvale Station.’’

“Fruitvale Station,” which is based on the true story of Oscar Grant, a young man who was killed by police officer Johannes Mehserle at the Fruitvale Bay Area Rapid Transit Station (BART) in Oakland, Calif. Miller says the film, which was directed by Ryan Coogler, a African-American filmmaker making his debut feature is one “Jet” is proud to be associated with.

“I hope everyone will go out and support the movie. I think its one of the biggest and most important films of the year.

I’m really excited to be able to have them start us out the gate with the new look.”

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JULY 26 – AUGUST 1, 2013

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