Biden announces new monument for Native Americans

By Herb Boyd Special to the AmNews

Last month, many African Americans lauded President Joe Biden’s action in establishing a national monument in tribute to Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. A chorus of cheers now will resound from the Native American population with his designation of a new national monument near the Grand Canyon to protect lands sacred to Indigenous people.

On Tuesday, Biden spoke at the Historic Red Butte Airfield in Arizona prior to signing the proclamation and visiting the Grand Canyon. What he proposes will place a permanent ban on new uranium mining claims in the area that covers nearly a million acres.

“Our nation’s history is etched in our people and our lands,” the president said.

“Today’s action is going to protect and preserve that history, along with these high plateaus and deep canyons.”

The announcement comes after a yearslong effort and is part of Biden’s trip to shore up his presidential campaign on climate change and the economic challenges facing Americans in the West.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold the position, said the plan was “historic.”

“It will help protect lands that many tribes referred to as their eternal home, a place of healing and a source of spiritual sustenance. It will help ensure that indigenous peoples can continue to use these areas for religious ceremonies, hunting, and gathering of plants, medicines, and other materials, including some found nowhere else on Earth,” Haaland said. “It will protect objects of historic and scientific importance for the benefit of tribes, the public, and for future generations.”

According to the announcement, the national monument will be named Baaj Nwaavjo l’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument. This designation follows a proposal drafted by Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition and means “where tribes roam” in Havasupai, and “l’tah Kuvkeni” translates to “our ancestral footprints” in Hopi.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, putting a different spin on the notion that the monument was a campaign gambit, said, “We’re going to continue to do our jobs and continue to talk about it ... And the hope is that we’ll get our message out. We’ll see, I think, Americans start to feel and see what it is that we have been able to do in Washington, D.C.”

Unknown foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff, Report for America Corps Member

This year marks the 60th anniversary of major events of the Civil Rights Movement, Black people’s historic struggle for equality in the U.S. Birmingham, Alabama was one of the cities where many of these events took place, such as the Children’s Crusade, 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. arrest and famous letter.

Black journalists attending the 2023 National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) conference, held in Birmingham this year, ventured out on a tour of the city. They spoke with surviving and often unknown members of the movement who detailed their firsthand accounts with abhorrent, racist segregationists and white supremacists during the 1950s and 60s.

Much of the driving force behind the Civil

Rights Movement is credited to King’s nonviolent demonstrations all over the south, but little is said about the coalition of Black faith leaders and children protesters that initially rallied to jumpstart the movement in Alabama.

Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, who lived until 2011, survived several attempts on his life, including church bombings and beatings, and worked to convince King to come help spotlight Birmingham’s tyranny in the burgeoning media. He also publicly took on Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor, a ruthless white supremacist and segregationist politician in Alabama that turned fire hoses, police dogs, and a tank on Black freedom fighters during the Children’s Crusade of 1963. Many attacked and arrested were Black teens and kids, some of whom were as young as 7-years-old, who had walked out of schools to march.

Shuttlesworth was adamantly opposed to violence and created the Alabama Christian

Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) pledge to peaceful protests in 1956 when Alabama outlawed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the state. He headed the Bethel Baptist Church in Collegeville, one of the epicenters for civil rights organizers at the time on the northside of Birmingham. He attended meetings in the “war room” at A.G. Gaston Motel, which catered only to Black guests, with King, leaders from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Ralph D. Abernathy, and others to plan and strategize.

Rev. Thomas L. Wilder runs the landmark Bethel Baptist Church, where he’s served as pastor since the late 1980s. Wilder said that Shuttlesworth challenged the established segregationist laws in Birmingham that would often lead to imprisonment or lynching for Blacks, inquired about voter registration and unlawful literacy tests, and fought

Mother of neglected child pushes for Fajr’s Law

By KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO Amsterdam News Staff

Najmah Nash, the mother of Fajr Atiya Williams, the 6-year-old with special needs who died because a school bus aide was not attending to her, wants to maintain her child’s memory by pushing for what she’s calling Fajr’s Law.

Nash has started a petition on Change.org that calls for new safety measures and regulations for New Jersey school bus aides and drivers: She’s looking to ensure that other families won’t have to suffer the loss of a child due to this kind of neglect.

“Fajr’s Law seeks to implement comprehensive safety measures for all students, particularly those with special needs, traveling on school buses,” a press release about the proposed new law states. “It will include stricter regulations on bus aides’ use of electronic devices during work hours, enhanced training programs for drivers and attendants to address the unique needs of special education students, and regular inspections of safety equipment on school buses to prevent malfunctions that could endanger students’ lives. In the name of justice, safety of transportation, and equality amongst special education students and all abled-bodied students worldwide!”

Fajr, the daughter of Nash and Wali Williams, died after being choked by a safety harness during a school bus ride on July 17. Williams was attending an extended school program at Claremont Elementary School. Her bus monitor, Amanda Davila, had strapped her into a seat with a fourpoint safety harness for her ride to school. As the bus drove down a bumpy road, the harness re-adjusted and ended up tightening around Fajr’s neck. The child had a chromosomal disorder known as Emanuel syndrome or ESA (Emanuel Syndrome

Awareness) and was nonverbal; yet, cameras in the bus captured Fajr fighting for her life in the back of the bus while Davila was seated in the front, earbuds in while she perused apps on her cellphone.

The Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office stated, in a July 20, press release that their “investigation revealed that this was in violation of policies and procedures.” Davila, a seven-year employee of the Montauk Transit LLC bus company, has been charged with second-degree manslaughter and seconddegree endangering the welfare of a child.

But Nash is questioning the thoroughness of New Jersey’s policies and procedures for school bus employees.

“What I’m proposing is for, first, the Board of Education to fully vet these transportation companies that they’re awarding contracts to, as well as that they are transparent with the parents of the children that will be

Melba Moore receives her Hollywood Star

NYC-born, Newark, N.J.-bred Melba Moore will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Aug. 10. The Tony- and Grammy-award winning artist, known for hits like “You Stepped into My Life” and “Love’s Coming at Ya’,” famously attended Newark Arts High School and graduated from Montclair State University.

Moore wrote on her Instagram page: “As I look back over my life Harlem /Newark NJ, I am proud. Receiving a Hollywood Star made me reflect on the goodness of God.”

Moore’s star is being conferred under the Live Theatre/Live Performance category. Emmy winner Sheryl Lee Ralph, R&B singer Freda Payne, and comedian Katt Williams are due to take part in the ceremony.

Tribute to the Honorable Lt. Governor Sheila Y. Oliver

Lt. Governor Sheila Y. Oliver will be honored this week before her burial.

Over a three-day period, which Gov. Murphy has proclaimed as a “Celebration of Life,” Oliver’s body will lie in state and be available for public viewing in the Rotunda of the State Capitol in Trenton, starting on Thursday. The Essex County Sheriff’s Office’s Honor Guard will escort her body to the Essex County Historic Courthouse for viewing on Friday, Aug. 11, for a tribute in Newark. Her funeral, which is also open to the public, will take place at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark on Aug. 12. Oliver’s burial will be private.

All U.S. and New Jersey state flags will fly at halfstaff from August 4–September 4 in remembrance of Oliver.

To attend the Essex County Historic Courthouse viewing, go to 470 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Newark, NJ., which will be open to the public from 10 a.m.–10 p.m. For assistance in gaining entry, contact the Sheriff’s Communication office at 973-621-4111.

85th Annual Middlesex County Fair

The 85th Annual Middlesex County Fair will take place Aug. 7–13 at the Middlesex County Fairground in East Brunswick. This year, the fair is celebrating 85 years of farming and fun in central New Jersey. Events this year include horse-riding shows, chainsaw carving art, comedy hypnosis, pig races, UWA Elite Pro Wrestling, and Mythicreatures––a new dinosaur attraction. The Middlesex County 4-H program will host art, craft, farming, and animal programs.

Tickets will be available online and at the gate from Monday–Friday, 5 p.m.–11 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.–11 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.–10 p.m. For additional information about the fair, call 732-257-8858 or visit https://middlesexcountyfair.com/.

NJMVC Agency-on-Wheels in Piscataway

The New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission’s (NJMVC) Agency on Wheels will be available to serve residents at the YMCA at the Piscataway Community Center (YPCC) on Thursday, Aug. 31, from 10

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