The Westside Gazette

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HIV Care Continuum: Man Freed By Obama Controlling Speaks Out About The Virus Is Key The W ar On Dr ugs War Drugs PAGE 3 PAGE 5

Civil Rights lawyer Seeks To Commemorate Another Side 0f Southern Heritage: LLynchings ynchings

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Broward County's Oldest and Largest African American Owned and Operated Newspaper VOL. 44 NO. 24 50¢ A Pr oud PPaper aper ffor or a Pr oud PPeople...Sinc eople...Sinc Proud Proud eople...Sincee 1971 THURSDA THURSDAYY, JUL JULYY 23 - WEDNESDA WEDNESDAYY, JUL JULYY 29 29,, 2015

Eric Garner death case settled; New York City to pay his family $5.9 million

If old seasoned wood can be cleaned what about you?

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

2 Corinthians 4:16

By Bobby R. Henry, Sr. While cleaning our old worn, tattered, and seasoned wooden fence I was amazed how the solution cleaned all of the aged mold and mildew from the wood.

As the solution touched the wood, it washed away the built-up grime and as it did it pulled back the covers to expose the wood that began to look like it did when we built the fence.

What was now old appeared to be original, except for the newly incorporated lean - as if it were an old pimp, walking with a cane - that replaced the sturdy upright posture it once had.

(Cont'd on Page 3)

South Florida Book Festival highlighted by nationally known social and political activist Tavis Smiley Eric Garner’s July 23, 2014 funeral at Bethel Baptist Church in Brooklyn.

News). (Inset: Eric Garner's wife, Esaw Garner)

By Ryan Parker Christina Littlefield

and

Almost a year after Eric Garner’s controversial death, New York City settled a case brought by Garner’s relatives,

agreeing last week to pay $5.9 million.

“This settlement is significant,” said Jonathan Moore, a civil rights attorney who is representing Garner’s family.

(Julia Xanthos / New York Daily

However, he said, the family will continue fighting for justice.

Garner’s July 17, 2014 death during a clash with police “forced us to examine the state of race relations, and the

relationship between our police force and the people they serve,” City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer said in a statement announcing the settlement.

(Cont'd on Page 5)

Mother of Black man killed by K.C. cops seeks to clear his name stealing?’” recalled Narene.

“Ryan did nothing of the sort of what they put in their story. I could see he was going to be a great man, a father, an uncle, a true brother. Ryan was a good guy.”

Ryan, 24, was enjoying the

nightlife with friends at Kansas City’s Power & Light entertainment district. As the bars began to close, people flowed into the streets. Police officers were already in place, attempting to disperse the crowd.

(Cont'd on Page 3)

Nationally acclaimed author and National Public Radio talk show host Tavis Smiley provides social commentary recently before a captive audience.

(Photo by Steve Vinik)

By Charles Moseley

President Obama says race infects U.S. criminal America,” President Obama said justice system in Philadelphia. “It’s important

Ryan Stokes with daughter.

By Jazelle Hunt, NNPA Department officer William Thompson ended Ryan Stokes’ Washington Correspondent life with four bullets, both media WASHINGTON, D.C. and police reports have de(NNPA) – These days, all scribed Ryan as a thief and an Narene Stokes wants to do is armed suspect.

“At first… we got asked a lot, clear her son’s name and gain some closure. In the two years ‘Well, did he have a gun? You since Kansas City, Mo. Police know, was he down there

Pleading Our Own Cause

President Obama said there has been a prison explosion in the U.S. over the past 35 years.

By Damon C. Williams, Special to the NNPA from the Philadelphia Tribune PHILADELPHIA, PA – Hours after announcing his Administration had secured a multinational pact with Iran to

WWW.

limit their nuclear program, President Barack Obama told the NAACP national convention recently that race has always played an outsized role in incarceration.

“There is a long history of inequity in the justice system in

Westside Gazette Newspaper

for us to realize that violence in our communities is serious and that historically has affected the African-American community, which many times have been under policed, rather than over policed.

“Folks were very interested in containing the AfricanAmerican community, which led to segregated areas, but within those areas, there wasn’t enough police presence. But here’s the thing, over the last few decades, we have also locked up more and more non-violent drug offenders than ever before for longer than ever before, and that is the real reason our prison population is so high.”

President Obama said there has been a prison explosion in the U.S. over the past 35 years.

“The United States is home to 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Think about that. Our incarceration rate is four times higher than China’s."

(Cont'd on Page 3)

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The power of the written word was on full display during the South Florida Book Festival (SFBF), held on July 17-18, 2015 at the African American Research Library & Cultural Center (AARLCC) in Fort Lauderdale. The event has become one of the premier book fairs in the country, attracting literary giants from across the country.

One of the highlights of the two-day event featured National Public Radio talk show host Tavis Smiley.

Smiley was on hand to promote his recent book entitled, My Journey with Maya Angelou. Smiley also participated in a town hall meeting where he addressed a variety of issues in his typical unabashed style.

Smiley has been one of a few nationally known Black figures to openly engage in criticism of President Barack Obama. And as such, Smiley has been the recipient of public scorn by several high profile Black luminaries from around the country.

(Cont'd on Page 11) MEMBER: National Newspaper Publishers Association ( NNPA), and Southeastern African-American Publishers Association (SAAPA) Florida Association of Black Owned Media (FABOM)

Page 2 • www.thewestsidegazette.com • July 23 - July 29, 2015

Broward County's Oldest and Largest African American Owned and Operated Newspaper

Activist’s supporters say Janice Green’s conviction politically motivated - #JusticeOrElse the cause of Ms. Green being targeted allegedly by certain members of the power elite.

“She was well known through the community and she believed in her people—the Black people, getting them in office … she made enemies,” Mayo explained.

Ms. Green’s family said, in mid-April, 2013 at six o’clock in the morning, Green was alone in bed and suddenly awakened out of her sleep by a commotion around and in her home. Frightened and not knowing who it was or what they wanted and

thinking it was a home intrusion, Green grabbed her husband’s shot gun and barricaded herself in the bathroom.

According to a statement circulated by her family, she yelled out “Who is it? Who is it?” and fired one shot from the gun into the air. The bullet hit a ceiling fan and exited through the roof.

Ms. Green heard someone shouting ‘Drop the weapon, state trooper!’ She complied, raised her hands up and came out undressed and pleading to “Please let me put some clothes

on; no one can see me but my husband.” The State Trooper allegedly responded, “We all grown”.

Family and supporters say Green had no way of knowing it was law enforcement because they converged on the home with what they said was a “no knock” warrant. Police threw loud flash bangs on both sides of the home and officers entered without warning or prior notification.

Ms. Green’s family contends she had no way of knowing about a warrant or who exactly

was in her home. Supporters say she was targeted and had legitimate reasons to be afraid of the unannounced visit that resulted in her arrest. There were threats and tension with Christopher Cannon, a cousin who became irate at her addressing his alleged criminal activities. In their feud, the intimidation from Cannon was so volatile that Al Green— Janice’s husband—rigged the doors of the home and placed security cameras on the property.

Subsequently Cannon was

By Brian E. Muhammad Special to the NNPA from The Final Call

BCPS recognizes outstanding educators for professional cation Manual used in schools Tammy Orilio, a 2015 accomplishments Science throughout Florida.

Communication Fellow

The state of Alabama sentenced a Black community organizer to 30 years in prison for attempted murder of a state police officer serving her a search warrant. She was also sentenced to 6.5 years for handling the 7mm magnum rifle used during the incident as a former convicted felon. But members of Janice Green’s family and supporters say her arrest, conviction and sentence was politically motivated.

Her defenders are convinced Ms. Green’s plight is an example of how old-style Southern justice can still be dispensed by s when a Black person is a perceived threat or challenges their political power. Ms. Green was active in local politics and began to ruffle some influential people, according to her sister Tamara Mayo. “She was dedicated to her community,” said Mayo.

She said her sister regularly advocated and did small, but helpful deeds for community residents, from driving people to voting polls to organizing an annual dinner at her church honoring law enforcement.

Mayo believes her sister’s efforts to support a Black candidate against the longtime mayor to be

Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) recognizes several outstanding educators for their recent contributions and professional accomplishments.

These individuals continue to learn, research, present, teach, serve and share expertise with their colleagues and students.

Congratulations to the following BCPS educators on their recent achievements: Melton Mustafa, piano director at Parkway Middle School, and Kathryn Lotocky, music teacher at Fort Lauderdale High School, are both selected as a Grammy Music Educator of the Year finalists for 2016. They are among 213 music teachers from 194 cities across 42 states announced as quarterfinalists for the Music Educator Award™ presented by the Recording Academy® and the GRAMMY Foundation®.

The semifinalists will be announced in September. This special award will be presented at the Special Merit Awards Ceremony and Nominees Reception during GRAMMY Week 2016.

Janice Green (Courtesy Photo)

by the Ocean Explorations Trust (OET), participated in the 2015 expedition of the Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus as it sailed through the Gulf of Mexico. Orilio, a science teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, teaches marine science, biology and Advanced Placement Environmental Science, and is the sponsor for the environmental science club at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. She engages her students through telepresence to communicate and discuss her research, as well as her experience living and learning aboard the E/V Nautilus.

Dr. Andrew Shipe, English teacher at Pompano Beach High School, participated in the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) institute entitled “Scholarship and Performance: A Combined Approach to Teaching Shakespeare’s Plays.” The two week NEH program was held at the Theater for a New Audience’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

MUSTAFA Bruce Klasner, teacher of Advanced Placement World History, U.S. History and Holocaust History at Everglades High School, and Amiee Sarajian, teacher of Government, Economics and Holocaust at Cypress Bay High School, participated in the Teacher Information Exchange Program in Lithuania with the Center for Holocaust and Human Rights Education at Florida Atlantic University. Klasner and Sarajian are working with the State Task Force to revise and update the Holocaust Edu-

Meredeth Legg, library media specialist at Cooper City High School, completed a sixday immersion program in American History at the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute this summer in Williamsburg, Virginia. Legg was the only teacher from Florida to attend this unique program that provides an opportunity to exchange ideas with historians, learn from other educators and develop instructional materials.

The 2015 P3 Eco-Challenge awards recognized three top BCPS educators for their efforts to learn and implement environmentally sustainable measures and green initiatives within their schools and communities. Congratulations to the following 2015 Top Educators: Lynn Walsh, Maplewood Elementary School, Top Elementary School Educator; Diana Dworzan, Apollo Middle School, Top Middle School Educator and Jessica Brown, South Plantation High School, Top High School Educator.

arrested for threatening Ms. Green’s life. “The day he made bond, he called the Attorney General’s office of Montgomery, Alabama,” said Mayo. Cannon leveled an accusation with the authorities against Ms. Green claiming he overheard her discussing a plot to murder Fourth Judicial Circuit Judge Jack Meigs and Susan Smith, an Investigator with the Attorney General office and a political adversary.

Latisha Colvin, an attorney who successfully defended Ms. Green in federal charges related to the case, said the State outcome was a travesty. Although she wasn’t on the legal team in this current case, she called the outcome more than unjust.

“We’re still trying to help with a State appeal; with trying to see what in the world we can do because this is an injustice— that’s not even strong enough,” said Attorney Colvin.

“We’re not saying Janice is a saint and has never done anything wrong, but she didn’t do this and now she’s serving 6 1/2 years for the feds and 30 years for the State all based on a lie and it just seems that nobody cares and when I say nobody I mean the system, because they did it,” she added.

Ms. Green was indicted on several federal charges including, possession of a firearm by a felon, assault with a deadly weapon on a federal officer, discharging a firearm and attempted murder of a federal officer. She was found not guilty on all charges except the possession charge.

The Attorney General then charged her on the State level and she was found guilty of conspiracy to murder the trooper. Subsequently she was found not guilty on the conspiracy to murder the judge and investigator on the State level.

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

July 23 - July 29, 2015 • www.thewestsidegazette.com • Page 3

Broward County's Oldest and Largest African American Owned and Operated Newspaper

HIV Care Continuum: Controlling the virus is key

By Jonathan Mermin, M.D., M.P.H., director, National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released a new Vital Signs Report on HIV. The data support the call-to-action to increase the number of people living with HIV who achieve viral suppression.

Having very low levels of HIV in the body, achieved by taking antiretroviral medicines allows people living with HIV

to have nearly normal lifespans and greatly reduces their chances of transmitting the virus. Yet only 30 percent of all people living with HIV have achieved viral suppression, an important end-goal on the HIV Care Continuum. Of the 1.2 million people living with HIV in 2011: · 86 percent had been diagnosed with HIV, · 40 percent were engaged in HIV medical care, · 37 percent were prescribed antiretroviral therapy (ART), and · 30 percent had achieved

If old seasonsed wood can be cleaned what about you?

(Cont'd from FP) As usual in my daily walk, there is a story from a scriptural perspective to share in this entire process.

When one thinks of the word fence, some thoughts that may come to mind are; a barrier, hurdle or even protection and yet one might even consider fence as a separator.

From the perspective that really jarred my thinking, was how this cleaning solution rejuvenated my defense.

Yes, consider this play on words if you will. My old run down fence was how my spiritual defense may appear at times, especially when I’m being attacked from all sorts of debilitating thoughts, circumstances and other’s personal agendas-it’s like “something wicked this way comes!”

While cleaning my fence, my defense was being cleaned and rejuvenated as well.

Over a period of time, this stuff accumulates and pretty soon it builds up like bacteria, which like sin unchecked, over a period of time destroys its host.

At this point the lessons really kicked in. Just like my fence, my defense gets weaker the more I allow this bacteria/sin to live and thrive on it.

So, now the solution has to be applied all over the fence; nothing can be left untouched by the cleaning solution.

It’s not done yet!

After I cleaned the mold and mildew from the fence, I had to allow the fence to dry. Once the fence dried, I had to apply a wood and stain sealer that prevents the moisture from seeping into the wood, which allows the bacteria to grow.

Here we go! Once the sin has been removed, the affected area (person) needs to be dried out (free from sin) for a period of time. Once this has occurred, the sealer (The Word) and wood stain (The Blood of Jesus) can be applied and the treated area (soul) can begin the healing process.

This process took me and my son several hours of laborious work in the heat of the sun and yet in the presence of the Son, even though we were both exhausted a spiritual lesson was learned. Once the work was completed, we shared with pride in the new look of our old fence which offers us comfort and a welcoming sight to see.

Restore us to You, O LORD, that we may be restored; Renew our days as of old, Lamentations 5:21 FOR WHO THE LORD HAS CLEANED IS CLEAN IN DEED!

viral suppression.

Of special concern are young people aged 18-24 who are living with HIV. Only 13 percent of this group had achieved viral suppression, compared with 37 percent of those aged 65 and over. The analyses also provide information about the 70 percent of people living with HIV who did NOT have their virus under control in 2011. Among the nearly 840,000 who had not achieved viral suppression: · 66 percent had been diagnosed but were not engaged in HIV care, · 20 percent did not know they were infected, · 4 percent were engaged in

'Officer Friendly', Miami Dade’s first Black female police officer On July 4, 2015, Thelma Gaitor Freeman Harris, 88, Miami Dade’s first Black female police officer passed. Harris, known as “Officer Friendly” spent 20 years with the MiamiDade Police Department (MDPD). During her tenure, she was often praised for her work with children in the community, and, as a police-school liaison officer, she worked tirelessly to improve the image of police officers.

Harris was a member of Mount Hermon AME Church and a soprano soloist with the Miami Oratorio Society.

Harris leaves to cherish her memories: daughter, Brenda

“We keep more people behind bars than the top 35 European countries combined. And it hasn’t always been the case – this huge explosion in incarceration rates. In 1980, there were 500,000 people behind bars in America – half a million people in 1980… Today there are 2.2 million. It has quadrupled since 1980. Our prison population has doubled in the last two decades alone.”

He added that some people should be in jail, including murderers, predators, rapists, gang leaders, drug kingpins. But some low-level, first-time, nonviolent drug offenders should not be among those incarcerated, the president said.

“Over the last few decades, we’ve also locked up more and more nonviolent drug offenders than ever before, for longer than ever before. And that is the real reason our prison population is so high,” he explained. “In far too many cases, the punishment simply does not fit the crime. If you’re a low-level drug dealer, or you violate your parole, you owe some debt to society. You have to be held accountable and make amends. But you don’t owe 20 years. You don’t owe a life sentence. That’s disproportionate to the price that should be paid.”

And people of color are paying a higher price than anyone else, the President stated.

“African Americans and Latinos make up 30 percent of our

By Roger Caldwell

GOODMAN

population; they make up 60 percent of our inmates. About one in every 35 African American men, one in every 88 Latino men is serving time right now.

Among white men, that number is one in 214.

The bottom line is that in too many places, Black boys and Black men, Latino boys and Latino men experience being treated differently under the law.”

President Obama said he is in favor of reducing or eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing, and said he was hopeful of a bipartisan plan in Washington to address sentencing guidelines.

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

Mother of Black man killed by K.C. cops seeks to clear his name (Cont'd from FP) A group of young white men stepped into the crowd, and one discovered his phone was missing. He accused Ryan Stokes’ childhood friend, standing nearby, of stealing it. A scuffle ensued, and a bystander captured part of it on video. In the video, Ryan seemed to be separating the men – until a tear gas canister was fired into the crowd.

People scattered, and the men pointed Ryan out to a police officer. Meanwhile, Ryan’s designated driver had caught a faceful of the gas. He handed Ryan his car keys to get the car.

There are different accounts of what happened next.

According to police, Ryan and his childhood friend were chased to the parking lot. The friend was ordered to the ground and handcuffed; at the same time, Ryan pulled a gun on the officers and ignored commands to drop it, forcing Officer Thompson, who is Black, to shoot.

“I have read the police officer’s statements about what happened,” said Cyndy Short, the family’s lawyer. “The investigation as recorded in the report about the shooting is very underwhelming, underdeveloped. Even the officers are inconsistent about whether or not commands were given.”

Short and several witnesses said that police did not get R-

HARRIS Freeman, one granddaughter, Sheri Dillard Rusley and two great grandchildren.

referrals to support services, and other interventions that have been shown to be successful. CDC’s latest campaign, HIV Treatment Works, also provides tools to encourage people living with HIV to Get in Care, Stay in Care, and Live Well.

Helping people with HIV know their status and stay in care will deliver a major prevention payoff, as well as help people live a long, healthy life.

The U.S. guidelines recommend that everyone with HIV should get treatment, regardless of their CD4 count or viral

load.

We are committed to a highimpact prevention approach that ensures resources are directed to activities that have the greatest impact on preventing HIV infections and protecting the health of those living with HIV. Controlling the virus is key to controlling, and ending, the HIV epidemic.

Jonathan Mermin, M.D., M.P.H. is the director National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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Is Florida corruption the reason for redrawing districts lines?

President Obama says race infects U.S. criminal justice system (Cont'd from FP)

care but were not prescribed antiretroviral treatment, and · 10 percent were prescribed ART but had not achieved viral suppression.

We can change these numbers, but we must keep expanding our testing efforts to help those who are infected learn their status, stay in care, get treatment, and achieve viral suppression. Health care providers can play an active role by offering HIV testing to all of their patients; prescribing ART to patients with HIV regardless of CD4+ count or viral load; and helping to keep those living with HIV in care by using appointment reminders, providing

yan’s attention – if they did issue commands, he did not seem to hear them. Additionally, an off-duty officer from a nearby suburb saw Ryan walking to the car, and said he neither heard officer commands, nor saw a weapon.

Everyone agrees that Ryan’s childhood friend was arrested.

According to Narene, he watched Ryan fall to the ground a few feet away, then spent at least a month in jail.

The medical examiner declared Ryan’s death a homicide.

Less than a week later, a grand jury ruled it justifiable. A year later, Officer Thompson and his partner Tamara Jones were awarded a certificate of commendation for “ending the threat.”

The Florida Legislature has had a very demanding year in 2015. The Florida Supreme Court has ordered the Florida Legislature to redraw eight congressional state districts, which will impact many other congres-sional districts. It is imperative that this procedure is completed immediately because there are candidates qualifying for the 2016 congressional elections.

Under a 2010 “Fair Districts” voter approved constitutional amendment, districts are not allowed to draw to favor a specific political party. In theory, this law takes the politics out of the political process, but the party in power makes the final decisions when drawing up the maps.

“It has been a long hard battle against devious, political scheming, but the Florida Supreme Court handed the people of Florida a total victory forcing the redrawing of every one of the eight districts that we contested in the lawsuit” said Pamela Goodman, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida. But, the same legislators who made up the illegal maps before will make them up again.

There is a fundamental contradiction when the system thinks Republicans in power are going to make maps that are impartial so they can lose elections. I just don’t think the redrawing of maps should be in the hands of legislatures who can delete and destroy emails.

Even though the court will have the final approval on the redrawing of the districts, something still does not appear transparent and credible.

When the Florida Legislators can make back-room deals behind closed doors, the political system cannot be trusted. The entire process of redrawing congressional districts is rotten to the core, and no one is being held accountable for breaking the law. The legislators deleted documents relating to the redistricting, even though they acknowledged that litigation over the redistricting plan was “a moral certainty.”

Opponents of the Senate maps and plaintiffs were highly critical of the process accusing Republican consultations of being secretive, and not transparent. The Florida Supreme Court agreed with the suit, and ruled the maps were “tainted by unconstitutional intent” to favor the Republican Party and

their incumbents. The Supreme Court also reversed the trial court’s order to approve the Legislature’s revised redistricting plan.

In this Florida Supreme Court’s order, several Democrats and Republicans will be affected by the ruling. Both parties are calling the decision from the Supreme Court “seriously flawed” because some legislators have been in the same district for 15 to 20 years.

Maybe it is time to change the game, and end gerrymandering

in Florida.

Since gerrymandering happens in every district across the country, maybe it would make sense to draw up electoral maps with state residents who are chosen by a state committee controlled by the courts. The residents would be vetted by a state committee and lawmakers would not be allowed to draw up the maps. It is my hope that the residents would not be bribed, and there would be less corruption in the process.

Broward Health Community Health Services hosts summer immunization fairs Free, back-to-school immunizations and low cost physicals available for uninsured kids

By Vince Johnson As the upcoming school year approaches, uninsured children are invited to attend a series of summer immunization fairs where free immunizations and low-cost school physicals will be available.

Broward Health Cora E. Braynon Family Health Center and Broward Health Margate Health Center will be hosting the events in an effort to safeguard children against pertussis (whooping cough), measles, rubella, influenza and other dangerous diseases that impact the health and wellness of school-age children.

The summer immunization fairs are being promoted among local youth-oriented organizations, including The Healthy Start Coalition, Boys & Girls Clubs of Broward County, local daycare centers and public/private schools. Spanish- and

Creole-speaking staff will be available at the events to accommodate families.

The summer immunization fairs will take place at the following locations: Cora E. Braynon Family Health Center, 200 N.W. Seventh Ave., Fort Lauderdale, Fla. - July 22, 3 to 6 p.m.; Aug. 5, 3 to 6 p.m.; Aug. 21, 10 to 2 p.m.

Broward Health Margate Health Center, 5109 Coconut Creek Pkwy., Margate, Fla. July 29, 3 to 6 p.m.; Aug. 12, 3 to 6 p.m.; Aug. 19, 3 to 6 p.m.

For more information on summer immunizations and low-cost school physicals or to book an appointment for an uninsured, school-age child, please call Cora E. Braynon Family Health Center’s Pediatric Department at (954) 759-6600 or Broward Health Margate Health Center at (954) 759-7477.

Broward County's Oldest and Largest African American Owned and Operated Newspaper

Page 4 • www.thewestsidegazette.com • July 23 - July 29, 2015

Publix is Proud to Support Community News

Community Digest

WHERE SHOPPING IS A PLEASURE

Program

Broward County Public Schools Supplier Diversity & Outreach Program, Meet the Prime Lunch-n-Learn Workshop Series, Thursday, July 23, 2015 from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., at TSSC Annex Bank Lobby, 7770 W. Oakland Park Blvd., Sunrise, Fla. Presenter: Construction Company. To RVSP contact Kimberly Brown at (754) 321-0522 or via email at Kimberly.brown@browardschools.com Space is limited to two person per company.

Fundraiser

Dillard Class of '71 Members and supporters, our annual scholarship Fundraiser is scheduled for July 25, 2015.

An Elegant Affair “Living Life like Its Golden” at Tropical Acres Restaurant 2500 Griffin Rd., Hollywood, Fla. For more info call (954) 709-7893.

Celebration

Calling all 1965 Tigers! The Blanche Ely High School class of 1965 is celebrating its 50th Reunion, Saturday, July 25 thru Friday, July 31, 2015. For more info call Bettye Allen Waker at (954) 849-0980.

Happenings at African-American Research Library and Cultural Center

African-American Research Library and Cultural Center, 2650 Sistrunk Blvd., Fort Lauderale, Fla. Upcoming Destination Friday events: Sept. 4 Hawaii and Nov. 6 - the Bahamas. For more info call (954) 357-6210. *Home-Buying Basics Workshop, Saturday, July 25, 2015 from 12 noon to 2 p.m. Led by Brenda Wills, Mortgage Loan Officer for We Florida Financial. Lunch will be served. RSVP requested to Darcia Scates at (954) 3576170.

Showcase

Second Annual J’Mari & Friends Water Smart Showcase, Saturday, Aug. 8, 2015 from 1 to 5 p.m., at Joseph C. Carter Park (Sunland), 1450 W. Sunrise Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Our mission is to educate and provide important Water Safety information that helps keep kids safe in and around the water.

For more info call Tangeria Miller: tangerialm@gmail.com Shirley Harold: Shhourofpower@yahoo.com

Voter Registration Drive

Seminar

BrightStar Credit Union, is holding a complimentary seminar for members and the entire community on Estate Planning Basics from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 30, 2015 at its Operations Center, 5901 Del Lago Circle, Sunrise, Fla. Attorney Gregory Ebenfield will be the guest speaker. To RSVP, call (954) 497-4182 or e-mail: luis.munoz_brightstar@cusonet.com.

Light refreshments will be served.

The ladies of Chi Psi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, will host a Voter Registration Drive at the annual Back to School Family Health Fair, 8 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015 at Lauderdale Manors Early Learning and Resource Center, 1400 N.W. 14 Court, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. For more info., visit us at www.chipsiomega.org or call (954)410-6673.

Tournament

Bethel A.M.E. Church “Connecting Ordinary People To An EXTRAordinary God”, Rev. Eddy Moise Jr., pastor, Eighth Annual Scholarship Golf Tournament, Saturday, Aug. 8, 2015, shotgun at 8:30 a.m., at Pompano Beach Municipal Golf Course, 1101 N. Federal Hwy., Pompano Beach, Fla. 18Hole Championship Von Hagge & Delvin Designed Course.

Meeting

Miami Northwestern Senior High School is planning a Sunday Service on Aug. 9, 2015. Planning meetings are weekly; Tuesdays at 6:30 at New Birth members are invited to participate. Contact Laura Gallon Jones at (305) 8364829 for more info.

Senior Prom

Summer Program

Broward Citizen for Seniors Community Service Organization proudly announces our Seventh Annual Senior Prom, Saturday, Aug. 22, 2015 from 6 to 11 p.m., at Bahia Mar Hotel, 801 Seabreeze Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Tickets on sale at: · MODCO, (Mount Olive Development Corporation), Weekends, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., weekdays 1530 Sistrunk Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, Fla. · Alan’s Clubhouse, Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., 915 N.W. Sistrunk Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, Fla. · Martnick’s Pharmacy, Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 6783 Stirling Rd., Davie, Fla. (in the Stirling Plaza the Shops at Stirling Place – between University Drive and Davie Road) For more info call Cheryl Cooper, at (954) 303-4900 or Pearl Copeland at (954) 2888702 or may email at browardseniorsprom@gmail.com or visit us on website at BCFSINC.org

The free Summer Recreation Program at Broward County Parks and Recreation Division’s six neighborhood parks, located in the Broward Municipal Services District in enhancing its programming this summer with other governmental and notfor-profit agencies. Seven new topics will be offered to participants, depending on age group: · The Broward Sheriff’s Office will provide safety presentations focusing on druguse prevention for teens, and Broward Fire Rescue will host a series of “Firefighter Camp Days.” · The American Lung Association will share info on the dangers of smoking and e-cigarettes, and the Hanley Center will offer alcohol literacy challenge presentations to discuss the dangers of underage drinking. · The Animal Rights Foundation of Florida will promote responsible pet ownership and wildlife conservation, while Dog Scouts will teach our youth how to interact with dogs by bringing certified pet-therapy dogs to each park. · Opportunities Industrialization Center of South Florida is offering a teens-only program called “Becoming a Responsible Teen,” which will cover topics as varied as strengthening communication skills to pregnancy prevention. · Memorial Healthcare System will present child-safety education, “Positive Attitude Wins” and anti-bullying information. · Holy Cross Hospital will provide nutrition classes focusing on healthy food choices and the importance of regular exercise. · The Urban League of Broward County will follow the Botvin LifeSkills Training curriculum so participants can learn about making responsible life choices, including developing communication skills, focusing on education, and fostering healthy relationships with friends and family. · Free SWIM Central water-safety instruction is available for ages 6 to 10.

The Summer Food Program makes free lunches available daily from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and snacks daily from 2:30 to 3 p.m. Weekdays, through Friday, Aug. 14, 2015; from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (early drop-off will be available from 8 to 9 a.m. late pickup is available from 5 to 6 p.m., registration is still available at Franklin, Lafayette Hart, and Roosevelt Gardens parks. The program is full at Boulevard Gardens Community Center, Reverend Samuel Delevoe Memorial Park, and Sunview Park. · Franklin Park, 2501 Franklin Dr., Fort Lauderdale, Fla., (954) 357-7080. · Lafayette Hart Park, 2851 N.W. Eighth Rd., Fort Lauderdale, Fla., (954) 3577970. · Roosevelt Gardens Park, 2841 N.W. 11 St., Fort Lauderdale, Fla., (954) 3578700.

For further info call or visit the park of your choice.

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July 23 - July 29, 2015 • www.thewestsidegazette.com • Page 5

Broward County's Oldest and Largest African American Owned and Operated Newspaper

Man freed by Obama speaks out about the war on drugs

By April V. Taylor

ident Obama was Jason Hernandez, who was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in 1998 when he was just 15 years old.

In discussing his visit to the prison, President Obama pointed out that many of the young people in prison made mistakes similar to the ones he made, but the difference for

President Obama was the fact that he had support structures that allowed him to have second chances and survive his mistakes.

Hernandez spoke with Democracy Now about his commutation and the War on Drugs. He says that his sentence being commuted was a dream come true, but he also

Symbols are important to BlackAmerica

covering” things that people of color have pioneered, or already know.

Carroll said, “I think that symbols historically, for African people, from the mdw ntr [hieroglyphs] found within Egypt, to Adinkra symbols found within Ghana… but we need to make sure the symbols represent our political, social, and cultural image as a community.”

Both Carroll and Melchishua agree that exalting people and objects as representative or heroic isn’t a bad thing in itself, but it is important to support this with knowledge, critical thinking, and self-determination.

“These events mean something different to the mainstream because the narrative is always being changed but not by us and usually not with our permission,” Melchishua explained. “I would add that as a country we are very ignorant of history. The only way to truly reconcile this is with having a critical study of history and to challenge all symbols; those we have created within our own community, and those that have been imposed upon us.”

President Obama recently did something that no other sitting president in history has done; he visited a federal prison.

President Obama toured the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma where he visited Cell Block B, a section that houses prisoners who part-

By Jazelle Hunt, NNPA Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON, D.C. (NNPA) – Five days after South Carolina retired the Confederate flag with much fanfare, a small group of protesters in Oklahoma City greeted President Barack Obama with Confederate flags. The following weekend, Ku Klux Klan members in Charleston, S.C. brandished both Confederate and Nazi flags for a rally at the capitol.

It’s an appropriate reflection of the way American culture values symbolism, even when it doesn’t line up with reality.

“The problem is even though we see these symbols [and] events [such as] the removal of the Confederate flag… it only serves to remind us that deep down inside, these are still only symbols, gestures even,” said Tewodross Melchishua, awardwinning filmmaker and visual artist, and professor at Bowie State University in Maryland.

“The systems of white supremacy, bigotry, racism and oppression still remain at the core of this country. The symbols are removed but we know deep down inside that the attitudes and beliefs behind them remain.”

But Black America suffers the same attachment to these symbols, for better or for worse.

From the significance of Black church burnings, to Serena Williams’ dominance, Black people often attach larger-than-life meaning to people, objects, and events. In some ways it is an essential

icipate in a drug rehabilitation and prevention program.

He also spent just under an hour meeting with six non-violent drug offenders. The meeting came on the heels of President Obama commuting the sentences of a total of 46 lowlevel drug offenders. One of the prisoners who previously had his sentence commuted by Pres-

part of Black culture, and a means of empowerment. Karanja Keita Carroll, professor of Black Studies at the State University of New York-New Paltz, points out that the Black experience in America has made this kind of symbolism necessary.

“Our unique circumstances within the United States, being victims of white supremacy and having very minimal representation of who we are – the best of who we are – forces us to emphasize, highlight, and up-lift those people who represent us, and thus function as a symbol for who we are,” said Carroll, who is also the associate editor of the Journal of Pan African Studies.

In other words, lack of positive representation in mainstream society has made conditions ripe for overreliance on and defense of Black public figures.

“As people of African descent, we naturally gravitate to, use and respond to symbol and metaphor. It is indeed sub-conscious but also a subliminal means of communication and signifying, which is also rooted in our oral traditions, language, music, fashion and visual culture,” Melchishua explained.

“We are still bombarded with negative images of our people.

We reconcile this by uplifting ourselves and defending our figures, icons, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad.”

The bad side manifests when all that uplifting backfires. As Black America puts people, things, and events on a pedestal,

The Symbolism of Confederate flag is clear to African Americans. (Photo Credit Jason Lander/Flickr/ CC BY 2.0) the possibility for disap-pointment looms large. The latest example, of course, is Bill Cosby and his renewed sexual assault scandal.

“It’s a double-edged sword because that representation can quickly turn into misrepresentation. There’s something old people say – just because you’re my skin doesn’t mean you’re my kin,” Carroll said. “The Cosby situation is interesting, to say the least, because prior to this, he was saying things like Black people need to teach their children to read… need to stop giving their children ‘ghetto’ names…and a whole bunch of stuff that devalues our existence. I don’t know if Cosby represents us.”

The other downfall is in the lack of control of our symbols and images. Black culture sometimes becomes marketable in the mainstream – but only in white hands. Last year saw the birth of the term, “Columbusing” – a new word for the ageold practice of whites “dis-

One of the prisoners who previously had his sentence commuted by President Obama was Jason Hernandez. wants the President and other lawmakers to work to do something about the inmates who were not as lucky as he was in receiving a commutation.

Hernandez was grateful for the opportunity to meet President Obama and thanks him for his commutation and the work he is doing to end mass incarceration. In discussing the fact that the President and lawmakers are finally taking on sentencing reform, Hernandez states, “It’s only took almost 30 years for Congress to realize that – and society, that the war

on drugs, which you could actually call a war on minorities, is wrong; that we’ve been going about it the wrong way and locking people up for not only a couple of years, but 10 years, decades or the rest of their life, actually has an adverse effect on society.”

Hernandez reports that it is taking time to adjust to life on the outside.

His father has taught him to drive, and he is working on finding employment and looking forward to building a life for himself.

Closing education gap would boost U.S. economy

Bill Clinton accepts blame for excessive prison sentences

Garner death case settled; New York City to pay his family $5.9 million

(Cont'd from FP) Cellphone video captured the 43-year-old father of six arguing with police as an officer tried to arrest him on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes on the sidewalk in the Tompkinsville section of Staten Island, N.Y. Officer Daniel Pantaleo can be seen wrestling with Garner in the video, and he places Garner in what some have called a chokehold as the two tumble to the ground.

“I can’t breathe,” Garner can be heard saying as he gasps for air.

Garner’s death was ruled a homicide due to compression of the neck and chest. A grand jury ultimately declined to indict Pantaleo.

Garner’s family has claimed that officers from the department’s 120th precinct routinely harassed him, and they filed a claim against the city last October.

In settling the claim, the city did not admit liability.

The settlement is the city’s biggest ever for a case of this nature, Moore said.

Garner’s relatives also reached a settlement with Richmond University Medical Center for a confidential amount, Moore said. The family sued the me-

dical center, which provided the first responders, alleging poor care of Garner at the scene.

The family will continue to pursue federal, state and departmental charges against the police officers until they are removed from duty so that a death like Garner’s never happens again, Moore said.

Esaw Garner, the widow of Eric Garner, and hundreds of protesters rallied outside a courthouse Saturday to call on federal prosecutors to indict the white police officer who put the Garner in a fatal chokehold a year ago.

Garner’s death fueled an intense nationwide conver-sation about race and police officers’ use of force.

Weeks after Garner was killed, a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., fatally shot Michael Brown. The 18-year-old Brown was, like Garner, unarmed and Black.

Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson said he shot Brown because he feared for his life. A grand jury declined to indict him. Beset by public outcry, Wilson resigned from the department shortly there-after.

The shooting and lack of criminal charges against Wilson sparked protests and riots in Ferguson and across the country.

In November, a white Cleve-

“It is not about the money,” he said. “It is about whether these officers are brought to the bar of justice, and so far they have not.… This is by no means mission accomplished, this is just a step along the way.”

“I think these officers need to be held accountable,” Moore added. “What happened on that day was a gross violation of Eric Garner’s civil rights.”

land police officer shot and killed Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black boy who was holding a replica gun. The officer, Timothy Loehmann, said he had “no choice” but to fire. A judge found probable cause to bring criminal charges against him.

Those high-profile deaths and a string of others have become rallying cries.

Times staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.

Bill Clinton speaks at a Hillary Clinton rally in 2008. (Jayu/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)

By Damon C. Williams, Special to the NNPA from the Philadelphia Tribune PHILADELPHIA, PA — Former President Bill Clinton said he supported President Barack Obama’s plan to reform the nation’s criminal justice system, and assumed blame for crafting a bill that made matters worse.

The remarks came Wednesday in an address in Philadelphia at the 106th NAACP national convention.

“The President spoke a long time yesterday, and very well, about this criminal justice reform, and I appreciate what he has done,” Clinton said. “But, here’s what happened when I took office. We had had a roaring decade of rising crime – we had gang warfare on the streets. We had little children being shot dead on the streets who were just innocent bystanders standing in the wrong place. We had kids in Los Angeles doing drills in their schools to learn how to drop down and get under their desks because of people just doing random drive-by shootings. Violent crime had tripled in the previous 30 years and the police force had only increased by 10 percent.

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

Attorney General Loretta Lynch speaking at NAACP convention in Philadelphia. (Photo by Abdul Sulayman/ Philadelphia Tribune}

By Freddie Allen, NNPA Senior Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON, D.C. (NNPA) – Men of color would earn $170 billion more a year, if they reached the same education level as White men, according to a new White House report.

The report examined “opportunity gaps facing youth of color” and found stunning correlations between the educational and employment success of young men of color and how that success can directly impact the national economy.

Not only would closing the education attainment gap result in higher annual earnings for men of color 25-64 yearsold, it would also increase the gross domestic product, the value of the production of goods and services, by 1.8 percent in the United States. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that GDP decreased by an annual rate of 0.2 percent in the first quarter of 2015.

The high school graduation rate for Black students is 17 percentage points lower than their white classmates and only “28 percent of Blacks have a college degree by their late 20s, compared to nearly half of white men,” the report said.

The report said that youth of color encounter a number of barriers to opportunity at higher rates compared to their white peers.

“For example, while 20 percent of all children under age 18 live in poverty, 38 percent of Black children and 30 percent of Hispanic children live in poverty, compared to 11 percent of non-Hispanic white child-

ren,” stated the report.

Poor students often don’t have access to early childhood education, increasing the likelihood that they will start school at considerable disadvantage to their more affluent peers.

When young students fall behind in their reading skills, it makes it harder for them to catch up to their peers in later grades and increases the chances that they will drop out.

When young Black men disconnect from school, they are more likely to connect to the criminal justice system at considerable expense to the rest of society.

“The cost of incarceration is far substantially higher than investing in education or other programs to increase opportunity, even before one takes the returns to the investments into account,” the report said.

“The cost of incarceration for a single juvenile is over $100,000 – twice as high as tuition at the most expensive college in the country or a year of intensive mentoring.”

And even though crime is down in recent years, spending on corrections at the federal, state and local level is $80 billion, according to President Obama.

A history poverty, lack of access to early childhood education and early interaction with the criminal justice system can follow a young Black men deep into adulthood for marijuana and contribute to an early death or a lifetime of missed employment opportunities and lower rates of employment compared to white men.

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

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Opinion

The Westside Gazette, under the Management of BI-ADs, Inc., reserves the right to publish Views and Opinions by Contributing Writers may not necessarily reflect those of the Staff and Management of The Westside Gazette Newspaper and are solely the product of the responsible individual(s) who submit comments published in this newspaper.

Bill Cosby

By Pastor Rasheed Z. Baaith “For this is an heinous crime: yea, it is an iniquity to be punished by the judges.” (Job 31:11) We have recently become more and more aware of the impact and power of symbols. Symbols have both capability and power. Bill Cosby has been a symbol many times in his life, in many different arenas.

In the ‘60s he was a symbol of a new direcBAAITH tion in television when he co-starred in I Spy. He was a symbol of clean comedy when comics began to use vulgarisms as contrivances for laughter; he was a symbol of TV pitchmen moving from being hucksters to being father figures. Cosby would later parlay his image as America’s father into another successful television series, and then become

How does the pending Iran nuclear pact affect our community?

By Don Valentine Let me establish that if you enjoy two dollars a gallon gas then you should be elated by this proposition. That is the simple micro economic benefit. In the larger macro scope it will absolutely stifle Iran’s short term goal of gaining a nuclear weapon.

President Obama succinctly articulated in his recent White House press conference that it would be difficult for Iran to obfuscate any nefarious nuclear objectives. Recall from your

a symbol of righteous indignation at the lack of academic accomplishment of Black teenagers and the even greater lack of proper supervision of their parents. His public moralizing was continuous and cutting.

His beat has gone on. Cosby is now the symbol of a different kind of sexual predator, one that uses fame and drugs and power to sexually victimize women. Sadly, he may well become the most infamous rapist of our time.

What he has devolved into is so tragic on so many different levels for so many different people. First of all, for his wife Camille who has stayed supportive by his side through all the years, now decades of accusations, hearings, and buyouts. For his family in general, particularly his daughter, who made accusations of rape against Mike Tyson, one has to wonder what she thinks when she looks at her father.

The impact on Black people can’t be calculated; especially the impact on young Black men, Cosby is the same sort of role model they are already too familiar with. He is just as greedy as any dope dealer, just as destructive as a gang, just as vulturine as any pimp.

Yet we have to wonder what made him do these things, why would anyone who has fame, fortune, and the admiration of the world feel the need to drug and sexually assault women?

What was the thrill? What is lacking in him that he was compelled to compromise every moral ethic he sermonized about? Is Cosby depraved in his character or mentally ill in his mind? And who else in his industry knew of these crimes besides Cosby and the victims?

There is not much more to say except this is the kind of country where social forces always seek the complete annihilation of those in disfavor so there will be unrelenting attacks not only on Cosby’s past but his financial future and whatever his purse presently holds at the moment. No doubt Cosby knows that.

Finally, like so many of us, I have always been a Cosby fan. While he is not the man I thought he was, I still have hopes for the redemption of his life. I intend to keep praying for him, his wife and family while praying for those who were victims. We can offer little else. Just think about it.

Is segregation & racism truly over?

By D’Joumbarey A. Moreau high school chemistry class that uranium leaves an inerasable footprint anywhere it goes. The global community now has access to trace any movement of nuclear grade uranium. Concisely put, this means nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. There is a finite amount of uranium mines in Iran.

The global community would now have access to inspect these mines at will.

This makes it impossible for Iran to do anything mysterious with this resource.

Life revolves around the Latin term “Quid Pro Quo”. Thus for the access the international community wants there is a tradeoff. Forbes magazine estimates that Iran has nearly $150 billion in frozen assets globally. This money was tied up due to U.N. sanctions to discourage Iran from proceeding to build a nuclear weapon. The bulk of this money was derived from past oil sales. Iran will eventually gain access to their money.

A great perk for the U.S. economy is that Iran will now be able to go back to selling oil on the international market. Alireza Nader, a senior analyst for the RAND Corporation estimates that Iran ranks fifth in global oil reserves. Once they return to selling oil internationally this will increase the glut in oil sales. It seems likely two dollar gas prices will be in our future.

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

Racism still alive, they just be concealing it.

It’s sad that the last sentence that you read still applies today. What’s not sad is the fact that there are no more segregated schools in Florida.

Better yet, there aren’t any more legally segregated schools in the United States, so you should be thankful for that.

However can you think of what it must have been like to go to a school with only once race? For many people alive on planet Earth today they can tell you that exact feeling.

“You didn’t think about that because you didn’t see a lot of mixing races back then….{Now} you see a lot of interracial couples. Black and white people on commercials. Those are natural and normal for you to see. Back then there wasn’t anything wrong with it, you just didn’t see it….you thought that your education was just as superior and the teachers were just as good.”

I had the best of teachers. The best of cultures. The best of times” said Anthony Witherspoon.

Growing up Witherspoon attended George Washington Carver Middle School in South Florida when it was still segregated. Witherspoon didn’t have a problem with the way that the school was structured because of the way that it impacted everyone’s lives.

Even though segregation was meant for evil, ironically it helped strengthen the African-American community.

“You could walk down the street and the community would know you…The family unit was much stronger back then. There were more two parent households. MOREAU There was more discipline in the schools. You {students} represented your family.”

With that sense of pride a lot of students went to school hoping to become a person that would help change the world.

A lot of people don’t realize how far this country has come in such a short amount of time. Desegregation was a huge beneficial movement for AfricanAmericans who lived in the south back in the mid 1960’s and late 1980’s. That means that you could ask your grandparents and some of your parents how it felt going to a school where there was only one skin color al-lowed.

Isn’t that something to marvel? The stuff that we read and hear about in history books in the year 2015 is only less than 40 years old. People in our society are walking history books these days.

Because segregated schools are no longer in service a lot of people have benefitted. Being able to go to school with other children of other races and getting to learn their culture and become more knowledgeable within the world is intelligence that cannot be attributed with a price tag.

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

Obama calls for criminal How to reform the criminal justice system justice reform

By Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., NNPA Columnist Whenever the President of the United States speaks to a national convention of the National MORIAL Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), millions of people pay attention. As a former Executive Director and CEO of the NAACP, I listened very carefully last week to President Barack Obama’s historic keynote address to the organization’s 106th annual convention in Philadelphia.

There was a noticeable deliberate “freedom of expression” style and substance in President Obama’s speech to the NAACP. He was confident, candid and clear. President Obama was unrestrained, passionate and focused. In other words, the President went straight to his main subject matter: The urgency and mandate today for criminal justice reform in the United States.

President Obama stated, “But today, I want to focus on one aspect of American life that remains particularly skewed by race and by wealth, a source of inequity that has ripple effects on families and on communities and ultimately on our nation – and that is our criminal justice system.”

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR GUIDELINES The Westside Gazette welcomes your letters. Letters must be signed with name clearly legible along with a phone number and complete address. No unsigned or anonymous letters will be considered for publication. The Westside Gazette reserves the right to edit letters. The letters should be 500 words or less.

By George E. Curry, NNPA Columnist There is no question that the criminal justice system is broken. President Obama made that clear recently in his address to the annual convention of the NAACP in Philadelphia.

“The United States is home to 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prisoners,” he said. “Think about that. Our incarceration rate is four times higher than China’s. We keep more people behind bars than the top 35 European countries combined.

“And it hasn’t always been the case – this huge explosion in incarceration rates. In 1980, there were 500,000 people behind bars in America – half a million people in 1980… Today there are 2.2 million. It has quadrupled since 1980. Our prison population has doubled in the last two decades alone.”

On his visit to El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma, President Obama said: “A primary driver of this mass incarceration phenomenon is our drug laws – our mandatory minimum sentencing around

drug laws. And we have to consider whether this is the smartest way for us to both control crime and rehabilitate individuCURRY als.”

He added, “…When we’re looking at nonviolent offenders, most of them growing up in environments in which the drug traffic is common, where many of their family members may have been involved in the drug trade, we have to reconsider whether 20-year, 30-year, life sentences for nonviolent crimes is the best way for us to solve these problems.”

Of the 2.2 million people behind bars in 2012, nearly 1.5 million were in state and federal prisons and 744,500 were in local jails. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 38 percent of federal and state prisoners were Black, 35 percent were white and 21 percent were Latino.

Jerry Alan Bailey was sentenced to more than 30 years in federal prison for conspiring to violate federal narcotics laws. Shauna Barry-Scott was sentenced to 20 years for having cocaine in her possession and intending to distribute it. Jerome Wayne Johnson grew marijuana plants and was charged with intending to distribute marijuana. He was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Douglas Lindsay initially was sentenced to a life sentence for possessing cocaine with intent to distribute, but early on his sentence was reduced to 24 years.

Bailey, Barry-Scott, Wayne and Lindsay were among the 46 people whose sentences President Obama recently commuted. They are the lucky ones.

Flag foolishess

By Lucius Gantt You can remove the Confederate flag from the flag poles and grounds of political institutions but you can’t GANTT take the Confederate attitudes from the hearts and minds of politicians and other conservatives!

Black people are oftentimes too symbolic.

That is why many of us enjoy marches more than we enjoy movements.

We enjoy holidays more than we embrace history and we appreciate political promises far more than we enjoy direct positive political actions!

I don’t want my tax dollars to fund anything related to Confederate, flags, philosophies, values or any other negative idea, institution or remembrance of crimes and atrocities inflicted on Black people in America during slavery days or current days.

On the other hand, however, when racists act racist or crave symbols of racism like flags, it doesn’t bother me.

I’m not surprised when some whites in American, in Germany or in other parts of the world become fond of symbols that reflect how they truly feel.

Just like the three-pieced suit wearing African America is called a “n*gger” like the dashiki wearing Black, the Confederate flag waver could be just as bigoted as the non-flag waver who hates you but pretends to be the Black man’s friend, confidant, supporter and admirer!

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

President Obama stands up to Republican global foolishness

By Roger Caldwell There are 17 months left in President Obama’s time in office, and his legacy is a testimony of his CALDWELL worldview of diplomatic negotiations. During the past eight months, he has ended the isolation of Cuba, opened a dialogue with Venezuela, advanced a strategic trade deal with Asian countries, and cut a nuclear deal with Iran.

To the Republicans and certain countries around the world, they will spend their time looking for ways to discredit and oppose everything the President has done. “This agreement is a historic mistake for the world,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a first reaction to the agreement. “Far reaching concessions have been made in all areas that were supposed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability. In addition, Iran will receive hundreds of billions of dollars with which it can fuel its’ terror machine.”

Nothing in these statements is true and based on facts, but the Republicans will support the Israel prime minister before they will support their own President. Just based on the President’s achievements in the last eight months, it would appear that someone in the Republican Party would acknowledge the president’s successes. But instead of receiving congratulatory statements, the Republican leadership keeps saying the president is all wrong, and he is not doing anything right.

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

Trumping the Donald on immigration

By Bill Fletcher, Jr., NNPA Columnist

There are 95,165 people – 48.6 percent of all federal inmates – incarcerated for drugrelated crimes, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. (That’s MALVEAUX triple the second-largest category that includes weapons, explosives and arson; 31,743 or 16.2 percent of federal inmates are confin-ed on those charges). Another 210,200 – 16 percent – were imprisoned in state facilities on drug-related offenses as of 2012.

President Obama’s commutations of non-violent drug sentences are a step in the right direction. By choosing non-violent drug offenders, he highlights the draconian sentences that those committing these crimes receive.

Watching Donald Trump being interviewed this past week was – for the few mo- FLETCHER ments that I could take it – quite fascinating. What quickly became clear was that Trump will not let the facts get in the way of his opinion. Actually, he will dispense with the actual facts and create his own.

Such was the case when it was pointed out that the number of murders committed by undocumented immigrants were less, as a proportion, than those committed by the general public. Trump simply said that the interviewer had her facts wrong; did not state counter-facts; and moved on.

We have to remember that this is the same person who played to the worst, racist sentiments in the U.S. with his support for the Birthers, i.e., those who suggested that President Obama had not been born in the U.S. and was, therefore, not a citizen and not eligible to be president of the United States.

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

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Release low-level, non-violent drug offenders

By Julianne Malveaux, NNPA Columnist

The Gantt Report

Broward County's Oldest and Largest African American Owned and Operated Newspaper

AF amily T hat Prays T ogether, Stays T ogether Family That Together, Together

Church Directory

Worship T his and Every Sunday at the Church of Your Choice This

Bethel Missionary Baptist Church 2211 N.W. 7th Street, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33061 Church: (954) 583-9368 Email: bethelmbchurchfl@att.net

Reverend Jimmy L. English PASTOR WORSHIP SERVICES Sunday Worship ............................................................. 8 a.m. & 11 a.m.

Sunday School ........................................................................... 9:30 a.m.

Wednesday (Prayer Service & Bible Study) ............................... 7:30 a.m.

Saturday (Women Bible Study) ............................................................ 8 a.m.

"Baptized Believers working together to do the will of God"

Faith United Church of Christ 6201 NW 57 Street Tamarac, FL 33319 954-721-1232 uccfaith@bellsouth.net faithbroward.org "Historically the First Church in the City of Tamarac!”

Rev. Dr. Ileana Bosenbark, Senior Pastor WEEKLY SERVICES & EVENTS SUNDAY Worship Service (Communion 1st & 3rd Sunday) ........................................................... 10 a.m.

F.A.I.T.H. Academy for Children (Spiritual Formation) K-12 ................................ 10 a.m.

TUESDAY F.A.I.T.H. Academy for Adults (Spiritual Formation) - Office Complex ...... 10:30 a.m.

WEDNESDAY Worship & Arts Ministry Rehearsals (Open Auditions) - Sanctuary .............................. 7 p.m.

First Baptist Church Piney Grove, Inc. 4699 West Oakland Park Blvd.

Lauderdale Lakes, FL 33313 Office: (954) 735-1500 Fax: (954) 735-1939 fbcpg@bellsouth.net

Rev. Dr. Derrick J. Hughes, Pastor SUNDAY SERVICES Worship Services .......................................................... 7:30 & 10:45 a.m.

Children's Church ........................................................ 7:30 & 10:45 a.m.

Communion (First Sunday) ......................................... 7:30 & 10:45 a.m.

New Members' Class .................................................................... 9:30 a.m.

Church School .............................................................................. 9:30 a.m.

Baptist Training Union (BTU) .................................................... 1:00 p.m.

Wednesday (Bible Study) ...................................... 11:15 a.m.. & 7:00 p.m.

Harris Chapel United Methodist Church Rev. Juana Jordan, M.Div E-MAIL:juana.jordan@flumc.org 2351 N.W. 26th Street Oakland Park, Florida 33311 Church Telephone: (954) 731-0520 Church Fax: (954) 731-6290

SERVICES Sunday Worship ................................................. 7:30 a.m. & 10:30 a.m.

Sunday School .............................................................................. 9:00 a.m.

Wednesday (Bible Study) ........................................... 11a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Mount Calvary Baptist Church

800 N.W. 8th Avenue Pompano Beach, Florida 33060 Church Telephone: (954) 943-2422 Church Fax: (954) 943-2186 E-mail Address: Mtcalvarypompano@bellsouth.net

Reverend Anthony Burrell, Pastor SCHEDULE OF SERVICES SUNDAY

New Member Orientation ........................... 9:30 a.m.

Sunday School ................................................ 9:30 a.m.

Worship Service ........................................ 11:00 a.m.

WEDNESDAY Prayer Meeting ............................................... 6:00 p.m.

Bible Study ..................................................... 7:00 p.m.

"Doing God's Business God's Way, With a Spirit of Excellence"

New Birth Baptist Church The Cathedral of Faith International Bishop Victor T. Curry, M.Min., D.Div. Senior Pastor/Teacher 2300 N.W. 135th Street Miami, Florida 33167

ORDER OF SERVICES Sunday Worship ........................................................ 7:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. & 7:00 p.m.

Sunday School ....................................................................................................... 9:30 a.m.

Tuesday (Bible Study) ......................................................................................... 6:45 p.m.

Wednesday (Bible Study) ............................................................................... 10:45 a.m.

1-800-254-NBBC * (305) 685-3700 (o) *(305) 685-0705 (f) www.newbirthbaptistmiami.org

New Mount Olive Baptist Church 400 N.W. 9th Ave., Ft. Lauderdale 33311 (954) 463-5126 ● Fax: (954) 525-9454 CHURCH OFFICE HOURS Monday - Friday 8:00 - 4:00 p.m.

Dr. Marcus D. Davidson, Senior Pastor WORSHIP SERVICES & BIBLE STUDY Sunday .................................................... 7:15 a.m. 9:00 a.m. & 11:00 a.m.

Sunday School ............................................................................ 10:00 a.m.

Wednesday Noonday Service .................................. 12:00-12:30 p.m.

Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting ............................................ 6:30 p.m.

Wednesday Night Bible Study ................................................... 7:00 p.m.

Where the kingdom of God is increased through Fellowship.

Leadership, Ownership and Worship F.L.O.W. To Greatness!

Create an online Guestbook tribute for your loved one.

Call (954) 525-1489

July 23 - July 29, 2015 • www.thewestsidegazette.com • Page 9

Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church 1161 NW 29th Terr., Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 33311 (954) 581-0455 ● Fax: (954) 581-4350

St. Ruth Missionary Baptist Church 145 NW 5th Ave., Dania Beach, FL 33004 (954) 922-2529

www.mtzionmissionarybapt.com

Dr. James B. Darling, Jr., Pastor/Teacher WORSHIP SERVICES Sunday Worship Service .............................................................................. 8:00 & 11:00 a.m.

Sunday School ............................................................................................................... 10:00 a.m.

Communion Service (1st Sunday) ......................................................................... 11:00 a.m.

Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting ........................................................................... 6:30 p.m.

Wednesday Night Bible Study ................................................................................... 7:00 p.m.

Saturday (2nd & 4th) Christian Growth & Orientation .................................. 8:30 a.m.

But be doers of the Word - James 1:22 nkjv - “A Safe Haven, and you can get to Heaven from here”

Obituaries James C. Boyd Funeral Home BERKOWITZ Funeral services for the late Barbara Jean Berkowitz – 57.

HAWKINS Funeral services for the late Barbara Ann Hawkins – 68.

MOORE Funeral services for the late Alice Brown Moore - 95 were held July 18 at James C. Boyd’s Memorial Chapel with Rev. Dr. Queen E. Lawton officiating.

ROBLES Funeral services for the late Jonathan Bernardo Robles 23 were held July at James C. Boyd’s Memorial Chapel with Brother Bon M. Boyd officiating.

THOMAS Funeral services for the late Christina Floyd Thomas – 61.

McWhite's Funeral Home HICKS Funeral services for the late Willie Hicks, Jr. - 78 were held July 18 at McWhite’s Funeral Home Chapel with Rev. Nathaniel Lee officiating. Interment: Sunset Memorial Gardens.

JOHNSON Funeral services for the late Earline Johnson – 53 were held July 19 at McWhite’s Funeral Home Chapel with Rev. Timothy Jackson officiating. Interment: West Lawn Cemetery.

MOULTRY Funeral services for the late Emma Mae Moultry – 60 were held July 18 at McWhite’s Funeral Home Chapel with Pastor L. Marshall officiating. Interment: Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens.

PARKER Funeral services for the late Kenneth Parker - 74 held July15 at Mount Olive Baptist Church with Rev. Lorenzo Acoff officiating. Interment: Friend Cemetery, Jasper, FL. ROLLINS Funeral services for the late Leketa P. Rollins – 40 were held July 18 at McWhite’s Funeral Home Chapel with Pastor Ricky Scott officiating.

THOMAS Funeral services for the late Timothy Leonard Thomas – 50 were held July 18 at Peaceful Zion Missionary Baptist Church with Pastor R.S. Moncrief officiating.

Interment: Forest Lawn Cemetery (Central).

Roy Mizell & Kurtz Funeral Home IRVING Funeral services for the late Abraham Irving, Jr. - 87 were held July 18 at St. John United Methodist Church with Rev. Simon Osunlana officiating. Interment: Sunset Memorial Gardens.

MILLER Funeral services for the late Almeda Miller – 83 were held July 18 at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church with Minister Dameon Wilson officiating. Interment: Sunset Memorial Gardens.

A FFAMIL AMIL Y THA AMILY THATT PRA YS PRAYS TOGETHER ST AYS STA TOGETHER

WORSHIP SERVICES Wednesday (NOON DAY PRAYER) ............................................. 12 -1 p.m.

Wednesday (PRAYER MEETING & BIBLE STUDY) .................... 645 p.m.

Sunday Worship Service ................................................................. 10 a.m.

Fifth Sunday Worhip Service ............................................................ 8 a.m.

Williams Memorial CME “PRAYER IS THE ANSWER” 644-646 NW 13th Terrace Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33311 (954) 462-5711(Ministry Office Line) (954) 462-8222(Pastor’s Direct Line) Email: wm_cme@bellsouth.net (Church} pastorCal50@yahoo.com (Pastor)

Rev. Cal Hopkins.

M.Div) Senior Pastor/Teacher

The WITNESS of “The WILL” Sunday Worship Experiences ................................................................ 7:45 and 11:00 a.m.

Sunday School ................................................................................................................. 9:30 a.m.

Tuesday Night Triumph {Prayer, Praise and Power} Prayer Meeting ................................................................................................................ 7:00 p.m.

Bible Study ........................................................................................................................ 7:30 p.m.

We STRIVE to PROVIDE Ministries that matter TODAY to Whole Body of Christ, not only the Believers, but also for those stranded on the “Jericho Road”!

“Celebrating over 85 Years of FAITH and FAVOR! Come to the WILL ... We’ll show You the WAY: Jesus the Christ!”

KIDS TALK ABOUT GOD What can we learn from Jesus offering a woman Living Water?

By Carey Kinsolving and friends (Part 2 of 2) “We can learn that the gift of salvation is open to everyone in the universe,” says Elizabeth, 12. “Even though the woman was a Samaritan, Jesus said that if she had asked, he would have given her the Holy Spirit, otherwise known as living water.

“We can also learn that if we delight ourselves in God and his ways, we shall never be discontent or ‘thirsty.’ Jesus will give us everything we need physically, spiritually and mentally.”

What can I say that would add to Elizabeth’s insight? I wish I had known at age 12 that the only way to find true satisfaction is in a relationship with Jesus Christ. For too long I was seeking to get my thirst quenched from things and

activities that only left me disillusioned and restless.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could drink water and never get thirsty again?” says Jesse, 11. “Well we can, but in a different way! Jesus will fill us with salvation if we ask him to.”

Too many Christians think of salvation only in terms of being delivered from the penalty of sin. There’s no question that having the assurance of spending eternity with Jesus in his kingdom is surely something that should generate a lifetime of excitement. However, Jesus wants to deliver Christians from the present power of sin as well. He wants all his people to experience the abundant life that he promised.

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

Remember your

Loved One(s) in print and in our Memoriam online.

You can also include a photo of your loved one. It's an easy and loving way to create a lasting acknowledgement to loved ones who have gone on to Glory.

For more information, please call (954) 525-1489 visit our website at: wwww.thewestsidgazette.com/Obituary

Broward County's Oldest and Largest African American Owned and Operated Newspaper

Page 10 • www.thewestsidegazette.com • July 23 - July 29, 2015

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Three more things you need to know before writing a proposal

By Pearl and Mel Shaw Last week’s column focused on six basic things you should know before writing a proposal.

With this column, we address three more nuanced things to consider.

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Some nonprofits create a “boiler plate” proposal and send it out to as many foundations and corporations as possible, hoping to “get a hit.” That is one strategy, and sometimes it is appropriate. Making small modifications to a standard proposal is efficient, particularly when seeking to secure sponsorships and smaller grants. In general, we suggest a more targeted approach.

Here are three things to consider: 1. What percentage of your revenue do you project will come from foundations or corporations? We recommend building diverse revenue streams. This is import-

Pearl and Mel Shaw ant for long term reasons such as having other revenue streams should foundation/corporation giving contract. A shorter term reason to diversify your revenue is that it signals financial health to foundations who are reviewing your proposal.

2. What percentage of your operating or program budget are you requesting from a specific foundation?

Looking to one funder for the majority of your funding sends a red flag to many funders.

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

No Site Too LARGE or TOO SMALL

Beyond the Rhetoric U.S. export bank subsidizes Fortune 100

By Harry C. Alford, NNPA Columnist This seems like an odd question. Capital access is the lifeblood of business growth and job creation.

Thus, all vehicles that provide such should be welcomed. As the President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, it is assumed that I would support all avenues of capital access. However, I am ALFORD starting to have big doubts about one vehicle.

The Export-Import Bank is a government-owned organization that was started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as an apparatus for American firms to have more opportunity to export business to the Soviet Union. Most modern nations have their own EX-IM bank and even developing nations such as Ghana have just opened their own to help their businesses export to Europe, Asia and the United States.

Unlike most nations our EX-IM Bank has become controversial. It has just lost its charter as of June, and funding is frozen until or unless Congress reauthorizes funding through legislation. By now, you have seen television ads asking for your support in telling Congress to reauthorize the EX-IM Bank. Immediate action is required and if it does not happen within the next six months the doors of the EX-IM Bank will come permanently shut.

Most businesses are not familiar with the EX-IM Bank and that is a flaw in its marketing or outreach. It may also be an indicator that it is not inclusive. I don’t know of one Black owned firm that has received financing from this entity. Many billions of dollars have been provided and not one Black owned firm has received a penny. I am still searching for proof that I may be wrong but no one, including the EX-IM Bank has corrected me.

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

Car dealers charge exorbitant interest rates

By Charlene Crowell, NNPA Columnist Car lending is on the rise, and rising with it is a hidden, unfair, abusive and discriminatory practice: car dealer interest rate markups. Surveys show that at least two-thirds of Americans have no idea it happens.

A decade ago, the largest auto finance companies settled landmark cases alleging discrimination in auto lending. Re-

cent enforcement actions suggest that discrimination and unfairness still exist in the auto lending market.

Since 80 percent of the cars financed in the U.S. are financed through the dealer, this hidden practice is a huge threat to consumers.

Just this week, Honda Finance Corporation (HFC) agreed to pay $24 million in restitution to borrowers of color as a part of a settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection

Bureau (CFPB) and Department of Justice (DOJ), after investigators discovered HFC’s policy to allow dealers to mark up the interest rate resulted in borrowers of color paying more in interest than white borrowers.

Unfortunately, Honda’s discriminatory auto practices are not an isolated incident.

An earlier settlement that CFPB and DOJ reached with Ally Bank, in which Ally agreed to pay $98 million in civil pen-

alties and restitution, to settle claims of discrimination.

Black, Latino and Asian American car buyers who financed with Ally paid more in CROWELL interest on their loans than similarly situated white borrowers because of car dealer interest rate markups.

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

July 23 - July 29, 2015 • www.thewestsidegazette.com • Page 11

Broward County's Oldest and Largest African American Owned and Operated Newspaper

The First annual International Sports Festival

By D’Joumbarey A. Moreau It’s not a secret about how good the athletes here are in South Florida.

College coaches from all over the nation scour the streets of Miami-Dade & Broward County looking for new recruits to play for their respective programs. Even though the South Florida area is predominantly known for the incredible local football talent that emerges each year, basketball isn’t too far behind, either. The sport has been gaining a lot of traction and popularity within the community because of the recent success of the Miami Heat.

Because basketball has been gaining a lot of fans down in the area, what if you had an awesome idea to gather the remaining local talent and have them participate in a basketball tournament?

That’s exactly what Anthony Witherspoon did. As a

former collegiate basketball coach for more than 25 years in states such as Georgia and Louisiana, Witherspoon has always enjoyed basketball and understands the lessons about teamwork and consistency that the game teaches those who play it. His most recent position was as a head coach as Clark Atlanta University and he also worked at several other HBCU schools before ultimately relocating to Atlanta.

That’s why Witherspoon worked along with the Miami Host Committee to help create an event that will be all inclusive to athletes around South Florida.

Welcome to the International Youth Sports Festival.

“I recognized that sports is a big, big entity in our society. I thought, why not make it inclusive of an international youth sports festival?” said Witherspoon.

The plan was created from the vision of the age old Goom-

bay Festival that many in South Florida are already so in love with. Due to the fact that it was time for a change with the Goombay Festival, the Miami Host Committee decided to rebrand it and that’s when the Miami Bahamas Junkanoo Festival was birthed.

That was only the beginning because Witherspoon also thought, why not create an event that will be bigger than food and music, which is the inspiration behind the International Sports Festival.

During the sports festival children are going to have the opportunity to compete against other teams from around the South Florida community, as well as teams who are coming in from the Bahamas.

It’s not all just for the children either.

There will also be events for the former athletes who still have a competitive itch. There are two three-on-three basketball tournaments. One for the

21 and over age range and the other for 35 and over. Winners in the three-on-three tournament will be walking away with a $500 cash prize.

This year the International Sports Festival can boast that they have basketball and soccer, but next year it’s only going to get bigger. Some of the future plans are to also bring in more youth by creating a 10U and 12U age division. In addition, there are also plans to add more sports including track & field, swimming and tennis.

“I thought it would be a powerful addition to a festival, having something unique by including sports. It would be a good way in creating and developing a legacy that will leave better value in the Junkanoo festival by adding in youth sports….Our goal is to make it the biggest international youth sports festival in the nation,” said Witherspoon.

The most important aspect about the festival is the fact

South Florida Book Festival highlighted by nationally known social and political activist Tavis Smiley after hearing some of his views (Cont'd from FP) Some of his most adamant detractors have included: civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton, Georgetown University Sociology professor and author Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, and nationally known radio on-air personality Tom Joyner.

Dr. William Hobbs, a creative writing instructor at Florida Memorial University, gave his impression on the Tavis Smiley Q & A session.

“One of the things that touched me was the fact that he was a victim of parental abuse, to the degree that I wasn’t necessarily aware of, but it spoke directly to what took place in my novel, North of the Grove.

I also found it important to get an understanding of his take on Obama. More than anything else to date, he made me see that there is no perfect leader as we saw with Martin (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.). We still have to respect what he brings to the table,” said Dr. Hobbs.

Araith Valencia recently earned her undergraduate degree in Journalism from Florida Atlantic University. She also gave her impression of Smiley

on well-known historical Black figures.

“I commend Tavis Smiley for coming out here and reaching out to the community, to show just how staying true to your voice, staying true to who you are can open platforms and bring you opportunities that possibly you would have not been able to achieve by being a follower not a leader.”

Smiley was asked how he would like to be remembered and what he would like his legacy to reflect?

“I wish I could take ownership of this; I cannot. Thurgood Marshall was asked this question when he retired from the Supreme Court. He had the best answer I’d heard. He said, ‘I’d like to be remembered for doing the best I could, with what I had.’ For me it’s about doing the best I can with what I have right where I am. Every one of us has a role to play in this process and for me it’s trying to do justice for Dr. King’s legacy. Justice for all, service to others and love that liberates people. More than anything I hope I’ve added to that conversation about these legacies that triple threat that we still won’t come to terms with, that’s destroying our country - racism,

Education advocate and co-sponsor of the South Florida Book Festival, Attorney Georgia Robinson, greets onlookers in attendance at the SFBF recently.

(Photo by Steve Vinik) poverty and militarism. If I can make a dent in that I’ll be happy.”

Attorney Georgia Robinson is a local education advocate for African American students. She also founded ReadingPaysmore.com and was a co-sponsor and vendor at the SFBF. She explained why she was so passionate about supporting literary excellence, particularly among African American students.

“I am convinced that creat-

Read Our History in the pages of the Westside Gazette The late Michael Jackson immortalized the “Moonwalk” during his performance at Motown 25 in 1983, with breakdancing and pop locking-influenced dance moves that dazzled the world. However, the Moonwalk might have been a later incarnation of a dance move allegedly invented by tap dancer Bill Bailey.

Bailey, born on Dec. 8, 1912 in Newport News, Vir., is the older brother of late singer and actress Pearl Bailey. According to one bio, Bailey began dancing in his preacher father’s church. He was also reportedly taught tap dancing by Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.

As a singer, dancer and entertainer, Bailey performed with his sister, Blanche Calloway, sister of Cab Calloway, and was a fixture at the world famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. Bailey also acted in a handful of films, including Cabin In The Sky, the first recorded version of the moonwalk move. Recently, a 1955 video of Bailey performing at the Apollo and executing what he reportedly called the “Backslide” has surfaced.

Other tap dancers emulated the move in their own fashion, with some writers saying that Calloway himself did a version of the move in the ’30’s, then known as “The Buzz.” Actresses Judy Garland and Margaret O’Brien performed the dance in the movie, Meet Me In St. Louis and it showed up in other places throughout the years.

As breakdancing and pop-locking became more advanced in the late ’70’s and early ’80’s, the dance took on the form of the smooth and graceful style that Jackson used. After Motown 25 The Moonwalk became Jackson’s best known dance maneuvers and was associated with the superstar from that point forward.

ing a culture of reading so that every child is reading and comprehending above grade levels is the single most important factor to ensure the safety, health, and happiness and prosperity of our people. There is no other solution.

“Making reading education a priority in this country is the common factor among all other financially successful and selfreliant groups in this world, “added Robinson.

Dennis Wright, president of 100 Black Men of Greater Fort Lauderdale, participated in a panel discussion entitled, “Justice while Black.” Wright heads up the local chapter of the largest Black male mentoring group in the country. He shared his take on the proper manner he felt young African American males should conduct themselves, when approached by a member of law enforcement.

“Growing up in this community as a Black male and having to engage with police officers in positive and negative situations, we wanted to give them some advice as Black males on how to best deal with those situations. The primary thing that you want to do as a young Black person when engaging with police officers, is making a clear assessment of the situation and making good sound decisions to allow you to be successful down the road.

You do not want to put yourself in a situation where you are endangering your life or the life of that police officer. You want to put yourself in a situation where you can be successful regardless of the outcome.”

SUPPORT THE BLACK PRESS CALL FOR YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TODAY (954) 525-1489

that there will be a leadership conference held days leading into the festival. Coaches from around the city, as well as former NFL players are expected to join the panel to help teach youth crucial leadership skills. The knowledge that these children are going to gain before they even pick up a ball is what will help impact their lives for

the better.

International Sports Festival” July 23 - 25, 2015 from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Ambrister Park, 4000 Grand Avenue Miami, FL 33133 14U Soccer & Basketball 17U Soccer & Basketball 21U 3-on-3 Basketball 35U 3-on-3 Basketball.

For more informa-tion contact (404) 505-8554

Black American Airlines employees claim they were called ‘circus monkeys’ by managers Eighty African-American employees at American Airlines claim in a lawsuit that they were victims of racial discrimination.

The employees in Philadelphia and Washington D.C. are asking Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate the incident.

Workers say managers called them “circus monkeys,” “the n-word,” “ghetto,” “Darfur.”

The managers also allegedly referred to segregated break areas as the “Black Panther break room” and “chocolate break room.”

The lawsuit also alleges that the “managers did not provide overtime opportunities for minority workers, enforced unfair punishment on African American workers in comparison to white workers, and refused to give African-American workers proper training, leaving them unqualified for some job opportunities,” NBC Philadelphia reports.

African-American workers also claim that they were denied opportunities for advancement and made to work in unsafe conditions.

“This allegation is what started our investigation into the safety practices of this airline,” read a letter from the employees’ attorney. “Our clients alleged that white employees were routinely allowed by managers to reserve the best tugs, trucks, lifts and other equipment for their use, to the exclusion of black employees.

Black employees have been forced to work on the unsafe equipment that is described in detail in the Safety Complaint, and which equipment both the FAA and OSHA have confirmed does not comply with federal standards.”

American-Airlines denies the discrimination allegations.

“Diversity and inclusion are fundamental to our airline,” the spokesperson wrote. “Ours is a diverse workforce serving customers who are equally diverse, and we are committed to fostering a work environment that is based on collaborative teamwork and mutual respect. We will vigorously defend our company and the hard-working employees who provide top-quality service to our customers each and every day.”

Broward County's Oldest and Largest African American Owned and Operated Newspaper

Page 12 • www.thewestsidegazette.com • July 23 - July 29, 2015

Empire star Jamal Smollett still a social activist And that dialogue must include decreasing the number of new HIV infections, getting people into treatment that need it and ending the AIDS epidemic, said Wilson.

Jusie Smolett with his actress sister, Jurnee. (Photo by Tamara Williams for the Black AIDS Institute).

By Freddie Allen, NNPA Senior Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON, D.C. (NNPA) – Before he was Jamal Lyon, the sensitive, talented gay son of drug dealer-turnedmusic mogul on the hit television show, Empire, Jussie Smollett, was a social activist.

Smollett, 31, said that the root of his activism, his ability to speak openly and honestly about sex was always his mother, because she set the tone for who he was, what he was and what he believed in.

“My voice has always been linked to this fight before anybody new anything about my voice,” said Smollett, adding that you don’t need a television show or a hit record to make a change in the world your community.

Smollett continued: “The work doesn’t start with Empire.

My mother didn’t give us a choice of whether or not we wanted to be activists or not, that was built into us.”

His father, Joel, emigrated from Russia and Poland. His mother, Janet, is mixture of African, Native American and European. In addition to Jussie and Jurnee, an actress, the couple had four other kids: Jake, Jocqui, Jojo and Jazz.

All six Smollett children appeared together in the ABC TV program, On Our Own, which was broadcast 1994-1995. The Smollett siblings played a family reared by the oldest brother after both parents had died in a car accident.

Jurnee starred in The Great Debaters, Eve’s Bayou, and appeared in episodes of The Cosby Show.

Jussie, a native of Santa Rosa, Calif., currently serves on the board of the Black AIDS Institute (BAI), a Los Angeles-

LEGAL NOTICES PUBLICATION OF BID SOLICITATIONS Broward County Board of County Commissioners is soliciting bids for a variety of goods and services, construction and architectural/engineering services. Interested bidders are requested to view and download the notifications of bid documents via the Broward County Purchasing website at: www.broward.org/ purchasing.

July 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, 2015 IN THE COUNTY COURT OF THE 17TH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND FOR BROWARD COUNTY, FLORIDA GENERAL JURISDICTION DIVISON CASE NO: CACE-14-021171 PAULINE HENRY, Plaintiff, v.

EVELYN HENRY Defendants.

NOTICE OF ACTION CONSTRUCTIVE SERVICE IN RE: CIVIL ACTION FOR DAMAGES TO: EVELYN HENRY YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED that a CIVIL ACTION for DAMAGES has been filed against you.

You are required to serve a copy of your written answer, if any, to it on Jermaine Thompson, Esq., Attorney for the Plaintiff, whose address is 2400 University Dr., Ste. 209, Pembroke Pines, Florida 33024, and file the original with the Clerk of the above styled Court on or before 30 days after first publication2015. otherwise a default will be entered against you for the relief demanded in the Petition or Complaint.

This notice shall be published once each week for four consecutive weeks in Westside Gazette.

WITNESS my hand and the seal of said court at Broward County, Florida, on this June 22, 2015.

Howard C. Forman, As Clerk of the Court Novella Lopes, Deputy Clerk July 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, 2015

based think tank focused solely on ending the AIDS epidemic in the Black community.

Smollett recently sat on a panel on HIV/AIDS and the role of the Black family in fighting the epidemic at the Essence Festival in New Orleans. Smollett was joined by Otis Harris, a 28-year-old gay man living with HIV from Dallas; Harris’ mother, LaTongia Harris-Amadee, and Leo Moore, a clinical scholar with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien moderated the panel.

According to national surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 66 percent of Black Americans say HIV rarely, if ever, comes in family discussions– including 30 percent who have never talked about HIV with anyone in their family.

According to the Black AIDS Institute, more than 60 percent of parents of Black children said that “they are ‘very concerned’ that their son or daughter will get HIV,” compared to about 20 percent of white parents.

“Families in general play such an important part in the fight against HIV and AIDS because families,” said Smollett.

“It’s not just Black families but the family as a whole – the village. It takes that village to get rid of the stigma to get rid of the shame so that people feel like they have someone to talk to.”

In 2013, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched a national campaign that identified stigma and complacency as two critical challenges to ending the AIDS epidemic in the United States.

Declining awareness and concern about HIV among the American public may lead some to underestimate the continued need or action to fight the epidemic, a fact sheet on the campaign said.

“Young people who have grown up without seeing the epidemic’s devastating effects may be particularly vulnerable,” the fact sheet said. “For example, a study among young Black gay and bisexual men in 20 major cities found that among those who thought they were at low risk of infection, nearly one in five was, in fact, already infected with HIV.” The fact sheet noted that in 2011 the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) reported that not only are people reporting that they’re reading and seeing information about HIV in the U.S. 30 percent less than they were in 2004, but less people also named HIV, “as the nation’s most urgent health problem.”

According to the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), HIV-related stigma can result in the loss of income, loss of marriage and childbearing options and the loss of hope and feelings of worthlessness.

“We live in a nation that we’re about shaming,” said Smollett. “Cultural shaming, religion shaming, sexuality shaming and gender shaming, there’s so much shame. It’s time for people to step up and say, ‘enough is enough.’”

Smollett added: “We have to remember that Black lives matter. We also have to remember that we cannot pick and choose when Black lives matter.”

Phill Wilson, the president and CEO of BAI, agreed.

“If we’re serious about the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, we need to talk about all the things that are important for us to live longer healthier lives,” he said,

Smollett said that even though Black people have been oppressed since we were enslaved and shipped to this continent, we still helped build this nation and this world.

“We cannot sit idly by while our children, our fathers and mothers, our sisters and our

brothers, our nieces and nephews, and our uncles and our aunts are dying and are being left to feel ashamed for who they are,” said Smollett.

Smollett said that ending the AIDS epidemic is not about gender or sexuality or race it’s about taking responsibility for you

and yours, which is the human race.

“Everybody wants somebody to oppress, let’s not be that way,” said Smollett. “Lets spread love.

Let’s make sure that everybody knows that they have someplace to go in life, so that they don’t feel alone.”

July 23 - July 29, 2015 • www.thewestsidegazette.com • Page 13

Broward County's Oldest and Largest African American Owned and Operated Newspaper

Civil rights lawyer seeks to commemorate another side of Southern heritage: Lynchings

By Staff Writer Attorney Bryan Stevenson, executive director of Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) and a professor of law at New York University School of Law, is taking monumental steps in implementing a plan to memorialize those that lost their lives during America’s lynching era. The plan – to place memorial markers at lynching sites of Black men, women and children.

This year, EJI released the report, Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, which documents multi-year investigation into lynching in 12 Southern states during the period between Reconstruction and World War II. EJI researchers documented 3959 racial terror lynchings of African Americans

in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia between 1877 and 1950 – at least 700 more lynchings of Black people in these states than previously reported in the most comprehensive work done on lynching to date.

“The narrative of racial difference that lynching dramatized continues to haunt us,” initiative leaders said in their report.

Stevenson and EJI have been working tirelessly seeking leaders in the communities that are the sites of former lynchings, speaking privately with mayors, making plans to address city councils, to secure support to erect the simple bronze markers.

One of Stevenson’s objectives

is to change the dialogue on race and narrow the gap he is convinced is at the root of conflicts— attitudes he says date back nearly two centuries.

“There’s still this presumption of guilt assigned to African Americans from people inherently worried about the dangerousness and criminality of Black men,” Stevenson said.

“It’s a burden. The police have menaced, threatened and followed us all our lives.”

Blacks were lynched for playing music too loud, not acknowledging a white person submissively, looking at and speaking to a white woman, refusing to remove an Army uniform after World War II or for simply being Black. Often, Stevenson said, the hangings became public carnivals designed to instill fear.

Growing up in Delaware during Jim Crow, Stevenson witnessed first-hand the effects of racism. A graduate of Eastern College (now Eastern University), Harvard Law School (J.D.), and the John F. Kennedy School of Government, he has been an advocate, agitator and activists for over 30 years.

He has won relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, argued five times before the Supreme Court, and won national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and people of color. He’s won new rights for convicted children and the mentally ill and has been instrumental in overturning the executions of 115 for death row inmates.

As a young lawyer, he once met civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who made a prophetic observa-

NAACP President supports President Obama’s call for prison reform

By Bobbi Booker, Special to the NNPA from the Philadelphia Tribune PHILADELPHIA, PA. – Immediately following President Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia this week, NAACP President Cornell W. Brooks said it’s an issue the country cannot ignore.

“Just on a heart level, I could not have been more moved by the President’s speech because many of the people that were most affected by what he said couldn’t vote for him today, because they don’t have the right to vote,” he said. “Even if they could vote for him on the outside, there are millions of them locked up on the inside, out of sight and seemingly out of mind. But he made clear today they are not out of sight and they are not out of mind. And when he said there are a million fathers locked up, ask ourselves this: how many children does that represent?

“How much of America does that represent?” Brooks asked.

“I thought it was an extraordinary address, and it moved me profoundly. I spent the better part of seven years in Newark, N.J., working on prison reentry; and that I have a

President that says he is concerned about the issue, but not just concerned about the issue, but concerned enough to go to a prison, that’s important. Because, heretofore, no one from the White House has been in the prison, at least not while they were serving as President.

So, it is very powerful.”

Since Congress enacted mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, the federal prison population has multiplied, from just 24,000 in the 1980s to more than 214,000, according to Families Against Mandatory Minimums. In 2010, Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, cutting penalties for crack cocaine offenses. And, last year, the independent Sentencing Commission reduced guideline ranges for drug crimes and applied those retroactively.

“The President is taking a major risk here: he’s standing on the side of people who have been despised, dehumanized, locked away and cast out of society,” Brooks said. “For a President who resides in the White House to go to a prison is making a statement that his oath of office speaks to people who literally are out of sight and out of mind. It is a bold statement. It

Cornel William Brooks renews call for taking down Confederate flag in South Carolina. is a bold reform plan.

“But the President understands all to well: he cannot do this alone,” he added. “Congress cannot do it alone. We have to stand with him, stand behind those in Congress who are standing for criminal justice reform, which is why we have supported America’s journey for justice in terms of talking about our lives, our votes, our jobs, our schools matter. Our lives

can’t really matter if we get profiled at will. Our lives don’t really matter if in fact we can be, as a people, sentenced under draconian drug laws. Our lives, our life as a country, matters less, if you have 2.3 million people behind bars — when African-American men are 21-times more likely to lose their lives at the hands of the police than their white counterparts. We’ve got to do something about this.”

In places like Baltimore, New York and Ferguson tensions between law enforcement and their communities have spilled out into the open, underscoring longstanding concerns among minority communities they’re treated differently in the criminal justice system. As the leader of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, Brooks has pledged to continue its mission of advocacy that began over a century ago.

Bryan Stevenson, a civil rights lawyer, helped erect this marker in Montgomery, Ala., calling attention to the site’s history in the slave trade.

(John M. Glionna/Los Angeles Times) tion as he described his life mission of racial equality.

“That’s going to make you tired, tired, tired,” she told him.

As expected, initial support of the new project has been moving about as fast as molasses in January, especially in big cities with a small Black population. Stevenson has focused his efforts therefore in the Black where he knows his plan will receive easy support.

James Knight, 73, a Birmingham, Ala. resident, fully

(Read full story on www.thewestside gazette.com)

supports the project. Knight, 73, recently attended a speech Stevenson gave at the city’s Civil Rights Institute. As he waited to meet the lawyer, he told of how a fellow African American friend was once snatched by white men here in the 1950s and castrated in the woods nearby.

He wants a marker on the spot. Said Knight, “I think it’s good to know where we came from.”

Happy Birthday Willie Smith July 28, 2015

From your family and your extended family at the Westside Gazette

Westside Gazette BROWARD COUNTY'S OLDEST AND LARGEST AFRICAN AMERICAN OWNED AND OPERATED NEWSPAPER 1971 -- A PROUD PPAPER APER FOR A PROUD PEOPLE -- 44 YEARS

AUGUST 24, 2015 Prison crowded.

It’s that time again to join the Westside Gazette as we design and market our annual Back to School Guide. The guide is created as a tool to assist students and parents with helpful information they can use in preparation for the incoming school year in addition to being a resource throughout the year. Our goal is to cover a variety of topics filled with materials that can bring relief for both students and parents for making informed choices in relation to their learning. Because South Florida students come from all different socio-economic, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, we try to address surrounding issues related to their educational concerns for the entire community. The Westside Gazette Newspaper is calling upon all community stakeholders concerned about the total education of our children to offer their support. We hope that, with the collective assistance from the entire community, this will be the best and most informative Back to School Guide to be featured in the Westside Gazette ever. This year’s guide will be published on Here’s how you can join us:

Saturday, August 15th 10:30 AM to Noon

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CAB Reverse Trade Show Business owners and entrepreneurs, you’re invited to market your products and services directly to Broward County Certified Agency Buyers (CABs). Here’s your chance to get your foot in the door and promote your business to the right people. Bring your business cards, brochures and fact sheets.

Participating Broward County Agencies include: Parks and Recreation • Port Everglades • Purchasing • Transportation and More!

Pre-registration is strongly recommended. For more information, visit Broward.org/EconDev or call 954-357-6400.

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Broward County's Oldest and Largest African American Owned and Operated Newspaper

President Obama to revisit African roots White racism costs whites, too

By Lekan Oguntoyinbo, NNPA Columnist

By Lee A. Daniels, NNPA Columnist

Some commentators have compared President Obama’s planned trip to Kenya later this month to John F. Kennedy’s visit to Ireland in June 1963.

Officially, the President is visiting the East African country for a global entrepreneurship summit, but Kenyans can’t get over the fact that the world’s most famous person of Kenyan ancestry will be spending a couple of days in the land of his forefathers, in the land that majority of relatives on his dad’s side of the family call home.

There is some truth to the Kennedy comparison. Like Kennedy, President Obama is a descendant of immigrants – although Kennedy was the great-grandchild of an immigrant who came here to escape the famine in Ireland while President Obama is a first-generation American. Both men OGUNTOYINBO embraced their ancestral heritage.

Kennedy’s victory inspired oppressed people everywhere. It showed citizens of the still impoverished and only four decades independent Republic of Ireland that anything is possible. It radiated hope – just like President Obama’s victories have done for people of African ancestry around the world.

Kennedy’s election in 1960 was a huge morale booster to people of Irish descent around the world – just like President Obama’s 2008 victory lifted the spirits of people of color everywhere, particularly Blacks. Like Blacks around the world, the Irish suffered oppression, subjugation, genocide, occupation and discrimination for hundreds of years (in their case mostly at the hands of English overlords). When they started arriving in the United States in large numbers in the mid1800s, they were consistently subjected to discrimination in employment, housing and education, a trend that persisted for more than 100 years.

Beyond those similarities, the comparisons are superficial. Barack Obama, Sr. didn’t come here to escape. He was looking to improve himself with a first-rate education and go back home to help build the new Kenyan nation. He was part of a cohort of young Kenyans who received scholarships to come study at American universities on the eve of Kenya’s independence. He attended college and graduate school in the U.S. in the 1960s was briefly married to Obama’s Kansas-born mother. He was born and died in Kenya.

President Obama’s ethnic heritage goes beyond merely being Black or Kenyan. The Obamas are Luos, Kenya’s third largest ethnic group, famous for originating several musical styles. In the African tradition, you belong to your father’s ethnic group or tribe regardless of where you were born, where you live and how long you’ve lived there.

For example, I was born in the United Kingdom to Yoruba parents. I have lived in the United States for two-thirds of my life, but I am still Yoruba. And my six-year-old son – who was born in North Carolina, has never visited Nigeria and whose mother is not Yoruba – also is Yoruba.

By this definition, which I wholeheartedly embrace, President Obama, a native of Hawaii and part-time resident of Chicago, is a Luo. So are his daughters, Sasha and Malia.

Like their African-American brethren, African immigrants and their children still suffer from regular white supremacist treatment of “otherness.” In America, a University of Connecticut sociologist once told me, Blacks are still considered “the ultimate other.” This “otherness” is perhaps the underlying reason for the silly questions about President Obama’s birthplace.

This “otherness” explains why the question persists even though there are still many people in Hawaii who remember his birth and even though the courts have never ruled that a person born to one American parent outside the United States is not eligible to be president.

It also explains why birthplace was not an issue for Mexico-born George Romney, a child of Latter Day Saints missionaries, when he ran for president in 1968, and why it is not an issue for Ted Cruz – the ultra conservative Cuban-American senator from Texas and Republican presidential candidate – who was born in Canada. Irish immigrants and their children were subjected to “otherness” as well but it hasn’t lingered anywhere as long as it has for Blacks.

On the surface, President Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency of the world’s most powerful nation is the quintessential parable of the American Dream and American immigrant experience: child of an occasional goat herder from Kenya who came to the United States to go to college sires a son who more than makes good. It shows what is possible with hard work, persistence and a good name in the land of Disney and Hollywood.

But the President Obama story is also the paradox of a nation still anchored to its white supremacist roots, a nation very stubbornly divided along racial lines; so divided, in fact, that in both presidential elections, most people of color voted for President Obama and most whites didn’t.

Outside of the United States, though, most people still see the fabled America.

And that’s the America that Kenyans will celebrate next week when Air Force One touches down at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Although he forged a distinguished career as a 10-term Republican Congressman from the early 1950s to the early 1970s, and later as a judge on his state’s Supreme Court, Richard H. Poff is but a minor footnote in American history.

Coming across his name, many people would likely note his achievements with a mental salute, and then quickly move on.

Unless they happened to know that in October of 1971, Poff informed President Richard M. Nixon that he did not wish to be nominated for a DANIELS seat on the Supreme Court of the United States.

I wrote about why Richard H. Poff turned down the nomination many Washington insiders of the day expected to come his way – and fulfill his lifelong ambition – when he died four years ago.

His story has stayed with me ever since because it illuminates a reality of American society that’s rarely discussed: the high cost of White racism as experienced from the White side of the Color Line.

I’ve been pondering that point since the murder of the Emanuel A.M.E. Church Nine drew an immediate outpouring of sympathy from many Whites in the South and elsewhere – and provoked the widespread public outrage against the display of the Confederate flag on public property. That interracial call for change has followed the interracial protests of the last two years against the police killings of Black and Hispanic Americans suggests that more and more Whites and other people of color understand the “cost” of White racism affects them, too.

It’s that development, amid the conservative movement’s continual race-mongering, the GOP’s reflexive opposition to every Obama proposal, and especially the sordid anti-Latino demagoguery of fake-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, that makes what Richard H. Poff did in 1971 and what he said about it worth considering.

Poff, a Republican who represented a district in western Virginia, had been a Congressional rarity — a Republican from a state of the Old Confederacy – when first elected in 1952. The decorated World War II bomber pilot had ridden the political coattails of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s landslide election to the presidency into office, and over time compiled a solid record as a moderate Republican conservative.

But, like nearly every other Southern Senator and Representative of the time, during the 1950s and 1960s, Poff had marched in lockstep with the White South’s campaign of “massive resistance” to the Civil Rights Movement. He wasn’t one of the demagogues who delighted in disparaging Black Americans and denouncing civil rights legislation. He just went quietly along with those who did.

In 1971, six years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had changed the South’s and the nation’s political calculus, the civil rights groups (who in 1969 and 1970 had engineered the defeat of two other Nixon Supreme Court nominees from the South) declared the cost to him of that past: their unyielding opposition. Less than a fortnight later, Poff withdrew his name.

A deeply private man, Poff never directly stated why he had done so other than that it was to preserve his family’s privacy. But three months earlier, Poff had given a remarkable interview to a local Virginia newspaper in which he discussed his civil rights record with extraordinary candor.

Among the things he said was this: “I can only say that segregation is wrong today, it was wrong yesterday. Segregation was never right. But it is one of the most lamentable frailties of mankind that when one’s wrong is most grievous, his self-justification is most passionate, perhaps in the pitiful hope that the fervor of his self-defense will somehow prove him right. But this doesn’t make it so. And he doesn’t fool himself.”

One needn’t cry for Richard H. Poff. As already mentioned, the next year he took a seat on the Virginia State Supreme Court and served there with distinction until his retirement in 1988.

Further, his personal setback pales into insignificance compared to what the inaction of the White Southern elite cost their fellow Southerners, Black and White, during those years. Nonetheless, if I’m correct in reading his incisive and poignant words as regret for his moral cowardice on the civil rights issues of the day, then let’s consider a what-if: What if Poff, by all accounts an honorable, thoughtful man, had resisted the demagogues of the day in the 1950s and 1960s—and had been joined by some of the other Congressional Southerners?

Would that have made a difference in that era’s fight for democracy in the South and across the country? Would America have seen then a visible cohort of White Southerners standing up against bigotry and for tolerance similar to what has occurred in the last six weeks in some areas of the South?

A final question: Is America still paying the cost of the inaction of too many White people like Richard H. Poff?