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July
19
1941
The first U. S. Army flight-training school for black cadets was dedicated in Tuskegee, Ala., on this date. The event marked the intentional beginning of the 99th Pursuit Squadron.
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By Frederick H. Lowe Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., the nation's largest residential mortgage originator, has agreed to pay $125 million to African-American and Hispanic mortgage borrowers who were steered into higher-interest subprime mortgages or who paid higher fees because of their race or ethnic origin even when their credit reports qualified them for lower-priced prime loans, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Thursday.
by Frederick H. Lowe During an emergency meeting on Monday, Florida A&M University’s board of trustees named Provost Larry Robinson interim president, replacing James H. Ammons, who unexpectedly resigned last week but planned to stay on until October.
Motown: The Musical, which will chronicle the life of the company founder, Berry Gordy, Jr., is scheduled to open in the spring of 2013 on Broadway in New York. The Hollywood Reporter said Charles Randolph-Wright will direct the musical, which was written
By Frederick H. Lowe More than 2.2 million African Americans had felony convictions in 2010, which most likely will prevent them from voting in this year's presidential election, depending on what state they call home. The percentage of African Americans who were disenfranchised represented 7.66 percent of the black voting age population of 29.1 million, according to a report titled
By Frederick H. Lowe A Cameroon port that was one of the busiest slave-ship departure points on Africa’s Atlantic Coast to plantations in North and South America during the 18th century will become a cultural heritage site for tourists and for scholars to study the brutal realities of slavery.
Former South African President Nelson Mandela, who devoted his life to ending apartheid in his native country, celebrated his 94th birthday on Wednesday, July 18. Hundreds of celebrations were held around the world to honor Mandela, a Nobel Peace Laureate, who spent 27 years in prison fighting racial oppression and 67 years of his life in public service
Oprah Winfrey interviewed Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican Party nominee for president, and his wife, Ann, recently in
Asiaone Showbiz is reporting that actor Michael Clarke Duncan suffered a heart attack, but quick work by his girlfriend, Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, saved his life.
By Brian Smedley TriceEdneyWire.com - The U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) represents a significant advancement in the effort to repair the deeply broken U.S. health-care
By Julianne Malveaux TriceEdneyWire.com - The unemployment rate has hovered above 8 percent for several months, most recently holding ground at 8.2 percent, the same as last month.
Attorneys for George Zimmerman, who is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, filed a motion to block release of a statement by an individual identified as witness 9. Witness 9, a woman, charged that neither Zimmerman nor his family like blacks. "They like blacks only if they acted white," the woman told several news outlets. Mark M. O'Mara, Zimmerman's attorney, made the request in a July 13th motion in which he asked Zimmerman's trial judge to disqualify himself.
The Institute of the Black World 21st Century will hold its State of the Black World Conference III Nov. 14-18, 2012, at Howard University in Washington, D.C. During the conference, panelists will discuss the state of the African-American race, the impact
Hurston/Wright Announces Nominees for Its Annual Book Awards The Hurston/Wright Foundation recently announced nominees for its 11th annual Legacy award, which honors exemplary works of literature by black writers.
TriceEdneyWire.com – By passing a budget June 20 without funds to compensate victims, the North Carolina Senate dashed the hopes of those harmed by a government program that, for nearly 50 years, sterilized mostly poor and black residents. Senate Republicans refused to support a measure cleared by state House members to earmark $10 million in the state budget that would have awarded sterilization victims $50,000 each, according to NewsObserver.com. The move would have made North Carolina the first state to compensate victims—most of them poor and black-- of a state-run program to keep certain people from conceiving children. From 1929 to 1974, nearly 7,600 people, mostly women, were sterilized in North Carolina, the last of more than 30 states to abandon the practice of selective breeding, known as eugenics, during the 20th century. In all, 65,000 Americans were sterilized before the last state program was shut down in the early 1980s. Records indicate that as many as 1,800 victims are still living in North Carolina. Even though Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue had the endorsement of the Republican speaker of the North Carolina House, she was unable to gain support from North Carolina Senate Republicans for giving money to the program’s victims. Opponents cited uncertainty about the potential cost and the precedent it could set for those seeking damages for past wrongs, according to the Associated Press. “If you could lay the issue to rest, it might be one thing,” Republican State Sen. Austin Allran said, according to Politico. “But I’m not so sure it would lay the issue at rest because if you start compensating people who have been ‘victimized’ by past history, I don’t know where that would end.” He added that the state “has no money anyway.” Compensation advocates in the House voiced dismay. “At this point, I have lost all hope,” Democratic state Rep. Earline Parmon said, according to the AP. “I’m appalled that the North Carolina Senate today took no action to compensate the victims that we as a state robbed of their rights to reproduce and to have children,” she said. Victims are even more disappointed, according to leaders of a state-funded advocacy program. "Many are angry, many of them are just distraught and devastated," said Charmaine Fuller Cooper, executive director of the state-funded N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation. "Everyone had gotten their hopes up." "It was never about money," she said. "It was about restoring dignity to people who had that dignity stripped away at a very young age." The organization has verified the claims of women throughout the state who were unwittingly sterilized after the state labeled them undesirable as mothers. The lawyer for Elaine Riddick, 58, one of the victims, said his client wants justice. The victim of a rape at the age of 14, she was sterilized after a state social worker labeled her “promiscuous” and “feebleminded” at the hospital where the child that resulted from the rape was delivered, ABC News reported a year ago. Riddick's attorney, Willie Gary, said Riddick was “hurt” and “in tears” after hearing the state senate's decision June 20 and plans to file a class-action lawsuit seeking compensation from the state. Opponents of funding for the compensation program said no amount of money would fix the wrongs committed by the eugenics program. “We all agree with the fact that an apology is certainly appropriate,” said Republican state Senator Chris Carney. “But I don't think that makes us any more sorry because we attach a dollar figure to it.” The Winston-Salem Journal first exposed North Carolina’s eugenics programs ten years ago in an investigative series. For more information, people who believe they are victims of the sterilization program are urged to contact the state-funded victims’ foundation through an information hotline 877-550-6013 (toll-free) or 919-807-4270 (local), which operates Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
William Raspberry William Raspberry, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post, died on Tuesday at his home in Washington, D.C. Mr. Raspberry was 76, and he died of prostate cancer. The Washington Post’s Metro section published in 1966 Mr. Raspberry’s first column. Later, he transferred to the newspaper’s
July 19 through July 25 July 19 1941 ----- The first U. S. Army flight-training school for black cadets was dedicated in Tuskegee, Ala., on this date. The event marked the intentional beginning of the 99th Pursuit Squadron. Prior to 1940, African Americans were barred from flying for the U. S. military and were hard pressed to find flight-training programs open to blacks. Civil rights activists and the black press advocated strongly for military service opportunities for black aviators. Finally, the Army responded to the pressure, partly out of a need to train more pilots for combat.