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August 23, 2012

  • Black Architect Designed U. S. Nazi Compound

    Black Architect Designed U. S. Nazi Compound In the early 1930s when the Nazi Party’s American cousins were establishing a foothold in Southern California, they built a compound in Pacific Palisades called Murphy Ranch high in the Santa Monica Mountains. The ranch, located between Will Rogers State Park and Sullivan Ridge, was built as a Nazi refuge by Winona and Norma Stephens and a mysterious character named Herr Schmidt.

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  • Lawsuit: Wet Seal Was Swimming in Racism

    Young women’s clothing retailer, The Wet Seal Inc., occasionally hires young black women to appear in its ads, but fires African-American store managers because they don’t fit the chain’s blue-eyed, blonde-haired image, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The lawsuit, titled Cogdell v.

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  • Obamas’ First Kiss is Solid as a Rock

    Obamas’ First Kiss is Solid as a Rock Most married couples have a hard time recalling the first time they kissed, but the Obamas are no ordinary couple, and they now have a big reminder of that moment. Really big.

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  • Business Leaders Say Obama Would Be Better for the Global Economy

    A survey by the Financial Times and the Economist of 1,740 business leaders in a variety of industries found that the majority supported President Barack Obama’s re-election because they said it would be better for the global economy.

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  • Forbes: Obama is the Smallest Government Spender

    Although Republican Mitt Romney and the Tea Party have painted President Barack Obama as a tax-and-spend Democrat, a recent issue of Forbes magazine, which bills itself as the capitalist tool, begs to differ.

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  • Condoleezza Rice Joins Augusta National

    Condoleezza Rice Joins Augusta National Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters Tournament, announced on Monday that it has admitted former U. S.

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  • Innocence Project Pushes Letter-Writing Campaign

    Innocence Project Pushes Letter-Writing Campaign The Innocence Project is urging supporters to write the Lake County, III., State’s Attorney’s Office to ask officials to vacate a battery conviction against Bennie Starks, who was exonerated of a 1986 rape conviction after DNA evidence showed he was not the perpetrator.

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  • Army Reports 11 Potential Suicides in July

    The U. S. Army reported in June that 11 active-duty soldiers were potential suicide victims. One soldier's death has been confirmed as a suicide and 10 others are under investigation.

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  • Cell Phone App Allows Voters to Register

    Cell Phone App Allows Voters to Register The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and four other groups concerned with voting rights have launched a free downloadable smartphone app that allows mobile phone owners to register to vote wirelessly, said Barbara Arnwine, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee. The application, Arwine said, is designed to meet the needs of voters in the digital age and to ensure they have the needed tools to participate fully in the nation’s democracy.

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  • Eugene Chen, China’s Black Foreign Minister

    Eugene Chen, China’s Black Foreign Minister In the annals of black history, Eugene Chen is one of its most-interesting characters. Chen, who was born in Trinidad, the West Indies, in 1878, to black and Chinese parents, served as China’s foreign minister on four separate occasions, according to his obituary in The New York Times on May 21, 1944.

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  • Bobby Brown Checks into Rehab

    Bobby Brown Checks into Rehab It was his prerogative, so singer Bobby Brown recently checked himself into a rehab center for treatment of alcoholism, four months after reaching a plea deal on charges of driving under the influence. Brown admitted himself for treatment at an undisclosed facility after concluding his honeymoon in Mexico with his bride, Alicia Etheridge, according to E! News. The singer pled no contest to a  March 26, 2012, misdemeanor charge of driving while under the influence in Los Angeles. He is scheduled to continue his solo and New Edition tour dates following his release.

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  • Court Strikes Down Limits on Early Voting in 5 Florida Counties

    Court Strikes Down Limits on Early Voting in 5 Florida Counties by Frederick H. Lowe The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has struck down part of Florida’s new law that limited early voting, a process in which African Americans voted at twice the rate of white voters in the 2008 presidential election.

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  • Romney Meets Regularly With Black Advisers, Aide Says

    Romney Meets Regularly With Black Advisers, Aide Says by Hazel Trice-Edney (TriceEdneyWire.com) – As the GOP prepares to meet in Tampa, Fla.

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  • FAMU Names Presidential Search Committee

    FAMU Names Presidential Search Committee Florida A&M University’s Board of Trustees last week named two of its members to co-chair a search committee that will screen candidates for the job of president at the Tallahassee-based school.

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  • Standoff Continues After Deadly Shootings at South African Mine

    Standoff Continues After Deadly Shootings at South African Mine TriceEdneyWire.com – Tension continues at a South African platinum mine where striking workers were shot to death last week during a protest for higher wages.

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  • Congress Earns 83% Disapproval Rating in Gallup Poll

    Congress Earns 83% Disapproval Rating in Gallup Poll Ten percent of Americans approve of the way Congress is doing its job, but 83 percent don’t, according to a Gallup telephone poll of 1,012 adults 18 years old and older in all 50 states.

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  • Arkansas Lab Rules Handcuffed Man Committed Suicide

    Arkansas Lab Rules Handcuffed Man Committed Suicide The Arkansas State Crime Laboratory has issued a report saying that a black man who was handcuffed behind his back in the backseat of a patrol car committed suicide.

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  • The NorthStar’s Week in Black History

    The NorthStar’s Week in Black History August 23 through August 29 August 23 1861 ----- James Stone, a fugitive slave, enlisted in the Union Army on this date, becoming the first African American to fight in the Civil War (1861-1865).

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  • Ethiopia's Prime Minister Dies

    Ethiopia's Prime Minister Dies Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia has died, the Ethiopian Government Portal announced in a one-sentence statement on Tuesday. “His Excellency Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has passed away,”  the statement read.

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  • Michael Strahan to Quarterback TV Show

    Michael Strahan to Quarterback TV Show Michael Strahan made a name for himself as a defensive back for the New York Giants. Now in a new life, Strahan will quarterback a live television show.

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Julianne Malveaux
Julianne Malveaux

Activism - Then and Now

by Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Every time I see a march or rally, I think of the rally of all rallies, which was the 1963 March on Washington. Forty-nine years later, there is nothing that equals that march, not in participation, nor in results.

These days, folks march to make a point, but back in the day, we marched to get legislative action.  Shortly after the March on Washington, both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were passed.  I challenge anyone to tell me what other marches or rallies have yielded.  They’ve made a point and galvanized people, yet they’ve had no direct or immediate results.

I am thinking, in some ways, of the Occupy movement, a self-admittedly leaderless group that has brought attention to corporate greed and growing wealth gap in our nation.  In many ways Occupy has been extremely effective in making a point. But the point has been lost with their many skirmishes with law enforcement officers, with the condition of the camps they set up, and with the vagueness of their demands.

It is specious and ineffective to call for the collapse of capitalism --- as desirable as such a goal might be.  Instead, the Occupy folks might agitate for tax reform that is redistributive, favoring the poor and middle class instead of the wealthy.  Such legislation will not end capitalism, but it will give people something to rally around.

Many people believe that the March on Washington was a spontaneous movement, but the March took months of planning.  The highly disciplined organizers vetted every speech and were mindful and deliberate about their goals.

To counter negative impressions of African-American people, many of the marchers dressed in their Sunday best.  All of the signs spoke to the civil rights movement, not to other issues.  Today marches seem to be a grab bag, with everyone with a cause carrying signs offering up their issues.  Again, people are marching, almost for the sake of marching.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the March on Washington were exceptional because of their focus and also because of their utter audacity.  Nearly one hundred years after Emancipation, people of African descent were standing up for their rights. And given the long period of relative acquiescence, it was wholly unexpected that oppressed people would offer resistance to the status quo.  It was also wholly unexpected that Black people would have the audacity to stand up. And, it was totally unexpected that a movement of African-American people would inspire so many others to also stand up.

In the wake of the March on Washington, the National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded.  In the wake of the march, the National Council of La Raza was founded, and in their own words,  “traces its origins to the civil rights movement of the sixties”.  Also, the Stonewall riots happened in 1960 and gay rights marches began in the 1970s.

Unfortunately the right win has appropriated some civil rights tactics with their own marches and movement.  Also unfortunately, civil rights activism has become professionalized with many activists now on the payrolls of either the government or of an organization that relies on foundation funding.  In either case, activists are relatively muzzled so that the radicalism of the sixties is muted by funding realities or government restrictions.

That former President Bill Clinton jettisoned Lani Guinier and current President Barack Obama did the same thing to Van Jones is instructive.  Can activists co-exist with government moderation?  The answer is probably not.

Still, the nomination of Paul Ryan to be second on the Republican ticket is a cause for concern to anyone who has the slightest progressive tendency. Ryan would trim the size of government, eliminating key agencies.  He opposes contraceptive rights and a woman’s right to choose.  He has not taken a position on any civil rights issues, but one might guess that he is not an ardent supporter of equality. Whether people take it to the streets or to the voting booth, it is clear that those who care about freedom have much to oppose on this Republican ticket.

We can take a page from the March on Washington to organize a highly disciplined opposition to the odious positions that the official representatives of the Republican Party have taken. Or, we can be silent, absent ourselves from the polls, and suffer the consequences.


Julianne Malveaux is a Washington, D. C.-based economist and author.

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