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October 18, 2012

  • The NorthStar’s Week in Black History

    The NorthStar’s Week in Black History October 19 through October 25 October 19 1949 ----- Peter Tosh, given name Winston Hubert McIntosh, reggae singer-songwriter, musician and founding member of The Wailers, was born in Grange Hill, Jamaica.  As both a member of a band and as a solo performer, he brought international attention to reggae music.  A political activist as well as a performer, Tosh was dubbed "the Malcolm X of reggae music." Tosh was raised by an aunt and learned to play guitar at an early age, imitating perfectly guitarists he saw perform.

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  • Activists Attend Ceremony in France Naming Street for Mumia Abu-Jamal

    Activists Attend Ceremony in France Naming Street for Mumia Abu-Jamal by Linn Washington, Jr. Bobigny, France – Native American activist Bill “Jimbo” Simmons was among the 100-plus people attending a Saturday ceremony naming a street honoring imprisoned African-American activist/journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal in this city located six miles from the center of Paris.

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  • Black Detroit Homeowners Sue Morgan Stanley Over Mortgages

    Black Detroit Homeowners Sue Morgan Stanley Over Mortgages by Frederick H. Lowe Five African-American homeowners on Monday sued the investment banking firm Morgan Stanley, charging that the company encouraged one of the nation’s worst subprime lenders to issue mortgages to borrowers who were certain to default because of the loans’ high debt-to-income ratio.

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  • Highest Court Clears the Way for Early Voting for All in Ohio

    Highest Court Clears the Way for Early Voting for All in Ohio The United States Supreme Court on Tuesday boosted early voting in Ohio ahead of the Nov.

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  • Federal Judges Clear S.C. Photo-ID Law But Not for 2012

    Federal Judges Clear S.C. Photo-ID Law But Not for 2012 A three-judge federal panel has approved South Carolina’s new voter-ID law, but not for the 2012 presidential election.

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  • Andrew F. Brimmer Dies

    Andrew F. Brimmer Dies He was the first African American on the Federal Reserve Board Andrew F. Brimmer, the first African American to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, has died. Dr.

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  • National Baptist Voter Push Criticized as Mediocre

    National Baptist Voter Push Criticized as Mediocre by Maynard Eaton and Carrie L. Williams ATLANTA (TriceEdneyWire.com) --- Despite the fervent tones and solemn faces of the nation’s highest-ranking black Baptist leaders as they preached the importance of voting on Election Day, Nov.

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  • Blacks Must Use Economic Might

    Blacks Must Use Economic Might by A. Peter Bailey (TriceEdneyWire.com) --- Now that the end of the presidential campaign is nearly upon us, it is time to state once again that when it comes to promoting and protecting our individual and group interests in this country, we, as black people, have an extremely powerful -- not influential -- but powerful weapon that we don’t use effectively.

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  • Bain Sends Illinois Jobs to China

    Bain Sends Illinois Jobs to China by Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. (TriceEdneyWire.com) --- Dot Turner has worked at what is now Sensata Technologies in downstate Freeport, Ill., for 43 years. The company does sophisticated work creating sensors for automobiles.

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  • Statue of Civil-Rights Icon Fannie Lou Hamer Unveiled

    Statue of Civil-Rights Icon Fannie Lou Hamer Unveiled Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper (TriceEdneyWire.com) --- She is remembered across the world as the woman who was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” On Oct.

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  • Pullman Porter Blues Premiers in Seattle

    Pullman Porter Blues Premiers in Seattle by Susan M. Miller Seattle Repertory Theatre opened its 50th season September 27 with the world premiere of Pullman Porter Blues, a new musical by Seattle playwright Cheryl L. West.

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  • Nas’ Atlanta Pad Sold at Auction for $348,500

    Nas SunTrust Bank, the mortgage holder on rapper Nas’s home, has foreclosed on the living space and sold it at auction.

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  • Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith to Host Fundraiser for President Obama

    Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith to Host Fundraiser for President Obama Actor Will Smith and his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, will co-host later this month a fundraiser for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. The planned Oct.

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  • Christian College Investigates D’Souza’s Alleged Affair

    Christian College Investigates D’Souza’s Alleged Affair Dinesh D’Souza, who has made a scathing documentary about President Barack Obama, is in hot water with the board of directors of King’s College, a New York City-based Christian school, where D’Souza is president. The school’s board is reportedly investigating D’Souza, who is married but earlier this month filed for divorce, for an alleged adulterous affair with another woman that came to light in September. D’Souza arrived at a Christian event on Sept.

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  • An Energized Barack Obama Changes The Race

    An Energized Barack Obama Changes The Race by Barry Cooper Who would have thought it? The two candidates for President of the United States had another debate, and it was Mitt Romney who appeared to come across as “The Angry Black Man.

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  • Trial Date Scheduled in the Murder of Trayvon Martin

    Trial Date Scheduled in the Murder of Trayvon Martin George Zimmerman is scheduled to go on trial June 10th for the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Judge Debra Nelson set the date on Tuesday morning following a brief hearing.

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  • Roland Warren to Step Down as Head of the National Fatherhood Initiative

    Roland Warren to Step Down as Head of the National Fatherhood Initiative Roland C. Warren, president of the National Fatherhood Initiative, is leaving the organization to head another nonprofit agency.

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Julianne Malveaux
Julianne Malveaux

Health Care is a Civil Right

by Julianne Malveaux
(TriceEdneyWire.com) --- Our Constitution offers us “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," but we can’t pursue anything if we are unhealthy. Yet, health disparities in the United States are a fact of life. African-American people have shorter lives than whites for three reasons. One has to do with income and poverty. Poor people (and 27 percent of African Americans are poor, compared to about 10 percent of whites) have less money and less access, often having to make a choice among medical treatment, food, prescriptions and rent.

The second barrier to health equality is proximity and access. In other words, African Americans are more likely to be located a distance from hospitals. There are fewer hospitals and clinics in the 'hood than in wealthier areas, and some preventative clinics (such as a diabetes clinic in Harlem) have been eliminated because of a lack of funding.

Another barrier to health access is simply attitudes. Those health providers who have racial and other attitudes choose to treat patients differently. According to a study by the Institutes of Medicine (IOM), an African American or Latino man who goes to an emergency room with a broken bone is less likely to get painkillers than a white man is.

Part of this year’s Presidential debate revolves around the issue of health care. Mitt Romney, the architect of Massachusetts' health care system, which resembles the Obama health plan, is now jogging (at least that’s healthy) away from himself, rejecting plans he once championed. Or is he? Recently, he said he would preserve some aspects of Obamacare, not others. I am sure you have been asked to name three people, living or dead, you’d like to dine with. I’d like to dine with Mitt Romney and the truth!

Those who understand health-care challenges understand that the world won’t be the way it was and that our health-care system needs to be revised. President Obama, offering the first tweak in the social insurance contract in 80 years, has done so by passing health-care legislation that pushes the envelope. It’s not enough, but it is better than it has ever been.

Still, the system will be strained by the aging of the baby boomers, and challenged by the need to offer patient education and preventative services to prevent costly interventions. The uncoupling of employment and health insurance allows more people the opportunity to deal with their health. Thus, the health-care industry will be pushed to absorb people who are newly empowered to deal with their health.

Too many folks ignore their health because they have few options. I spent last weekend in the Mississippi Delta, in Cleveland, Mound Bayou and Ruleville, Mississippi. I traveled there with members of the Sojourner Truth Statue Committee, under the direction of Dr. Pat Reid-Merritt, the Richard Stockton University Distinguished Professor who led the national committee. We had the pleasure of offering a statue of Fannie Lou Hamer to the Ruleville community in the peaceful garden where Fannie Lou Hamer and her husband “Pap” are buried. There are so many reasons that the moment was moving, especially the presence of hundreds of children who joined the celebration.

Fannie Lou Hamer, an international treasure, a tribute to audacity, a woman who endured a brutal beating because she exercised her right to register and vote, died at 60 from untreated breast cancer. This woman climbed every mountain, cleared every hurdle, stood down the biggest and the baddest, in the majority community and in her own. Still, she did not have access to the health care that might have saved her life. She could stare down the Democratic National Committee, but she could not stare down the breast cancer that killed her because she neither had the dollars nor the access to treatment.

Fannie Lou Hamer died in 1977, at 60. Imagine what we might be as a community had she been able to live to 80, or to 90. She might have been able to shape and influence our movements, offer advice and influence, keep the Democratic Party accountable, and perhaps, also, explore independent politics and the ways Republicans might be engaged in the struggle for freedom.

We don’t know what she might have done, but we know that she died too early. That’s why I believe that healthcare is a civil right. If we have the right to a life with liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we have the right to be healthy enough to pursue happiness. The fight for the presidency is partly a fight for the pursuit of health and happiness. Which candidate supports the 47 percent in this fight?


Julianne Malveaux, Ph.D., is an economist and author based in Washington, D.C.

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