Tag: Black

(Photo: Deborah Barfield Berry, USA TODAY) Turning to the national stage To take advantage of the national attention, She the People will host a presidential forum in Houston in April – the first by a group led by women of color. “For men and women (candidates) of various races, they all need to win women of color,'' Allison said. Virginia is a crucial state for Democratic presidential candidates. “It’s very important for women of color to be heard given the political environment that’s going on there," Allison said. One early indicator of that power will be who shows up for the presidential forum, Walsh said. The group plans listening sessions with black female leaders to discuss get-out-the-vote campaigns and demands from candidates. Campbell said her organization hasn’t heard from presidential candidates. Black female voters helped Doug Jones pull off an upset in Alabama in 2017, making him the state’s first Democratic senator in 25 years. Campbell criticized Republicans and Democrats for not talking with black women enough. "When it comes to engaging and being respectful of the black vote and black women’s vote, they have a lot of room (where) they can go up," she said of Republicans.

(Photo: Deborah Barfield Berry, USA TODAY) Turning to the national stage To take advantage of the national attention, She the People will host a presidential forum in Houston in April – the first by a group led by women of color. “For men and women (candidates) of various races, they all need to win women of color,'' Allison said. Virginia is a crucial state for Democratic presidential candidates. “It’s very important for women of color to be heard given the political environment that’s going on there," Allison said. One early indicator of that power will be who shows up for the presidential forum, Walsh said. The group plans listening sessions with black female leaders to discuss get-out-the-vote campaigns and demands from candidates. Campbell said her organization hasn’t heard from presidential candidates. Black female voters helped Doug Jones pull off an upset in Alabama in 2017, making him the state’s first Democratic senator in 25 years. Campbell criticized Republicans and Democrats for not talking with black women enough. "When it comes to engaging and being respectful of the black vote and black women’s vote, they have a lot of room (where) they can go up," she said of Republicans.

Washington (CNN)A new political group called the Black Economic Alliance publicly launched Monday with $3.5 million raised for this year's midterm elections and plans to back 10 to 15 candidates. The group, which seeks to marshal black business leaders behind an economics-focused political push, announced four initial endorsements of Democratic candidates: Stacey Abrams for Georgia governor, Ben Jealous for Maryland governor, Richard Cordray for Ohio governor and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine in his re-election bid. Cook said the group will both contribute to candidates and back get-out-the-vote efforts. "We're evaluating on a case-by-case basis ... what it will take to win" each race, Cook said. Coles pointed to unfair lending practices, educational inequities and a disproportionate lack of progress in home ownership and wages for black Americans. We are an organization seeking political and policy solutions to these problems." "I've had to make choices based on economic issues that face everyone but have had an acute effect on me," she said. Abrams said that since 2016, young black people who might have sat the previous election out are "very much woke and conscious" of the political environment. He also said Ohio has an infant mortality crisis that is "especially pronounced in the African-American community" and said he'd protect the state's Medicaid expansion. Cordray also said the fallout of the housing crisis in the late 2000s diminished many homeowners' wealth.

He is co-author with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski of a book about the campaign, Let Trump Be Trump. Lewandowski attracted controversy this week in his own appearance on Fox, when he appeared to mock the plight of a girl with Down’s syndrome who was said to have been caught up in the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. On Saturday the two men accompanied Trump on a trip to Nevada. On Sunday, Bossie appeared Fox & Friends – the president’s favoured show – for a discussion about liberal reactions to Trump’s immigration policy. “You don’t have to be a golden retriever to hear all the dog whistles coming out of the White House these days,” he said. “You’re out of your cotton-picking mind,” Bossie retorted. “Cotton-picking mind?” said Payne. “Brother, let me tell you something: I got some relatives who picked cotton and I’m not going to sit here and allow you to attack me like that on TV. I’m not out of my cotton-picking mind.” Cotton was the predominant crop of the slave-owning American south in the 19th century and the economic engine of the Confederacy in the civil war. I apologize to Joel Payne, Fox News and its viewers.” A Fox statement said Bossie’s “comments today were deeply offensive and wholly inappropriate.

The catalyst for North Carolina’s assault was simple: black people had dared access their 15th amendment rights. Since 2000, African American voter registration had increased by 51.1% in the state, and blacks also had a higher voter turnout “rate than white registered voters in both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections”. Effective black access to that public space, the voting booth, triggered, as the federal court noted, a targeting of African American voters “with almost surgical precision”. And, as Think Progress reported, the GOP slashed the number of early voting sites in Guilford county, which is nearly 30% African American, from “16 in 2012 to a single location” in 2016. There was a similar elimination of early voting sites in Mecklenburg county, home to the city of Charlotte and 15% of the state’s African American population. Similar to North Carolina, Indiana’s GOP realized how essential early voting was to black voter turnout. Once again, the targeting was clear. Only three counties in Indiana have more than 325,000 people and account for 72% of the state’s black population. Then, in 2014, Kemp put his crosshairs on the New Georgia Voter Project, an organization determined to register some of the 700,000 African Americans in the state who were not yet on the voter rolls. In 2016, pummeled by voter suppression in more than 30 states, the black voter turnout plummeted by 7%.

Dr. Patricia "Pat" Spearman is a retired Lieutenant Colonel, ordained minster, and the first lesbian member of the Nevada State Legislature. During her 29 years in the U.S. Army, Pat served around the world with her final assignment being at…

On March 27, the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) honored the late Dr. Ronald Walters, who was a Black political scholar, at the Thurgood Marshall Center in the District of Columbia. “This is a special time to honor Dr. Walters,” Dr. Elsie Scott, the director of Howard’s Ronald Walters Center. “His spirit is in this room. In 1958, he led other young Blacks in a successful sit-in protest of the Dockum Drug Store in Wichita for refusing to serve African Americans and this took place two years before the more highly publicized Greensboro, N.C. sit-ins. He came to Howard University in 1971 and became chairman of the political science department before leaving it in 1996 to become the head of the Afro-American studies department at the University of Maryland, College Park. “Ronald Walters was a scholar and intellectual,” Brazile said. “Ron believed that Black people should work within the political system to change it.” Winbush said that Walters was a firm believer in Black liberation and was a proponent of reparations. “He believed Black people were due for the centuries of work put into this country without compensation.” Madison said he first met Walters at the 1972 Black Political convention that took place in Gary, Ind., and was impressed by him then. We had a private meeting where he told me how to register voters to help Jackson without getting in trouble with the NAACP.” Madison echoed the sentiments of Scott when he said that Walters would go to the Black media first with news. “When Ron wanted to say something, he went to the Black media first,” Madison said.

In a week filled with troublesome and even tragic news, there are a few bright spots. "Black Panther" grossed $242 million in the United States and $426 million worldwide in its first weekend. Among the many records the film has already set: It is the second-highest grossing film over any four-day opening period in history, and the highest-grossing film ever released in February. Commentators have further observed with delight that -- for once -- a film with predominantly black characters isn't about slavery or exploitation. In truth, none of this should really be surprising. "The Cosby Show" spent five consecutive years as the No. 1 show on TV in the 1980s, helped launch spinoffs ("A Different World") and other shows featuring black artists like "In Living Color" and "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air." Mensah posthumously received the Army's highest award for heroism outside of combat. The next morning, 120 people showed up to help. In fact, it's real people in the here and now -- observable every day.