VOLUME 97 - NUMBER 6
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2018
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( PoorPeople’s Campaign’
readies nationwide mobilization
By Martha Waggoner
RALEIGH (AP) - The renewed version of the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr.’s campaign to lift poor people is holding its first national
mobilization, with actions and events planned Feb. 5 in 32 states and
the nation’s capital.
Poor people, clergy and activists in the Poor People’s Campaign
plan to deliver letters to politicians in state Capitol buildings
demanding that leaders confront what they call systemic racism
evidenced in voter suppression laws and poverty rates.
Among those who have signed on to the campaign is the Rev. John
Mendez, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina, who recalled protesting in New York City in the
1960s.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus wear Kente cloth-inspired prints,, during the State of the Union
address on January 30. The CBC members stood in solidarity with the Americans, Haitians and the African
nations smeared by President Trump’s comments during a bipartisan meeting about immigration at the White
House. (Lauren Victoria Burke/NNPA)
CBC Chairman Offers Stinging Rebuttal to
President Trump’s State of the Union Address
By Freddie Allen (Editor-In-
Chief, NNPA Newswire)
—Members of the
Congressional Black Caucus
wore Kente cloth-inspired
prints to the State of the Union
address standing in solidarity
with Americans, Haitians and
the African nations smeared by
President Trump’s racist rhetoric.
— Janelle Jones, an analyst
with the Economic Policy
Institute, told Vox that, “The
recovery of employment was
happening long before Trump
got into office.”
—The Black unemployment
rate is almost double the White
unemployment rate, a trend that
has endured for decades.
Rep. Cedric Richmond, the
chairman of the Congressional
Black Caucus railed against
President Donald Trump’s
boasts about the economy,
especially his claims about the
Black community, in a blistering
response to the president’s State
of the Union (SOTU) address.
CBC members also wore
Kente cloth-inspired prints to the
State of the Union address.
Richmond said that every
action taken by President
Trump, since his election,
has been destructive for poor,
working-class, and middle-class
communities throughout the
country, as well as communities
of color.
Richmond said that nothing
that the president said during his
speech wiped that slate clean.
The CBC chairman also
leveled the charge made by
lawmakers and economists alike
that Trump is just riding the
KMf"| nnc wave that began
1
during President Barack
Obama’s tenure.
“He boasts about a booming
economy, but it is not something
he can take credit for,” said
Richmond. “Much like the
money he inherited from his
father to start his business,
President Trump inherited
a growing economy from
President Obama.”
Richmond continued: “The
low Black unemployment rate
he boasted about has been falling
for eight years and has only
changed by one percent since he
took office. In addition, while the
Black unemployment rate is at
an historic low, it is still double
the rate of White unemployment
and doesn’t take into account
the fact that African Americans
are disproportionately
underemployed and underpaid.”
Janelle Jones, an analyst
working on a variety of labor
market topics within EPI’s
Program on Race, Ethnicity,
and the Economy (PREE) told
Vox that, “The recovery of
employment was happening long
before Trump got into office.”
Richmond also said that
even though the president’s
infrastructure proposal sounded
good, he doubted that the
proposals would live up to their
promise.
“We know that it will be
more of the same: toll roads,
reduced federal cost-share, and
giveaways to his wealthy friends
in the construction industry,”
said Richmond. “It is important
to note that he said nothing about
contracting with minority firms.”
Richmond said that the CBC
can now answer the question
“I’ve been waiting for almost 50 years for this to actually happen,”
said Mendez, 68.
The campaign is especially important now because the leaders
who don’t want to help the poor “should not have a free hand to say
and do whatever they want and there be no resistance,” he said.
Led by the Revs. William Barber of North Carolina and Liz
Theoharis of New York, the campaign officially began Dec. 4, 50
years after King started the first Poor People’s Campaign. King was
assassinated a few months later and “nobody really picked it up”
until now, Mendez said.
The letters to politicians call for a new course in government. “Our
faith traditions and state and federal constitutions all testify to the
immorality of an economy that leaves out the poor, yet our political
hat Trump posed to the Black community in 2016, “with 100 percent
certainty.”
Richmond continued: “African Americans have a lot to lose under
the Trump Administration and we have lost a lot already, especially
when it comes to his justice, voting rights, education, housing, and
healthcare policies. President Trump is still who we thought he was
and we won’t be fooled by this speech.”
Voters ask US Supreme Court not
to delay legislative maps
By Gary D. Robertson
RALEIGH (AP) - Dozens of North Carolina voters are asking
the U.S. Supreme Court to ensure this year’s legislative elections
are held under district lines redrawn recently by federal judges,
since previous elections this decade occurred under what have been
deemed unconstitutional maps.
Their legal brief filed Feb. 2 asked the court to refuse a request by
Republican legislative leaders. The GOP officials had asked the high
court to block enforcement of a ruling last month by three judges
approving a court-appointed expert’s changes to House and Senate
lines.
If the GOP request is denied, then the amended maps would be
used beginning with candidate filing for the General Assembly on
Feb. 12. If the request is approved, then districts likely would be used
this fall that are again tainted by racial bias, as happened during the
2012, 2014 and 2016 elections, lawyers for the voters wrote.
“The citizens of North Carolina have been forced to endure an
egregious racial gerrymander for over six years and three election
cycles,” Jessica Ring Amunson wrote in the brief to Chief Justice
John Roberts, who receives appeals from North Carolina. “If the
court grants the stay, the voters ofNorth Carolina will have to endure
another election under unconstitutional legislative maps, and (the
Republicans) will be rewarded for their tactics of delay at nearly
every stage of this case.”
There’s no timetable when Roberts or the entire court will.decide.
The voters originally sued in 2015, and the following year the
three judges ruled that House and Senate redistricting performed by
the Republican-dominated legislature in 2011 contained 28 districts
that relied too heavily on race. They said the maps must be thrown
out and redrawn. The Supreme Court upheld that decision last June.
The General Assembly said it didn’t use racial data in August
when new lines were drawn, but the same judges decided four new
districts were too similar to the 2011 districts, reflecting continued
racial bias. Another five House districts also shouldn’t have been
altered, the judges said, because that violated the state constitution’s
provision against mid-decade redistricting.
discourse consistently ignores the 140 million poor and low-income
people in America,” the letter states.
Barber, who will be among the group that delivers letters to the
office of House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, said the campaign is building toward a “season
of direct action and civil disobedience” that begins on May 13 and
continues through June 21, the anniversary of the slayings of three
civil rights workers in 1964 in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
The actions, including a poverty tour, will be followed by more
work as part of a multiyear campaign to build power “among the
poorest and most powerless communities,” he added.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER
And on Feb. 12 - the 50th anniversary of the sanitation workers’
strike that brought King to Memphis, where he was assassinated -
fast-food cooks and cashiers plan to walk off their jobs in Memphis to
support higher wages and union rights. Protesters plan to march from
Clayborn Temple to Memphis City Hall, the same route the sanitation
workers took.
The most important part of the campaign is that the people who
are hurting because of poverty and racism are its leaders, Theoharis
said. “I feel very positive that the real heroes and heroines of our
country are coming together to cross all kinds of lines that usually
divide us like race, gender, economic status, political party.”
Leslie Boyd of Candler has followed Barber since he began the
“Moral Monday” protest movement in North Carolina almost five
years ago. Her son, Mike Danforth, was 33 when he died of colon
cancer in 2008 because he lacked insurance even though he had a job
and couldn’t afford the yearly colonoscopies that he needed.
Her hope for the campaign is that it changes what she sees as a
national narrative that not only blames the poor for the poverty but
uses religion to do so. Too many people believe that “if you were a
good person, Jesus would bless you,” she said.
U.S. Census figures show that the poverty rate among blacks was
22 percent in 2016, while it was almost 9 percent among whites. But
in sheer numbers, almost 17.5 million white people are classified as
living in poverty, compared to 8.7 million blacks. The U.S. poverty
rate was almost 13 percent in 2016.
“It’s not immoral to be poor,” said Boyd, 65. “It’s immoral to
make people poor with our actions as a government and as a people.”
After address, Trumps
ride back to White House
in same car
By Laurie Kellman
WASHINGTON (AP) - Scenes from the Capitol on a night of
pomp, pageantry and politics for the State of the Union address:
It’s not a question that typically needs asking. But yes, the White
House says, Melania Trump rode back from the Capitol in the same
car as her husband, President Donald Trump, after his State of the
Union speech.
That wasn’t a foregone conclusion.
The first lady had not been seen in public with her husband since
the Wall Street Journal reported that lawyers for Trump paid Stormy
Daniels $130,000 to stay quiet about what the porn star said was an
affair with the future president. Daniels said in a statement Tuesday
that the affair she had described never happened.
The couple’s 13th anniversary passed without public comment.
And Mrs. Trump abruptly canceled her trip with the president to
Davos, Switzerland, for an economic summit.
Mrs. Trump traveled separately from her husband to the Capitol
for the address. Her aide said she had held receptions at both places
for the guests seated with her for the speech.
The president began his speech by acknowledging “the first
lady” along with other congressional leaders. Mrs. Trump did not
visibly react.
It wasn’t the longest State of the Union address. That designation
still goes to former President Bill Clinton.
But an hour and 20 minutes of President Donald Trump talking
Tuesday was plenty long enough for House Democrats. Just before
Trump finished, their leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, made eye contact
with Rep. Joe Crowley of New York and pointed toward the back
of the House chamber.
Democrats followed their lead and made an unusually quick
beeline for the exits.
Earlier, Pelosi had warned House Democrats not to leave the
chamber mid-speech.
Trump’s first State ofthe Union address clocked in at about eight
minutes shorter than the final such address by Clinton.