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™ Vol. 13 Issue 45
TEXAS’ Widest Circulated and Read Newspaper with a Black Perspective
December 10-16, 2008 www.aframnews.com
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African-American
LIVING LEGEND
Spam for Christmas Dinner
An Economic Outlook: What’s in store for the U.S. Economy in 2009? CARMEN WATKINS
African-American News&Issues
Dena Gray: HIV/AIDS Advocate for treatment and prevention In 1991, at age 21, Dena Gray was diagnosed HIV positive while attending the University of Houston. Ms. Gray started her advocacy in the field of HIV/AIDS as a volunteer with AIDS Foundation Houston, conducting HIV orientation trainings for new volunteers; serving as HIV educator in juvenile detention centers and participating as a youth counselor for Camp Hope, a camp for HIV positive youth. In 1999, she was elected to serve as Community Co-Chair for the City of Houston Health and Human Services Community Planning Group, serving three consecutive terms and she currently serves as Media Chair for the State of Emergency Task Force (SOETF), started in 1999 by the Mayor of Houston, Lee P. Brown, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and Harris County Judge Robert Eckels the organization was started after a state of emergency was declared in the African-American community. She has also served on various committees for the Ryan White Planning Council, including the Affected Committee and the Joint Comprehensive Planning Committee. Ms. Gray served for two years on the State of Texas Assembly Group East, Chair for the Houston HIV/AIDS Coordinating Committee (HACC) in 1999 where she continues to serve. Gray has served on the American Psychological Association’s Committee on Psychology and AIDS since 2002 and serves as a facilitator and panelist for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention on HIV related issues. In 2004, she created Pozitive Underground 91, a consulting group which works to educate the community with informal counseling sessions for groups and individuals. This week’s Living Legend is Ms. Dena Gray for her courage to advocate and educate in the face of her own personal challenge.
Quote of the Week: “Anybody singing the blues is in a deep pit yelling for help.” -Mahalia Jackson
Some people think that President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for Treasurer Secretary Tim Geithner, should start his position now instead of in January because of America’s financial crisis.
Sorry, more of the same, my friend. Last year, the U.S. economy fell more than economists expected. The economy’s fundamental problems grew worse as each quarter closed over the years up into 2008 today. America’s biggest concern about finances and our economy is: “What will really happen with the U.S. Economy in 2009?” Business activity show a deepening recession making it an eventful year to come in both politics and the economy. President-elect
Barack Obama will inherit the weakest economy in decades, as U.S. businesses adjust their capital spending and hiring to the deteriorating outlook for sales and profits put us in the toughest financing climate. If Thanksgiving is an indicator, the nations’ turkey producers feared a dry spell, as the cost of Thanksgiving dinner rose over $50. Now some are suggesting that we could see a re-emergence of that old mealtime favorite, Spam. Yes, the not so popular product that many of us grew up with on as sandwiches and as meat substiSee SPAM page 3
Today’s gospel artists’ roots stem from slaves’ old spirituals MARVIN D. CLOUD
African-American News&Issues
HOUSTON- During slavery, clergymen in the new world were employed to convert all captured Africans (and Indians) to Christianity. Many people have wondered why the slaves were so easily converted to this new religion. Partially, it was because many of them empathized with the Biblical characters. For the most part, the message of Christianity allowed them to endure the tragedy, trials and tribulation of slavery. Eventually, the slaves, who after being stripped from their families, only had one thing to hold onto besides distant memories, started blending their heralded music with their new presence, developing a rich musical culture in the process. They created a new form of music as they
sang while they worked, ostensibly to make the labor easier. As they became more indoctrinated in Christianity, their work songs morphed into “spirituals,” which were based more on the Bible, and promised a better life to those who faithfully endured. After slavery, spirituals became the music of choice for worship among Blacks in America and eventually challenged the blues as a commercially viable music form. No one knew the cathartic message of spirituals better than Thomas A. Dorsey, the author of the timeless classic “Precious Lord,” who wrote this song in 1932 in Chicago, Illinois, after his wife Nettie died while giving birth to a child (who died later). Ironically, Dorsey, known as “the father of gospel music,” was a young blues pianist, when he composed the song which has since crossed racial and cultural boundaries. Even Elvis
Phyllis Kennedy
Darrell L. Rushing
Presley, considered the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll” recorded it (1958). However, there probably haven’t been a more soul-stirring rendition
than the one that Dorsey’s protege Mahalia Jackson did. At Martin Luther’s King’s funeral in 1968,
See SPIRITUALS page 3
Department of Justice issues new probe into 1964 murders Killers of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney may finally be brought to justice MARIO SALAS
African-American News&Issues
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is once again probing the Ku Klux Klan’s 1964 brutal killings of Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney, three civil rights workers in Neshoba County Mississippi, popularized as the “Mississippi Burning” case. A DOJ official recently made contact with a Mississippi newspaper inquiring about the court record of the 1967 trial that ended in a guilty finding of Imperial Magic Man Sam Bowers. This could be a signal that the FBI is finally going to do something about the other killers who are out there enjoying life. The Justice Department’s change of attitude from doing nothing,
under the Bush regime, to finally making advances toward prosecuting the other killers is a dramatic shift from their do-nothing attitude in the past. The June 21, 1964 killings of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney have been ignored by a Bush Justice Department that would rather fire federal prosecutors for doing the right thing, than re-open the Civil Rights murder cases from the 1950s and 1960s. Despite the fact that five suspects involved in the brutal killings of the three civil rights workers are still alive, the DOJ and the FBI are dragging their feet in these cases, apparently hoping that the last remaining murderers will die of old age. The FBI never investigated the murder of Bobby Jo Phillips in
San Antonio, and his brutal killers still remain in the San Antonio area. Phillips was killed in 1968 by San Antonio Police Officers who took turns beating him to a pulp. Those officers were cleared, a typical move by legal authorities in San Antonio. In the case of the three Mississippi men that were assassinated by the Klan, only seven of the 18 killers were actually convicted. However, the only murder prosecution took place 41 years later when a jury convicted Klan killer Edgar Ray Killen on three counts of manslaughter. He is now serving 60 years in prison, and is expected to die there as a convicted criminal and a disgrace to the South. According to records obtained in the case by the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger Newspaper, the grand jury that issued a true bill in Killen’s case missed the mark by not indicting Billy Wayne Posey. According to the Ledger, it was missed by one vote of the grand
jury, and that vote was illegally cast by a relative of Posey. What kind of grand jury setup was that? Since when is it legal for a relative to cast a vote against an indictment for a relative? Still, there is apparently a racist crew at work in the Mississippi justice system. The Southern Poverty Law Center, the group that has slammed the KKK to the ground in the court system, has urged DOJ officials to take up a case against Posey, but many feel that until the Bush regime is out of office it won’t happen. The Civil Rights Movement throughout the South has pressured the DOJ and the FBI to get off of their butts and prosecute the others that were involved but have been given a free pass for all of these years. Activists have made the issue well-known by saying that, “Killen did not act alone. He shouldn’t be in jail alone.” Those other suspects include Billy Posey, Pete Harris, See MURDERS page 3 TX-1