March 9, 2013 - March 15, 2013, The Afro-American
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Bloody Sunday Remembered The Associated Press The vice president and black leaders commemorating a famous civil rights march on March 3 said efforts to diminish the impact of African-Americans’ votes haven’t stopped in the years since the 1965 Voting Rights Act added millions to Southern voter rolls. More than 5,000 people followed Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma’s annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee. The event commemorates the “Bloody Sunday” beating of voting rights marchers — including a young Lewis — by state troopers as they began a march to Montgomery in March 1965. The 50-mile march prompted Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act that struck down impediments to voting by African-Americans and ended all-white rule in the South. Joe Biden leads marchers
AFRO Photo
Howard
Continued from A1 Howard University President Sidney A. Ribeau told the radio audience about the importance of the students’ work. “They are not only changing the lives of individuals in the cities and communities they visit,” Ribeau said. “They are changing America. This is really a difference maker.” The student volunteers are expected to complete more than 12,000 volunteer hours. The students who serve, according to program executive director Paula Whetsel-Ribeau, have a special commitment to aiding people who are in need. “There is no doubt in my mind that these are the students who are going to change the world,” she said. “Because of their courage and love, the fight in the communities they serve becomes their fight. By bringing these community issues to the forefront of our daily lives, collectively we can change our entire nation by what we are doing at Howard University. Officials said they hope
participating in Alternative Spring Break will kindle a life-long interest in volunteering. “Our intent is to develop relationships and projects that live beyond our week of service,” Whetsel-Ribeau said. Among this year’s assignments: students will travel to New Orleans to help families who have been displaced; they will work with families touched by gun violence in Chicago; and they will work on literacy programs in Detroit. For the first time, Alternative Spring Break students will work in Baltimore and Memphis. In Baltimore, they will interact with students to offset problems associated with gang violence that police said contributed to an uptick in homicides in 2012. They will also create three murals. In Memphis, students will work on projects involving public health and education. Howard University has a special relationship with Haiti. Medical students traveled there last year to
provide physical exams and medical treatment to hundreds of men, women and children. The Alternative Spring Break volunteers are scheduled to conduct dental screenings, teach sex health education and tutor adults in reading and writing English. Stanford Fraser, 21, a history major who was recently accepted into Harvard Law School, is returning to help in Chicago a second time. “With all the work needed and the news about gun violence, I felt it was important that I go back to Chicago,” he said. Natalie Morgan, 19, a senior biology major from Vallejo, Calif., said her experience in Detroit last year made her want to be address illiteracy again. “I was working with a group of 10th graders and I had one student who couldn’t read,” she said. “He couldn’t make it through a sentence without help from his classmates. It made me realize that what we’re doing in that week…is really important.”
“In major cities, you can eat foreign food every day, if you wish, live in the same areas as other foreigners, go to all Englishspeaking venues and watch international news,” he said. “There are some foreigners I know who have been in China for almost 10 years and don’t speak the local language…” Yet, many of their children are fluent. Some of them prefer to live in local housing, go to local Chinese restaurants every day and even befriend and date or marry Shanghai residents. It’s definitely a personal decision.” Miles away from Shanghai, rural communities reflect another world. “In 2006, it took about 40 minutes traveling by car beyond the Mu Tian Yu Great Wall visiting site west of Beijing to find yourself back a hundred years to a time and place where crops are harvested by hand and milled with a donkey,” said Coleman, a native of Lewiston, Idaho. Many Chinese are moving away from such rural trappings to relocate to the city, where the per capita disposable income is more than four times that of rural communities. “There are so many [more] construction sites in Beijing, Shanghai and all over than when I was here before,” said Julia Wilson, whose company organizes tours to China
and other countries to help improve the image of African Americans abroad. “They are building so many apartments because you have so many rural people moving to the city for jobs. They have no place for these people to live.” To slow China’s burgeoning population, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has adopted a onechild policy that restricts the right of parents to determine how many children they can have. In urban areas, couples can apply to have a second if each parent was an only child. The policy is more relaxed in rural areas where couples can have a second child if the first one was a girl. Each person in a couple who violates China’s population control policy must pay a “social compensation fee,” which can be as high as 10 times a person’s annual income. Even with its strict population control, China is expected to grow to 1.4 billion people by 2020. By definition, communist and democratic systems of government are fundamentally different. And there is also sharp difference in how citizens in China and the U.S. view their respective governments. Chen Xuelian, director of the Social Survey Research Office at the China Center for Comparative Politics and Economics, said: “According to surveys, the U.S. people believe more or trust their
China
Continued from A1 best-selling foreign automaker in the market. Bicycles co-existing with automobiles, especially in urban areas, is just one aspect of life in China. Lynne Coleman, who spent nine years as an administrator at international schools that cater to American expatriates in Beijing and Shanghai, gets excited when she reflects on her time in China. “It is a place where I can dine on delicate fusion cuisine prepared by worldclass French and American chefs, or choose a live snake for dinner and watch it killed, bloodied and cooked in front of me,” she said. Her husband, Craig Trygstad, prefers reflecting on China’s rich history rather than its rich—and sometimes exotic—food. “What I enjoyed most was getting to know the people,” said the former teacher. “And since I love history, it was great to be able to walk through so many of the sites I have read about—the Great Wall of China, the Terracotta Soldiers, the harbor in Shanghai where Chiang Kai-shek’s army escaped to Taiwan as Mao’s forces chased them down.” Carl Murphy, 31, a Black businessman from Atlanta, speaks fluent Mandarin, is co-owner of a Shanghai nightclub and operates a business that assists U.S. entrepreneurs looking to do business in China.
Michael Brown Campaigning for a Comeback By Yolanda Woodlee The AFRO Former D.C. Council member Michael A. Brown said his campaign is gaining momentum for next month’s special election as he knocks on doors, visits Michael A. Brown churches and plans to attend a series of fundraisers scheduled before the March 10 finance reporting deadline. “Now that I’m cleared, people are focusing on my campaign,” Brown said in an interview with the AFRO. “They are excited that this ethical cloud is now behind me. I knew it should have never been there anyway.” This week, Brown said there are a series of planned fundraisers, including one on Capitol Hill and another one on March 7 at the home of prominent lobbyist David Wilmot in Northwest Washington. While Brown said he’s never had any problem raising money, the lingering investigation into the missing funds of his 2012 campaign hasn’t helped. In January, Brown’s campaign reported raising $9,500 and spending all but $1,075, according to the campaign finance office. Last year, Brown said he raised $250,000 for his unsuccessful council bid. He called for an investigation during the campaign after he found that $114,000 was not in his bank account. Wesley W. Williams, a spokesman for the campaign finance office, confirmed there was never any evidence that suggested Brown was involved in any impropriety. “The evidence that was presented during the course of the audit did not implicate Mr. Brown,” Williams said. Brown is one of seven candidates vying for the at-large seat that was held by now D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D). local government more than the central government. In China, the public trusts the central government more than the local government.” In addition to a reverence for the central government, Chinese have an unshakable respect for the family. Children are taught at an early age that they must care for their parents when they grow old. Government officials invariably dye their hair black because of the widespread belief that people with white hair should be cared for in the sunset of their life and not do heavy work. The government does the heavy and intrusive work of closely monitoring its citizens. “Authorities monitored telephone conversations, fax transmissions, e-mail, text messaging, and Internet communications,” the U.S. State Department human rights report stated. “Authorities opened and censored domestic and
The other candidates in the special April 23 election are: Democrats Anita Bonds, chairwoman of the D.C. Democratic State Committee; Matthew Frumin, an attorney and Ward 3 advisory neighborhood commissioner; Elissa Silverman, a former reporter who now works with the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute; and Paul Zukerberg, an attorney. Rounding out the list are Patrick Mara, a Republican who is a member of the school board, and Perry Redd of the Statehood Green Party. Frumin has raised the most money with $82,000, including $10,000 out of his own pocket. To avoid the problems with his campaign finances that he faced during the November election, Brown is serving as his own treasurer. “I’m not playing around,” Brown said. “For a special election with a quick turnaround time, I thought I’d be treasurer of my own campaign. It’s the responsible thing to do.” Last summer, Brown, then vice chairman of the D.C. Council and a candidate for reelection to his citywide seat, called for an investigation into the actions of his campaign treasurer. The investigation focused on Hakim J. Sutton, according to a complaint filed by the campaign finance office to the D.C. Board of Elections on January 14. Sutton’s lawyer, J. Wyndal Gordon, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing by his client. Sutton worked on Brown’s campaigns for seven years. Brown said he has not spoken to Sutton since alleging the theft. Brown said the police and the U.S. Attorney’s office told him privately in September or October that he was not under investigation. But it was not publicly reported and Brown said he thinks that why he was defeated in November’s election by David Grosso (I-At Large). The campaign is back on track, Brown said. He is campaigning the traditional way— canvassing neighborhoods, dropping into churches every Sunday and targeting his base of support. He wants to continue to work on affordable housing, homelessness and making the District a family- and business-friendly city, he said. “I have unfinished business,” Brown said. “We never should have lost in the first place.”
international mail. Security services routinely monitored and entered residences and offices to gain access to computers, telephones, and fax machines.” In China, all print and broadcast media is state owned. Consequently, the State Department said, Chinese media is used “to propagate government views and [Communist Party] ideology.” Even foreign publications can’t escape the government’s watchful eye. When the New York Times ran a story last October disclosing that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s family had amassed $2.7 billion, Internet access to the story in China was quickly blocked. Social media, including Facebook and Twitter, are blocked in China. Chinese are quick to note some positive aspects of their government. “This country reserves seats for certain minorities at all levels of government,”
said Alexander Tzang, former deputy president of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and special adviser to the China-United States Exchange Foundation. “We have reserved seats for nonCommunists, for females, for minorities and so on… It is [a] much more equitable representation.” Many are hoping that Xi Jimping, the new general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, will keep his pledge to promote a more open society, including following China’s 1982 Constitution. Xi, who was elevated several months ago along with six new members of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee Political Bureau, said: “The CPC should be able to put up with sharp criticism, correct mistakes if it has committed them and avoid them if it has not.” NEXT: China and Race