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a luncheon on advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in county government.
PHYSICIAN HAILS COUNTY DIVERSITY
Askew, a certified pediatrician who moved to Prince George’s less than three years ago from New York, spoke at the luncheon with County Council vice chair Deni Taveras (D-District 2) of Adelphi.
“One of the things I’m most impressed about is the number and quality and smarts of the women of color in leadership in Prince George’s County,” he said in an interview. “It’s something I’ve never seen anywhere else. It’s such a great pleasure to walk into rooms of leadership and not be the only person of color, or one of two people, which I’ve often been in places where I’ve been. Here you have a county being led by people who look like the people they represent.”
Besides Taveras, who is a Dominican, the county has at least 10 Black women in leadership positions such as Chief Administrative Officer Tara Jackson.
In Executive Angela Alsobrooks’ absence, she takes the helm as second-in-command in the executive branch.
Jackson not only gave welcoming remarks at Saturday’s general session, but she also participated on a panel Sunday offering advice for women to overcome barriers in becoming government leaders. Two words she used: flexibility and multitasking.
She also praised Alsobrooks for creating a culture that allows for employees to spend time with their families.
“I just came from a baseball game,” Jackson said. “Sometimes I’m happy when my husband and my [7-year-old] son go do whatever they do.” County officials also received resources from other county leaders and resumed face to face conversations that they didn’t have for more than a year.
During welcoming remarks at the conference Saturday, county council member Monique Anderson-Walker (D-District 8) of Fort Washington mentioned a chat with neighboring Montgomery County councilmember Craig Rice on farmland grants.
In an interview, Rice said the county established a new farmer program four years ago.
According to Montgomery County’s Office of Agriculture, the program provides specialized training in marketing, accounting and sustainable farm practices.
According to the county’s Conference and Visitors Bureau agriculture contributes $287 million annually to the overall economy.
“Being able to spread that to other jurisdictions…makes complete sense,” Rice said. “With a large pocket of people of color, this is something [Prince George’s County] can also do and be incredibly successful in addressing some of the food insecurity [and] nutrition issues we are seeing primarily in people of color.” WI
Twitter: @jabariwill Poor People’s Campaign.
“This is a Black civil rights issue but it’s an issue for everyone who cares about democracy -- who wants a government that serves all of us,” Barber said during the organization’s “National Call for Moral Revival” on July 12.
The event counted as the first of several “Moral Mondays for Season of Action” rallies with more scheduled every Monday through August 6 -- the 56th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.
On that day, organizers will demand that Congress end the filibuster, pass all provisions of the For the People Act, restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act and raise the hourly minimum wage to $15.
“This is not [just] a battle against Jim Crow. We are facing interlocking injustices and we must have an intersectional movement to stop it,” Barber continued. “When they do this, whoever they are and whatever party they’re in, they’re engaging in politics that are economically insidious and theologically sinful. We must ask the question on what side they are.”
Also on Tuesday, President Joe Biden (D) delivered a speech in Philadelphia during which he affirmed his commitment to protecting voting rights and outlined a plan for doing so.
The speech followed failed attempts by Democratic lawmakers to circumvent filibuster rules and pass a sweeping voting rights, election overhaul and government ethics package. This, in tandem with the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, has stoked fears about what’s been described as the Republican Party’s assault on voting rights.
As the battle over voting rights continues, civil rights leaders joined Biden in a private meeting. Since his election, they’ve demanded that he and Vice President Kamala Harris speak out against the passage of nearly two dozen restrictive voting laws, enacted in 14 states.
Harris, in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee, has since launched a $25 million get-out-the-vote effort ahead of the 2022 elections.
The primary tenet of the “Season of Nonviolent Moral Direct Action to Save Our Democracy” rests in organizers' desire to go beyond social media and letter writing to make their case to lawmakers.
Monday marked the start of a nationwide call-in to senators and the White House. Upcoming events involve clergy, women and members of historically-oppressed groups, each of whom will continue to target lawmakers with visits and prayer.
On Monday, Linnell H.Stokes Fall, a Baltimore resident who recently faced both COVID-19 and unemployment, said nonviolent moral direct action has become a matter of life and death for her and others in her situation.
“We have healthcare systems built to violate and ignore poor people. It’s violence,” Fall said.
“Denial of healthcare is voter suppression. We have to fight for voting rights now: Black people, white people, indigenous people. We didn’t get the right to vote by writing letters and tweets. We didn’t ask politely. No one gave us that right in the first place. God gave us that right,” she said.
WI @SamPKCollins
for people to get refunds from airlines and to comparison shop for flights by requiring clear upfront disclosure of add-on fees; allow the purchase of hearing aids over the counter and make it easier and cheaper to switch banks by requiring banks to allow customers to take their financial transaction data with them to a competitor.
The order calls on the leading antitrust agencies, the Department of Justice [DOJ] and Federal Trade Commission [FTC], to enforce antitrust laws “vigorously” and recognize “that the law allows them to challenge prior bad mergers that past Administrations did not previously challenge.”
“We're in the midst of a historic economic recovery and because our historic vaccination program has been working…America’s now on track for the highest economic growth in 40 years,” said Biden during a press conference on Friday, July 9.
“But what we’ve seen over the past few decades are more concentrations and monopolies that hold our economy back. We see it in big agriculture, big tech and big pharma, the list goes on.”
Biden said rather than competing for consumers companies are consuming their competitors. And rather than competing for workers they’re finding ways to gain the upper hand on labor. He added that too often the government has also made it harder for new companies to break in and compete.
“We’re bringing fair competition back to the economy,” he said. “Taking another critical step in an economy that works for everybody. Better prices and services, new ideas and products. Fair competition."
WI were locked out of the voting process by extra-legal procedures like counting beans or bubbles in a bar of soap, or by the indifference of futility and frustration, they witnessed and took note of the power and influence that others derived from voting.
Taking note led to action, and Blacks and other citizens of color began to pursue an equal measure of participation and reward. It looked like their efforts would bear fruit until an Orange Ogre appeared spouting "Grievance Politics." This Orange Ogre convinced a small, but active group that their lives were being unfairly imposed upon by people of color, or folks who spoke a different language, or folks seeking a better life in the U.S.
The Orange Ogre convinced his followers that the remedy to their frustration of seeing others enjoying the fruits of the U.S. was to reject the principles of democracy which had shaped it and brought any greatness it had achieved. Under his tutelage, they developed
MORIAL from Page 26
ed to metropolitan city governments where violent crime is most serious.
One study cited by the Biden administration showed that violent crime arrests dropped dramatically among students who took part in Chicago's "One Summer Chicago Plus." The program offered an eight-week summer job at minimum wage, an adult job mentor, and for some youth, a cognitive behavioral therapy-based curriculum.
The researchers wrote: "Summer jobs programs can reduce a hugely socially costly outcome at a relatively low cost; we estimate that so we estimate that social benefits are likely to justify program costs, and may outweigh them by as much as 11 to 1."
A Brookings Institution study
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alternate realities where truth and facts do not matter. He taught that the undemocratic theft of elections and the unfair retention of power were means to a positive end. And the world would, once again, be the great place for those not cursed with abundant melanin.
This fairy tale is far too similar to our own reality. It's not amusing or frivolous. We are at a historic crossroad and our children's future is in the balance. Whether straight facts or fairy tales, you must understand the significance of the problem. Our voice and our right to vote are being challenged into oblivion. YOU must accept a sense of urgency that is proportional to the threat. You must beware of that "great" place to which the Orange Ogre wants to return. WI
of Boston's Summer Youth Employment Program found a 35 percent reduction in arrests among participants.
More importantly, the effects appear to be lasting. These programs do more than keep young people occupied; they teach valuable social and emotional skills that can alter the course of a young person's life.
Youth who participated in Boston's program showed improved attitudes toward their communities. They were more likely to report that they had a lot to contribute, and that they felt connected to their neighborhood. They also were more likely to report knowing how to manage their emotions, how to ask for help when they needed it, and how to constructively resolve conflict with a peer.
Boston has already announced that it will use American Rescue Youth who participated in Boston's program showed improved attitudes toward their communities. They were more likely to report that they had a lot to contribute, and that they felt connected to their neighborhood.
Plan funds to expand the Mayor's Summer Youth Program.
As the nation emerges from the economic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic, it's crucial that we avoid past patterns and practices that created the economic despair that contributes to violent crime. Summer jobs for youth are a proven solution. WI
Alan Amrhine, Communications Director Lutheran Mission Society
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Name...................................................................................................... Address .................................................................................................. City, State, Zip ........................................................................................ Phone number (daytime)........................................................................ Yes! I want to subscribe for: n1 year/$55.00 n 2years/$70.00 Method of payment: n Check Enclosed n Visa/MasterCard Credit card number................................................................................. Signature....................................................................................... states. Voter suppression following the civil rights movement was ratified in Shelby v. Holder and now in Brnovich vs. the DNC, that have essentially gutted the Voting Rights Act, the crown jewel of the civil rights movement.
The so-called "conservative" justices on the Supreme Court are rewriting the laws passed by Congress to serve their own partisan purposes. Now the excuse is to limit voter fraud, even though there is no evidence of such fraud other than in the ravings of partisan politicians. This struggle will continue. Clearly Republicans across the country have decided that rather than seeking to win the votes of African Americans and other peoples of color, they would rather pass measures to suppress their vote — from discriminatory changes in voting practices, to gerrymandering of districts, to (most dangerously) empowering Republican legislatures to overturn the results of an election. Once more people of conscience must stand up and or-
WILLIAMS from Page 26
Systemic racism, white supremacy and inequality did not end with either Emancipation or the civil rights movement. The same forces that used poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and violent intimidation against earlier generations of citizens are continuing to use every voter suppression tool at their disposal to try to cling to power right now, and in many places "election integrity" has become the latest new name for a very old snake. In June, Black Voters Matter held a Freedom Rides for Voting Rights bus tour from Mississippi to Washington, D.C. These 60th anniversary rides both honored the original riders and showed just how much is still at stake as the fight to protect our sacred right to vote rages today.
This week, President Biden and Vice President Harris held a White House meeting with key civil rights leaders, who stressed the urgent need for taking more forceful action immediately during what must become a "summer of activism." The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is one of several legislative battlegrounds. In a White House proclamation on the Freedom Rides anniversary, President Biden said: "Across his lifetime of service in and out of Government, John Lewis was the moral compass of our Nation — though he absorbed the force of human nature's cruelty, he emanated dignity and grace. On the anniversary of his journey on the Freedom Rides, I am reminded of the message he shared with me before he passed away last summer: that we must stay focused on the work left undone to heal this Nation."
He added: "My Administration also supports further legislation to protect that most fundamental right [to vote] — to make our democracy more equitable and accessible for all Americans."
But as other lawmakers continue enacting legislation explicitly seeking to do the exact opposite in state after state across the country right now, today's nonviolent soldiers must stay focused, stay organized and stay on the move.
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ganize to protect the right to vote and to counter those who would suppress it.
Once more, rightwing justices have written another shameful chapter of judicial ignominy that must simply be overturned. Once more Congress must act to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to counter the brazen efforts of the court's right wing to neuter it. Once more, those standing in the way of equality under the law will find that the movement for justice will not be deterred.
WI
ASKIA from Page 27
In 1978, I met Billy, in Tripoli, of all places. I was among a delegation of 80 assembled by former U.S. Sen. William Fulbright, and we were official guests of Col. Qaddafi and the Libyan government. Billy was the personal guest of the foreign minister at the time and kept showing up at our delegation's events. He was a fun kind of guy.
And then there was Earl Carter, his father. I never met him, but Jimmy said that he was a conventional kind of Georgia peanut farmer in the 1930s, especially regarding race. In his autobiography "Why Not The Best," Carter wrote that his father was actually kind to the Black hands who helped out on the farm.
Carter recalls that his father permitted the Black workers — after all their chores were completed, of course — to gather out in the family's backyard to listen to the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling heavyweight boxing championship rematch in 1938 over a radio placed in the kitchen window. That was surely an act of kindness on the part of Old Earl Carter.
Jimmy Carter was always a genuine, down-home, grime-under-the-fingernails kind of peanut farmer and patriot. He was a good soul, I would say. But understand, he may have been innocent, pure of heart like a choir boy, but he occupied the seat of the character in Scripture referred to as "Pharaoh." America is a land of torment for Black people and that continues no matter who is president.
The president who sits in Pharaoh's seat must perform many wicked and despicable acts, in the name of the United States of America. It goes with the territory. The fact that Carter was a one-term president speaks highly of him when it comes to the wicked deeds he didn't perform, or didn't perform enough of at first, to get reelected.
Jimmy Carter is the absolute best former president ever! With his work around the globe monitoring for free and fair elections, his donning work clothes and helping construct free homes for the needy from Habitat for Humanity, makes him eligible for sainthood, in my book — except for that stint he did as commander in chief.
There must be millions of true-hearted families of "Better Angels" like the Carters in this country, but we rarely get to know them because they don't rise to extraordinary heights. Meanwhile, most of the ones who rise to lead are so flawed, so imperfect.
Still, pound for pound, inside and outside of office, of the 44 previous presidents, I'll take #39, Jimmy Carter, as my role model, thank you … all except for that Pharaoh thing.
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