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~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Freedom’s Sisters – Black History –

03/29/2023 Nativegrl77

Additional Information (PDFs):

Freedom’s Sisters is an exhibition created by Cincinnati Museum Center, organized for travel by Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services, and made possible by a grant from the Ford Motor Company Fund.

Presented locally by Macy’s.

Freedom’s Sisters is the first and most comprehensive traveling exhibit on women in the Civil Rights movement, focusing on the lives and contributions of 20 African American women – from key 19th century historical figures to contemporary leaders – who have fought for equality for people of color. Visitors of all ages and backgrounds will be moved and inspired by the stories of the women celebrated in this interactive exhibit. Created by Cincinnati Museum Center, in collaboration with The Ford Motor Company Fund, and Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), Freedom’s Sisters made its world premiere at Museum Center, and has now embarked on a three-year, nationwide tour. To see the full itinerary, click here.

Programming and Events

As Museum Center worked with Ford and SITES to develop the exhibit, a primary goal was to help encourage the next generation of leaders through dialogue on the civil rights struggle, past, present and future. Reaching young people was a crucial component of the exhibit’s mission. With Macy’s as the local presenting sponsor, 1,000 under served school children from the community joined the thousands of others who were able to see and benefit from this groundbreaking experience.

When Freedom’s Sisters opened on March 15, 2008, Museum Center was delighted to host all five of the “living legends” highlighted in the exhibit including: Myrlie-Evers Williams, Sonia Sanchez, Charlayne-Hunter Gault, Dr. Dorothy Height and Kathleen Cleaver. Several of these remarkable women returned to Cincinnati in July for the national N.A.A.C.P. convention. Myrlie-Evers Williams, in her address to conventioneers said that Freedom’s Sisters at Museum Center “was not to be missed!”

In association with Freedom’s Sisters, Museum Center hosted a poetry slam during National Poetry Month in April. An incredibly enthusiastic and diverse crowd turned out for the event—many of whom were brave even enough to get on the mic! In May, Museum Center presented a lecture by Darlene Clark Hine, Ph.D. Hine, who is considered a pioneer of African American women’s studies scholarship, was named Museum Center’s Distinguished Historian for 2008.

To provide a local tie, the Cincinnati History Museum developed a Cincinnati’s Freedom Sisters floor program, designed to educate children about the Civil Rights movement in Cincinnati. Through interactive smartboard activities students were able to access primary source material, and oral history interviews.

~ In the Library

Terry McMillan excerpted in Essence 2008 … Black History is American History

03/12/2023 Nativegrl77 1 Comment

By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer Hillel Italie, Ap National Writer – Tue May 18, 6:29 am ET

NEW YORK – In honor of its 40th anniversary, Essence magazine is bringing back an old friend: Terry McMillan.

A few pages of excerpts from McMillan’s “Getting to Happy,” a sequel to her million-selling “Waiting to Exhale,” will appear in the next four issues of Essence, starting with the June edition, which came out this week. It’s a familiar place for McMillan, whose ties to the magazine date back to the 1970s, when she was in college and won an Essence writing contest.

“They’re like family,” McMillan, whose book comes out this fall, says of Essence, “and Essence readers have been a large part of my audience.”

Essence senior editor Patrik Henry Bass noted the magazine’s long support for black women writers, including Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor. When Essence started, Morrison’s debut novel, “The Bluest Eye,” had just been released. Walker was years away from writing “The Color Purple” and Toni Cade Bambara had yet to publish her first book.

“Nobody in the mainstream media was paying attention to these women,” Bass says.

“We wanted to do something special for the anniversary and when I heard that Terry was writing `Getting to Happy,’ I said, `Terry, what do you have so far? Could you do something original for us?’ And she said, `Well, I just finished the sequel and we thought, “Why not do excerpts?”‘ She couldn’t believe it, because so few people do excerpts anymore.”

McMillan’s “Waiting to Exhale,” published in 1992, tells of the personal and professional conflicts of four women living in Phoenix. The novel sold more than 1 million copies and is still cited as a landmark for convincing publishers of the large audience size for black fiction.

McMillan, whose other books include “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” and “The Interruption of Everything,” said she had no intention of writing a sequel to “Exhale” until she spoke at a church in Oakland, Calif., around a year ago. A resident of the Bay area, the author was still getting over her vicious, public feud with ex-husband Jonathan Plummer and read a poem about her experience.

“So these women responded big time to this poem, and there was this aura, women crying and all kinds of stuff. When it was time to sign books, there were women I had gone to college with, women who had been ex-professors, financial aid counselors. I spoke to them and realized how many of them had never been married, how many were divorced, how many never had children,” she says.

“I wanted to be able to dramatize that in some way. I didn’t want to tell just one woman’s story. And that’s when it dawned on me that I had four women I might be able to turn to. I got the paperback off the shelf and looked over it and said, `You know, they were the perfect candidates.'”

McMillan, 58, is a native of Port Huron, Mich., who, in 1987, self-published her first novel, “Mama.” She became a major best seller with “Disappearing Acts” and a superstar after “Waiting to Exhale.” Her appeal has long been her rough take on relationships, a knack that Essence seems to have appreciated long ago. The topic for the magazine’s writing contest: Are black men and women closer than they used to be, or further apart?

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Rashad Robinson, ColorOfChange.org :::::: He broke his own neck?

03/05/2023 Nativegrl77

In memory… Freddie Gray

It looks like Baltimore police are trying to blame Freddie Gray for his own death.

Police and prosecutors are refusing to officially release information about the investigation into Freddie Gray’s death. But at the same time, someone just leaked a police document that quotes a prisoner who rode in the same van as Gray, saying that Gray “was intentionally trying to injure himself.”¹This anonymous leak almost certainly came from someone in the Baltimore police department.

It’s despicable. And it’s exactly the same type of victim-blaming we saw years ago when Baltimore police gave another Baltimore resident a “rough ride,” paralyzing him and eventually killing him in a hauntingly similar case.²

We’ve seen time and time again what happens when police are given the authority and political cover to police themselves. No transparency. No accountability. No prosecution. Unless Governor Hogan brings independent oversight to this case, we can expect the same familiar miscarriage of justice.^3,4

Will you join nearly 40,000 ColorOfChange member in urging Governor Hogan to appoint Attorney General Frosh to assist the case against Freddie Gray’s killers?

The prisoner quoted in this leak was separated from Gray by a metal barrier, so he couldn’t have seen Gray. According to the leaked document, he claims he heard Gray banging on the walls, and that he thinks Gray was trying to hurt himself. But if Gray was banging on the walls, it could be because he was desperately trying to get help.⁵We already know that he had been requesting medical attention, and those requests were ignored.

And Gray might not have been banging on the walls at all. According to other versions of the story, Gray was unresponsive by the time the second person was loaded into the van.⁶Whatever happened, what’s clear is that this leak is an attempt to shape the story in a way that absolves police of responsibility — at a time when law enforcement is refusing to release other information about the case.

Nearly 40,000 ColorOfChange members are urging Governor Hogan to send Attorney General Frosh to support the investigation and prosecution of Freddie Gray’s death. This leak makes it clear that the current investigation cannot be trusted. Baltimore police and State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby are heading down the same path of denied justice that has allowed Baltimore’s crisis of discriminatory police violence to flourish for years.

In 2014, 100% of people killed by Baltimore Police were Black. And almost none of those officers have ever been held accountable.⁷ Over the past 5 years, Baltimore police have paid millions to people injured and paralyzed by police “rough rides.”⁸ Freddie Gray was killed. And his family, Baltimore, and America have the right to an independent investigation that gets to the bottom of what happened and ensures the greatest measure of justice.

Take action to escalate pressure on Governor Hogan and build the widespread support we will need to win.

Thanks and peace,

— Rashad, Matt, Arisha, Lyla, Shani, and the rest of the ColorOfChange team

April 30th, 2015

References

1. “Prisoner in van said Freddie Gray was ‘trying to injure himself,’ document says,” Washington Post 4-29-2015
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4783?t=5&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6

2. “Freddie Gray not the first to come out of Baltimore police van with serious injuries,” The Baltimore Sun Post 04-23-2015
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4784?t=7&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6

3. “Police Kill Black Women All The Time, Too — We Just Don’t Hear About It,” Bustle 12-08-2014
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4785?t=9&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6

4. “Why I Don’t Trust Baltimore Prosecutors with Freddie Gray Case,” Legal Speaks 4-22-2015
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4769?t=11&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6

5. “Prisoner Was Wrong: Freddie Gray Didn’t Kill Himself,” Daily Beast, 4-30-2015
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4789?t=13&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6

6. “Baltimore Cop’s Relative Claims Freddie Gray Was Injured Before He Got In Van,” Daily Beast, 4-30-2015
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4790?t=15&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6

7. BaltimoreUprising.org
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4788?t=17&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6

8. “Baltimore’s “rough rides”: the city has paid out millions to people injured in police vans,” Vox, 04-28-2015
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4786?t=19&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

The Rick Scott Squeeze … repost! Remember when he was a gov. remember what he did and compare contrast this to gov desantis

02/28/2023 Nativegrl77

By CAP Action War Room

Rick Scott’s Policies Are Failing Floridians, And They’re Not Happy

Ahead of Florida’s first gubernatorial debate on Friday, Governor Rick Scott is on the hot seat.

From failing to expand Medicaid and opposing an increase to the minimum wage, to ignoring climate change as a central threat to his state, Scott has hurt the lives and livelihoods of millions of Floridians—many of whom are from communities of color. A new Center for American Progress Action Fund report details Scott’s failure to act on behalf of his state’s residents. Accompanying the report, a new survey shows how Floridians disagree with his harmful positions.

The CAP Action report highlights several ways that Gov. Scott is failing Floridians:

Gov. Scott has opposed raising the minimum wage, even though 55 percent of Floridians support raising it to $10.10 per hour and a whopping 79 percent don’t think they could support their family on the current minimum wage. His opposition to raising the wage to $10.10 means that 1.7 million Floridians—including 357,000 African Americans and 536,000 Hispanics—are being denied fair wages. While Scott says efforts to raise the minimum wage make him “cringe,” workers are losing out on $2.1 billion in wages and Florida forgoes $1.3 billion in economic growth. Additionally, raising the minimum wage would save the state money. By putting more money into the pockets of working Floridians, 195,000 people would no longer need food stamps, saving the state $295.1 million each year.
Gov. Scott also now refuses to expand access to health coverage for Floridians through Medicaid, despite the facts that Florida has the third-highest uninsured rate in the nation. Gov. Scott’s failure to act means 764,000 working Floridians fall into the Medicaid coverage gap, including 214,000 African Americans and 200,000 Hispanics. This failure is costing the state 63,000 jobs, $66 billion in additional federal funds, and $20 billion in Florida taxpayer money that is going to other states to fund their expanded Medicaid programs.
Gov. Scott refuses to address climate change. Initially a climate denier, Gov. Scott now says he is “not a scientist,” a new talking point for conservatives who are trying to skirt the issue. This is despite the fact that Florida is one of the most at-risk states from the damaging effects of climate change and Florida voters are less likely to support a candidate who denies that man-made climate change is real. His failure to act means most of South Florida will be completely washed away by the end of the century, according to current forecasts, and risks $9 billion in lost tourism by 2025 and $40 billion by 2050. Hispanics in particular will feel the effects of climate change, since about half of the state’s Hispanic population lives in South Florida counties.

Floridians are recognizing these failures. By a 12-point margin in the latest survey, voters are less likely to vote to for Scott because of his position opposing a minimum wage increase. Voters are less likely to support Scott by an 11-point margin based on his refusal to expand Medicaid to cover the state’s 1 million low- and moderate-income Floridians. And by a 16-point margin, Florida voters are less likely to vote for a candidate — like Scott — who denies that man-made climate change is real.

BOTTOM LINE: Florida Governor Rick Scott’s policies on the minimum wage, Medicaid expansion, and climate change are failing to create an economy that works for every Floridian, not just the wealthiest. Voters in the state disagree with these positions, and they are taking notice.

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~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Ferguson … justice for only some? a repost

02/24/2023 Nativegrl77

Corinne Ball, MoveOn.org Civic Action

Many of us have wrestled with intense emotions—sadness, anger, shock, and more—as we’ve followed the ongoing situation in Ferguson, Missouri.

The police killing of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown has ignited weeks of demonstrations. Even though most protesters have been peaceful, police appeared armed with military-grade equipment.¹ Reporters have been threatened and arrested by police while trying to report the story.² The whole country has been watching what’s happening in Ferguson.³

Many of us have asked: What can we do to ensure justice for Michael Brown? What is this awful situation revealing—or reminding us—about racism in America, police militarization, and the way our criminal justice system too often fails communities of color?

Many of us have been moved to take action. Nearly 150,000 MoveOn members joined ColorOfChange.org to call on the Department of Justice to intervene in the investigation into Michael Brown’s death. That petition will be delivered next week in Washington, DC.

Tens of thousands of us added our names to MoveOn member and Missouri State Senator Jamilah Nasheed’s petition calling for an independent prosecutor in the case. And many of us have made phone calls, joined community protests and vigils, and more.

MoveOn member and Missouri State Senator Jamilah Nasheed delivered tens of thousands of MoveOn member signatures in St. Louis this week, and her campaign has drawn coverage from CNN to the Wall Street Journal and beyond.⁴

The vigils and national outcry have already had an impact in Ferguson. Attorney General Eric Holder—who came to meet with Ferguson residents in person—is overseeing a Department of Justice investigation.⁵ The FBI is conducting an investigation into civil rights abuses by the Ferguson police department.⁶ And a grand jury has been convened to determine if charges will be filed against Officer Darren Wilson.⁷

We still have much left to do and many complex issues to address before Ferguson—and America—can heal and move forward. There is no quick fix. But there are things we can all do right now to get involved in the push for justice.

One step you can take—if you haven’t already—is to sign Senator Nasheed’s petition calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the shooting death of Michael Brown. Faith leaders and local residents have joined Senator Nasheed in expressing serious doubts about whether the prosecutor in St. Louis County, who previously failed to charge officers for murdering two unarmed black men, will objectively investigate the officer responsible.⁸

There’s also a huge amount of thoughtful online commentary that’s been sparked by this tragedy. Whatever you’re reading about Ferguson now, consider passing it along to a friend to keep the conversation going. Here’s one option: This piece from MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes” puts the story in a broader perspective in a conversation with Marq Claxton, a retired New York Police Department detective, and Phillip Agnew, founder of the young activist group Dream Defenders:

Together, let’s continue to reflect, to speak out, and to take action.

Thanks for all you do.

–Corinne, Maria, Anna, Mark, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. “A Former Marine Explains All the Weapons of War Being Used by Police in Ferguson,” The Nation, August 20, 2014
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=300422&id=100249-17809870-7a_RFkx&t=7

2. “6 more journalists arrested in Ferguson protests,” CNN, August 19, 2014
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=300423&id=100249-17809870-7a_RFkx&t=8
3. “A Movement Grows in Ferguson,” The New Yorker, August 17, 2014
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=300415&id=100249-17809870-7a_RFkx&t=9 4. “Concerns arise about prosecutor in Michael Brown case,” CNN, August 20, 2014
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=300425&id=100249-17809870-7a_RFkx&t=10“Missouri Governor Won’t Replace Prosecutor in Michael Brown Probe,” Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2014
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=300426&id=100249-17809870-7a_RFkx&t=115. “Jay Nixon: Missouri Highway Patrol Will Take Over Supervision Of Security In Ferguson,” Associated Press, August 14, 2014
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=300416&id=100249-17809870-7a_RFkx&t=126. “FBI Will Investigate Death of Black Teenager in Missouri,” The Washington Post, August 11, 2014
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=300417&id=100249-17809870-7a_RFkx&t=14

7. “Holder visits Ferguson as grand jury hearings begin,” Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2014
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=300424&id=100249-17809870-7a_RFkx&t=15

8. “Protesting the Prosecution,” Slate, August 21, 2014
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=300418&id=100249-17809870-7a_RFkx&t=18

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