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COMMENTARY: No War on Poverty — The King Holiday and American Hypocrisy

NNPA NEWSWIRE — “The movement in the 1960s won a Civil Rights Act and a Voting Rights Act, but the Poor People’s Campaign was about building on that power to win economic justice. We won a Fair Housing Act and we got a War on Poverty, but America didn’t win that war,” said Reverend Dr. William Barber, II, leader of a multi-ethnic movement dedicated to Dr. King’s work and legacy.

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SCLC is planning a new Poor People’s Campaign focused on empowerment, education and food for those in poverty. A campaign against poverty and opposition to war were Dr. King’s agenda items before his 1968 murder. (Photo: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Me-morial, Washington DC / 23econfoey / Wikimedia Commons)

By Charlene Muhammad
@sischarlene

Across the United States, celebrations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birth with weeklong tributes, including awards ceremonies, banquets, prayer breakfasts, school pageants, parades, and special church services were planned with the official Dr. King federal holiday.

“The first thing you need to realize, Dr. King was assassinated. Killed, murdered by officials who claimed to be so patriotic within this system,” said Dr. Charles Steele, Jr., president and CEO of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which Dr. King helped found.

SCLC is planning a new Poor People’s Campaign focused on empowerment, education and food for those in poverty. A campaign against poverty and opposition to war were Dr. King’s agenda items before his 1968 murder.

SCLC, a nonprofit, interfaith civil rights organization, was founded in January 1957 by, Rev. Joseph Lowery, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Dr. King, Bayard Rustin and Rev. Ralph Abernathy in Atlanta.

Dr. Steele said the drum major for justice’s opposition to the Vietnam War, and Poor People’s Campaign led to his killing.

Dr. King was planning a mass march on Washington, D.C., as part of a campaign created in 1967 for freedom, independence, and self-determination, before he was assassinated by James Earl Ray on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968.

Mr. Ray was said to have acted alone, but jurors in a December 1999 civil trial in Memphis, brought by the King family, ruled Dr. King died as a result of a high-level government conspiracy.

“We still are fighting this discrimination and the racism of this country, who is the richest in the world. America has always had wealth, but never cared anything about those who were less fortunate than those who had the wealth,” Dr. Steele said.

“The movement in the 1960s won a Civil Rights Act and a Voting Rights Act, but the Poor People’s Campaign was about building on that power to win economic justice. We won a Fair Housing Act and we got a War on Poverty, but America didn’t win that war,” said Reverend Dr. William Barber, II, leader of a multi-ethnic movement dedicated to Dr. King’s work and legacy.

As president of the Repairers of the Breach, he has relaunched a Poor People’s Campaign as a national call for moral revival.

“We gave up the field. And then reactionary forces attacked the movements and the moral narrative that had made it possible. Today, almost 55 years after the Voting Rights Act was passed, we have fewer voting rights protections than we did then,” he told The Final Call via email.

The forces attacking living wages attack health care, support more military spending but say there is no money to fight climate change, argues Repairers of the Breach. Rev. Barber believes people are hurt by the “interlocking injustices” of poverty, racism, ecological devastation, militarism and religious nationalism.

“If they are cynical enough to stand together, we must be smart enough to come together,” he said. Rev. Barber came to public attention through weekly Moral Monday gatherings that drew crowds to Raleigh, the capitol of North Carolina, calling for compassion and justice.

The current U.S. war footing and tensions with Iran only make matters worse, he and others said.

“We insist that militarism and the war economy are an intersecting injustice with poverty because in any war, the poor suffer first. Poor people in Iran will die if we attack, and poor people from America will be taken away from their families to suffer and die in battle. But poor people suffer twice, because the money our government could use to address needs for education, health care, housing, food security and climate justice will go to defense contractors who profit from war making,” said Rev. Barber.

But even as activists and organizers picked up the King mantle to serve the poor and march for justice, politicians in his birthplace of Atlanta, Ga., gave up over $5 million in federal funding for housing and other services that would have helped vulnerable seniors and low-income residents.

When Fulton County Commissioners voted 4-3 to relinquish status as an Entitlement Community, it meant loss of money for community development, revitalizing neighborhoods, economic development, and better facilities and services. It was a slap in the face to the very communities Dr. King fought and died for, said activists.

“You got a system that is at war with poor people. It is the rich against the poor. It’s nothing in the middle,” said Dr. Steele.

Persistent poverty ignored in the USA

According to PovertyUSA.org, nearly 12 million youngsters, or about 1 in every 6 children live in poverty.

“According to 2018 U.S. Census Data, the highest poverty rate by race is found among Native Americans (25.4 percent), with Blacks (20.8 percent) having the second highest poverty rate, and Hispanics (of any race) having the third highest poverty rate (17.6 percent). Whites had a poverty rate of 10.1 percent, while Asians had a poverty rate at 10.1 percent,” said PovertyUSA.org. The poverty rate for seniors, including higher costs for health care, is about 14.1 percent, said the organization.

“What’s worse, 5.3 percent of the population—or 17.3 million people—live in deep poverty, with incomes below 50 percent of their poverty thresholds. And 29.9 percent of the population—or 93.6 million—live close to poverty, with incomes less than two times that of their poverty thresholds.”

“In 2018, the median income for family households was $80,663, while the median income for nonfamily households was $38,122.

The USDA estimated that 11.1 percent of U.S. households were food insecure in 2018. This means that approximately 14.3 million households had difficulty providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. Rates of food insecurity were substantially higher than the national average for households with incomes near or below the federal poverty line.”

In 2017, Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur, or investigator, on extreme poverty and human rights completed an extensive two-week fact-finding mission to determine whether persistent extreme poverty in the U.S. undermines or infringes on the basic human rights of Americans. His tour stops included Montgomery, Ala., Charleston, W. Va., Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.

“The United States is one of the world’s richest, most powerful and technologically innovative countries; but neither its wealth nor its power nor its technology is being harnessed to address the situation in which 40 million people continue to live in poverty,” he reported in a presentation to the UN’s Human Rights Council.

“Instead of realizing its founders’ admirable commitments, today’s United States has proved itself to be exceptional in far more problematic ways that are shockingly at odds with its immense wealth and its founding commitment to human rights. As a result, contrasts between private wealth and public squalor abound,” he said.

Work still undone

Dr. Steele is very frustrated looking at conditions in America and the belief by many Blacks that they have made it.

Black people have been set back 50 years by hypocritical actions, like the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Key provisions of the law protecting voting rights in states with histories of discrimination were eliminated, said the SCLC leader.

On Jan. 6, a coalition of faith, civic and community leaders led by the Concerned Black Clergy of Atlanta called on Fulton County officials to reverse their position during a press conference at Vicars Community Center in southwest Atlanta. On Jan. 8 senior citizens’ appeals during a council meeting for the same fell on deaf ears. Media reports said officials had trouble tracking how the funding was spent.

But Community Development Block Grants help pay for affordable housing, emergency grants, home investment partnership grants, neighborhood stabilization program funds, affordable housing for the most vulnerable communities, and create jobs through business expansion and retention. Emergency solutions grants pay for street outreach, emergency shelter, rapid rehousing and homelessness prevention. There was talk the county’s decision could be reconsidered Jan. 23.

“The city of Atlanta has failed Dr. King’s dream, but the people at the grassroots level have not given up and keep pressing the agenda of his Poor People’s campaign,” said Reginald Muhammad, a political scientist and professor at Clark Atlanta University.

“Much of Blacks’ political engagement is social symbolic. Many people are about to vote for Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden but those politicians know it’s about photo ops and pats on the backs, but Blacks won’t have any demands when it relates to public policy,” he said.

“We are in an immoral war, right now,” said Reverend Dr. Gerald Durley, pastor emeritus of Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta. “These were immoral decisions … those of us who have a social conscience must stand up as Dr. King said, we must combat this evilness, this inequality, this injustice, and come up with moral decisions for the least, the lost, the left behind,” he added.

“It’s atrocious,” said Abdul Sharrieff Muhammad, who heads the Nation of Islam’s Southern regional headquarters in Atlanta. He was describing housing conditions in Atlanta and throughout the South. “That’s still happening, right now, what Dr. King was fighting for, as we still struggle and try to gain some of that momentum back, and still struggle, and that’s why we must do for self, or suffer the consequences, and that’s what we are doing now, because we did not do for ourselves like we should have, and now we’re suffering the consequences,” said Min. Sharrieff Muhammad, also co-chair of the 10,000 Fearless Headquarters of the South.

The program grew out of the Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan’s call for Blacks to make their communities safe and decent places to live and demand justice through economic withdrawal, or selective buying.

During the run up to the 20th anniversary of the historic 1995 Million Man March, October 10, 2015, Minister Farrakhan called for Blacks to redistribute the pain through an economic boycott of Christmas in the fight for justice. His call wasn’t limited to any faith, or political ideology.

“Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on the night before he was assassinated, was talking so strong,” said Min. Farrakhan. “But after he was assassinated, they reduced him to a ‘dream.’ Every time they mention Dr. King’s name, he is ‘The Dreamer’—but they did not kill our brother because he dreamed.”

“… Dr. King knew death was on him, and he told the people at Mason Temple COGIC in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 3, 1968, in his speech ‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop:’ ‘We have to redistribute the pain; when we’re in pain, we’ve got to make them feel pain,’ ” said Minister Farrakhan, echoing Dr. King’s words.

Over half a million people go homeless on a single night in the United States, according to the White House Council of Economic Advisors.

“Approximately 65 percent are found in homeless shelters, and the other 35 percent—just under 200,000—are found unsheltered on streets (in places not intended for human habitation, such as sidewalks, parks, cars, or abandoned buildings), according to “The State of Homelessness in America” in 2019.

The report found homelessness concentrated in major cities on the West Coast and the Northeast, with almost half (47 percent) of all unsheltered homeless people in California. That’s about four times as high as California’s share of the overall U.S. population, it added. Rates of sheltered homelessness were highest in Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C., with New York City alone containing over one-fifth of all sheltered homeless people in the United States.

Like national activists, organizers, and advocates for the poor, “State of Homelessness in America” blamed decades of misguided and faulty government policies.

Advocates also blamed the Trump administration, presidents before him, and some Black politicians they charged with selling out. In December, President Trump announced plans to drop nearly 700,000 Americans from the federal food stamp program. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as the program is officially called, made work requirements more stringent for those seen as able-bodied adults without dependents. Some 55,000 people were likely to lose benefits in Cook County, Ill., alone. The final rule is effective in April.

That change came on the heels of a decision by the Trump administration, the U.S. Conference of Mayors warned “would escalate food insecurity and hunger for an estimated 3.1 million individuals—including children, seniors, and people with disabilities in our states, regions and cities nationwide. Furthermore, this proposal will put children’s health and development at risk by removing their access to healthy school meals; and harm our economy by reducing the amount of SNAP dollars available to spur regional and local economic activity.”

“USDA has estimated that during times of economic downturn, every additional $5 dollars in SNAP benefits generates up to $9 dollars of economic activity, and every $1 billion increase in SNAP benefits results in 8,900 full-time equivalent jobs,” added the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

(Final Call staff contributed to this report.)

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Conversation with Al McFarlane and Coach Leah

May 29, 2023 – Welcome back to another episode of The Conversation with Al McFarlane! We bring you inspiring discussions …
The post Conversation with Al McFarlane and Coach Leah first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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May 29, 2023 – Welcome back to another episode of The Conversation with Al McFarlane! We bring you inspiring discussions

The post Conversation with Al McFarlane and Coach Leah first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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No Labels Endorses Bipartisan Deal to Resolve US Debt Ceiling Debate

NNPA NEWSWIRE — “We have always emphasized that there should be common sense bipartisan solutions to our nation’s problems that are supported overwhelmingly by the majority of the American people,” No Labels National Co-Chairs Joe Lieberman, Larry Hogan, and Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., said in a joint statement issued on Sunday, May 28.
The post No Labels Endorses Bipartisan Deal to Resolve US Debt Ceiling Debate first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

No Labels, a growing national movement of what the organization calls “common sense Americans pushing leaders together to solve the country’s biggest problems,” announced its support of the bipartisan deal that President Joe Biden, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have agreed upon in principle to avoid the United States defaulting on its national debt before the June 5 deadline.

“We have always emphasized that there should be common sense bipartisan solutions to our nation’s problems that are supported overwhelmingly by the majority of the American people,” No Labels National Co-Chairs Joe Lieberman, Larry Hogan, and Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., said in a joint statement issued on Sunday, May 28.

Chavis also serves as president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, the trade association of the more than 230 African American owned newspapers and media companies in the United States.

After months of uncertainty and verbal sparring, an “agreement in principle” has been reached to spare the United States from its first-ever debt default.

But now comes the hard part: convincing both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to agree to pass the measure.

After President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced that they’d reached an accord to raise the nation’s debt ceiling and avoid a catastrophic default, Congress has just a few days to approve the deal.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said a deal needs ratification by June 5, or the United States would breach its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling.

If approved by Congress, the deal would raise the debt ceiling for two years, punting it to the next administration.

The GOP originally proposed a one-year deal but conceded to Democrats’ demand for two.

In the agreement, spending – except for the military – would remain at 2023 levels for next year, with funds being earmarked for other federal programs.

Biden also agreed to a $10 billion cut to the $80 billion he had earmarked for the IRS to crack down on individuals cheating on their taxes.

Instead, the funds will go to other programs that Republicans sought to cut.

Additionally, with billions remaining from pandemic relief funds unspent, both parties agreed to claw back those funds to the federal government.

“Avoiding America’s default in paying our national debt is vital to the future of our nation. We thank President Biden and Speaker McCarthy for their leadership to achieve the debt ceiling deal,” the No Labels leaders continued.

“We encourage Republican, Democratic and Independent members of both chambers of the US Congress to pass this agreement expeditiously because it is so important for every American.”

The post No Labels Endorses Bipartisan Deal to Resolve US Debt Ceiling Debate first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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Three Years After #DefundThePolice, Schools Are Bringing Cops Back to Campus

SAN DIEGO VOICE & VIEWPOINT — As of January 2023, there were about 60 SROs remaining in D.C. schools, down from its peak of more than 100, according to the Washington Post. However, the progress made toward reducing law enforcement presence in D.C. schools appears to be in jeopardy. In what seems like a backtrack from the progressive momentum generated during “America’s racial reckoning,” four D.C. council members now support a proposal to retain officers in schools, citing an uptick in violence and crime in school vicinities.
The post Three Years After #DefundThePolice, Schools Are Bringing Cops Back to Campus first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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By Maya Pottiger, Word in Black 

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, calls to defund the police rang across the nation during the summer of 2020. While few cities took swift action, many school districts — integral community hubs where young minds are nurtured, and where kids spend the bulk of their time — began to reevaluate the presence of armed personnel patrolling the hallways.

In September 2019, eight months before Floyd’s murder, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported nearly 25,000 school resource officers were assigned to primarily K-12 schools.

Those numbers slowly started to change in districts around the country as a response to calls to defund the police.

In Washington, D.C., for example, the D.C. Council unanimously voted in 2021 to reduce the number of SROs in both public and charter schools beginning July 2022, with the plan to end the Metropolitan Police Department’s School Safety Division in 2025.

In September 2019, eight months before Floyd’s murder, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported nearly 25,000 school resource officers were assigned to primarily K-12 schools.

As of January 2023, there were about 60 SROs remaining in D.C. schools, down from its peak of more than 100, according to the Washington Post. However, the progress made toward reducing law enforcement presence in D.C. schools appears to be in jeopardy. In what seems like a backtrack from the progressive momentum generated during “America’s racial reckoning,” four D.C. council members now support a proposal to retain officers in schools, citing an uptick in violence and crime in school vicinities.

On the other side of the country, the Denver Public School District Board of Education unanimously voted to bring SROs back to schools through June 2023. Similar to D.C., the decision followed closely on the heels of a shooting at Denver’s East High School. And 18 SROs were brought back to 17 schools in the district.

Schools around the country are running into roadblocks trying to remove SROs.

The Roadblocks

The roadblocks don’t look the same in every situation.

In D.C., for example, ACLU DC policy associate Ahoefa Ananouko cites Mayor Muriel Bowser as the biggest barrier. Bowser has been vocal about keeping SROs in schools, going as far as to say that removing SROs is “the nuttiest thing.”

And, like in D.C. and Denver, politicians, policymakers, and some educators nationwide cite violence in the area as a reason for keeping SROs, but there is little evidence to support that SROs actually do make schools safer. In fact, in a 2020 report, the Justice Policy Institute said, “rates of youth violence were plummeting independent of law enforcement interventions, and the impact of SROs on school shootings has been dubious at best.”

Plus, it’s been proven that SROs exacerbate the school-to-prison pipeline, especially for Black students.

The Center for Public Integrity analyzed U.S. Department of Education data from all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico in 2021. The investigation found that school policing disproportionately affects students with disabilities and Black students. Nationwide, these two groups were referred to law enforcement at “nearly twice their share of the overall student population.”

What we often have seen is that the teachers or classified staff who feel that it’s not within their ability to handle certain situations automatically defer to the SROs.

ADONAI MACK, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION AT CHILDREN NOW

But it doesn’t stop many adults on the school campus from differing discipline to SROs, says Adonai Mack, the senior director of education at Children Now. This happens when there is either a fear around addressing disciplinary problems or concerns, or feeling they aren’t able to handle it.

“What we often have seen is that the teachers or classified staff who feel that it’s not within their ability to handle certain situations automatically defer to the SROs,” Mack says.

This is where the call for additional non-police safety officials comes in, like nurses, counselors, or psychologists, who “certainly do more help than harm,” Mack says.

But, like teachers and other educators, there’s a shortage of these professionals. But Ananouko says this shouldn’t be a barrier if policymakers decided it was more important to have mental health professionals or restorative justice interventionalists — people who are trained to handle trauma, behavior, and underlying issues.

“I believe they could and should shift those resources to incentivize those professionals being hired instead of investing more in police,” Ananouko says, “which have been shown to be harmful to students in a school environment, generally.”

A Detriment to Mental Wellness

Though it’s too early to have concrete data on students’ mental health without SROs, there are, anecdotally, reasons to believe it’s a positive change.

Aside from students leading police-free school groups, there are other historic factors that lend insight. For one, whenever there are fears around deportation, not only Black students, but Latino and AAPI students experience negative mental health impacts, Mack says.

The feelings, like with the Defund the Police movement, are split across racial lines. Black, Latino, and AAPI students don’t always feel safe with police around.

“With kids of color, what you often have is this alienation,” Mack says. “There are decreased feelings of safety. Now, I would say that’s different for white kids and white families. They often will feel that having police on campus makes the campus safer.”

Black and Brown students are more likely to attend a school patrolled by an SRO.

And, Black and Brown students are more likely to attend a school patrolled by an SRO. A 2023 Urban Institute study found that schools where the student population is at least 80% Black and Brown, students are more likely to have an SRO compared to schools with a high population of white students, regardless of income levels. And, 34%-37% of schools with high populations of Black and Brown students have an SRO, compared to 5%-11% of predominantly white schools.

But it’s clear that there’s “a detriment to kids of color” with police on campus, Mack says.

“From that perspective, with any decrease, what we see is that it automatically improves the mental wellness of students from those communities,” Mack says.

‘A Critical Point’

While the roadblocks might be tougher or the headlines have fizzled out, Ananouko says the police-free schools movement “isn’t slowing down at all.”

And now, D.C. is at a critical point. It’s budget oversight season, meaning it’s the time when funding for SROs could be restored. But, every year since the initial 2021 vote, students, school administrators, teachers, and advocates have continued to push for the phase-out, Ananouko says.

“Our messaging has not changed,” Ananouko says. “We’ve stayed consistent in saying that police don’t keep students safe. And none of that has changed in these past three years.”

The bottom line is that all kids deserve to feel safe and nurtured, Ananouko says.

“They should be able to feel like they can go to school with that fear,” she says, whether this fear comes from other students or armed officers in the building who can use their gun “at any point at the discretion of the law is on their side.”

“A lot of the issues that students are dealing with are not going to be addressed by somebody with a gun.”

This article originally appeared in San Diego Voice and Viewpoint.

The post Three Years After #DefundThePolice, Schools Are Bringing Cops Back to Campus first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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