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	<title><![CDATA[Editorials ]]></title>
	<copyright>Copyright 2012 Copyright © 2011  Los Angeles Wave.  All rights reserved. </copyright>
	<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials</link>
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	<pubDate>Thu, 9 Feb 2012 00:47:40 PST</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Jobs agenda for  all communities, to heal a hurting nation]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Editorial-Jobs-agenda-for--all-communities-to-heal-a-hurting-nation-129917973.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">129917973</guid>		
			<pubDate>Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:40:43 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	



	


		

																		



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																																											                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

When President Obama addressed the nation last Thursday, he spoke in unifying terms, in language that appealed to all segments of our population. It was a national in nature, bipartisan in conception, and very sober about the reality we all face as a people.

The president&rsquo;s job agenda speech was rooted in themes that speak to everyday working people, the communities that make up the backbone of our economy and the wellspring from which recovery will begin.

From the epicenter of Washington, D.C.&rsquo;s most powerful podium, within the iconic U.S. House of Representatives, President Obama spoke to the nation about our future, ideas that are Democratic and Republican in origin.

In our community, it was a speech that was listened to intently for we are experiencing this Great Recession in an intense and ongoing way. It is an economic downturn that has resulted in an unemployment rate of 16.7 percent with 1.4 million African-Americans out of work for more than six months.

The Great Recession has been our Depression, and the Congressional Black Caucus jobs fair led by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, the Congressional Black Caucus chairman, and Rep. Maxine Waters, demonstrated the thirst for jobs and opportunity within our community, including Los Angeles.

The speech was met with cautious optimism from some Republican leaders in Congress, and yet the naysayers will always find a way to attack President Obama simply because of his ideas, no matter how bipartisan in nature.

While Speaker John Boehner said the Obama plan &ldquo;merits consideration,&rdquo; the Republican caucus continues to throw sticks and stones. Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa told The Hill newspaper, &ldquo;If we find a window (to finding common ground), we can maybe do some things together. Beyond that, I will tell you that it&rsquo;s going to be important just to hang on and get a new president and a new configuration in Congress.&rdquo;

We as a community of conscience and concern cannot allow that type of political mischief to prevent an ambitious jobs agenda from slowing our country down. The usual divide and conquer gamesmanship that our political opponents like to play have no place in this discussion, for with our economy on shaky ground, this is not a time for games.

To pass the Obama agenda, we must let Speaker Boehner know that obstruction of this ambitious jobs agenda by him or his unruly caucus is not acceptable.

The Republican leadership cannot be allowed to drag their heels and must set hearings for the President&rsquo;s proposals. They cannot run away from their responsibility.

We must call them out on these maneuvers. We cannot allow the Republican leadership to cast aside President Obama&rsquo;s bills in favor of their own agenda. We will not allow them to eliminate programs targeting low income communities and pit Democrats against each other.

Public mobilization is part of that effort and we must demand passage of the President&rsquo;s proposals, not continued maneuverings that promote tax breaks for the wealthy who are referred to in code language as &ldquo;job creators.&rdquo;

Using our phones and emails, social networks and circle of friends, we can activate all communities from all spectrums of society.

We need the Republican leadership in Congress to stand for extension of unemployment benefits for families looking for work.

We need to rebuild our schools and invest in neighborhoods devastated by the foreclosure crisis.

For our youth, a long awaited program to support a summer and year round jobs program is essential, and within the African American community, youth unemployment is above 30 percent.

Tax cuts that slash employer payroll taxes in half for over 100,000 African-American owned small businesses can spur investment and hiring.

These are not ideas that target our community, but rather, policies that support an entire nation.
Rising unemployment, a foreclosure crisis, downsizing of our small businesses is not localized to one community or region. It is a national crisis and President Obama offered a corresponding solution.

Our voices need to be heard and we can do that by calling:

&bull; Speaker Boehner (R-OH) at (202) 225-0600

&bull; Transportation Chair John Mica (R-FL) at (202) 225-9446

&bull; Small Business Chair Sam Graves (R-MO) at (202) 225-5821

&bull; Education and Workforce Chair John Kline (R-MN) at (202) 225-4527

&bull; Ways and Means Chair David Camp (R-MI) at (202) 225-3625

President Obama has asked us to reach out to members of Congress and demand action.

He&rsquo;s right.

We should, and we must.

Rep. Karen Bass represents the 33rd Congressional District which includes Los Angeles and Culver City. She served as speaker of the California Assembly.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Redistricting  commission’s credibility hurt by lack of transparency]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Editorial-Redistricting--commissions-credibility-hurt-by-lack-of-transparency-126421933.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">126421933</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:34:33 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

Every 10 years, two critical events take place that shape our nation&rsquo;s political landscape and our democracy &mdash; the United States Census and political redistricting. 

The information gained through the Census helps guide the redrawing of political districts at every level of government in order to uphold the one person, one vote principle. This exercise, known as redistricting, is the cornerstone for our diverse democracy, yet has also been an instrument of repeated exploitation with the intent to silence voices in our democracy.

The Voting Rights Act was put into place to protect the voting rights of ethnic minority groups whose rights have been historically violated. Under this law, not only African Americans, but Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans can be assured a fair opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. But the other necessary components for a fair redistricting process are transparency and public participation.

The California Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC), approved by voters in 2008 under Proposition 11, has been given the authority to reshape lines that will affect millions of residents in the state and determine whether communities of interest will be able to elect candidates of their choice. So far, they have failed us!

The intent of California voters was to take the politics out of line-drawing and promote an open and fair public process. Unfortunately, when it comes to transparency, this commission has utterly failed.
Initial draft maps were released in June for public review and comment. The commission was scheduled to release its second set of draft maps on July 14 but reneged on that step a mere 5 days before the scheduled release date. The commission claimed the cancellation was intended to produce better maps. Let&rsquo;s hope that&rsquo;s the case because some of their recent maps have been mystifying and have badly divided communities of interest. 

In fact, one map supported by many commission members eliminated the 33rd Congressional District currently represented by Congresswoman Karen Bass. Another map merged two senate districts currently represented by African-Americans into one district, thus eliminating one black senate seat. In the process of trying to satisfy the interest of so many communities we understand some decisions may appear odd, but how on earth can you justify eliminating  Karen Bass&rsquo; Congressional District, one of the most diverse and yet politically unified districts in Southern California? What were they thinking? It&rsquo;s that kind of logic that begs for an open and transparent process! 

While new maps seem to better reflect more equitable representation, dramatically different maps discussed in relative obscurity are still in play. Californians will not know for sure the final maps until the votes are cast on Friday. In the month of July alone, the CRC cancelled 8 of its meetings which could have afforded the public an opportunity to engage the commission. The CRC website reads like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. And on July 21, the CRC made the decision to make July 23 the final day for public comment. This process flies in the face of what voters envisioned when they voted to establish this commission. Lack of transparency and compacting black residents into fewer electoral districts has been driving this commission.

People fought and died for the right to vote and participate fully in the political system. They did not make sacrifices only to be marginalized by a commission that has no clue about social justice. We cannot afford to stop our efforts until the process is complete!  The commission needs to hear from you and needs to be encouraged to maintain opportunity districts for African Americans. Without question, other interest groups continue to lobby for changes that could negatively impact African Americans and the progress that&rsquo;s been achieved over the past several decades.

These final district lines will determine your voting rights for the next 10 years. While there has been tremendous progress to protect voting interests for African American Californians, we encourage you to help in this final push to deliver fair representation for the African American community. Please, take a moment to submit comments or e-mail the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. I remain fired up and ready to go and will not let my voice be silenced through a closed door redistricting process. I hope you will join us in this battle!

Maddox is the managing partner of Dakota Communications.Residents can submit comments through the CRC website at www.wedrawthelines.ca.gov or through directly e-mail at votersfirstact@crc.ca.gov. ]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Rail line must go underground to preserve, protect key Black L.A. business corridor]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Editorial-Rail-line-must-go-underground-to-preserve-protect-key-Black-LA-business-corridor-120834024.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">120834024</guid>		
			<pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:23:17 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

On Thursday, the MTA board of directors will be presented with an opportunity to approve Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas&rsquo; motion to keep the entirety of the Crenshaw-LAX Light Rail Line underground on Crenshaw Boulevard. The implications of the motion should concern every Angeleno, for the Crenshaw-LAX Line is a true regional rail project, and the Southland needs its last African-American business corridor.

The current Crenshaw-LAX project from the future Expo Line Crenshaw station to the Green Line by way of LAX is simply the first phase of perhaps the most significant north-south rail project for our region.

Just consider the Crenshaw-LAX Line extensions that have recently finished study or are currently under study, and one can view a rail line that soon after completion would produce the highest ridership of any light rail line in the country.

To the south, MTA has dedicated funding to extend the line deep into the South Bay to Torrance, along a route that parallels the 405 Freeway. Studies have been conducted to take the line even further south into San Pedro or Long Beach.

To the north, preliminary studies have been completed to extend the line to Wilshire to connect with the Subway to the Sea. Also, last year, MTA planning resources were dedicated to studying an extension of the line beyond Wilshire to the Hollywood/Highland Red Line station by way of West Hollywood (a project that is known as the Pink Line.)

Hollywood, West Hollywood, Miracle Mile, Mid-City, Crenshaw District, Inglewood, Westchester, El Segundo, Redondo Beach and Torrance all connected by one rail line to LAX, a line that would have transfer stations with four of the five east-west MTA rail lines. The implications to the MTA system and region as a whole are huge.

In the South Bay, the line would provide an alternative to the I-405 freeway. And in the north from Hollywood to the Expo Line, the line would have a total monopoly on high-speed transportation, because it would be 100% underground permitting trains to travel 55 mph between stations in a section of our region that has no freeway option. The result: Hollywood to LAX in a little over 30 minutes.

Imagine that.

The only impediment to fast, reliable rail service for this entire line is the median street-running segment in Park Mesa Heights from 48th Street to 59th Street. The regional line, serving Southern California&rsquo;s air traffic hub, would have to compete with an already overburdened roadway. Over 60,000 cars per day travel this portion of Crenshaw Boulevard, and at the major intersection of Slauson/Crenshaw, MTA&rsquo;s own studies reveal that rush hour congestion is at its worst possible level (Level of Service &ldquo;F&rdquo;) and cannot be improved with a street-level crossing.

From 48th Street to 59th street, the train would have to stop at signals and travel with no crossing gates. Of the nearly 900 accidents on MTA&rsquo;s street-level Blue Line, America&rsquo;s deadliest light rail line, 76 percent of all accidents and 92 percent of all vehicular accidents are at crossings with no gates.
If one of the goals of the public investment is to convince travelers that they can make their flights on time by &ldquo;Go[ing] Metro&rdquo; &mdash; that they need not clog the city streets and 405 to get to LAX &mdash; surely it is wise to avoid designs that are known to be problematic and create significant delays to passengers.

The historic African-American Crenshaw corridor has been waiting for its rebirth since at least the civil unrest of 1992. There have been piecemeal public and private investments, but none so singularly significant as the Crenshaw-LAX light rail project. At $1.7 billion, it is the largest public works project in the history of South Los Angeles.

In spite of all the challenges, Crenshaw merchants are still standing. In the Park Mesa Heights community institutions like Dulan&rsquo;s, Nobody Jones Boutique, Crenshaw Yoga and Margarita&rsquo;s Caf&eacute; remain, if in the case of some, only by the skin of their teeth.

Ridley-Thomas&rsquo; motion would connect the two underground portions of the rail line, avoiding the safety hazards and business impacts of a street-level design between 48th Street to 59th Street in Park Mesa Heights.

To fit street-level tracks on Crenshaw in Park Mesa Heights, MTA would impose a variety of roadway changes that would transform the boulevard, which currently features pedestrian-friendly designs (coupled with a specific plan that requires new buildings to be built in a manner that is pedestrian-oriented) into a highway that is far more auto-centric.

MTA&rsquo;s street-level plan would make it harder for patrons to walk and drive to the mostly black-owned small businesses. The median lined with mature trees that contribute to Crenshaw Boulevard&rsquo;s scenic highway status would be wiped out, available parking would be cut in half, and left turns at multiple intersections would be eliminated along with mid-block pedestrian crossings. A tremendous economic revitalization opportunity would be hampered. And the impact on current business with 4-5 long years of street-level construction is daunting.

Could Park Mesa Heights merchants withstand it?

It&rsquo;s highly doubtful. Far more stable business corridors succumbed in the best of economic times.
It would be a death to the last African-American business corridor in Southern California.

The plight of the Crenshaw business community should concern us all. If Los Angeles is a salad bowl filled with a mixture of cultures from throughout the world, Crenshaw must be the dressing. Our region should no more welcome the destruction of the Crenshaw business community than it should Little Tokyo or Chinatown. Crenshaw is as much a part of our unique identity as a multicultural city, as any other ethnic center. We must both preserve it and enhance it with the Crenshaw-LAX Light Rail Line.

The Crenshaw community is ready for the rebirth that will occur if MTA builds the Park Mesa Heights tunnel. With it will come not just a preserved cultural destination and better public transit, but also a stronger tax base for the region.

Goodmon is chair of the Crenshaw Subway Coalition Chair and coordinator of the Fix Expo Campaign.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Californians join  hands to fulfill  state’s higher education promise]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Editorial-Californians-join-hands-to-fulfill-states-higher-education-promise-119927974.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">119927974</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:50:28 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

In this time of drastic budget cuts, university tuition hikes and an economy plagued with unemployment, California&rsquo;s community colleges have held steady, providing the best opportunity for an affordable education and economic advancement to the state&rsquo;s residents.

Young people graduating from high school, laid-off workers seeking re-training and older residents re-entering the workforce are among those turning to the community college system. The good news is that we have an unprecedented opportunity to help these students hold onto to their dreams of obtaining careers and economic prosperity.

If the California Community Colleges raise $50 million by June 30, the system will receive $25 million in matching funds from the Bernard Osher Foundation. This generous pledge will be used to assist students struggling to pay for college not to fund administrative costs or to building projects, but directly to students who have a unmet financial need.

That&rsquo;s why I will be joining Hands Across California this Sunday, an event molded after Hands Across America in 1986, event that will create a human line of hand-holding individuals from Southern to Northern California in a monumental effort to raise awareness and resources for the California Community Colleges Scholarship Endowment.

California Community Colleges have done their best to maintain the low cost of tuition, but fees along with hundred-dollar text books, transportation costs and other expenses, can put higher education out of reach for those most in need. Community college students have a median income of $16,223; approximately 90 percent need financial aid, and almost half have no financial resources to pay for college.

Who are these students? Community colleges educate the majority of the state&rsquo;s firefighters, law enforcement officers, nurses and emergency medical technicians. But the range of students is vast: they are veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, single mothers working full-time jobs while also going to school, first generation high school graduates and students from low-income families. They are hard workers who held jobs before the recession decimated the state&rsquo;s economy and now must start anew.

In the 1950s, visionary Gov. Edmund G. &ldquo;Pat&rdquo; Brown, led the state into a Golden era of prosperity. Under his leadership, California promised that a quality education would be affordable and accessible to all generations. Billions of dollars for infrastructure were invested in the state&rsquo;s economy, and we built seven new state colleges and university campuses dedicated to fulfilling this commitment.

Since then, the state&rsquo;s community colleges truly have become the gateway to the middle class, with the highest rate of attendance of all community college districts in the nation. Also, according to the University of California, in Fall 2010, a record 22,851 students transferred from a California Community College to a UC campus. That&rsquo;s a 16.5 increase from 2009. 

Now, is not the time to break our vow.

On Sunday, April 17, join me in standing with thousands of Californians up and down the state as we lock hands and re-commit to our promise to make higher education available to all.

Ridley-Thomas represents the 2nd District on the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.

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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Joining together in 'revolution' to improve education]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Editorial-Joining-together-in-revolution-to-improve-education-119633899.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">119633899</guid>		
			<pubDate>Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:22:35 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

Thomas Jefferson said it best when he proclaimed, &ldquo;Every generation needs a revolution.&rdquo; But today, we often make the mistake of declaring a revolution against each other based on our own selfish agendas. We must stop wasting time casting blame and attacking one another, and instead start focusing on finding real solutions that work for our schools. 

When less than 50 percent of Compton students are not graduating, it is time to take a brave stand. What we need now, more than ever, is to come together for the sake of our children. I am calling to action every stakeholder in the Compton Unified School District to join me in igniting a revolution to ensure that every child has access to a high-quality education in a safe learning environment that meets individual student needs.

We must become open to new educational methods while holding on to what already works. What we do know is that Compton has satisfactory performing elementary schools, although we must increase academic performance levels for our K-5 grade students. Where we are falling short is our middle and high schools, which have some of the lowest academic performance scores in California.

Compton has been a longtime supporter of traditional education. And while that has adequately served our elementary schools, it clearly is not working for our middle and high schools. We need to begin searching for innovative solutions that have proven to work for other school districts. The solutions that I champion are threatening to some because I&rsquo;m fighting against a system that seeks to hold onto traditional educational methods that have not worked for our schools for decades.

It is time for the Compton Unified School District to study the feasibility of a dependent charter school. It is well documented that dependent charter schools &mdash; charters overseen by a school district &mdash; design programs that suit the individual learning needs of the students, with the ease of certain regulations, allowing teachers and administrators to develop often more effective learning strategies. A dependent charter school can also receive federal funding and other grants that meet the financial needs of a top performing school.

To create a level playing field for our schools to compete on a national scale, we must appeal to our federal and state governments to provide more desperately needed funding to Compton schools. Academic performances in Compton schools began declining in 1978 after Proposition 13 forced California cities to redistribute their taxes, significantly cutting funding from our public schools. Our community must launch a district-wide movement to demand that our federal and state leaders put more local tax monies back into our public schools.

We all know that children are our future. That means we must prepare a generation of college and career-ready students. One way our district can make this happen is by working closely with local trade unions to provide apprenticeship training to our middle and high school students, giving them valuable skills for future job placement.

Another way we can ensure their future is by creating a village setting for our students, parents and teachers. To do this, we must establish small learning communities that will provide immediate intervention for the specific challenges affecting each neighborhood school. But to make this village a reality, our parents must become more active in their children&rsquo;s education and get involved in parent organizations, like the PTA. Studies have shown that parent engagement is the number one indicator of student success.

When our schools improve, our community improves. How can we tackle other social issues ailing our community &mdash; from the economy, to crime, to housing &mdash; if we lack a skilled workforce to address these problems? It all starts with education.

Like many, I am outraged by the state of Compton&rsquo;s school performance levels. I challenge the community to redirect that energy by making a positive difference. We are all in a position to do something to improve our schools. I will continue leveraging my position as a board member of the Compton Unified School District Board of Trustees by introducing and supporting measures that result in better educational outcomes for our students. I ask that we join together in making it our collective revolution to fight for the future of our children.

Ali is a member of the Compton Unified School District Board of Trustees.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Empowering Black parents]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Editorial-Empowering-Black-parents-111166254.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">111166254</guid>		
			<pubDate>Wed, 1 Dec 2010 19:46:17 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

As we enter the final days of 2010, one of the outstanding issues of the past 12 months is the inadequate education that the majority of African-American children and young adults are receiving throughout the United States. All parents, and in particular African-American parents, want the best for their children. Thus, the empowerment of parents around the issues of improving the education of young people in the African-American community should remain one of the highest priorities.

They say that information is power.  Black parents need accurate and timely information about the various options and rights that they have concerning all the educational systems, programs, and institutions available. Having a greater knowledge of how to access better and more effective educational opportunities is critical to parental empowerment.

Recently the National Assessment of Educational Progress  (NAEP) Grade 12 Reading and Mathematics National and Pilot State Results were released by the National Center for Education Statistics. In both math and reading African-American 12th graders scored considerably lower than White or Asian-American students. There was a significant achievement gap in terms of the racial breakdown of 12th graders that took the test across the nation. 

According to the National Assessment Governing Board, &ldquo;The racial/ethnic gaps are more pervasive, and often much larger, than those between genders. For example, 52 percent of Asian/Pacific Islander students nationwide reached the proficient achievement level in 12th grade mathematics, compared to 33 percent of Whites, 11 percent of Hispanic, and 6 percent of Blacks. These math test results are not acceptable. 

Empowerment is not about just being angry and disgusted, it is about channeling our anger into an effective modus operandi that brings about a positive change. 

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stated that the results of NAEP Grade 12 &ldquo;suggests that high school seniors&rsquo; achievement in reading and math isn&rsquo;t rising fast enough to prepare them to succeed in college and careers. President Obama has set a goal that the United States once again will have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by the end of the decade. 

In a survey that accompanied the NAEP test, 86 percent of seniors said they expect to graduate from college.&rdquo;  Secretary Duncan was correct in general terms. But when it comes to the disparities and inequities that Black American children and youth are facing in the educational systems in America, parents in our communities need to be more vocal, organized, mobilized, and involved in the decisions and policies that impact the quality of education.

None of the current data from national reports, tests or other forms of educational assessments about the academic achievement of Black American students should be just received solely as &ldquo;shocking&rdquo; new data or information. We have to use this data and test results to make the case for systemic change. Black parents have to take the lead in demanding effective educational reform locally, statewide, and nationally. There is a growing parental choice movement to improve education standards and academic performance of our children.

All children deserve equal educational opportunity. There needs to be a focus where the need is greatest and where the achievement gaps are so glaring and obvious. Low-income and working class Black families are facing increasing hardships economically as well as dysfunctions in too many of the schools in these communities. Yet this educational crisis can be and should be turned around. 

Our children want and deserve a better chance at life and it begins by demanding and struggling for a better high quality education. Nothing less than the best for our children is acceptable. That is why I have been somewhat encouraged lately to witness Black parents bind together in the different regions of the nation on the questions of parental choice and educational reform. 

Looking into 2011 and beyond, Black parental empowerment will be key to any successful movement for change in the educational options for our children.

Chavis is an NNPA columnist and senior advisor for the Black Alliance for Educational Options and president of Educational Online Services Corporation.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: In a season of plenty, remember the hungry]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Editorial-In-a-season-of-plenty-remember-the-hungry-110277864.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">110277864</guid>		
			<pubDate>Tue, 23 Nov 2010 19:16:06 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s dinner time in America. But for one in four children, you&rsquo;d never know it.&rdquo;

The ad with the simple image of an empty plate is meant to catch your eye &mdash; especially if you came across it in the November issue of a favorite magazine, tucked among the tips for a traditional Thanksgiving feast. It&rsquo;s part of a campaign by Share Our Strength, a national nonprofit organization that fights childhood hunger. As they say below the picture: &ldquo;Dinner time is when families gather to share their day and create memories. But for nearly 17 million children, dinner time can be the cruelest part of the day. 

Right here in the United States, almost 1 in 4 children don&rsquo;t know when they will have their next meal.
Thanksgiving is a season to celebrate plenty, and a day when many families sit down to tables overflowing with favorite foods to give thanks for all they have been blessed. For many people, Thanksgiving dinner is the largest meal of the year &mdash; and by the time they&rsquo;ve finished that last piece of pie, their stomachs are so full they&rsquo;ll be physically uncomfortable. But, the canned food drives and other pleas for donations this month are a quiet reminder that for too many families, Thanksgiving will be like any other meal: not a time of plenty but a time of want.

Share Our Strength notes 50.1 million Americans aren&rsquo;t able to regularly put enough nutritious food on the table, and that food insecurity, which includes &ldquo;running out of food without money to buy more, cutting portion sizes or skipping meals, and not feeding children in the family because there isn&rsquo;t money for food,&rdquo; exists in almost 15 percent of all U.S. households. Almost 70 percent of food insecure families live above the poverty line. These numbers aren&rsquo;t just statistics. They reflect the reality many of us are already seeing in our own homes, neighborhoods, or communities right now, as families who were blessed enough to be able to contribute to those canned food drives during past Thanksgivings are today joining the lines of those in need.

Food insecurity is especially devastating for children, whose developmental well&ndash;being depends on access to adequate nutrition. Ensuring all children access to healthy, nutritious food will ultimately improve educational outcomes, reduce rates of childhood obesity, and enhance the mental and emotional health of our children. In addition to everything we know about the devastating short&ndash; and long&ndash;term effects hunger has on individual children, we also know that allowing children to go hungry is taking an economic toll on our entire country. This is documented in reports like Feeding America&rsquo;s &ldquo;Child Food Insecurity: The Economic Impact on Our Nation,&rdquo; which concluded &ldquo;the direct and indirect effect of child hunger in the U.S. is a contributing factor to the nation&rsquo;s economic woes and puts America at a competitive disadvantage.&rdquo; 

Childhood hunger in the United States is a shameful and preventable crisis and we must work together to solve it right now, from individual efforts in our own communities to supporting policies that fight hunger at the national level. A first immediate step is to make sure the massively underutilized federal summer feeding program&rsquo;s bureaucratic barriers are eliminated so that the more than three million children who get free and reduced price lunches can ease hunger during the long summer months. Hunger does not stop in June when school is out.

President Obama has set a goal of ending childhood hunger by 2015, and the federal child nutrition programs, which provide nutritious meals and snacks each day to millions of children, are an important component in these efforts. Right now there is an important child nutrition bill stalled in Congress because it is currently paid for with cuts in food stamps. The president and Congress must find another way to pay for the bill other than food stamp cuts. It is all about choices &mdash; what do we value?

Tell your member of Congress that hungry children need help but not by taking from one hand to give to another.

Several years ago, the Children&rsquo;s Defense Fund&rsquo;s pro bono advertising partner Fallon Worldwide created a campaign for us that updated the moving words of Langston Hughes&rsquo;s poem &ldquo;God to Hungry Child&rdquo;:

Hungry child,
I did not make this world for you.
You didn&rsquo;t buy stock in my corporation.
You didn&rsquo;t invest in my mutual fund.
Where were you when my company went public?
I made the world for the rich
And the will&ndash;be&ndash;rich
And the have&ndash;always&ndash;been rich.
Not for you,
Hungry child.

As we are giving thanks to God for all our blessings this season, is that really the message God wants us to give to America&rsquo;s hungry children?

Marian Wright Edelman is an NNPA columnist and president of the Children&rsquo;s Defense Fund.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Edit: Black community must build on new momentum  for the Crenshaw rail line]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Edit-Black-community-must-build-on-new-momentum--for-the-Crenshaw-rail-line-105556378.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">105556378</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 22 Oct 2010 12:19:40 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

For our community, the Crenshaw/LAX rail line represents the final eight-and-a-half miles of a much longer journey.

More than a quarter century ago, Mayor Tom Bradley, Congressman Julian Dixon and then-State Sen. Diane Watson championed the idea of a rail line linking the Crenshaw District to a transit network spread across Los Angeles County. But the Crenshaw line was soon derailed. After languishing for decades, the project was revived in the last two years through a push from County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.

Last week, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer joined Ridley-Thomas, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and L.A. County Federation of Labor chief Maria Elena-Durazo to announce a $546 million Obama Administration loan for Crenshaw rail. The Crenshaw line is back on track, and it&rsquo;s time to speed that train up! We have been patient. Now we must move full steam ahead.

In the 1980s, the Crenshaw line was conceived as the backbone of economic opportunity for our community, improving access to our neighborhoods and business districts in an attractive manner that would also enhance property values. We had earlier sacrificed too much of that value for the construction of the Santa Monica Freeway, which cut across our community and scarred its landscape. Over time, other areas and other priorities surpassed our community&rsquo;s rail line.

MTA then began talking about the Crenshaw line as a bus service. Its completion goal was pushed out to 2029. Such delay and downgrading should never have been acceptable to us. Bradley and Dixon never got to see the rail line they envisioned. During those years of waiting, another freeway, I-105, bisected our community.

Still, we gave for the greater good. African-American voters overwhelmingly backed Measure R, the 2008 ballot initiative that will generate $40 billion for public transportation projects throughout the county. In 2008, we committed ourselves to again aim higher. On the MTA board, Supervisor Ridley-Thomas made it clear a bus was not acceptable. A rail line was to be the standard, not an option, just as it has been for other Los Angeles neighborhoods. A commitment to rail was secured from MTA in December 2009.

Rather than allow another generation to pass before Crenshaw saw a train, the completion target for the rail line was accelerated to 2016. In the past year, Ridley-Thomas traveled to Washington several times to lobby for funding. With the help of allies like Sens. Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein, as well as Rep. Jane Harman, that lobbying effort is starting to pay off through victories like last week&rsquo;s $546 million loan announcement.

This train is not turning back. We must now build on this momentum to ensure the Crenshaw/LAX rail line becomes all it should be.

Even before it begins to move passengers, the Crenshaw line will drive employment when construction begins, hopefully in 2012. Supervisor Ridley-Thomas is now seeking to ensure the 8,000 jobs on the project include local residents. The work must be done with a Project Labor Agreement to ensure workers are protected, while contractors can be assured  of a smooth construction process without labor disputes. Small businesses must also be guaranteed a fair share of the work. Our local small businesses create the most bang for the buck in generating jobs for area residents. Done right, investments from the rail line will multiply in countless ways as old businesses expand and new ones emerge due to the presence of this important transportation artery. Finally, we must commit to a first-class project. We cannot allow our aspirations to be deferred or diminished.

That means we can not accept a route that brings noise and traffic congestion to our neighborhoods, and possibly create safety risks for pedestrians and drivers. A below-ground train may be what&rsquo;s needed to bolster the value of existing commercial properties and homes and encourages the construction of new businesses and residences; a train running in front of homes or businesses, if not built with painstaking care, can become a nuisance and liability, just as a freeway can.

The argument against a below-ground train is there is no money for it. That is something we&rsquo;ve heard before. We heard for decades there was no money for a Crenshaw rail line, only a busway. We rejected that argument and secured our fair share of funds for the rail line we deserve. Now, we must make sure additional funds made available to the Crenshaw line are not diverted to other projects; we must not let others define our goals and suggest we settle for less, while they take more. Can we afford a Crenshaw line that runs below street level? As lawmakers mull that question, our community needs to send a clear message: We have paid the price for transportation as long as we&rsquo;ve been here.

The voices of Tom Bradley, Julian Dixon and Diane Watson echo today in our call for a viable Crenshaw rail line. We now want a return on our investment while we&rsquo;re still here. We&rsquo;ve waited long enough.

Dixon is pastor of the First Church of God; Hale is president of Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber of Commerce; and Tabor is mayor of Inglewood.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Inside the quest to ‘take back  America,’ a not-so-secret code]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Editorial-Inside-the-quest-to-take-back-America-a-not-so-secret-code-104170764.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">104170764</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 1 Oct 2010 11:41:02 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

As the November midterm elections approach I find myself thinking about what is at stake. Any reader of my commentaries knows that I have been quite critical of President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress for their zigzag politics and their failure to pursue a dynamic, pro-working people agenda. I stand by my criticisms.

That said, the political Right, using the fear and uncertainty that afflicts many white Americans, is attempting to roll back the clock. It is actually amazing how quickly so many people forget the days of George W. Bush and how his policies are directly responsible for putting this country into the hole that it currently finds itself. In that sense, I remembered the words from one of my favorite science fiction films, &quot;Star Trek: First Contact&quot; quoted above. What is at stake is actually not so much that the Democrats have not fully delivered on what most of us have wanted, but that there are forces at play that wish to set us back.

The politics of the political right, especially those of right-wing populists like Sarah Palin, attempt to portray President Obama and the Democrats as somehow the proponents of big government and taking control out of the hands of the people. What is important is to recognize that under the Bush Administration, for instance, we witnessed a weakening of our civil liberties, an open door to corporate America in the media, and being lied into the Iraq invasion. Talk about taking control out of the hands of the people! We were played like stings on a violin.

But the code that we are hearing, such as &ldquo;taking America back&rdquo; is really not so much about the policies of the Democrats, as such, but more about the fact that there is a Black person in the White House and that the demographics of the United States are changing dramatically. It is the combination of these two facts that has many white Americans unhinged as they attempt to get their bearings. 

And, of course, this takes place in the context of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, thereby putting even more pressure on everyone.

So, in terms of what is at stake? You do not have to think too much about this. It is whether we will be forced into the right-wing fantasy (and our nightmare) of the 1950s, with further setbacks in our struggle for justice.

But that is not enough. We cannot simply say that we do not wish to go back. We have to hold the feet of President Obama and the Democrats to the fire.  Truth be told, too few of us have been willing to do that. We wanted change; we wanted a dramatic transformation; but all we did was vote for it and then waited for results. That is simply not enough. 

The other side, the side that wants to turn the clock back, was shaken to their core by the November 2008 election and they have been determined ever since to frustrate anything that even smells of progress. If we are not prepared to fight, then we will have to expect to lose.

Fletcher is an NNPA columnist and senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: President Obama is really  doing an excellent job]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Editorial--103086649.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">103086649</guid>		
			<pubDate>Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:32:00 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

It is often said that one should be careful what they pray for, because God will answer those prayers. Millions of African-Americans and others prayed for a president of the United States who would lead America in a more just and fair direction both domestically and internationally. Many believed two years ago that the world would never witness a Black man and woman in the White House. 

Unless we are too quick to forget, prior to November 2008, the U.S. economy, world image, and national social divisions were all in pretty bad shape after eight years of failed leadership from President George W. Bush. Today as we approach the midterm 2010 elections, it is very important for us not to lose our memory or sense of perspective. This is also certainly not the time to become complacent or to take the importance of voting for granted.

Yes, the vast majority of African-Americans are proud of the leadership and progress that has already been accomplished by President Barack H. Obama. Once again, the vital role of the Black press re-emerges on the national scene. Most of the established media in the U.S. thrives on cynicism and negative media coverage. We believe in objective reporting and constructive criticism. Yet, the problem is there appears to be more subjective criticism of President Obama than is warranted after only two years in office.

Last Friday, the president appeared on Tom Joyner&rsquo;s nationally syndicated radio show, which featured a skilled interview in the best traditions of the Black press role of providing timely and crucial information to the African-American and other communities who demand more objective truth in the media. Most of all, what was clear from that broadcast was the outstanding leadership of President Obama on a number of key issues critical to improving the quality of life of African-Americans.

The leadership of a president is not to be judged solely by media coverage or by sheer popularity. Presidential leadership should be judged by how well a president leads the nation forward, not backward. In 2010, even with the persistent economic and unemployment challenges, the U.S. under Obama&rsquo;s leadership has moved in a forward, progressive manner in terms of foreign and domestic policies.

It goes without saying that we understand that the president of the United States has the responsibility to act and lead in behalf of all the people of the U.S. One of the reasons why we attest to President Obama&rsquo;s strength as a national and world leader is that while he has held the office with high dignity and integrity, and has well represented all of the people in the U.S., he has not forgotten about the Black American community in terms of public policies, budget allocations, and other governmental actions.

The president said it best during the interview: &ldquo;What we&rsquo;ve been trying to do is build a new foundation for economic growth and prosperity in our communities&hellip; Now, what we have done over the course of two years is laid the foundation. Put in place some key reforms&hellip; I mentioned health care reform. That&rsquo;s going to mean millions of African-Americans and Hispanics and people of every stripe across the country who did not have health care &hellip; now are going to have health care. Number two, in terms of one of the keys that we&rsquo;ve always talked about in terms of job growth &mdash; long term &mdash; is education. We have done more to reform education in our communities in the last two years than had been done in the previous 20 years, and that&rsquo;s at every level K-12 &hellip; But it goes all the way up to higher education, where [historically Black colleges and universities] are getting $850 million over the next 10 years &hellip; So, no we&rsquo;re not where we need to be. But at least we&rsquo;re moving forward, and what we can&rsquo;t start doing is moving backward.&rdquo; 

Chavis is a senior advisor to the Black Alliance for Educational Options and president of the Education Online Services Corporation. He wrote this column for the NNPA.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Edit: New right ignores struggles fought, won by people of color]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Edit-102498299.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">102498299</guid>		
			<pubDate>Wed, 8 Sep 2010 18:13:17 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

When the framers of the United States Constitution sought to &ldquo;&hellip;form a more perfect union&hellip;&rdquo; they did so to form a strong federal government, but one that respected, in law, limited rights of state governments.

Of course, the lofty words of Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Franklin applied only to White males. And history reminds us that &ldquo;the people&rdquo; (women, conscientious Whites, African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics) had to pressure Congress to enact amendments to include people of color, women, and Americans with disabilities as first-class citizens &mdash; at least on paper. Perhaps more importantly, strong-willed American presidents throughout our nation&rsquo;s history, in order to form a more perfect union, supported the enactment of progressive constitutional amendments in order move the country forward.

For example, President Lincoln helped to persuade Congress to enact the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (end of slavery, African American citizenship, Black voting rights). Similarly, President Woodrow Wilson, albeit begrudgingly, supported the 19th Amendment (women&rsquo;s voting rights). In a constitutional republic such as exists in the United States, constitutional rights represent lasting legislation for legions of American citizens. In 2001, Rep Jesse Jackson Jr. wrote a seminal book on the transformational public policy impact of constitutional rights, &ldquo;A More Perfect Union: Advancing New American Rights.&rdquo;

In the book, Jackson sets forth a most compelling argument for individual &mdash; not state &mdash; rights for voting, public education, health care, and labor. In a democracy, the right to vote preserves all other rights for citizens. Yet, no American citizen &mdash; White, Black, or of any color &mdash; has the individual right to vote written in the Constitution, compared to the individual right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of assembly.

While the United States Constitution provided voting rights for White males who owned land, it vested voting authority to states under the 10th Amendment (states&rsquo; rights).  For example, in 1870, the 15th Amendment, granting voting rights for newly freed former enslaved &ldquo;negroes&rdquo; &mdash; as were many other amendments &mdash; was written in the negative. As such, African-Americans were protected from the right &ldquo;not&rdquo; to be discriminated against in their &ldquo;state&rdquo; right to vote. State authority in voting rights flies in face of individual constitutional rights pertaining to speech, religion, and to own firearms. In a practical sense, if a citizen can carry the right to speak, practice religion, and gather freely from state to state, so should they have the individual right to vote, written in the United States Constitution, and protected by the federal government. Currently, due to state control, all American citizens must re-register to vote when changing address from one state to another.

The 10th Amendment gives states control over matters that are not reserved for the federal government. As a result, states have authority over federal elections. Ten years ago in the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, state control of elections resulted in widespread evidence of partisanship by state elections officials (see Gore v. Bush) and voter suppression, yet there was no federal remedy available to individuals whose votes were not counted. Due to state control of elections, there are at least 50 separate state-controlled electoral systems; 3,067 county-controlled electoral systems; and 13,000 municipal-controlled electoral systems.

Such a system needs constitutional repair to require a unitary voting system (one machine and one ballot type for all federal elections) for president, vice president, and congressional representatives. The same deficiency holds true in the health care, education, and the right to work which could be rectified by enactment of individual rights amendments. Although historic health care legislation was recently passed, states still control the provision of health care.

Thus, several states are vowing to repeal federal health care law. Contrarily, if every American had the individual and federally protected right to health care private profiteers would lose their stranglehold on costs. In education, if every public school child had the individual right to an equal and high quality education, poorly equipped public schools would be unconstitutional. Moreover, the property real estate tax formula upon which current school funding is based would be obsolete. Lastly, if American workers had a constitutional right to employment, states and political parties &mdash; namely, Republicans &mdash; could not block legislation aimed to put America back to work.

Flowers is an NNPA columnist and executive director and CEO of the Black Leadership Forum.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Struggle for equal  education is today’s  civil rights movement]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Edit-102091418.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">102091418</guid>		
			<pubDate>Thu, 2 Sep 2010 11:44:07 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

The civil rights movement is alive and well in 2010. There is no such thing as the &ldquo;post-civil rights era,&rdquo; unless you are one of those rare individuals who assume that African-Americans and others have already &ldquo;overcome&rdquo; racial discrimination and economic exploitation.

There is no such thing as a &ldquo;post-racial&rdquo; America, unless you are also one of those brothers or sisters who think that you are a &ldquo;post-Black&rdquo; colorless person who lives in a colorblind society of true equality and equity.

I remember well, back in the 1960s and 1970s, there were some who misguidedly believed that we should stop marching, organizing, struggling, singing and praying for a better day. Yes, we have made tremendous progress during the last 50 years toward racial justice and equality. But our progress did not happen by osmosis. We had to stand up, speak out, protest and for many we had to shed blood and tears, and endure jail time and suffering to get where we are today. We cannot afford now to acquire contemporary amnesia about our civil rights and human rights continuing struggles.

That is why today, we are sounding a national alarm about what is happening and not happening in education for African-American children in particular. It is way past time for the vast majority of African-Americans and others who consider themselves to be progressive to speak out and take direct action to ensure that our children get the best possible quality education. A people who will not put the highest priority on the education of their children are a people who are doomed to social and economic hardship and subjugation.

Black parents have to exercise their parental rights and responsibilities to demand better educational options for our children across the United States. We say &ldquo;our children&rdquo; because every child in our community deserves the fundamental right to have equal access to a high quality, not low quality, education. Why are we so patient and silent about the failures of school systems that are failing to provide the education &ldquo;our&rdquo; children deserve?

Yes, we need a national movement for equal quality education today with no less of a collective sense of urgency than we exhibited five decades ago. Our children are being miseducated, harmed and racially discriminated against. This is a civil rights issue. This is a human rights issue. This is a parental responsibility issue.

In some cities &mdash; like New York, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston, Cleveland, St. Louis, Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, Norfolk, Louisville, and Jackson, Miss. &mdash; the high school dropout rates are unacceptably high and directly proportioned to the issues of denying parental choice, systemic institutional failures, poverty and the refusal to develop and support alternative, more effective educational models that put the educational needs and rights of our children as the priority focus.

Disproportionately high dropout rates of African-American students from high schools throughout America directly lead to the disproportionate high incarceration rates of African-Americans in prisons and jails. The continued miseducation of our children will consign future generations to abject poverty and a neo-slave existence.

The 21st century offers so many new global opportunities for all people to improve their quality of life, but this requires a high quality education to meet these new opportunities. African-American children should not be denied this moment in history.

We cannot and should not any longer allow this situation to go unchallenged. We believe in movement building. If you agree with us, come join us. Let&rsquo;s build this movement together for change in education. Add your voice and energy to this important cause. It&rsquo;s time for us to stand up and speak out again. The education and the future of our children are at stake.

Chavis is a senior advisor to the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) and president of Education Online Services Corporation. He wrote this column for the NNPA.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: On a historic day, live  the spirit of the march]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Editorial-On-a-historic-day-live-the-spirit-of-the-march-101527128.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">101527128</guid>		
			<pubDate>Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:29:46 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

This Saturday, Aug. 28, marks the 47th anniversary of the moment when 2,000 buses, 21 special trains, 10 chartered airliners and countless cars converged in Washington, D.C. to participate in the March for Jobs and Freedom. Organized by religious, civil rights and labor leaders, the 1963 March on Washington was one of the greatest moments in the history of American democracy. Citizens across the country who faced bigoted lynch mobs, dehumanizing poverty, and separate and unequal public services courageously stood together in the open expanse between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument to challenge their government in the hope of creating equal access to good jobs, quality education, and the right to vote &mdash; three highways to the American dream.

The march was organized by civil rights visionary A. Philip Randolph, who served as president of both the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the Negro American Labor Council, as well as vice president of the American Federation League and Congress of Industrial Organizations. Two decades before the march, Randolph negotiated the desegregation of the armed forces and defense industry jobs, creating uncharted pathways for Black workers in factories and plants in cities throughout the nation, particularly here in Los Angeles. 

We can only imagine what Randolph felt as he stood at the feet of the Lincoln Monument, gazing over the sea of 300,000 peaceful marchers who listened to the eloquent and profound dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other great leaders of the movement for social and economic justice. How powerful it must have been to see unshakable values of American freedom embodied by the voices of everyday people.

&ldquo;We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of, for hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here&mdash;for they have no money for their transportation, for they are receiving starvation wages&hellip;or no wages at all,&rdquo; said John Lewis, a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the youngest speaker at the march. He went on to say, &ldquo;We come here today with a great sense of misgiving&hellip;We need a bill that will provide for the homeless and starving people of this nation. We need a bill that will ensure the equality of a maid who earns five dollars a week in the home of a family whose total income is $100,000 a year.&rdquo;

The March on Washington was a radical show of power that set out to expand the role of government to address poverty and the disenfranchisement of millions of voters through the Civil Rights Act. The march called for an investment in programs for the poor and elderly, and demanded an equitable society. 

The March for Jobs and Freedom and the values it stood for are as needed today as it was 47 years ago. Consider this: Only one in five Black working-age adults in Los Angeles has a quality job, meaning a job that pays family sustaining wages, provides affordable heath benefits for workers and their families, offers a pension, and has opportunity for advancement. The other four Black workers in this disturbing statistic are either unemployed or working in dead-end jobs that pay $12 an hour or less.

As news reports tout the uptick in stock exchanges, the Black community lives with Depression-era realities of fathers and mothers who decide between food and rent. Many families have run out of such options. I recently witnessed a group of proud Black construction workers explaining how some families no longer have the luxury of that option. One of the workers nearly broke down in tears as they explained how they went from job site to job site seeking work, only to be turned away from all 14 stops. They reported having to swallow the sadness and anger as they looked into the eyes of their children upon their return home. Meanwhile, in our nation&rsquo;s capital, stimulus funding is stuck in the federal jobs bill, held up by conservative forces that would rather preserve tax cuts for the richest top percent of Americans &mdash; who have already seen an astronomical 513 percent increase in their annual income from 1973 to 2005 &mdash; than approve the much-needed bailout for working and middle-class citizens in cities like Los Angeles, where good jobs have furloughed or either disappeared all together from the city core. 

In fact, as we write this editorial, a perverted plan is under way by Fox News host Glenn Beck to culminate his seven-region workshop on &ldquo;community organizing tactics&rdquo; for Tea Party and conservative voters to take place on the same anniversary day and location as the historic March on Washington. Beck plans to re-enact the March on Washington by espousing right-wing values that are as hollow and weak as an empty tea bag. What would Dr. King say about this immoral hijacking and cultural thievery by our misguided brothers and sisters who call for smaller, undependable government and who protest against healthcare reform policies that protect the elderly, youth and our most vulnerable? Under these insidious economic and social policies, the Black community will witness the first generation that is worse off than the one before it. 

As Dr. King shared in his &ldquo;I Have A Dream&rdquo; speech on that fateful day in 1963, he offered this: &ldquo;There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.&rdquo;

Smallwood-Cuevas is project director of the Los Angeles Black Worker Center.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Vigilance is key to protection of our voting rights]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Editorial-Vigilance-is-key-to-protection-of-our-voting-rights-100499139.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">100499139</guid>		
			<pubDate>Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:07:42 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

This month marks the anniversary of many historical milestones in the continuing effort to guarantee equal rights to all Americans.
The 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, granting women the right to vote.

On Aug. 28, 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. marched for civil rights and delivered his clarion call for a more just America on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. And, 45 years ago Friday, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law the historic 1965 Voting Rights Act.

That law has proved to be one of the most successful civil rights laws in our nation&rsquo;s history, extending to millions of Americans the right to vote and the opportunity to participate more fully in our democracy. In celebrating its 45th anniversary, we must also remember that passing the Voting Rights Act and other civil rights laws was no easy feat.

After the Civil War, ratification of the 15th Amendment was supposed to extend voting rights regardless of &ldquo;race, color or previous condition of servitude,&rdquo; meaning former African slaves would have the right to vote. But that promise was left unrealized because state legislatures (especially the southern states of the former Confederacy) expertly circumvented the Constitution and used &ldquo;Jim Crow&rdquo; laws to ensure the continued disenfranchisement of African-Americans.

Poll taxes, &ldquo;literacy tests&rdquo; and blatant threats of violence depressed voter registration rates in black communities. Blacks attempting to register to vote were often brutally beaten. Many were killed.

Then came Bloody Sunday. On March 7, 1965, about 600 peaceful civil rights workers were marching from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. While attempting to cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, these nonviolent activists were savagely beaten and bloodied by Alabama state troopers.

The images of that brutality were displayed on TV and in newspapers throughout the country and around the globe. Those visuals are widely credited with shifting public opinion in favor of the nonviolent protesters and leading to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. LBJ (a Texan) and other national leaders showed amazing strength and courage by forging ahead with legislation that many in the South would have called an overreach of federal power.

The civil rights movement awakened the nation&rsquo;s conscience. Passage of the act signaled a new era of voting rights in the United States, finally enfranchising low-income blacks. It introduced federal oversight of elections to eliminate intimidation of minority voters and arbitrary registration requirements. The law directed the Department of Justice to challenge states&rsquo; use of poll taxes, and one year later, the Supreme Court responded by declaring such taxes unconstitutional violations of the 14th Amendment.

Amendments to the Voting Rights Act in the 1970s introduced protections for language-minority citizens, and later amendments banned supposedly &ldquo;neutral&rdquo; voting regulations that had racially disparate effects. The protections contained within the act, a century in the making, finally gave force and effect to many of the hard-fought gains of the Civil War.

The Voting Rights Act is directly responsible for the election of dozens of African-American House members and the formation of the Congressional Black Caucus. Today, African-American voter registration rates are approaching those of whites in many areas, as are the rates of Latino voters.

I wonder how the 1960s civil rights marchers would be treated by today&rsquo;s new media: whether the powerful images they created through nonviolence could be edited to instead show a riotous crowd; whether nightly opinionated &ldquo;journalists&rdquo; could successfully portray them as mere lawbreakers. And, I wonder whether today&rsquo;s political leaders would have the same courage as those serving in 1965.

Recall that it wasn&rsquo;t in Johnson&rsquo;s political interest to forge ahead on civil rights policies, but it was the right thing to do for the country. It seems doubtful that today&rsquo;s elected leaders would take such a stand, especially in light of the growing chorus of Republican lawmakers questioning the citizenship provision in the 14th Amendment.

States today are also fashioning new ways to restrain voting rights. Georgia, for example, relies on outdated and inaccurate information to verify the citizenship status of Georgians registering to vote. The Department of Justice concluded that the program improperly harms minority voters. Rather than repair its program, Georgia elected to sue the federal government in hopes of continuing to use its flawed process.

A heavily disputed law now on the books in Indiana forces voters to show government-issued photo ID, which is inconvenient and expensive to obtain, keeping many low-income people from casting a vote.

Other states have enacted similar laws or have simply refused to comply with federal demands, perhaps betting that they are unlikely to face reprimand from an overburdened federal government. This year, an election administrator in Texas &mdash; a state employee &mdash; publicly mocked the Voting Rights Act&rsquo;s language minority protections, telling an audience that poll workers should simply speak in slow, broken English to Spanish-speaking voters. The administrator was fired.

We know that the promise of equality enshrined in our Constitution, and brought to bear by the Voting Rights Act, falls victim even today to ideological skirmishes and petty politics. But honoring the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act means acknowledging these remaining challenges and committing ourselves to addressing them. Just as it was 45 years ago that when Jim Crow was the law of the land.

The right of every citizen to vote is too fundamental to the health of our democracy to be wielded as a political cudgel or traded away in favor of other, fleeting interests.

This month, as we stop to appreciate and celebrate the efforts of generations past, we know that our reach towards meaningful equality &mdash; that goal that Justice Thurgood Marshall once called only a &ldquo;distant dream&rdquo; &mdash; grows stronger with each voter registered and every ballot cast.

Brazile is vice chairwoman for voter registration and participation at the Democratic National Committee.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Legislation offers fair shake, helping hand in difficult times]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/Guest-Editorial--99997929.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">99997929</guid>		
			<pubDate>Wed, 4 Aug 2010 19:11:08 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

Pope John XXXIII once wrote that &ldquo;each of us has the right to life, to bodily integrity, and to the means which are suitable for the proper development of life; these are primarily food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, and finally the necessary social services.&rdquo;

Unfortunately, during the current economic recession, these rights are being violated everyday in California. People are hurting. Californians of all backgrounds are losing their jobs and struggling to provide for their families. However, our government, because of a massive budget deficit and partisan politics, has been in little position to aid and offer help to California&rsquo;s most economically at risk residents.

Californians have grown frustrated with a government that has fired thousands of their children&rsquo;s teachers, eliminated public safety programs, and cut vital services. Furthermore, public sentiment is that the legislature has done little to help Californians survive and cope with this economic recession. However, we now have a chance to rewrite this narrative and really aid those in need. A government that works for you.

Recently, a constituent of mine in the 48th District applied for food stamps while waiting for unemployment insurance benefits but was denied this vital subsistence. He was denied because the county welfare department incorrectly considered his anticipated unemployment insurance benefits income in determining his eligibility for the program. In fact, he had not yet received unemployment insurance benefits, which often take months to be processed and sent to the recipient.

According to the state&rsquo;s Employment Development Department, it is estimated that over 665,000 Californians are on unemployment insurance. Many of these individuals have families and mortgages to care for and maintain. We cannot let their needs get stuck in bureaucratic red tape! This is not the government Californians expect, nor, more importantly, who they elected.

That is why I authored AB 1914, which would require counties to take into consideration an individual&rsquo;s unemployment insurance benefit income to determine eligibility for food stamps only if they receive documentation proving the applicant has already received the benefit.

This is a direct example of government-created loopholes that hurt regular folks trying to make a living. As a result, many Californians have been forced to answer an impossible question: How do you eat without money? It is our obligation as legislators to protect individuals from such life threatening scenarios.

The Federal Food Stamp Program is a critical safety-net for low-income Californians. It provides modest nutritional aid under critical circumstances. Similarly, un-employment insurance is a lifeline for those who suddenly loose their job (many with the same employer over several decades). It is our duty as legislators and leaders to both protect and preserve these services. Especially during these tough economic times!

However, many seem content to vote ideologically on an issue that affects so many poor and disadvantaged people. For instance, congressional Republicans in Washington, D.C., had for months, successfully blocked attempts to extend un-employment benefits for individuals whose benefits had expired. While the impasse has been broken, many endured hardship and struggled to subsist because of a petty political battle.

Even more shocking, Senate Republican Whip John Kyl of Arizona called unemployment insurance a &ldquo;necessary evil.&rdquo; Evil? There is nothing evil about helping families eat and live. Furthermore, nothing is immoral about asking for aid and assistance. Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for demonizing their fellow Americans.

We cannot let this rhetoric and posturing to continue. The state of California is facing another huge budget crisis, with thousands of vital social services at risk of being cut. Our number one priority must be simultaneously getting Californians back to work, while aiding those in need.

Assembly Bill 1914 helps people hurt by the recession. As the bill approaches a vote on the State Senate Floor, I ask senators to put aside politics, dump ideology, and vote for their constituents. AB 1914 protects California&rsquo;s most disadvantaged and ensures that they receive the benefits that they are entitled to by law.

Davis is a member of the California State Assembly, representing the 48th District.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Casualties of silence: AIDS in Black America]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/63882397.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">63882397</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 9 Oct 2009 12:15:31 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

There is a terrible and terrifying creature stalking the Black community day and night. People regularly hear reports and sometimes see the horrible and constant toll that it&rsquo;s taking on our lives, but there seems to be an unannounced agreement not to talk about it openly and honestly. Perhaps, there is a desperate hope that if we don&rsquo;t mention its name and recognize its presence, it will go away as quickly and quietly as it came.

At first, we saw it as a problem for people outside our community because the majority of the visible victims were White. But now, the victims are rapidly changing color and 66 percent of all newly diagnosed and dying victims are from the Black and Brown communities.
We also have seen the victims as mainly questionable and unworthy males even though they are often husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, and boyfriends, played the piano and preached at our churches and sang love songs at our concerts. Now we see new victims, Black women who are 65 percent of all new casualties from this terrifying and terrible creature among women of color. Even our children are not exempt. They have now become 75 percent of all its fatal victims.

Finally, we heard that it was a jail and prison phenomenon, isolated and too far away to affect us. But it came home with husbands, fathers, brothers, boyfriends and sons and is now wreaking havoc on our women, children, families and community.

This terrible and terrifying creature is called HIV/AIDS and it has come to our community and is consuming our life energy and undermining our future. It is now the number one killer of our people between the ages of 22-45. Although we are only 12 percent of the U.S. population, we are 50 percent of the casualties of this terrible and terrifying creature in its non-fatal form.

As the casualties mount day after day through disease and death, it is urgent and unavoidable that we as a community come together, set aside our fears, phobias, misconceptions and costly silence and actively confront this horrible threat to our lives and future as a people. To save and protect the lives of our children and people as a whole, there are several things we must do.

&bull; First, we must embrace the victims for who they are &mdash; above all, members of our community and families, our friends and fellow human beings deserving the respect we all are due as bearers of dignity and divinity.

&bull; Second, we must practice an ethics of care and responsibility for the ill and vulnerable among us. This is central to our spiritual and ethical tradition as a people. There was never a time needed to do this more than now in this devastating crisis.

&bull; Third, we must urge our leaders, organizations and especially our religious institutions to take up this issue in a serious and sustained manner, holding forums, speaking out, organizing and mobilizing the community to care for the ill, protect the well, and bury the dead with deserved dignity and remembrance, instead of with embarrassed silence and dishonest denial of the reason for their dying.

&bull; Fourth, we must each of us begin and help to build a national conversation about this most deadly disease-its causes, consequences, possible cures and means of prevention. This will include an honest discussion of the varied sexual practices people engage in secretly and openly.

&bull; Fifth, we must urge testing as a key strategy for detection and prevention of its spreading. Testing is especially important for men in jail and prison who may have engaged in high-risk activity and who will be reintegrating back into their families and the community.

&bull; Sixth, we must organize to struggle for more resources to deal with this horrible crisis. As the color of the victims went from White to Black and Brown, so have the resources begun to dwindle and dry up. 

&bull; Seventh and finally, we must realize and act on the knowledge that we are our own resources and rescuers. Indeed, it is our efforts, which are decisive in any struggle we wage. &ldquo;For a people that cannot save itself is lost forever.&rdquo;

This is a fundamental point in the struggle against HIV/AIDS. We must repair our own selves, rise from the ruins of disease and oppression, hold ourselves and others responsible and together build the community and world we all want and deserve to live in. Whatever else it may be, our community must be a good and loving community that embraces and cares for its own, especially the most vulnerable among us &mdash; the ill and aged, the children, the disabled and the poor.

Wafford, the National Action Network project director of the Act Against AIDS Leadership Initiative, wrote this special commentary for the NNPA.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: We must all work together  to improve L.A.’s schools]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/59053612.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">59053612</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:18:43 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

Nearly 20 years ago, my predecessors on the Board of Education, with laser-like focus, decided to prove to the public that children and families would be better off, and learn more, if they had the choice to attend a neighborhood school on the traditional school calendar. 

To accomplish this goal, school district officials knew they would have to convince the public of the need to develop a school facilities program and hire accomplished professionals. Funding was important, but the key to success has been the extraordinary detail of the planning and implementation of the construction program.

That same comprehensive approach must be applied to the instructional program. The steps to build or modernize a school are contained in a Strategic Execution Plan, a multi-page flow chart with hundreds of boxes anticipating every step and contingency in construction. Boxes are used for the steps taken to identify the area of our community that needs a school to ensuring that every fire extinguisher is in place and operational before the first student arrives. A hallmark of the school facilities construction program is the step by step, no excuses discipline applied to the task.

The school district and the school board need to apply the same laser beam focus to student instruction with the same intensity and attention to details to accomplish our true mission. We need to plan out the educational path of every child from before they begin school in our pre-K classes to his or her selection of a post high school graduation opportunity. We must plan for every contingency and add a box to our instruction flow chart when something unexpected comes up so it is never unexpected again. We must prove we can apply lessons learned, replicate success and eliminate the ineffective.

Concentrating on instruction and academic achievement takes at least as much discipline as building a school. School district officials need to look past the distractions thrown at us like cartoon brickbats by those who hide behind the skirts of reform but appear to want to destroy public education. The public schools, from pre-K through college are the great equalizer in our country. They are what allow the most recent immigrant, the child from a group home, the paraplegic, and the legacy child at Phillips Andover Academy to all have a chance to attend Harvard University or a public college. Public schools accept all comers, and work and work and work with children who want an education but have no one to advocate for them.

We learn over and over that not all children can depend on a parent to keep them safe or ensure they apply to the best possible school. If we were to create an instructional path to success for every child, every child could be nurtured and protected within our educational system so those without could fare as well as those holding a silver spoon.

For those who want to minimize the achievements of the school district, they need to reflect upon what the school district can do when it has the support of the community. The successful construction program is matched by many other great achievements such as the outstanding LAUSD magnet program. We need to do better for more this school year. In 2009-10, we can if we begin to dedicate as many resources and as much energy to the academic achievement of children as we have to building schools and special interests.

As we begin a new school year, we should all pause and reflect on the true mission of the school district &mdash; providing educational opportunities for children. This is a mission achieved through instruction &mdash; not construction, not real estate transactions, not purchasing, not transportation, not accounts payable, not bond offerings, not food services, but instruction. 

Without argument, the school district could do better in the area of instruction, and the district will continue to replicate its best practices throughout our schools. However, the school district cannot do it alone. All community stakeholders &mdash; parents, students, teachers, community members, churches, businesses and elected officials &mdash; can do more to improve the educational process for our children. 

We must all roll up our sleeves and work together to make sure that all students have access to a quality education. The kids are depending on us. 

LaMotte represents District 1 on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. ]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: President must speak out more forcefully for reform]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/57306857.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">57306857</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 4 Sep 2009 11:11:59 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

In a way, the president really has no other choice but to finally speak &mdash; and speak conclusively &mdash; about what he wants in a health care reform bill.

After all, 67 percent of Americans told CBS pollsters over the weekend that the health care debate is &ldquo;confusing.&rdquo; Only 31 percent thought they had a &ldquo;clear understanding&rdquo; of the issues involved. What&rsquo;s worse, the uncertainty cut across party lines. For once, in this polarized time, Democrats and Republicans agree on something: They&rsquo;re perplexed by this health care debate.

And so the White House has allowed that it&rsquo;s time for the president to weigh in, perhaps from the Oval Office or maybe in an address to Congress. No matter how he does it, this much is clear: better late than never.

It hasn&rsquo;t been an easy summer. And maybe, when this is all over, administration aides will look back at their initial strategy with some chagrin. You&rsquo;ll recall the plan was to allow Congress to legislate first, in order to avoid the mistakes of then-first lady Hillary Clinton 16 years ago. She presented a health care reform plan to Congress which then became a big, fat target. The bill died, and she was excoriated.

So the Obama White House (full of ex-Clintonites) developed its anti-Clinton strategy. But Congress became bogged down (surprise!) in its own partisan free-for-all. Some House committees passed predictably liberal legislation and the Senate dithered just as predictably on trying to reach some sort of bipartisan compromise.

In the end, over the summer, two key Republican senators who had been part of bipartisan negotiations bolted. Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Mike Enzi of Wyoming, confronted by angry and confused constituents, abandoned reform. Enzi said the Democrats&rsquo; proposal would &ldquo;raid Medicare.&rdquo; And Grassley, the ranking Republican Senate Finance Committee member and the GOP&rsquo;s key to negotiations, just sent out a fundraising letter asking for voters to help him &ldquo;defeat Obama-care.&rdquo;

So much for bipartisanship.

Now comes the president, trying to save reform. &ldquo;We are taking the discussion to the next level,&rdquo; a senior administration official tells me. And what about that strategy of avoiding Hillary Clinton&rsquo;s mistakes?

Won&rsquo;t any presidential plan become a target? &ldquo;At this point, we already are a target for those folks who don&rsquo;t want to do anything,&rdquo; says this adviser. &ldquo;People like Grassley and Enzi have pulled the plug on this process.&rdquo;

The big question now, of course, is whether the president will stick with his plan for a public option. The likely answer is that he won&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s an answer that will enrage the Democratic left &mdash; and, most notably, labor &mdash; but it might actually help sell the legislation to the public. It&rsquo;s not as if the White House expects that suddenly Republicans will start clamoring for health reform, but it gives the administration the ability to say &ldquo;We compromised in a big way, and Republicans still said no way.&rdquo;

And the president needs to set his priorities as he lays out his plan. What&rsquo;s the main need here? Universal coverage? Better coverage that ensures that those with pre-existing conditions can get insurance? Medical cost containment? Deficit reduction? And once he lays out his goals, he can make it clear that the public option is not the only way to get there. Indeed, it&rsquo;s curious that the White House allowed the public plan to become such a centerpiece of the debate when it actually isn&rsquo;t.

In the end, the Democratic left could decide to bolt. That, of course, would be at its own peril. A new CNN poll shows that a majority of Americans still want to get something done on health care &mdash; and they want Congress to continue the work it started before the August recess. They understand the key issue here: things will only get worse: two-thirds recognize that the problems facing the health care system will affect all of us if they&rsquo;re not fixed.

It&rsquo;s a message for all members of Congress. In losing Sen. Ted Kennedy, the Democrats not only lost someone who would unite the party, they also lost a legislator and a senator with a memory of what can happen when purity gets in the way of compromise.

Kennedy knew it firsthand. As a young senator fighting for health care, he was offered a version of universal coverage by President Richard Nixon. He declined to accept it and got nothing instead. It was a mistake, he often told staffers. Even if it wasn&rsquo;t perfect, he would have had a foundation he could have built upon over the years.

Instead, we are back at ground zero still trying to climb out of the hole. It&rsquo;s gotten steeper as costs, fears and partisanship have mounted. Now the president has to start digging us out.

Borger is a CNN senior political analyst.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Real health care reform will require viable public option]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/55854937.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">55854937</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:22:20 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

Throughout the month of August, defenders of the health care status quo have assailed efforts to reform a system in crisis. They have raised any number of spurious claims ranging from the absurd to the macabre in a desperate attempt to stand between 47 million uninsured Americans and their doctors. 

But the debate over reforming America&rsquo;s broken health care system isn&rsquo;t only about covering the uninsured. We must also control the escalating premiums and deductibles draining the bank accounts of the two-thirds of Americans with health insurance.
Without health care reform, the American taxpayer will continue to suffer from the economic consequences of absorbing healthcare costs that are spiraling out of control. One of every six dollars spent in this country is now spent on health care.

The quality of life of millions of Americans and the health of our economy hang in the balance. The crisis is real, and it is urgent.

The insurance industry has demonstrated it is incapable of meeting the twin challenges of covering all Americans and controlling costs.

As long as we rely solely on private health insurers, health care coverage will remain out of reach for 47 million Americans, and costs will continue to soar for everyone else. Every year those with insurance each pay an extra $1,100 in premiums to compensate for the costs of the uninsured and it will get only worse. Insurance costs for a family of four are projected to jump $1,800 a year without health care reform.

The only reasonable solution &mdash; and the cornerstone of comprehensive health care reform &mdash; is a robust public health plan option like Medicare.

The benefits of a public health plan are obvious: it will guarantee coverage regardless of pre-existing condition; give patients a choice of doctors and hospitals, and create incentives for private insurers to lower costs to compete.

The insurance industry can do none of this because its profits and administrative costs consume about one-third of every health care dollar. Without a public option there will be no way to keep insurance companies honest and their rates down. A public health option that competes with private insurers will set standards that could help lower costs and improve access.

A bill without a public option will result in the public, both as insurance purchasers and as taxpayers paying even higher rates to insurance companies. In a July 30 letter to the House leadership 60 members of Congress stated unequivocally that &ldquo;we simply cannot vote for such a proposal.&rdquo; 

Lee, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, co-authored this editorial for the NNPA with the following members of Congress: Rep. Michael Honda, chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific Caucus; Rep. Nydia Velazquez, chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; and Reps. Raul Grijalva and Lynn Woolsey, co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Hitting the road for  education reform]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/53990512.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">53990512</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:42:02 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

When President Barack Obama shared a cold one with professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and police Sgt. James Crowley last month, the world was astonished and amazed by the show of unity, discourse and advancement taking place. But when former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and I hit the road this fall, you better believe jaws are likely to fall right open.

Beginning in Philadelphia Sept. 29, Gingrich and I will join Secretary of Education Arne Duncan as we kick off our five-city tour highlighting the dire need to reform our education system. Undoubtedly on opposite ends of the spectrum for the bulk of our political careers, Gingrich and I have found common ground in the urgency of saving our failing schools, educating our children and providing them with the just opportunity to once again lead the nation to a state of unparalleled power. 

The two of us have fought on nearly every issue, often times representing the far ends of our parties, but on education reform we have found a basis for shared concern: the future of today&rsquo;s youth.

Last year, America&rsquo;s Promise Alliance (whose founding chairman happens to be Colin Powell) released a startling report indicating that 17 of the country&rsquo;s 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates that were lower than 50 percent. The report went on to highlight the alarming national school dropout rate of 1.2 million students. 

Add to that the disparity in education across racial lines where Black and Latino students are three years behind their White counterparts by the fourth grade, the percentages and numbers are even more troubling, more frightening and more disgraceful.

This past spring, Gingrich and I met with President Obama, along with the education secretary, as we put partisan divisions aside and worked toward real solutions to this most urgent civil rights issue of our time. I am delighted that the president has allocated $4.35 billion into the Race to the Top Fund &mdash; the largest ever federal competitive investment in school reform. And I&rsquo;m equally thrilled that Gingrich, Duncan and I will host school visits, stakeholder meetings and media briefings on our tour as we raise awareness, incite intelligent discourse and push for immediate action across the country. Following Philadelphia, we will visit Petersburg, Va., on Oct. 2, New Orleans on Nov. 3, Baltimore on Nov. 13 and then Los Angeles on a date to be determined.

We live in a nation where the foundation of liberty, pursuit of happiness and the American dream are afforded to all. But when only 9 percent of freshmen in our top colleges are from the poorest regions of the country, that dream quickly dissipates for many. Without a proper education, children do not only lag behind financially, but they easily fall victim to other perils in society &mdash; including crime and imprisonment. 

When six out of 10 Black male high school dropouts have spent time in jail by their mid-30s, it is easy to see the correlation between education, poverty, opportunity and advancement. Our schools are failing, our children are failing and we as a country are failing to keep up with many others around the world when it comes to innovation, technology, jobs, the economy and more.

It was 55 years ago when the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education integrated schools and attempted to level the playing field for all children. It is utterly embarrassing that between 1987 and 2007 states spent on average 21 percent more on higher education, but simultaneously spent a shocking 127 percent more on their corrections budgets. How can we preach education is the key when all many of these kids see is a lack of appropriate textbooks, inadequate teachers and overcrowded classrooms where some are even taught in their school&rsquo;s bathroom?

It is time to collectively stand and take bold action to save our children and our own existence as the United States of America. At a time when those on the extreme right are outraged over health care and protesting in malicious ways, I would point to the unique sense of joint concern that Gingrich, Secretary Duncan and I have formed. 

We may disagree on a host of issues &mdash; many of which I have called Gingrich out on, and many he has publicly disagreed with me on &mdash; but when it comes to the president&rsquo;s push to reform education, we are both vocal in our combined efforts to advance civil dialogue and effective change. 

This is not a time for partisan bickering, nor a time for divisive behavior, but rather an urgent moment to resurrect a dwindling education system. It&rsquo;s not about right wing or left, liberal or conservative, Black or White. It&rsquo;s about the pressing need to save your children and mine. Won&rsquo;t you join us?

Rev. Al Sharpton is an NNPA columnist and civil rights activist.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Legislation shows real ‘PROMISE’ in taking on juvenile injustice system]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/53242102.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">53242102</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:57:09 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

Over the last three decades, politicians from Capitol Hill to local city councils have generated law enforcement polices and practices based on the mantra that we have to &ldquo;get tough on crime.&rdquo;

The impact of that approach to law enforcement has made our nation the biggest jailer on the planet. With 2.3 million people behind bars, many for non-violent drug offenses, America incarcerates more of its people than any other country in the world. African-Americans constitute one-third and Latinos one-fifth of our imprisoned population. This is madness!

But I&rsquo;m gratified to report that rational Congressional legislators &mdash; 229 in the House of Representatives alone &mdash; are supporting the bipartisan Youth PROMISE (Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support and Education) Act.
H.R. 1064 calls for a fundamental shift in child policy and practice away from the too frequent first choice of punishment and incarceration and toward prevention and early intervention and sustained child investment. There is also a companion bill in the Senate (S. 435).

On July 15, I testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security in support of the Youth PROMISE Act, because I&rsquo;m confident that it will be a powerful tool for dismantling the pipeline to prison. Hundreds of thousands of children and youths are being funneled into the pipeline each year at younger and younger ages. It&rsquo;s a national disgrace that at-risk children are more likely to enter the pipeline to prison than they are of receiving the help they need to finish high school.

The lack of health and mental health care is a crucial factor in putting children at risk. Because many pregnant women do not receive prenatal care, one in 12 babies in the U.S. is born at low birthweight.

These babies are at greater risk of having problems than normal birthweight babies. Black babies in the U.S. are more likely to be born at low birthweight than babies in 100 other nations including Botswana. Children are in great jeopardy if they don&rsquo;t receive routine health care including the standard vaccinations against communicable childhood diseases. These and other unmet health needs such as early hearing or vision loss turn into deficits and developmental delays that often go undiagnosed and untreated causing children to start school with deficits that affect learning. Many fall behind before or in kindergarten and first grade and never recover.

As their frustrations and failures pile up, they act out and get suspended and expelled &mdash; the suspension rate among Black public school students is three times that of White students. We have been pushing our children out of school and into the pipeline to prison for far too long.

By introducing the Youth PROMISE Act, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) have devised a better way. This bill builds on what we know works and encourages states and communities to put in place alternatives to incarceration for youths.

The legislation recognizes that the key to gang prevention is not increased federal prosecution of more young people by federalizing certain gang crimes &mdash; thus higher penalties and more incarceration.

Instead, the bill promotes investment in quality evidence-based early childhood, voluntary home visitation and comprehensive after-school and summer school programs; mentoring; health and mental health care; job training; and alternative intervention.
These approaches build success by decreasing youth arrests and delinquency and lowering the recidivism rate.

Under the Youth PROMISE Act, special help will be available for designated Comprehensive Gang Prevention and Relief Areas with high incidence of gang crime activity and violent crime. These areas will be eligible for priority attention under a number of federal early childhood, at-risk youth, literacy, training, employment and crime control programs.

The legislation calls for the formation of local PROMISE councils that include parents as well as representatives from law enforcement, the courts, schools, social service agencies, health and mental health providers, community-based groups and faith-based organizations.

These councils will focus on developing and implementing a comprehensive local plan to support young people and their families and make our communities safer. The Act also provides additional funding for state and local law enforcement agencies to hire and train youth-oriented police officers and help them better understand their role in prevention and early intervention.

The Youth PROMISE Act would establish a National Research Center for Proven Juvenile Justice Practices to collect and disseminate to local councils and the public evidence-based and promising practices to prevent and reduce juvenile delinquency and criminal street gang activity.

It is unacceptable that the only thing our rich nation will guarantee every child is a jail or detention cell after she or he gets into trouble. 

America must act now with urgency to ensure all our children a healthy and fair start in life and to stop criminalizing children at younger and younger ages, and instead institute policies that place all children on a path to productive adulthood.

The Youth PROMISE Act would take an important step toward that goal. Please join the Children&rsquo;s Defense Fund and more than 240 national, state and local organizations in supporting this legislation. And please thank Representatives Bobby Scott and Mike Castle for their leadership.

Edelman is an NNPA columnist and president of the Children&rsquo;s Defense Fund.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Reform needed to correct health disparities suffered by U.S. children of color]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/52612732.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">52612732</guid>		
			<pubDate>Thu, 6 Aug 2009 14:31:36 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

In all of the recent debate over who deserves access to health care in our wealthy country, one often forgotten fact is that this is one more area where Black children and other children of color have always been left behind. Of the nine million uninsured children in America, minority children are uninsured and underinsured at far greater rates than White children.

One in 13 White children is uninsured, compared to one in five Latino children, one in five American Indian children, one in eight Black children, and one in nine Asian/Pacific Islander children. Health coverage for all children is a necessary step toward eliminating health disparities and ensuring access to care. And now is the time to take that step with real child health care reform.

Right now, we live in a nation where children of color experience significant health disparities that begin before birth and follow them throughout their lives. Black infants are more than twice as likely as White infants to die before their first birthday and have higher infant mortality rates than children in 62 nations including Barbados, Malaysia and Thailand. 

One in every seven babies born to Black mothers is born at low birthweight, a core risk factor for infant mortality and childhood developmental disorders. The rate of Black infants born at low birthweight in the United States is worse than the rate of low birthweight in more than 100 nations including Algeria, Botswana and Panama.

As they grow, Black and Latino children are worse off than White children in having access to regular health care. Black children are 56 percent more likely than White children to have gone more than two years without seeing a doctor and almost three times as likely as White children to use the emergency room as their usual place of health care. Latino children are two and a half times as likely as White children to have gone more than two years without seeing a doctor, are more than twice as likely as White children to have an unmet medical need, and are more than twice as likely as White children to have no regular place for health care.

Not surprisingly, Black and Latino children also have higher incidences of childhood illnesses than White children. For example, one out of eight Black children has asthma &mdash; one of the most common illnesses in children &mdash; compared to one in 12 White children. One out of every four Blac 2 year olds and one out of every five Latino 2 year olds is not fully immunized, although we know that every dollar spent vaccinating children against measles, mumps and rubella saves $16 in future costs. More than 30 percent of Black children and about 40 percent of Latino children report not receiving dental care.

Minority children are more likely to be living in poverty. However, racial disparities aren&rsquo;t just about socioeconomic status, although more than three-quarters of uninsured Black children have a working parent, and more than half have a parent who works full-time throughout the year.

Access to health care does more than keep our children healthy. Lack of access to health care can be responsible for considerable racial and income disparities, which can result in different life paths for children from their earliest years. While only a small percentage of all children in America are in fair or poor health, Latino and Black children are more than four times as likely as White children to be in only fair or poor health. Developmental delays caused by poor health make children less ready to learn in school, disproportionately affecting children of color&rsquo;s ability to reach their full potential and robbing America of the opportunity to have the healthiest and most productive workforce possible.

In the emerging global economy, it is absolutely vital to the future of our nation&rsquo;s economic standing in the world that we make every effort to ensure our children get the best education they can. Keeping them in school and healthy enough to pay attention to the teacher is the most basic way to ensure that. And yet we&rsquo;re missing this simple opportunity for millions of our children.

It doesn&rsquo;t have to be this way, and we all need to tell that to our members of Congress now. Until all children in America have access to health coverage, minority children will continue to be uninsured and underinsured at greater rates than higher income and White children. Health reform must make the system simpler and more equitable for children in communities of color. However, current health reform legislation in the House of Representatives fails to include the reforms children need. In order to create a level playing field for all children in this country, Congress must guarantee affordable coverage, head-to-toe benefits, and a simple and equitable enrollment process for every child in America. And in no case should some children be worse off under reform than they are now.

Edelman, an NNPA columnist, is president of the Children's Defense Fund.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Are we imprisoned  by our own apathy?]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/52213957.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">52213957</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:50:41 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

The issue of same-sex marriage has sparked a heated controversy within the African-American community, and particularly among African-American clergy, where a tremendous amount of passion, energy and commitment to defeat any efforts for marriage equality has been expended for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, the majority of black folk believe the traditional understanding of marriage as being between a man and a woman. 

This belief is deeply entrenched in the biblical teachings that God created man and woman as helpmates; companions for the purpose of fulfilling God&rsquo;s plans for populating and tending to the Earth. The concept of relationships existing outside of this defined parameter is not considered, and if they are considered, they are not accepted as being within God&rsquo;s design for human relationships. African-Americans believe that homosexuality is a sin that further contradicts the will of God for human relationships. 

The irony and hypocrisy of maintaining this belief is that gays and lesbians have knowingly been a part of our communities, our churches and our families for decades, and we (African-Americans) have never operated in the overt and purposeful condemnation that has been seen during the recent debate concerning marriage equality. The further hypocrisy is that the African-American clergy, and therefore a large part of the African-American community seems to believe that homosexuality is a sin that is separate from the sins of fornication, adultery, false accusations, deceit, pride, greed, usury, lust, lasciviousness and the host of other weaknesses of the flesh.

The second reason for the energetic and passionate resistance of the African-American community against marriage equality is the result of the misinformation about the impact marriage equality legislation would have on a church&rsquo;s religious freedom. Many African-American clergy incorrectly believed that if marriage equality passed, churches would be required to perform same-sex weddings if requested by a gay or lesbian couple. 

Once again there is irony in this argument because separation of church and state is the very same argument used by those advocating for same sex marriage, indicating that marriage is a civil institution by virtue of the state of California issuing the marriage license.
Another reason the African-American community has passionately and aggressively come out against marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples is that marriage equality is not considered a priority in our community. This reasoning however is the greatest irony and hypocrisy regarding the issue of marriage equality, because the passion, energy and commitment to defeat marriage equality has by default made it a priority in our community. 

Issues such as unemployment and underemployment, lack of affordable health care, the high percentage of HIV/AIDS affecting African-American women, the failure of public education and the up to 60 percent high school dropout rate of African-American males, the highest incarceration rate and the highest proportion of inmate population compared to our percentage of the population, teenage pregnancy, the high percentage of single-parent households and the equally high percentage of foster care children are more pressing issues in our communities, but there is not the same passion, energy and commitment from the African-American clergy to solve these problems that has been displayed in the marriage equality debate.

Public education has been failing African-American children for decades. Statistics show that African-American children (males in particular) are performing at three or four grade levels below their actual grade, and there is no outcry, no passion and no energy from our community to demand reform of education. Statistics show that up to 60 percent of African-American males are dropping out of high school, and there is no outcry, no passion, and no energy from our community to stop this blatant assault upon the African-American male.

Statistics show that there is a direct correlation between the high school dropout rate and the rate of prison incarceration, and there is no outcry, no passion, and no energy from our community to halt the growth of the prison industrial complex, the new slavery.
Statistics show that 50 percent of African-American students completing 12 years of public education do not pass the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) which is at eighth grade level, and there is no outcry, no passion and no energy from our community to demand accountability. 

Town halls on public education have been held in our communities and we have no more than 50 people in attendance. SCLC of Greater Los Angeles has produced and distributed a 90-minute documentary on the failure of public education and has yet to illicit a response from key African-American leaders about how we save our children. What do we really hold as a priority in our community?

SCLC of Greater Los Angeles has been on the forefront of organizing the predominately African-American security officers into a union in order to improve wages, secure affordable health benefits and create better working conditions for over four years. These security officers live in our communities; they are husbands, fathers, wives, mothers, sisters and brothers. The results of organizing a union will generate millions of dollars for our communities and significantly improve the quality of life for the families of these security officers, yet there have been no more than five pastors engaged in this struggle for justice during the entire campaign. 

SCLC of Greater Los Angeles has also advocated for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which will allow for union organizing without the intimidation of corporations. Union jobs have historically been the conduit for middle-class jobs for our communities and EFCA will make union jobs a reality for our communities. When there is a 40 percent unemployment rate for African-American males, what do we really hold as a priority in our community?

HIV/AIDS is devastating our community by killing our women. Seventy percent of all new HIV/AIDS cases among women affect African-American women and there is no outcry, no passion and no energy from our community to stop its devastation. Women are being affected by men recently released from prison and/or men on the &ldquo;down-low,&rdquo; and there is no preaching from the pulpit, no outcry, no passion and no energy from our community to expose the deceit. 

The bulk of the resources to fight the HIV virus are in West Hollywood, in the white gay community, and there is no outcry, no passion no energy to speak out against the institutional discrimination, racism and white privilege that continues to prevent access to resources. What do we really hold as a priority in our community? What about teenage pregnancy, the high percentage of foster care children, and the single-parent households in need of male mentors?

Our people are dying for lack of knowledge, knowledge held by the traditional gatekeepers of our communities, our clergy, who were once the voices crying in the wilderness about the injustices toward our people. Those voices have become silent on the issues that are critical to our community&rsquo;s survival. Those voices have become silent in the fight for justice and equality. It has always been the voice of our clergy to advocate on behalf of our people, to defend the oppressed, to speak out against injustice. Where has that voice gone?  Where is the outcry against injustice, the passion for justice, the energy to defeat the oppressor, the commitment to equality, respect and dignity for the African-American people?  

Instead, there has been a tremendous outcry by the African-American clergy against marriage equality for the gay and lesbian community, which whether it passes or fails, does not have any impact on the African-American community. Instead, there has been passion, energy and commitment from the African-American clergy to defeat marriage equality, rather than that same passion, energy and commitment to finding solutions for the survival and continued progress of our people. What do we really hold as a priority in our community?  

We used to hold to the belief and guiding principle of our slain martyr, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., that &ldquo;injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.&rdquo; We used to hold true to God&rsquo;s calling of siding with those oppressed and discriminated against. We used to hold as a priority the principle of justice and equality, especially for those who were treated differently.

Instead, we have become as our former oppressor, denying rights and privileges to one group of people that all other groups enjoy. Our calling is not to oppress, but to deliver. Our calling is not to discriminate, but to advocate for justice.

African-Americans, more than any other people, have earned the right through our legacy of defeating the immorality of slavery, Jim Crow segregation and legal discrimination, and therefore having the moral obligation to speak out against injustice. My fear is that not only have we lost our way as it pertains to what are the priorities for the survival of the African-American community, but we have also lost our way as it pertains to being the moral voice of authority when it comes to issues of justice. 

Our voice can not just be used to speak out against African-American injustice; it must be used to speak out against all injustice. My fear is that we have become imprisoned by our own apathy. 

Rev. Eric P. Lee is president/CEO of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: After 25 years, Rev. Jesse Jackson’s ’84 achievements still reverberate politically]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/51599832.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">51599832</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:56:19 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

Has it really been 25 years since Rev. Jesse Jackson made that powerful and profound speech to the Democratic National Convention? Twenty-five years since our nation stood mesmerized, as the first African-American to garner as many votes and have as significant a presence in a major political party&rsquo;s presidential race spoke in culmination of his effort and electrified all of us.

In 25 years our nation&rsquo;s political landscape has been completely transformed. Jesse Jackson was an African-American candidate who newscasters openly asked inane and disrespectful questions like, &ldquo;What qualifies you to run?&rdquo;

President Barack Obama was asked some of those same questions during his campaign. But he prevailed, standing on the shoulders of one who shifted the historical tide.

Rev. Jackson did more than simply run for president. He emboldened a generation of African-American politicians and would-be politicians to take on the mantle of political leadership.

He emboldened young men and women who were ambivalent about mainstream politics and about their own chances of success with his chant, &ldquo;I am somebody.&rdquo;

He took on the African-American establishment at that time &mdash; those in the Democratic Party who were connected to and supportive of former Vice President Walter Mondale. That group of esteemed leaders &mdash; Ambassador Andrew Young, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, and so many others &mdash; had another vision for the presidency, but they came to appreciate Rev. Jackson&rsquo;s effort.

His presence in the 1984 campaign galvanized millions of voters who may otherwise have sat at the sidelines in the election.

I was there in 1984, part of the Rainbow Coalition. When I think of those days the memories rush back at me. I ran for Jackson delegate and was an alternate. I was the designated Jackson representative who debated a Mondale and Hart representative every morning on a local radio program.

I was a surrogate speaker for Rev. Jackson, and at the same time I was running for local public office (I got whupped) and leading an initiative to remove San Francisco pension funds from companies doing business with South Africa (we prevailed).

I have fond memories of the political friends from those days &mdash; Butch Wing, Geraldine Johnson, so many others. It is through Rev. Jackson that I first met the CNN commentator, now friend, Donna Brazile.

My walk down memory lane is not just an opportunity to wallow in nostalgia. My memory tells me that we are so much better off for Rev. Jesse Jackson&rsquo;s run for President. We, the nation, because Rev. Jackson led the shift in our historical context.

Just consider the difference in the African American political landscape before and after 1984. Before, we were tepidly running for a congressional seat here and there. After, we are running for governor, senator and president. Before, Democrats comfortably had just one or two African-Americans in a cabinet. We have had as many as four cabinet positions at a time after Jackson. The nation is better off for the Jackson run, and so are the inheritors.

Who are the inheritors? We are the thousands who were directly touched by the Jackson campaign. The delegates, fundraisers, and volunteers who were enlightened, enriched, encouraged, emboldened. We are the ones who have had the opportunity to sit at Rev. Jackson&rsquo;s feet and hear him think aloud and be astounded, again and again, at his brilliance and his courage.

My work today is very much impacted by the many ways the Democratic Party platforms in 1984 and 1988 were enhanced by the input of Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Jackson delegates who were committed to social and economic justice and especially educational equity.

From full funding of Head Start, to the consideration of ways that K-12 education is funded, to the illustration of differences in the quality of education between inner cities and suburbs, to the matter of affirmative action in higher education, Rev. Jackson&rsquo;s advocacy has embraced the notion that education has the power to transform lives.

To the extent that he has used his influence to address and improve educational access and outcomes for African-American young people, Rev. Jackson has invested in our nation&rsquo;s future.

I think of Rev. Jackson when I think of Dr. King&rsquo;s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in which he said, &ldquo;I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere will have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, peace and freedom for their spirits.&rdquo; Audacity means nerve, means the utter nerve to think of, believe in, and embrace the possibility of social and economic justice at home and abroad. 

Jesse Jackson embodies that audacity. He has chosen not to play small on the world stage but to claim influence and wield it like a mighty sword. Thank you, Rev. Jackson, for your phenomenal contribution to our nation and our world.

Malveaux is an NNPA columnist and president of Bennett College for Women.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Wave Editorial: Hearings begin with new dialogue on Supreme error]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/51042757.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">51042757</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:32:22 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[We knew the issue of affirmative action would arise at her confirmation hearings, given Judge Sonia Sotomayor's role on a three-judge panel's upholding of the practice as carried out by a Connecticut municipality. Still, this week's Republican attacks on the Supreme Court nominee are striking for their tone deafness on the legacy of racial discrimination in America.

On that issue, however, one good thing has already come as a result of the relentless GOP harping: Under questioning Tuesday by Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin), Sotomayor managed to offer a reasoned defense of policies that promote diversity and guard against the twin legacies of institutional racism and sexism.

When it comes to the awarding of jobs or admissions slots in a public school, she testified, 'There are situations in which race in some form must be considered — the courts have recognized that' to be sometimes necessary to ensure fulfillment of the Constitution's equal protection clause.

Carefully legalistic? Absolutely — and by necessity — in a forum that her opponents would like nothing more than to produce the complete 'meltdown' one of her chief critics acknowledged it would require to keep her off the high court. It was also refreshing considering Sotomayor's two most recent predecessors in this particular hot seat — far-right ideologues who, in just three years, have already succeeded in setting back the cause of racial equality in employment and education.

At this point in history, when Americans are clearly more accepting of diversity at the highest ranks of government, Sotomayor's progressive views will be welcomed on a bench that is moving too quickly in the opposite direction.
]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: At 100, NAACP still a vital force for Black causes]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/50484087.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">50484087</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:07:37 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

I admit that, like most of us, I am an NAACP baby. Born in the struggle to desegregate the Dockum Drug Store in Wichita, Kan., in 1958 two years before the Greensboro sit-in, as a leader of the NAACP Youth Council. Over the years, as a political analyst, I have been asked whether the organization &ldquo;is still relevant.&rdquo; On its 100th birthday, I am clear that it is still relevant, even though we have a Black president sitting in the White House, because I know that at some point, they will have to use their access to that house to ask President Obama to do something for Black folks.

Whether he responds is a different story, but to be in the position to make the demand is important because in 2009 we are still not yet free. Well, some of us believe that we are free because we have achieved the material trappings of success. But I remember billionaire Bob Johnson wanting to start up an airline only to have mysterious problems and I remember his wife, Sheila, also a billionaire, having problems opening up a spa in hunt country, Virginia. But most of all I remember Michael Jackson in this hour, a heroic but also a tragic figure who eventually became a captive of the success he engendered to the point that it killed him. In all of his success, because of the lack of a normal upbringing and a distorted cultural self-image, even Michael was not free.

In this economic recession, I most often wonder about those who were broke and busted before it began; they are now at the back of the line once again, facing the prospect of having to start the game of life way back behind the newly poor, the newly unemployed, and the newly un-housed. With an unemployment rate approaching 20 percent, many Blacks will have to climb a long way back to achieve economic parity with the rest of the nation.

Then, those in our community who were attracted by subprime mortgages because they didn&rsquo;t quite have the standard resources are, in many cases, worse off now and will be for some time to come. I worry about the tortuous fight for health care and the fact that Blacks constitute 20 percent of the 47 million uninsured and whether the eventual plan will retain a mandate for employers to insure workers. Moreover, since George Bush didn&rsquo;t do anything to help close the health care gaps, what will there be in a generalized health care program that has special relevance to blacks.

I also worry about the state of public education for the working class and whether they will be able to obtain jobs in an economy that is growing more technologically sophisticated. We are bailing out on public education with no clear strategy in mind except charter schools that do not serve the masses.

Who will carry the fight to achieve the unfinished business of equality in these and other sectors of American life? Of course, there will be Rev. Sharpton, Rev. Jackson and others who are vitally needed to raise questions that others &mdash; sometimes even the NAACP &mdash; won&rsquo;t, or may be late getting to. But there is no substitute in my mind for the fact that over the years the NAACP has built the institutional image and local strength to continue to be a major resource in whatever battles rage.

I mention the locals because I always have to remind journalists who ask the question of relevance &mdash; &ldquo;which NAACP are you talking about?&rdquo; Many of the questions have come because of problems at the national office, but the work of the organization predominantly takes place in cities and hamlets where leaders, like Kevin Miles of Wichita, Kan., (who has won two consecutive Thalheimer Awards for chapter excellence) create innovative programs that serve youth and maintain challenges to racial discrimination for adults.
This is the place where local citizens cry out for help and although most of the calls, letter and emails never seen by National, this chapter system constitutes the core of the vibrancy and the ser vice of the organization.

The national office is important because it serves politics and policy and many of the problems I have referred to need policy solutions and even when NAACP may not be the prime sponsor of a measure, legislators check with Hillary Shelton, the organization&rsquo;s expert on the hill, to see if the language of a bill makes sense. That office also produces a report card that acts as a standard of accountability for votes in the House and Senate on issues that are favorable to African-Americans. It is a useful resource when it comes time for citizens to vote, or for some of us to analyze a political record.

So, I want to send a hearty &ldquo;Happy Birthday&rdquo; to the NAACP and cudos to its new President Ben Jealous who is bringing the kind of fire I believed that he would in igniting a new generation of leadership for the organization.

But the &ldquo;relevance&rdquo; of the organization is vested in our continued lack of equality and so, we will need the NAACP for a long, long time.

Walters is an NNPA columnist and professor emeritus at the University of Maryland College Park]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Editorial: More testing is key to curbing HIV/AIDS rate among Blacks]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/49881412.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">49881412</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 3 Jul 2009 11:31:28 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

Blacks are more likely than other racial and ethnic groups to have been tested for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but will need to be examined at much higher rates in order to curb the devastation the epidemic is having on African-Americans.

That&rsquo;s the conclusion of a new report by the Black AIDS Institute titled, &ldquo;Passing the Test: The Challenges and Opportunities of HIV Testing in Black America.&rdquo; The report was made public last week to coincide with National HIV Testing Day (June 27). However, while special observances such as National HIV Testing Day and World AIDS Day (Dec. 1) are used to rally the public, attention on HIV/AIDS needs to be maintained throughout the year.

Although African-Americans represent only 12 percent of the U.S. population, we accounted for nearly half of all AIDS cases diagnosed in 2006. Black women represented 66 percent of all new AIDS cases among women. Although Blacks 13-19 years old are only 16 percent of U.S. teenagers, they account for 69 percent of new AIDS cases. Among men infected, 46 percent were African-Americans.

More than half of African-Americans know of a friend or relative who is HIV positive or suffering from AIDS. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 38 percent of African-Americans have experienced a relative suffering from the virus and 20 percent of Blacks had an acquaintance or co-worker infected with HIV/AIDS.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 52 percent of Black Americans 18 or older reported being tested for HIV at least once in his or her life, compared to 38 percent of Latinos and 34 percent of Whites. Still, that&rsquo;s not good enough.

&ldquo;Blacks actually need to be tested at much higher rates to ensure prompt diagnosis,&rdquo; the Black AIDS Institute report noted. &ldquo;Nationwide, well over 100,000 Black Americans are currently unaware that they are living with HIV. In Washington, D.C., nearly half of all Blacks surveyed said they had never taken the test. In a multi-city survey of young gay and bisexual men, two-thirds of Black men who tested HIV-positive had previously been unaware they were infected.&rdquo;

A major problem is that health care providers place a disproportionate emphasis on high-risk groups such as gay or bisexual men and drug users while failing to recognize that the virus has permeated all sectors of Black America. For example, one study in South Carolina, where African-Americans make up three-fourths of all people living with HIV, found that if efforts were concentrated only on high-risk groups, 79 percent of those with HIV would go undetected.

Not only must the entire Black community be targeted, the key is to test everyone earlier.

Phill Wilson, CEO of the Black AIDS Institute, stated: &ldquo;People who are diagnosed late in the course of HIV infection have a much poorer prognosis than individuals whose HIV diagnosis is timelier. In New York City, individuals whose HIV and AIDS diagnoses occur within 31 days of one another are twice as likely to die within four months of diagnosis as people with a non-concurrent AIDS diagnosis.&rdquo;

In order to combat HIV/AIDS, we must know when and how the virus is attacking African-Americans. Among Black men, 63 percent are infected through male-to-male sex, 20 percent through heterosexual sex, 12 percent by drug injections, and 4 percent through a combination of drug use and having sex with other men.

The pattern is different for Black women, with 80 percent becoming infected through heterosexual activity and 20 percent through drug use.

The Black AIDS Institute report cited four major reasons the epidemic has not been halted in Black America:

&bull; The stigma associated with being HIV positive.

&bull; The failure of many physicians to include HIV screening as part of routine medical exams.

&bull; A requirement by some states that a person must provide written consent before being tested for the virus.

&bull; And the failure to increase testing rates though effective marketing efforts.

Among the report&rsquo;s recommendations:

&bull; The establishment of community-based testing coalitions.

&bull; Having African-Americans discuss HIV/AIDS more openly.

&bull; Seeing national leaders include HIV/AIDS are part of their priorities.

&bull; Development of a national AIDS strategy.

&bull; Congressional passage of the Routine HIV/AIDS Screening Coverage Act, the Stop AIDS in Prison Act and the National Black Clergy for the Elimination of HIV/AIDS Act.

&bull; Providing adequate treatment for people who are HIV positive.

&bull; Instituting an anti-stigma campaign.

&bull; Having insurers reimburse health care operatives for HIV testing.

Wilson said many of the objections to being tested for HIV have been removed.

&ldquo;There are agencies offering free HIV tests in nearly every city in America,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;HIV tests are painless. The most common form of HIV testing today uses an oral swab &mdash; no more blood or needles. The days of waiting a week to get your results are over. With the rapid tests, you can get your results back in less than an hour.&rdquo;

Curry is an NNPA columnist and former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Wave Editorial: Senate apology for  slavery is a good start]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/49209572.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">49209572</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:55:28 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[Upon last week's unanimous passage of a U.S. Senate resolution apologizing for Black slavery, Sen. Tom Harkin mused to the Washington Post, 'You wonder why we didn't do this 100 years ago.'

Given that African-Americans were afforded full suffrage less than 50 years ago, the Iowa lawmaker's question immediately answers itself. A more likely reason can be found in the text of the resolution. At the end of a series of clauses beginning with 'Whereas,' it is plainly noted that the apology for slavery and its successor, the brutally discriminatory Jim Crow laws that governed the U.S. for more than a century after the Emancipation Proclamation, in no way 'authorizes or supports any claim against the United States.'

In even plainer words: No reparations.

This comes as no surprise. Following last November's election of President Obama, those who outspokenly support the idea of economic reparations for slavery have been further relegated to a political space somewhere between Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists and proponents of returning to the gold standard.
Still, there should be no mistaking this reality for justice. The electoral triumph of the nation's first African-American president does not alter the fact that, to this day, the destructive twin legacies of slavery and legal segregation continue to partially define the Black experience in America. The resolution acknowledges as much, stating that 'African-Americans continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow laws — long after both systems were formally abolished — through enormous damage and loss, both tangible and intangible, including the loss of human dignity and liberty.' 

Considering this official admission, it is hard to argue with Rep. Maxine Waters' mild admonishment that the caveat against reparations is 'unnecessary language.'

Further, in a society that insists upon placing a material value on every aspect of human life, it makes perfect sense to consider reparatory compensation to the descendants of millions of men, women and children kidnapped from their homes and forced into government-sanctioned and protected hard labor and sexual slavery, followed by more than a century of legalized discrimination.

Lauding the resolution, NAACP vice president for advocacy Hilary O. Shelton said it 'creates a watershed opportunity for Americans of all races, ethnicity and national origins to better understand the historic racial challenges of our nation and work together to craft a solution to the remnants of racism still lingering in our society.'

We agree. But in 2009, a time when too many social and economic ills continue to disproportionately affect African-Americans, it is high time to recognize that such a solution may necessarily involve components to address this lingering inequality with some forms of economic and social relief.

For these reasons, those who want the U.S. to seriously consider slavery reparations deserve more than to be called up from the fringe sidelines of the modern-day dialogue on American race relations. Indeed, they have earned a seat at the table.
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Health care reform is crucial to African-American community]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/48625817.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">48625817</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:49:33 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

Health inequities are deep, persistent, and not new. From the cradle to the grave, racial and ethnic minorities suffer from shorter life spans, higher rates of disease and disability, and higher mortality relative to national averages.

These problems have plagued generations of African-Americans and other people of color in the United States. Yet these issues have historically received scant attention in Washington &mdash; until now.

Both Congress and the Obama Administration are ramping up efforts to improve health and health care for racial and ethnic minorities and others who face barriers to good health.

On June 9, the Congressional Tri-Caucus (composed of the Congressional Black, Hispanic, and Asian and Pacific Islander Caucuses) introduced the Health Equity and Accountability Act of 2009, a sweeping bill that would address an array of issues ranging from the poor distribution of primary care services in communities of color to the lack of diversity among health professionals. And on the same day, the White House, led by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, convened an historic meeting of health equity activists, scholars, and health care providers to discuss strategies to reduce health inequities and improve the health of all racial and ethnic groups.

Why the focus on health inequality? One, the new political landscape &mdash; driven by a president who clearly understands how and why racial inequality has been a difficult conversation in the United States &mdash; favors tackling these challenges in the context of major health care reform legislation being considered by Congress.
Second, persistent leadership from some members of Congress, such as CBC Health Braintrust Chair Congresswoman Donna Christensen, is beginning to pay off as more members of Congress recognize the importance of eliminating health inequality. Christensen, a physician representing the Virgin Islands, seeks to ensure that any health legislation emerging from Congress addresses the needs of communities of color.

Third, it is becoming clear that any serious effort to expand health insurance coverage, improve the quality of health care, and contain health care costs &mdash; Congress&rsquo; stated goals for health reform &mdash; must address health inequities.

This is because these problems are often exacerbated among racial and ethnic minorities: people of color not only are disproportionately uninsured and underinsured (despite the presence of full-time workers in the vast majority of their families), they are also more likely than Whites to suffer from poor quality care and face high health care expenses.

People of color are therefore the &ldquo;canaries in the coal mine&rdquo; of health reform, offering a clear signal of how distressed U.S. health care systems are.

Finally, to the extent that some groups, such as racial and ethnic minorities, face a greater burden of illness and disability, the U.S. economy will suffer.

Given the tremendous economic challenges facing the nation, many in Congress and the administration understand that we cannot afford to allow African-Americans and other people of color &mdash; currently one-third of the population &mdash; to suffer from the kind of poor health that contributes to their economic marginalization.

It&rsquo;s essential to reap the benefit of the talents, skills, and capacity for hard work of all Americans. To fail to do so would continue to drag the U.S. economy down.

And given that one in every two people living in the United States will be a person of color by the year 2042, it&rsquo;s clear that inaction to address health inequality is inexcusable.

What&rsquo;s needed now is for Congress and the administration to hear &mdash; loudly and clearly &mdash; that the American people want health reform to have a significant focus on the needs of communities of color. Public policies, even much-needed ones, are rarely enacted into law without a significant push from the grassroots. The nation&rsquo;s health &mdash; and economy &mdash; depend on it.

Brian D. Smedley, Ph.D. is vice president and director of the Health Policy Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Guest Editorial: Key voting rights component  must stand for another 25 years]]></title>
															<link>http://www.wavenewspapers.com/opinion/editorials/47942857.html</link>
				<guid isPermaLink="false">47942857</guid>		
			<pubDate>Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:58:28 PST</pubDate>
			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>																	







																														                                                                        <description><![CDATA[

By the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide one of the most important voting rights cases in a generation. Argued April 29, the case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder, threatens to strike down Section 5, known as the heart of the Voting Rights Act, the single most effective provision of any civil rights law in our nation&rsquo;s history.

First enacted in 1965 and most recently reauthorized by Congress in 2006, Section 5 serves as our democracy&rsquo;s check point in protecting minority voters from persisting and clever discrimination. It requires jurisdictions with some of the worst histories of voting discrimination to submit all proposed voting changes to the Department of Justice or a federal court for approval before the changes can take effect.

During the oral argument, Chief Justice John Roberts, expressing great doubt about whether Section 5 remains necessary today, compared the effect of Section 5 to an &ldquo;elephant whistle &hellip; You know, I have this whistle to keep away the elephants,&rdquo; Roberts said rhetorically. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s silly&hellip; there are no elephants, so it must work.&rdquo;

Of course, Congress was not looking for elephants but for discrimination, and they found plenty of it even more than 40 years after brave citizens marched, sat in and shed blood to give meaning to the unkept promise of equality under our Constitution.
In 2006, Congress amassed overwhelming evidence that Section 5 is still necessary, and indeed, vital, to protect minority voters from discrimination.

After holding 21 hearings over 10 months, receiving testimony from over 90 witnesses, and compiling a record spanning more than 16,000 pages, Congress found that that while significant progress has been made because of Section 5, 40 years was insufficient to eliminate the discrimination that followed nearly 100 years of outright disregard for the 15th Amendment&rsquo;s protection of the right to vote for Blacks and other minorities.

Taking a different view than Justice Roberts during the argument, Justice David Souter, speaking to the lawyer who brought the case on behalf of a small Texas water district said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand, with a record like that, how you can maintain as a basis for this suit that things have radically changed. They may be better. But to say that they have radically changed &hellip; [is] to deny the empirical reality.&rdquo;

Reality, of course, makes clear that without Section 5, minority voters would continue to face fierce discrimination. Congress found hundreds of examples of Section 5&rsquo;s role in blocking more than 700 proposed discriminatory changes, an incredible 60 percent of which were based on purposeful discrimination, and deterring many more.

The claim that Texas, and the jurisdictions within it, no longer pose a risk of voting discrimination is not supported by the evidence. Repetitive violations remain common. Section 5, for example, blocked the discriminatory implementation of every redistricting plan for the State&rsquo;s House of Representatives following each census since the 1970s.

Of course Texas is not alone. The pattern is that discriminatory voting changes are adopted precisely when minority communities are on the verge of exercising political power.

In Kilmichael, Miss., Section 5 blocked a proposed cancellation of elections by White officials after the 2000 census indicated that Blacks could be elected during the 2001 election for the first time in place where voting patterns were polarized along racial lines.
Congress heard all of this evidence, and more, and concluded that Section 5 remains essential in protecting our right to vote, the one right that is preservative of all others. Justice Souter has it right &mdash; without Section 5, discriminatory voting changes would have gone into effect.

As Congress recognized in 2006, Section 5 is not about yesterday&rsquo;s problems &mdash; it is as necessary today as it was when it was first enacted more than 45 years ago.

Activism of brave citizens gave us this critical check point and now only activism of a majority of the Supreme Court could deem it unconstitutional. As we await the Supreme Court&rsquo;s ruling in this critical case, all who have actually considered the life on the ground know that Section 5 must stand for another 25 years. The protection that has given the right to vote its meaning, and the integrity of our democracy depends on it.

Payton wrote this special commentary for the NNPA. He is president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which argued the case in support of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act before the U.S. Supreme Court in April.]]></description>
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