Politics

President Obama calls on supporters to help finish the fight for health reform.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Tavis Smiley: We need to have a conversation on whether or not Black Leaders are giving President Obama a pass on the Black agenda. This president needs to be asked to focus on issues dealing with Black folks.

Al Sharpton: I spend 18 hours a day dealing with Black Folks’ agenda. I think the president is smart for not becoming a Black exponent on Black views to feed into Glenn Beck and all of them; So they can have an easy way to stop legislation to help Black people. Read the rest of this entry »

Following the inauguration of America’s first African-American president, a backlash is brewing against a critical stronghold of his black Southern support base: historically black colleges and universities.

HBCUs occupied a prominent place in President Barack Obama’s election strategy. Back when many wealthy political donors considered his candidacy a long shot, he raised sizable contributions from his appearances at HBCUs such as Howard, Florida A&M, Hampton and Xavier.

Obama also led rallies at North Carolina Central, South Carolina State and Mississippi’s Jackson State ahead of his Democratic primary wins in those states.

In the general election, three Southern states with vigorous HBCU “get-out-the-vote” initiatives — Virginia, North Carolina and Florida — went from red to blue.

Even in the southern states that Obama lost to GOP nominee John McCain, the rise in black turnout — widely mobilized from HBCU campuses — presented a serious problem for many Republicans locked in tight legislative and congressional elections.

Recently, two powerful GOP officeholders in Georgia and Mississippi (states Obama picked up in the primary) introduced proposals to weaken their states’ public HBCUs. Georgia state Sen. Seth Harp wanted to merge two HBCUs, Albany State and Savannah State, with nearby predominantly white schools. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, the politically ambitious chairman of the Republican Governors Association, asked his state’s lawmakers to strip Alcorn State and Mississippi Valley State of their autonomy and make them extension campuses of Jackson State.

The timing of these propositions was no coincidence. Another huge black voter turnout for Obama in 2012, coupled with the reapportionment processes driven by the 2010 Census, could trigger shake-ups in numerous Southern legislatures and congressional districts.

To rally support for HBCU mergers, proponents such as Harp have described their proposals as a step forward for integration. This argument, however, stands at odds with Martin Luther King Jr.’s stance on the role HBCUs should play in post-Jim Crow America. King repeatedly said integration in higher education was not about getting rid of HBCUs. Instead, he advocated investing more financial resources into HBCUs as a means of strengthening them and making them more attractive to people of all races.

Further, King identified “shared power” as an integral part of integration. Speaking against efforts to use integration as a ploy for reducing black political, economic and social leverage, he stated: “We don’t want to be integrated out of power; we want to be integrated into power.”

The HBCU merger proposals clearly fail King’s test for legitimate integration. If adopted, they would have a disparate and negative impact upon black political participation in those two states. The mergers would decimate the black-voter-mobilization networks centered at those HBCUs. They would also shrink the black middle class by paring down the number of black professors and administrators in the affected locales, curtailing black political-giving levels.

Although neither Harp’s nor Barbour’s merger plans has made significant headway toward becoming law, the attacks against public HBCUs will likely intensify as these institutions exert greater influence over future state and national election outcomes.

Despite being thinly disguised as “budget cutbacks” and “integration efforts,” today’s HBCU merger campaigns prove that even in the age of Obama, the legacy of backlash politics against black voters endures.

Instead of taking on hard fights such as restructuring their state tax codes to increase revenue, individuals like Harp and Barbour have chosen the easy path of racially divisive political opportunism.

The President talks about his first year fighting against special interests and barring lobbyists from his Administration, as well as the fight to come in the wake of a recent Supreme Court decision. January 23, 2009. Read the rest of this entry »

CHARLESTON — Meshea Poore, D-Kanawha, took the Legislative Oath of Office Jan. 10 inside the House of Delegates chamber, as family and friends looked on.

Poore was sworn in by State Supreme Court Justice Margaret Workman.

She replaces Carrie Webster, who resigned her position earlier this month to become a Kanawha County Circuit Court judge.

Poore is an attorney working in Charleston. She also served as a Kanawha County public defender before she started her own law firm.

Poore received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and a law degree from Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge, La.

The Capital High School graduate was born and raised on Charleston’s West Side.

Mayor Kasim Reed alongside hundreds of volunteers spend a cold Saturday on January 2, 2010 to clean up Renaissance Park in Midtown, Atlanta. The Mayor was quoted, “I will clean up Atlanta even if I have to do it myself.”

Kasim Reed became Atlanta’s mayor Monday at a ceremony at The Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center. Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Carol W. Hunstein conducted the swearing-in at the event that began with a song from the Howard University choir, Reed’s alma mater.

Reed’s first day as mayor began at Ben Hill United Methodist Church in southwest Atlanta with the choir singing the civil right’s anthem, “We Shall Overcome.”

But unlike the maudlin, slow version we have come to know, this one was loud and rollicking. Cheerful and optimistic. Hopeful for at least four good years out of Reed as the city’s next mayor.

“We are here to pray for Kasim Reed,” said Morehouse College President Robert M. Franklin. “And we are here to speak truth to power to remind him that we will hold him and all elected officials accountable.”

Reed, who was never shy about his faith on the campaign trail, grew up in the church with his mother and three brothers. His voice broke when he talked about his time in the church. When he was baptized. The first time he spoke in public, he said, was in Ben Hill United Methodist Church. Four minutes away from the house he was raised in.

“If our children cannot rise to the highest levels of this city, what have we become?” Reed said. “We’ve got to look in the mirror Atlanta. I am going to work today and focus on making sure that mothers and fathers have a job to make sure they can look in their children in the eyes.”

Throughout the campaign, Reed spoke tough on crime and promised to re-open every closed community center in the city.

“I carry the hopes and aspiration for the people in Atlanta in my heart,” Reed said.

Reed called on the city council, judiciary and the community to work with him to improve the city.

“The challenges Atlanta face are too big for one individual,” Reed said.

My Name is… Ray Abram

The reason you are reading about me is… I’m running for Atlanta’s City Council District 11. The southwest side of Atlanta has been neglected for far too long by our city’s leaders. I plan to bring my business expertise and passion about economic development to help our area as well as the entire city of Atlanta become as successful as it can be. Read the rest of this entry »