Tag: NAACP

On May 11, 2012, Marissa Alexander was sentenced to 20 years in prison, because she fired a warning shot to halt her abusive husband from trying to kill her. In her defense, her lawyers cited the Florida “stand your ground” law, which months earlier made national headlines when it was cited by George Zimmerman’s defense team, after he killed unarmed Black teenager Trayvon Martin.

Since June 10 an undetermined number of Georgia prisoners have been on a hunger strike. Some of these men are the Jackson State prison strikers. After two weeks, according to the families of Miguel Jackson and Preston Whiting, they are weak from hunger and subject to fainting spells. But they seem to believe they have little to lose. They are, a letter from one of them asserts, “starving for change.” We must demand justice for Miguel Jackson and other Georgia state prisoners who are being targeted and brutalized for exposing their inhumane conditions and standing up for their most basic human rights.

On the morning of Tuesday, June 19, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights is having an important public hearing on “Reassessing Solitary Confinement.” This Senate hearing comes on the heels of widespread prisoner hunger strikes that have made the use of solitary confinement a central issue.

On June 12, family members held a memorial for Derrick Gaines, a 15-year-old who was shot and killed by an officer with the South San Francisco Police Department on the evening of June 5. Police claim that Gaines, who was walking with a friend near an Arco gas station, was engaging in “suspicious behavior.”

We are the ones who refused to be captured in Afrika without a fight, who staged daring raids on enemy supply lines and brought our nationals back to freedom. We are the ones the enemy calls, “criminals,” “terrorists,” “gangs,” “militants,” “leftists,” “separatists,” “radicals,” “feminists,” “worst of the worst,” “America’s Most Wanted” and enemy combatants.

This is the month we wear our Blackness with pride – so walk on, walk on. I want to thank Rhodessa Jones, Shaka Jamal, Pat Jamison, Elaine Lee, Walter Turner, Vera Nobles and Elouise Burrell for your leads and references for South Africa.

“It’s time for the killing, brutality, terrorizing and occupation of our communities by the police to stop,” writes Denika Chatman, mother of Kenneth Harding Jr., murdered by SFPD last July. Since then police attacks on the community, especially his supporters, have intensified. Denika is calling everyone to make a dramatic demand for justice by surrounding Candlestick Stadium during the NFC championship game Sunday, Jan. 22. Gather at noon at Third & Palou, Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco.

The struggle against school closures is far from over. Now is the time to stand up and speak out against this attack on public education – an attack designed by those who should be defending it, Superintendent Tony Smith and the OUSD School Board. You can call Superintendent Smith at (510) 879-8200.

The Hunters Point Rebellion, touched off Sept. 27, 1966, 45 years ago today, by the police murder of Matthew Johnson, 16, was put down after only 128 hours with massive force. The repression left scars that make it hard for people who lived through the rebellion to talk about it 45 years later. The Bay View encourages those who remember to share your story so that what should be a proud chapter in Black history of defying injustice is never forgotten. Those who remember the 1966 rebellion are encouraged to email their recollections to the Bay View at editor@sfbayviewnews.wpenginepowered.com.

Rev. and Dorothy Pinkney have been leaders in the fight against the corporate (Whirlpool) and state government’s direct takeover of the poor, largely African-American Rust Belt town of Benton Harbor, Michigan, the first American city to be placed under Michigan’s draconian new Emergency Financial Manager law. Join them on their Justice Tour in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Fresno Sept. 27-Oct. 1.

A coalition of unemployed African American laborers gathered in front of California state Sen. Allen Lowenthal's office in Long Beach to demand his support for SB 292, the bill to fast track AEG's Farmers Field project which would create tens of thousands of good jobs.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole refused to grant clemency to Troy, but we can’t give up — or Troy will be murdered on Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET! Right now, call the Board at (404) 656-5651 to ask that they reconsider, and sign three new petitions to District Attorney Larry Chisolm, who can withdraw his death warrant (links are at the top of the story) and call the DA at (912) 652-7308. Please do it now. The power of the people can save and free Troy Davis!

Yesterday, the NAACP and other organizations supporting freedom for Troy Davis delivered more than 660,000 petition signatures to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles in support of halting Troy's execution and granting him clemency. Watch the new video from the NAACP, plus a new video from Jasiri X, 'I am Troy Davis.' Read a letter from Troy Davis and another from California death row prisoner Kevin Cooper, a message from the Campaign to End the Death Penalty and, most important, how you can help stop the execution of Troy Davis, set for Wednesday, Sept. 21.

You are listening to the Minister of Information JR on Hard Knock Radio. Today we are talking to Denika Chatman, mother of Kenneth Harding, who was murdered July 16 in Hunters Point over a $2 transfer for Muni. Denika, how are you?

Kenny was a real happy person. He had a beautiful spirit. He loved his mom. He was really into music and underground rap and really liked most of the local Bay Area underground artists – people from Hunters Point and Fillmore. Now that the police in San Francisco have killed Kenny, we’re going through a lot with the police in Seattle. They brought out the SWAT team to my home for nothing. The police said that my son was a piece of trash and that he got what he deserved. I don’t think nobody deserves to be killed in the fashion that my son was.

Toyota Motor Sales U.S. executives have angered National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) Chairman Danny Bakewell Sr., and America’s preeminent Black newspaper publishers after the troubled carmaker backed out of a multi-million dollar advertising campaign targeting Black consumers.

“I just think my mother died of a broken heart, but she made sure we were strong enough to deal with this,” said Martina Correia, Troy Davis' sister. “It’s not just the inmate who is on Death Row. That whole family is on Death Row.”

A special investigation, “’My Name is 6508799’: State of the Gulf, One Year After the Oil Drilling Disaster,” recently released by the NAACP, indicates that thousands of Gulf Coast residents are still suffering mild to severe mental health problems stemming from BP oil drilling disaster last year.

Tanya McDowell, the mother in Connecticut who was charged with larceny for allegedly stealing an education for her son, faces up to 20 years in prison and a $15,000 fine for sending her child to a school outside his district.

Happy Mother’s Day to Yuri Kochiyama! I’d like to also wish the women who haven’t seen their children in a long time, some since birth, a special Happy Mother’s Day. Our prayers are with you even if you feel alone at a time when in America prisons systematically separate mothers from their children, often permanently.