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The sequester and the Tea Party plot
March 2, 2013
Tea Party Republicans are crowing about the “sequestration” cuts beginning March 1. “This will be the first significant Tea Party victory in that we got what we set out to do in changing Washington,” says Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kansas. Sequestration is only the start. What they set out to do was not simply change Washington but eviscerate the U.S. government.
Black history maker Esther Cooper Jackson 1917-
February 7, 2013
Esther Cooper Jackson, born in Arlington, Virginia, graduated from Ohio’s Oberlin College, received her MA degree in sociology from Fisk University, then remarkably turned down a scholarship offer to Chicago University to earn a PhD to relocate to Birmingham, Ala., where she became the organizational secretary for the Southern Negro Youth Congress.
Bay View Voters Guide
October 16, 2012
Voting empowers our communities to get what we want. If we don’t vote, we’re invisible. If we turn out in large numbers for this election, we’ll get respect – from City Hall to the White House. Here are the Bay View’s recommendations for Tuesday, Nov. 6, including candidates for San Francisco Board of Supervisors, School Board, College Board and BART Board. On state propositions, the Bay View recommends that you vote Yes on 30, No on 31 (LAST MINUTE CHANGE), No on 32, No on 33, No on 34, No on 35, Yes on 36, Yes on 37, Yes on 38, Yes on 39 and Yes on 40. But however you vote, VOTE! Voting is our most powerful right. Use it.
Mapping the war on the right to vote
October 3, 2012
Our nation’s democracy is in a crisis. We are facing the biggest challenge to our nation since its inception. No, there is not an armed rebellion going on, but, oh, is there a war – a silent, insidious, invidious, nefarious, absolutely downright ugly war. And the war is on the right to vote for American citizens. – Barbara Arnwine, July 2012
Mayoral campaigns ask the Justice Department to protect San Franciscans from Interim Mayor Ed Lee
October 24, 2011
Seven San Francisco mayoral candidates have asked the U.S. Department of Justice to send in election observers and monitors and federal investigators to protect San Franciscans’ voting rights from the official mayoral campaign of Interim Mayor Ed Lee and from the “independent expenditure committee” also trying to elect him outside the campaign spending confines of the official campaign.
New Orleans news from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
May 16, 2011
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund Project Vote and New Orleans attorney Ronald Wilson filed a complaint in federal court alleging that Louisiana is disenfranchising minority and low-income voters by failing to offer them the opportunity to register to vote as required by the National Voter Registration Act.
Redistricting, the next chapter in the voting rights struggle
March 11, 2011
State legislatures in many states have used redistricting to minimize and/or deny racial and ethnic minorities their right to representation. Given the systematic inequalities and racism that still exist today it is crucial that people of color get involved in this process.
Dr. King and the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott
January 17, 2011
Although America’s Declaration of Independence and Constitution are premised on the principles of democracy, the historical treatment of America’s citizens of color is replete with racial dichotomies. Today’s youth need to know that Dr. King was only 25 when he began to fight back with the year-long Montgomery bus boycott.
Thousands of California elders losing long-term care
August 14, 2009
Renowned bassist Ortiz Walton was once the youngest person and first African American to play in the Boston Symphony. But at 75, not only can’t Walton play his bass, but he cannot bathe, dress, eat or move in his wheelchair without the help of his wife, Carol, and assistance from state-subsidized services designed to keep him in their Berkeley, Calif., home and out of a nursing institution.
Can’t vote because you’re in jail? Yes you can!
August 21, 2008
On a cloudy Saturday morning in August, the sidewalk outside Glenn E. Dyer Jail in Oakland seems an odd site for a voter registration drive – but organizers are targeting an atypical audience: inmates and those visiting them.