USA Radical Black

“ON POINT!” Radio Talk Show with Ronald A. Edwards and Don Allen airs 5 p.m., Saturday, June 19, 2010 – Topic: “When did the Revolution Stop?”

“Why are Black Americans still having first’s in 2010?”

In 2010, Black America has fallen by the wayside. It seems as though we have given up. Some are blinded by the hope that with the election of America’s first Black president – the struggle is over. We tend to think the struggle has never left us and its getting worse.

This week, USA Radical Black invites you to join long-time Twin Cities Civil Rights activist; also the longest seated Chairman of the Board for the Minneapolis Urban League; Author of “The Minneapolis Story Blog,” and host of Minneapolis Television Network’s (MTN-17 at 5 p.m. Sundays) “Black Focus,” Mr. Ronald A. Edwards and co-host Don Allen who is the editor-in-chief of two very controversial blogs, “The Independent Business News Network,” and “USA Radical Black,” as they come together for the show, “ON POINT!”

This week’s topic: “When did the Revolution Stop?” Hosts Ronald A. Edwards and Don Allen will discuss significant “repeat” issues in the Black community and how these issues were addressed in history and made a priority to fix but still affect the Black communities around the United States today. We will also talk about Minneapolis’ African-American Leadership meetings and why the organizers and participant have missed the mark in addressing the issues of poverty, foreclosures, jobs and economic development. We take a look at the recent homicides in Minneapolis and the fact that the last 8 have no suspects in custody.

“ON POINT!” is a nationally syndicated radio program on BlogTalkRadio that covers World, National and Local News focused to Black Americans.

Listeners can participate by calling our toll-free guest call-in number: 1 (877) 572-42881 or locally in the Twin Cities metro area dial: (347) 426-3904.

We encourage listeners to call in and ask questions.

How to listen to the show – “ON POINT!” is broadcast via the Internet: Listeners can click here or copy and paste this address in your search engine’s browser: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ibnnnews/2010/06/19/on-point-with-ronald-a-edwards-and-don-allen

The 1-hour show starts at 5 p.m. (CST) on Saturday, June 19, 2010.

Judicial Watch Sues Department of Justice for Documents Regarding Decision to Dismiss of Lawsuit against New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

Contact Information:
Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305

Washington, DC — May 25, 2010

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Obama Justice Department to obtain documents related to the agency’s decision to dismiss the claims against several members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense who were accused of engaging in voter intimidation during the 2008 presidential campaign (U.S. v. New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense).

Judicial Watch filed its original FOIA request on May 29, 2009. The Justice Department acknowledged receiving the request on June 18, 2009, but then referred the request to the Office of Information Policy (OIP) and the Civil Rights Division. On January 15, 2010, the OIP notified Judicial Watch that it would be responding to the request on behalf of the Offices of the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, Associate Attorney General, Public Affairs, Legislative Affairs, Legal Policy, and Intergovernmental and Public Liaison. Read More »

Andrew M. Manis: When Are WE Going to Get Over It

Andrew M. Manis is associate professor of history at Macon State College in Georgia and wrote this for an editorial in the Macon Telegraph.

For much of the last forty years, ever since America “fixed” its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, “When are African Americans finally going to get over it?

Now I want to ask:  “When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color?

Recent reports that “Election Spurs Hundreds’ of Race Threats, Crimes” should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in “Bombingham,” Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than “talk the talk.”

Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame we are once again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood.

We white people have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent.

Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right. Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes.

Call for their impeachment, perhaps. But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was non-political mental case who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster.

But elect a liberal who happens to be Black and we’re back in the sixties again. At this point in our history, we should be proud that we’ve proven what conservatives are always saying — that in America anything is possible, EVEN electing a black man as president.

But instead we now hear that school children from Maine to California are talking about wanting to “assassinate Obama.”

Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, “How long?”

How long before we white people realize we can’t make our nation, much less the whole world, look like us? Read More »

Government Illegaly Spied On Nation Of Islam

By Associated Press December 17, 2009 12:22 pm Posted on News One for Black America

WASHINGTON — Homeland security officials improperly gathered intelligence on the Nation of Islam, a black Muslim group, but government rules were “unintentionally and inadvertently violated” and only publicly available information was collected, according to documents made public Wednesday.

Internal correspondence shows the 2007 report – titled “Nation of Islam: Uncertain Leadership Succession Poses Risks” – was created by an intelligence group working within the Homeland Security Department.

Hours after the report was issued, officials recalled it, deciding the report violated intelligence rules against collecting or disseminating information on U.S. citizens for an extended period of time. It had been disseminated widely over the Internet to numerous federal agencies, state and local law enforcement, several congressional committees, intelligence agencies and parts of the private sector, a reviewing officer found. Read More »

The Incredible Transition of Dr. King

Executive Director and President of Rainbow Writing, Inc., Karen Cole Peralta writes

A long time ago in the fabled southlands of America, the authorities told black people they had to use the “colored” restrooms – not the “white” people ones. It was thought at the time that “mixing the races” would lead to rape, diseases or other unfortunate circumstances. One public restroom each in a building’s common area was supplied for colored men, colored women, white men and white women; pretty idiotic, don’t you think?

It did make four “water closets” available, two apiece for each sex, which admittedly allowed for somewhat easier restroom availability. But it also undermined the dignity of the American Deep South, which was thus stuck moving from the lack of fair human rights to the promotion of greater civil rights, and eventually to manifesting independent living rights. After all, the involved country was America, and being a democracy, it couldn’t long maintain such hostile acts of racial segregation – or discrimination against the physically disabled, challenged, or handicapped.

You could say the 1950s and 60s were a time of incredible transition when it came to the full legal rights of American citizens. What was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s role in this so-called “incredible transition?” For one thing, changing racially segregated public restrooms back to the usual men’s and women’s ones was considered to be politically important. This sort of thing, along with the Deep South’s municipal bus boycotts, was to enable “colored” people to get away from such underhanded referencing to their darker and harmless black, brown or mulatto skin color.

Uniting the public restrooms enabled people to continue their normal way of life, unhampered by racism or any presumed “need” for such segregated facilities. Plus, there was the further needed transition of the municipal city buses, where black people had been forced to sit in the far backs of the buses. As with the public restrooms, there was no need for such isolation, which at the time was being corrected by the acting Civil Rights Movement, headed by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so that people could use most public facilities without suffering from further racial segregation. Read More »

Ugly Truth: Most U.S. Kids Sentenced to Die In Prison Are Black

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Originally Posted November 11, 2009.

The U.S. stands alone in the world in condemning thousands of juveniles to life without parole. And race is a huge factor. Will the Supreme Court even consider it?

This is the second in a two-part series on juvenile life without parole. Read Part One here.

On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court heard two cases that could have major implications for the way juvenile offenders are treated in our criminal justice system. Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida both involve men who are serving life without the possibility of parole for crimes they were convicted of as teenagers — crimes in which no one was killed.

Joe Sullivan was only 13 years old when he was accused of sexually assaulting a 72-year-old woman in her Pensacola, Fla., home, hours after he and a group of older teenagers robbed her house. Sullivan, who reportedly suffers from mental disabilities, insisted that, while he participated in the robbery, he did not commit the rape. But his co-defendants, 15-year-old Michael Gulley and 17-year-old Nathan McCants, 17 pinned the crime on him. Both were tried as juveniles; Sullivan was tried as an adult. Read More »

‘Post-Racial’ America? Not Yet. NAACP Legal Defense Fund Releases Report on Why the Fight for Voting Rights Continues After the Election of President Barack Obama

(SOURCE: NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund)– The NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s (LDF) Political Participation Group, released “Post-Racial” America? Not Yet, a report detailing why the fight for voting rights continues one year after the historic election of President Barack Obama.

“Amid the excitement of President Obama’s election, ‘post-racial’ has become a powerful buzzword in our social and political lexicon, and some have asserted that America has completely overcome the racially discriminatory practices that have endured long past the work of the Civil Rights Movement,” said John Payton, LDF President and Director-Counsel.

“President Barack Obama’s election as the first African American President marks continued progress toward our highest ideals of freedom and equality, and affords all Americans great hope about the promises of our Constitution,” said Ryan P. Haygood, Co-Director of LDF’s Political Participation Group. “Yet some mistake this critical milestone as the end of our nation’s ongoing journey toward racial equality.”

With voting as its focus, this report confronts the myth that President Obama’s election ushered America into a “post-racial” era by examining two recent developments in the area of race and politics. Read More »