Written by Alisha L. Gordon, M.Ed.Founder of “Finding the Pieces”, Speaker, and Teacher
Dear Georgia,
Today, many of your sons and daughters mourn for you.
Since the inception of your statehood in 1732, you’ve always seemed to lag behind.
You were the last to establish yourself as the original 13 Colonies. You were also the last state to restore yourself back to the union in 1870.
You’ve spent many years sweeping your darkest hours under rugs. The Atlanta Race Riots of 1906 are hardly in your history books.
Your capital city of Atlanta has brought some redeeming qualities to you. She was a central point for civil and social movements throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s and in her younger years, was considered the “golden city” of the South.
W.E.B. DuBois spoke of her greatness in his book The Souls of Black Folk. In chapter five of the book, “Of the Wings of Atalanta,” he personified you as the “Queen of Cotton,” “Gateway to the Land of Sun,” and a city crowned with a “hundred hills” with its high chimneys and progressive ways. It reigned regally among its sister cities as a place of promise.
What was most prolific about DuBois’ exploration of you, my dear city, was his comparison to the Greek goddess Atalanta. She was the fairest of all the women during her time, quick on her feet, highly sought after, much like you are. Countless men lost their lives in the pursuit of her; no one could catch up to her crafty ways and lightning fast feet. She swore to marry the man who could beat her in a foot race; the Greek youth Hippomenes outsmarted her by laying three golden apples along her path causing her to stop to pick up the golden treasures versus staying focused on the race set before her.
…and in all our Nation’s striving is not the Gospel of Work befouled by the Gospel of Pay? So common is this that one-half think it normal; so unquestioned, that we almost fear to question if the end of racing is not gold, if the aim of man is not rightly to be rich. And if this is the fault of America, how dire a danger lies before a new land and a new city, lest Atlanta, stooping for mere gold, shall find that gold accursed!
It was no maiden’s idle whim that started this hard racing; a fearful wilderness lay about the feet of that city after the War,–feudalism, poverty, the rise of the Third Estate, serfdom, the re-birth of Law and Order, and above and between all, the Veil of Race. How heavy a journey for weary feet! What wings must Atalanta have to flit over all this hollow and hill, through sour wood and sullen water, and by the red waste of sun-baked clay! How fleet must Atalanta be if she will not be tempted by gold to profane the Sanctuary! — The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois
DuBois points out that it was Atalanta’s greed that distracted her from maintaining her elite place among the women of her time, and in many ways, Atlanta, you have succumbed to the same travesty. I think you desperately want to regain your speed, ignore the solemn golden “apples” that are strewn amongst your path, but their temptation too great. The thwarted position of power you may lose is deemed too precious to sacrifice.
Today, Georgia, you had the opportunity to restore and redeem yourself. For the 531 lynchings that occurred on your soil over the course of 86 years (from 1886-1968). For the two braves souls who integrated our beloved University of Georgia. For Genarlow Wilson. For the disproportionate ways you gave home loans to your citizens without a second thought to their well-being. Because of it, we are number one for home foreclosures. For the number of students who enter four-year colleges and universities with deficiencies because politics and the “good ol’ boy” educational system of Georgia leave our kids grasping at straws in college lectures all across the country. For Raquel Nelson who faced a longer sentence for jay walking (three years) than the man who killed her son in a DUI accident as they crossed the street (He was sentenced to six months). And for your son, Troy Davis.
All of America was watching us, Georgia. Seeing what we would do with our brother Troy Davis. They waited to see if our light would shine bright enough in the midst of the racially charged comments, both private and public, and let Lady Justice balance her scales in favor of Mr. Davis. Those in support of him (and even those not in support of him, but of equality and common judicial sense) never wanted him to go “free.” The conviction of guilty was made and there was a price to pay. Nevertheless, tomorrow, we will play God.
We will use our sovereignty as a city and state to go through with a decision made 20 years ago, to take the life of a man whose decisions changed the course of not only his life, but also the life of slain officer MacPhail.
God, in all his sovereignty, has shown mercy to us all despite our flaws, imperfections, our social and civil injustices towards each other. He’s watched us run each other over with pickup trucks, delay in providing care to the sick and homeless, turn our noses up at those who look or believe differently than us. He’s watched us steal from the poor, give to the rich, and not give a second thought. He’s watched our children suffer at our own hands and still, He’s shown us mercy.
He’s blessed our country in ways unimaginable, giving us opportunity after opportunity to get it right. To love as He loves. To see our sons and daughters as He sees us. His grace and mercy, despite our self-inflicted wounds, covers us year after year, decade after decade in hopes that we’ll eventually follow suit and show that same grace and mercy to others.
We had another chance. We didn’t take it.
As a native of Georgia, Decatur to be specific, I mourn for us. We’ve taken some steps back in our progression; there’s a silent, suffocating fear that is hovering over our state. Much like the Georgia of the 1900′s, we want to progress. We want to be more, shine brighter, do greater works for our citizens, but we are afraid. We’re afraid that if we don’t stop for our “golden apples” of self-preservation, we’ll lose the race. If we dare change the course of the social expectations of race relations and the judicial system, we’ll be ostracized as the “red-headed step child” of the South. On bumper stickers and laser light shows across our state, we hear the silent, yet resounding call “the South shall rise again!” whispered in the crevices of our homes and sheltered pockets of our social circles.
Sadly, we only lift up the repetitive, cyclical, disintegrated ideologies and tattered “victories” of our past defeats.
When will we become brave enough to do what’s right, even if history has proven that doing what is right means standing alone?
Sincerely your homegrown daughter,
Alisha L. Gordon
Follow Alisha L. Gordon, M.Ed. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AlishaLGordon
In a campaign supported by the Koch brothers, Republicans are working to prevent millions of Democrats from voting next year.
A voter casts his ballot during the primary elections in Virginia. Matt McClain/For The Washington Post via Getty Image
As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election, Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008. Just as Dixiecrats once used poll taxes and literacy tests to bar black Southerners from voting, a new crop of GOP governors and state legislators has passed a series of seemingly disconnected measures that could prevent millions of students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly from casting ballots. “What has happened this year is the most significant setback to voting rights in this country in a century,” says Judith Browne-Dianis, who monitors barriers to voting as co-director of the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization based in Washington, D.C.
Republicans have long tried to drive Democratic voters away from the polls. “I don’t want everybody to vote,” the influential conservative activist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980. “As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” But since the 2010 election, thanks to a conservative advocacy group founded by Weyrich, the GOP’s effort to disrupt voting rights has been more widespread and effective than ever. In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process.
All told, a dozen states have approved new obstacles to voting. Kansas and Alabama now require would-be voters to provide proof of citizenship before registering. Florida and Texas made it harder for groups like the League of Women Voters to register new voters. Maine repealed Election Day voter registration, which had been on the books since 1973. Five states – Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia – cut short their early voting periods. Florida and Iowa barred all ex-felons from the polls, disenfranchising thousands of previously eligible voters. And six states controlled by Republican governors and legislatures – Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin – will require voters to produce a government-issued ID before casting ballots. More than 10 percent of U.S. citizens lack such identification, and the numbers are even higher among constituencies that traditionally lean Democratic – including 18 percent of young voters and 25 percent of African-Americans.
Taken together, such measures could significantly dampen the Democratic turnout next year – perhaps enough to shift the outcome in favor of the GOP. “One of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time,” Bill Clinton told a group of student activists in July. “Why is all of this going on? This is not rocket science. They are trying to make the 2012 electorate look more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate” – a reference to the dominance of the Tea Party last year, compared to the millions of students and minorities who turned out for Obama. “There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today.”
To hear Republicans tell it, they are waging a virtuous campaign to crack down on rampant voter fraud – a curious position for a party that managed to seize control of the White House in 2000 despite having lost the popular vote. After taking power, the Bush administration declared war on voter fraud, making it a “top priority” for federal prosecutors. In 2006, the Justice Department fired two U.S. attorneys who refused to pursue trumped-up cases of voter fraud in New Mexico and Washington, and Karl Rove called illegal voting “an enormous and growing problem.” In parts of America, he told the Republican National Lawyers Association, “we are beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are colonels in mirrored sunglasses.” According to the GOP, community organizers like ACORN were actively recruiting armies of fake voters to misrepresent themselves at the polls and cast illegal ballots for the Democrats.
Even at the time, there was no evidence to back up such outlandish claims. A major probe by the Justice Department between 2002 and 2007 failed to prosecute a single person for going to the polls and impersonating an eligible voter, which the anti-fraud laws are supposedly designed to stop. Out of the 300 million votes cast in that period, federal prosecutors convicted only 86 people for voter fraud – and many of the cases involved immigrants and former felons who were simply unaware of their ineligibility. A much-hyped investigation in Wisconsin, meanwhile, led to the prosecution of only .0007 percent of the local electorate for alleged voter fraud. “Our democracy is under siege from an enemy so small it could be hiding anywhere,” joked Stephen Colbert. A 2007 report by the Brennan Center for Justice, a leading advocate for voting rights at the New York University School of Law, quantified the problem in stark terms. “It is more likely that an individual will be struck by lightning,” the report calculated, “than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls.”
Think about the most prosperous and stable families you know. They might not be rich, but they’ve been lucky enough to keep their jobs. They are healthy and have health insurance. They live in a safe neighborhood. They have access to high quality schools, they can prepare their children for college, and they are actively involved in the community.
If you’re thinking of families with these characteristics, then chances are high that they are also homeowners.
Homeownership isn’t just about having a roof over your head. For many Americans, owning a home is key to moving from a paycheck-to-paycheck existence to building wealth that can be invested in the future. Especially for low-and-middle income families, homeownership makes a significant difference. Among families earning between $20,000 and $50,000, those who are homeowners have 19 times the wealth of those who rent their home.
More than 30 years ago, my wife, Bonnie, and I realized that lenders were ignoring lower-income families and people of color regardless of the ability to repay loans. We started the Center for Community Self-Help with the belief that, given a chance, families of color, rural residents, and female-headed households with low-to-moderate incomes could become successful homeowners and entrepreneurs.
WASHINGTON — Congress has changed a quarter-century-old law that has sent tens of thousands of blacks to prison for crack cocaine convictions while giving far more lenient treatment to those, mainly whites, caught with the same amount of the drug in powder form.
House passage of what was called the “fair sentencing act” sends the legislation to President Barack Obama for his signature.
The measure alters a 1986 law, enacted at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, under which a person convicted of crack cocaine possession gets the same mandatory prison term as someone with 100 times the same amount of powder cocaine.
The legislation reduces that ratio to about 18-to-1.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is reducing sentencing differences between crack and powder cocaine convictions that sent tens of thousands of blacks to prison while often letting whites skate for possessing the same amount of the drug in powder form.
Lawmakers created the disparity 24 years ago when crack appeared on the scene as a cheap but addictive drug.
The House planned to vote Wednesday on the measure that would change the 1986 law under which a person convicted of crack cocaine possession gets the same mandatory prison term as someone with 100 times the same amount of powder cocaine. The legislation would reduce that ratio to about 18-1.
The Senate has passed the legislation. House approval would send it to President Barack Obama.
“There is no law enforcement or sentencing rationale for the current disparity between crack and cocaine powder offenses,” Attorney General Eric Holder said when the Senate acted in March.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sponsor of the Senate bill, said that while blacks make up 30 percent of crack users, they account for more than 80 percent of those convicted of federal crack offenses.
Under current law, possession of 5 grams of crack triggers a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence. The same mandatory sentence applies to a person convicted of trafficking 500 grams of powder cocaine.
The proposed legislation would apply the five-year term to someone with 28 grams, or an ounce, of crack. It would be the first time in 40 years that Congress has repealed a mandatory minimum sentence.
Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said 28 grams is about what the average crack dealer might carry around.
She said politicians and sentencing commissions have for years acknowledged the unfairness of the system, “but no one wanted to look soft on crime.” The legislative change, she said, is “much more about being smart on crime.”
Wrongful convictionsof black men have become commonplace. But conviction of Troy Davis inChatham County, Georgia is one of the most egregious and compellingcases in decades. You can help save this man’s life.
By: Ben Jealous|
David Silverman/Getty Images
AsFather’s Day approaches, we often reflect on the male role models,father figures and patriarchs who are instrumental in our lives. Wehold them in high regard because they possess qualities we admire:courage and strength, perseverance and determination, humility andgrace.
To DeJuan Correira, his “Uncle Troy” embodies allof these attributes. A mentor to his nephew, Troy Anthony Davis playeda prominent role in DeJuan’s development into a superior student whilesimultaneously providing support to DeJuan’s mother, Martina, Troy’ssister who was diagnosed with cancer in 2001. Davis’ accomplishments asa father figure and family man are astounding given his circumstances;since 1991, Davis has been on death row, wrongly convicted of themurder of Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail.
His case is one of several in the United Stateswhere black men are convicted of violent crimes despite faultytestimony, ineffective counsel and reasonable doubt. In Missouri, Reggie Clemons was convicted of the 1991 murderof two young women despite no physical evidence linking him to thecrime, and was based on confessions that were coerced, inadequatedefense lawyers and a prosecution that was held in contempt of court.Currently sitting on Missouri’s Death Row, Clemons is set to beexecuted on June 17.
The Troy Davis case is the most compelling case ofinnocence in decades. No physical evidence links Davis to the crime; nomurder weapons were found and 7 out of 9 eyewitnesses recanted orcontradicted their original statements. The facts of his innocence areso overwhelming that it has inspired conservative former CongressmanBob Barr and former FBI head William Sessions to speak out. The choruscalling for a new trial includes former President Jimmy Carter and PopeBenedict XVI. Despite irrefutable evidence of his innocence, ChathamCounty is one of 159 counties in the state of Georgia. The countycurrently has approximately 250,000 residents, less than 3 percent ofGeorgia’s state population. Yet this tiny county has produced one-thirdof Georgia’s exonerations and 40 percent of its death row exonerations,statistics that reveal a questionable history of negligent legalpractices. The Troy Davis case is the latest in a series of disturbinginstances of Chatham County’s disregard for justice and a proclivity toprosecute and potentially execute in the face of innocence. The newChatham County District Attorney, Larry Chisolm, who is black, couldreopen the case, but so far he has refused to do so.
In a desperate attempt to silence Davis, theGeorgia Department of Corrections has prohibited all television accessto him. Interview requests from 60 Minutes, Dateline NBC andthe Associated Press have been denied, and the prison has threatened torevoke Davis’ phone privileges should any family member allow media tospeak to him. These drastic infringements on Davis’ First Amendmentrights are a measure of the state’s fear that exposure could reveal thetruth about racism and injustice in Chatham County and in the state ofGeorgia.
While many in his position would be resentfulabout the unfair circumstances and an unjust system that put thembehind bars, Davis exudes benevolence, responsibility and leadership.The effect Davis has had on his nephew is evident—DeJuan achieved tophonors in the state’s Social Science Fair for his project entitled”Time for Change: How Does the Troy Anthony Davis Case Affect Georgia?”From the confines of the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification StatePrison, Davis has mentored and provided an example to young DeJuan bybeing positive, unwavering and unbroken.
Davis is steadfast in his belief that justice will eventually be served and that he will be absolved.
He has served nearly 18 years of his life on deathrow for a crime he did not commit; time he will never get back.Nonetheless, the window remains open to act before an irreversiblecrime is committed. We must put a stop to this injustice before it’stoo late.
On June 25, the Supreme Court will hear a lastditch appeal in the case. If Davis’ writ of habeas corpus is denied,within weeks—maybe days—an execution date will be set.
I am urging everyone to take a moment to save an innocent life. Go to IAMTROY.com. where you can send a letter to Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and ask him to commute Troy’s sentence.
Benjamin Todd Jealous is the president and CEO of the NAACP.
Dear Georgia,
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