Governor Wes Moore proclaimed Feb. 20, 2023, as Civil Rights Heroes Day in Maryland.
The Moore-Miller administration chose to honor the date of the death of Frederick Douglass, a Maryland-born former slave and author, to signal Maryland’s commitment to promoting his legacy.
“Our nation’s civil rights leaders’ legacies transcend race, nationality, and religion to inspire action and promote equality worldwide,” said Moore. “We will continue to lead in honor of their memory and for the future of all Marylanders as we seek to form a more perfect union both in our state and across the nation.”
The state also recognized many other Maryland-born civil rights leaders, such as Harriett Tubman and Thurgood Marshall.
The Maryland flag flew at half-staff from sunrise to sunset.
Tashi McQueen is a Report For America Corps Member.
By Donnell Suggs, The Atlanta Voice, Word in Black
Ken Kemp walked down the stairs of the College Park Library to greet his guest. A groundskeeper ignored the two men and continued to cut the grass with a riding mower. The noise made it hard for a conversation to take place. Kemp, a professional school counselor at a metro Atlanta charter school, is used to talking in extreme circumstances. He is the only Black male counselor at his school and spends a lot of time communicating with young Black men and women on how to block out the background noise and focus on the mission at hand.
“I just want to be a safe space and a representation for the students,” said Kemp, 37. He sees the disparity in his profession as a problem that can be solved, but it’s going to take some work.
By Christina Williams-James, The Sacramento Observer, Word in Black
Black History Month allows us, as a country, to reflect on the history and legacy of African Americans’ experience. While this rightly means celebrating a proud history, it also means confronting a legacy of racism that continues in our institutions and systems to this day. Surely, this should always be on our minds — not just each February. But we can still use this month to talk about where we are, what’s working, and what still must be done.
Our ongoing reckoning with systemic racism is evident in the white-Black “opportunity gap,” which refers to the significant and persistent disparity in Black students’ educational achievements (test scores, grades, graduating high school, attending college) as compared to those of white students.
Among U.S. eighth-graders in 2019, for example, only 13% of Black students scored at or above a proficient level in mathematics, compared with 43% of white students. Similarly, only 15% of Black students scored at or above a proficient level in reading, compared with 41% of white students. This “gap” — according to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a.k.a. “The Nation’s Report Card,” which since 1969 has tracked student achievement across the country — has narrowed substantially since the 1970s, though recent progress is minimal and the disparity remains very large.
This nationwide issue can be seen in our own backyard. When looking at recently released data for the high school Class of 2020 in California, college-going rates demonstrate the net result of the impact the opportunity gap has on students’ college enrollment options. The results for racial and ethnic subgroups show Asian (82%), Filipino (77%) and white (64%) students all have significantly higher college-going rates than Black (53%), Hispanic (54%) and Indigenous (52%) students.
Our ongoing reckoning with systemic racism is evident in the white-Black ‘opportunity gap.’
In Sacramento, St. HOPE Public Schools, a high-caliber, college-prep public charter school system in Oak Park, is focused on closing this gap. I am proud to lead one of the St. HOPE schools and we’re delivering great results.
Our two schools — PS7, which serves grades TK-8, and Sac High, which I lead — provide a seamless TK-12 education for students who’ve been traditionally underserved. Eighty-one percent of PS7’s students and 71% of Sac High’s are considered socioeconomically disadvantaged. Fifty-six percent of PS7’s student body is African American, as is 60% of Sac High’s.
What separates us is our approach, rooted in student excellence and college readiness, which provides our scholars with the strongest possible foundation for learning and career success. To do this, we create classrooms and learning environments based on strict accountability, rigorous standards, high expectations, increased learning time, and the active involvement of parents, students, teachers and staff.
This formula works. For example, in 2022, while only 46% of Sacramento County high school seniors graduated A-G eligible (with the minimum requirements for admission to California State University and University of California campuses), 100% of Sac High’s seniors did. Yes, 100%. As a result, 95% of Sac High’s students were accepted into four-year colleges in 2022, including at all nine UC campuses. Data just released on the Sacramento region’s largest high schools shows Sac High with the fourth highest percentage of graduates going to a UC and the second highest percentage of graduates going to a CSU.
What separates us is our approach, rooted in student excellence and college readiness, which provides our scholars with the strongest possible foundation for learning and career success.
From 2015 to 2020, of all the low-income African American students in Sac County who enrolled at a UC after high school, nearly one in four were Sac High graduates.
Of course, the groundwork for Sac High’s college-prep success is laid in PS7’s elementary and middle schools. There, too, our scholars, including our minority scholars, outperform their district, county and state peers on state standardized tests. More than half (51%) of Hispanic/Latino students at PS7 tested on or above grade level in English language arts in 2021-22 compared to 35% of Hispanic/Latino students in Sacramento County. In math, African American, Hispanic/Latino, English learners and socioeconomically disadvantaged students at PS7 outperform students in Sacramento County and throughout the state.
We’re proud of our scholars’ achievements to date. PS7 and Sac High serve as proof points that all students can succeed when put in a system combining high expectations and support. But our work is far from over, both at St. HOPE and beyond. The above-mentioned statistics from the Nation’s Report Card show how much further we have to go.
We’ll continue to do our part, pushing our scholars to reach their full potential and serving as a model for closing the opportunity gap for Black students. Although our work will continue year-round, Black History Month reminds us to keep pushing for equity and improved educational outcomes for Black students.
Christina Williams-James is the principal at Sacramento Charter High School and a former SCUSD student.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Minnesota Senate moved Tuesday to restore voting rights to convicted felons as soon as they get out of prison instead of continuing to require them to complete their parole before they can cast a ballot.
The Senate approved the “Restore the Vote” bill less than a week after the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the state’s current restrictions and left it up to the Legislature to change them. Democrats behind the measure say it will help reintegrate former inmates — who are disproportionately people of color — back into society.
“We know that in the state of Minnesota right now we have more than 55,000 of our friends, our neighbors and family members who are not allowed to vote. They should have the right to vote,” Democratic Senate President Bobby Joe Champion, of Minneapolis, told his colleagues.
The Senate approved the bill 35-30 Tuesday night and sent it to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz for his promised signature.
Supporters of the bill said it took on an even greater urgency after the Minnesota Supreme Court last week rejected a challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had argued that the state’s restrictions were unconstitutional.
The high court’s ruling acknowledged that 1% of white people, 6% of Black people and 9% of Native American people in Minnesota could not vote in 2018 because they had been convicted of a felony but had not completed their parole. If the right to vote was restored upon release from incarceration, it said, those percentages would drop to 0.1%, 1.5% and 2%, respectively.
Twenty-one other states restore voting rights when people with felony convictions leave prison, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, including Republican-controlled North Dakota, Indiana and Utah. Some California lawmakers are pushing to allow felons to vote even while they’re still in prison, regardless of their crimes, as Maine, Vermont and the District of Columbia already do.
Champion said residents who would regain the right to vote are often people whom the courts have deemed safe for release, and that they’re working, raising families and paying taxes. He noted that groups representing prosecutors, public defenders, probation officers and crime victims support the bill, as does the state Department of Corrections.
“When individuals are connected to their communities and participating in pro-social activities, recidivism goes down, and the decision to do something to reoffend goes down as well,” he said.
Attempts by Republicans to weaken the bill failed, including one amendment to exclude people convicted of violent crimes and another that would have kept the requirement to complete parole in place at least for those convicted of child rape.
GOP Sen. Warren Limmer, of Maple Grove, disputed Champion’s assertions that probationary periods often run as long as 20 years in Minnesota. He noted that the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission around three years ago capped parole for most offenses at five years, with exceptions remaining for first-degree murder and rape.
Limmer told reporters during a break in the debate that felons should not regain their civil rights — in this case the right to vote — until after they’ve completed their full sentence, both their incarceration and probation. He also accused Democrats of getting weaker and weaker on criminals at a time when crime is already high.
“There are some offenders that have committed heinous crimes against innocent citizens. I don’t think the Senate understands that,” Limmer said. “Because this bill treats it as a one-size-fits all — all criminals get the same treatment.”
It had been a crazy summer. And, at the end, Sharif El-Mekki was in tears.
He was watching students perform in their end-of-the-year showcase, showing off the singing, dancing, and cultural skills they had learned during the summer of 2019.
El-Mekki had worked in schools, both as a teacher and principal, for 26 years. And, after piloting a program in 2018, he left his job to pursue full-time what is now the Philadelphia-based Center for Black Educator Development, with the mission of creating a more sustainable Black educator pipeline.
“It was deeply emotional for me,” El-Mekki says.
It was something that we went out on a ledge, and we did on our own
SHAYNA TERRELL, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF PROGRAM STRATEGY
The nature of the day was giving in to that type of emotion, says Shayna Terrell, managing director of program strategy at CBED. Terrell also co-founded CBED with El-Mekki after serving as his assistant principal in Philadelphia. During that 2019 showcase, she remembers seeing gratification: staff, students, and parents all appreciating the hard work.
“It was something that we went out on a ledge, and we did on our own,” Terrell says. “It was a wonderful high note to end our program on. And, for [El-Mekki], the showcase solidified that what he was doing was right. And this was the right place to be.”
According to the most recent data from the National Center for Educational Statistics, only 7% of K-12 public school teachers identify as Black. So it’s no wonder El-Mekki remembers thinking about how many students don’t have the experience of people believing in them in a way that provides students space and guidance to lead.
“To be able to see all of that come to fruition was a bit overwhelming,” El-Mekki says. “It also steeled my spine because it gave me even further fuel to keep moving forward.”
Planted Seeds, Growing
The idea for the Center for Black Educator Development didn’t come to El-Mekki in a dream. Rather, pieces of it had been planted in his mind from a young age.
His own Philadelphia elementary school was an all-Black school, including the staff. “You can’t help but to be shaped by your experiences,” he says.
In his professional career, he found himself resonating with the connections between education and racial justice. And then, while doing a fellowship with the U.S. Department of Education, El-Mekki realized a lack of Black educators wasn’t just a problem local to Philadelphia, but one that existed nationwide.
One source of the problem is Brown v. Board of Education, which, El-Mekki says, is when the Black teacher pipeline started “having holes drilled in it and became pretty leaky.” In the years after the 1954 decision that made racially segregated schools unconstitutional, more than 38,000 Black educators lost their jobs. Even though these educators were highly skilled and qualified credential-wise, districts refused to hire them to teach white students or be school administrators supervising white teachers.
But the strongest source of his motivation to build a Black educator pipeline was the youth. El-Mekki recalled a student who told him they wanted to become a teacher but said there was nowhere to learn to teach. This is especially true for Black children, El-Mekki says, based on their own experiences.
The early pipeline work was key for El-Mekki, Terrell says, to inspire people to become teachers at a young age instead of waiting until they’re in college when it’s “too late.”
“That’s the gumbo pot that influenced the decision,” El-Mekki says. “But, ultimately, it was this idea of how do we rebuild a national Black teacher pipeline that’s sustainable, highly effective, predictable, and protected.”
He’d already been doing the work on nights and weekends through different initiatives, but he wanted to commit himself to it full-time.
A Vision Realized
In 2018, El-Mekki and Terrell ran a pilot program where Black high school students were teaching younger students. And it worked. Though El-Mekki was “blissfully happy” in his principal job, this presented an opportunity he hadn’t seen before.
“It was so compelling and so interesting,” El-Mekki says. “It also fed that desire that I had for more students to experience what I experienced as a youth with a school full of Black teachers that were totally committed to them, that understood their cultural background.”
And then they got a grant to fund CBED so he and Terrell took the leap.
Three models influenced CBED: Freedom Schools, Black Panther Liberation Schools, and Independent Black Schools. This was organic for Terrell, who had been in the Freedom Schools movement since she was 16.
In the summers, the Freedom Schools Literacy Academy is open to K-2 students, and there are three tiers of educator training. High school students work as teaching apprentices, gaining classroom experience and professional development. College students and paraprofessionals lead classroom instruction and hone their teaching skills. And professional educators serve as coaches, helping the others learn the trade.
It’s hard work, Terrell says, but it beats punching the clock day in and day out. Every day, she is surrounded by people who care about the growth and development of Black children.
“The experience of rebuilding a Black teacher pipeline, to me, is inspirational. It’s inspiring. It’s fulfilling,” Terrell says. “I feel like I’m getting up and I’m going to a job and, even though the work is hard, I feel fulfilled.”
Earning High Marks
Before he got his teaching position, Trent Petty was seeking out like-minded educators, specifically focusing on Black teachers. And when he learned about CBED and its work, it seemed like the perfect match.
Petty first participated in the summer literacy academy in 2021, and then was a site lead in 2022, running daily operations at one of the schools. He came back because he felt like he was doing the groundwork and laying the foundations that CBED strives for: teaching and working with students in the same demographics he comes from, and both teaching them and watching them learn about Pan-African studies.
And now, Petty teaches second grade in North Philadelphia, a job he got after Terrell connected him for an interview.
“It’s helped me because it was like a preview before I became a full-time teacher,” Petty says. “It was just a really fun opportunity. And I got to meet a lot of other like-minded professionals, as well.”
They’re saying, ‘I wish my regular school was this type of experience.’ For me, that really strikes me as an opportunity. We have to make sure, as a society, that it does not continue to be a missed opportunity for us, for so many children across the country.
SHARIF EL-MEKKI, FOUNDER AND CEO
And the students — and their families — enjoy it, too. El-Mekki isn’t the only person who has been moved to tears by CBED: At the end of the summer session, his daughter cried and wouldn’t stop hugging her teacher.
There was also a California-based student who participated virtually. She was warned that CBED starts the day at 8:30 in the morning eastern time — 5:30 a.m. on the West Coast — but she was adamant, despite the massive time difference. And she never missed a day, nor was she ever late.
“Many families say that was the best experience for [their] child,” El-Mekki says. On top of working on literacy, reading, and writing, they’re doing positive racial identity development.
“They’re saying, ‘I wish my regular school was this type of experience.’ For me, that really strikes me as an opportunity. We have to make sure, as a society, that it does not continue to be a missed opportunity for us, for so many children across the country.”
Reported Progress
In 2022, CBED reached students at five physical sites — three in Philadelphia, one in Camden, New Jersey, and a pilot site in Detroit — and 13 states virtually. It also saw a 300% growth in the number of teacher apprentices, with 36 in 2019, its inaugural year, compared to 142 in 2022. In its entirety, CBED has worked with 388 teacher apprentices at all levels.
And, though the world shut down less than a year after CBED was launched, growth didn’t slow during the virtual months. Instead, parents had a demand, and CBED answered the call, Terrell says.
“Because schooling, at that point, was also happening in the virtual world, it gave some of our future apprentices the [experience] that they needed,” Terrell says. “To be able to practice how to teach in a virtual classroom was wildly successful.”
CBED has clear learning objectives for its teacher apprentices, wanting to make sure they are prepared for the classroom setting. The objectives aim to improve academic self-efficacy, mindset, habits of mind, and strategies for both academic and personal success.
In the most recent year, 2022, all four areas were met, according to the 2022 progress report. The biggest increase was in apprentices feeling they have strategies for handling academically challenging tasks, which jumped from 71% to 86% by the end of the summer.
Plus, there were significant jumps in teacher apprentices reporting positive racial identity. The largest increase came with those reporting they are active in organizations or social groups that include mostly members of their own ethnic group, with a 21% increase.
And it’s proven to work. During the five-week program, 83% of the K-2 scholars improved their reading levels.
CBED’s commitment to building the Black educator pipeline extends beyond its day-to-day work. In November, the organization hosted the fifth-annual Black Men Educators Convening, which drew nearly 900 people to Philadelphia over its three-day span.
Looking at all of the progress and hearing success stories fuels Terrell.
“It pushes me further to figure out how I scale this so this happens for every apprentice who comes to our program,” Terrell says.
Three More Years, and Beyond
So what does the future look like?
In the next three years, Terrell hopes to expand to three more cities and increase the amount of programming in their current cities. She wants to be working with hundreds of apprentices and over 100 scholars.
“Our impact over the next few years will continue to grow,” Terrell says. “Hopefully, we’ll have a real steady placement system for our apprentices, meaning we can say we’ve placed over 100 teachers in the classroom over the next few years.”
And CBED will soon expand to Memphis.
Expansion cities are carefully selected and must meet a host of criteria. For one, beyond the superintendent, there has to be a whole consortium of people committed to creating a Black teacher pipeline and believing it will positively impact the district, city, state, and region: community members, families, and students.
And people have to be committed to doing the entire program — developing both the talent and workforce development model. And, of course, there has to be funding and support.
More uniquely, El-Mekki wants students to be involved in the program, helping to solve a problem “that they had no hand in creating.”
“We have to envision a history of activism, because that’s how we look at teaching,” El-Mekki says. And there has to be “A desire and understanding of what it takes, that is a long term effort, not a short term initiative — that is a long term investment.”
Something else El-Mekki wants to continue prioritizing is professional learning to help influence the school ecosystem: school board members, curriculum writers and purchasers, instructional coaches, heads of schools, superintendents. Like the majority of teachers are white — and because the majority of teachers are white — the school ecosystem is often white, so El-Mekki wants to make sure the Black teacher pipeline also leads people here.
Overall, El-Mekki isn’t trying to rush, but make sure he’s helping to create a pipeline through sustainable and effective practices. He wants to make sure students understand this is how Black people have always been taught and learned, and the relationships between teaching and learning, and education and self determination.
And he’s already seen some of this come to fruition at his old school in Philadelphia, where at least five alumni have returned to teach various subjects, including art and math. And, of course, his 7-year-old daughter is “adamant” that she’s going to be a teacher one day.
“James Baldwin said hope is invented every day,” El-Mekki says. “And I firmly believe that every day gives me some type of inspiration.”
RICHMOND, VA — Sassy Jones, the nation’s fastest-growing privately held retail brand, which launched in the founder’s minivan where she drove across the country to various trade shows after giving birth to her then 4-month-old twins, is now a multimillion-dollar enterprise that designs incredibly unique jewelry, audacious ready-to-wear women’s clothes, and accessories. If you own a piece of Sassy Jones, you understand you are purchasing not only a product, but empowerment and purpose. Additionally, every purchase benefits menstrual poverty to young African girls.
“I am thrilled to open our first location where customers near and far can come for a fully immersive shopping experience,” said Charis Jones, Founder and CEO of Sassy Jones. “A place where the unicorns can play – it isn’t about the purchase, it’s about how each customer feels. I want the Sassy Jones woman to walk away with more than just a handbag, I want her feeling gorgeous, connected and loved. This location will be the first of many to do just that.”
Teaching women to be fearlessly unapologetic with their style choices, the success of Sassy Jones is attributed to the brand’s cult-like fanbase, which grew rapidly after a series of Sparkle Parties – the brand’s weekly show garnering more than 30k viewers which teaches women how to feel undeniably confident in the brand’s newest arrivals. The Sparkle Party gained popularity among celebrities like Kim Coles, Cynthia Bailey and some of “The Real Housewives.”
Today, the multimillion-dollar brand has scaled to three warehouses, employing a team of over 40 employees, and has amassed countless national recognitions, including ranking at No. 24 on Inc. 5000’s list of fastest-growing, privately held businesses measured by revenue and growth with 12,000% growth. Sassy Jones was also named by Forbes as a top brand that thrived during the pandemic and continues to be a lifestyle brand that caters heavily to Black women, a market that is underserved by major fashion labels.
Samual Nathaniel Brown said he is not surprised that Assemblymember Lori Wilson (D-Suisun City) picked up the baton to carry on the fight to eradicate the phrase “involuntary servitude except as a punishment to crime” from California’s Constitution.
Brown, who contributed to writing Assembly Constitutional Amendment (ACA) 3, the California Abolition Act, while he was incarcerated in prison, stood on the west steps of the state Capitol in Sacramento with Wilson when she reintroduced a new iteration of the legislation that failed to pass in the State Senate last year.
This time around, Brown, Wilson and other supporters of the End Slavery in California Act say they are determined to retire the constitutional clause that allows labor imposed on felons as criminal punishment in California prisons.
“To be honest, we didn’t have to lure her in at all. She was a more-than-willing participant to pick up the baton,” Brown said on the Feb.19 edition of Abolition Today. “Championing the causes of Black people is something she has been doing for a long time and has done in almost every position she has held. It’s a no-brainer for her to continue this fight.”
Abolition Today is a weekly online radio program with specific focus on “modern-day slavery” as it is practiced through the 13th Amendment of the US constitution. It is hosted by Max Parthas and Yusuf Hassan.
California is among 16 states with an “exception clause” for involuntary servitude in its state constitution, Wilson said. Should the state legislature pass the End Slavery in California Act, voters will decide during the 2024 General Elections if it will become state law.
Three states — Colorado, Utah, and Nebraska – have voted to abolish slavery and involuntary servitude. Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont have approved similar ballot measures.
“I am introducing this legislation because in every position of leadership (I’ve held) from (parks) commission to councilmember, from vice mayor to mayor, and now a state legislator; one of my responsibilities was, and is, to end systematic racism and root out discrimination,” Wilson said on Feb. 15 at the State Capitol.
Wilson added, “We only make up 6% of the overall (California) Black population but we make up 28% of our incarceration population. The allowance of slavery in our prisons disproportionately impacts Black people.”
Article 1, Section 6 of the California Constitution currently allows involuntary servitude as a means of punishing crime. U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager (D-CA-37) authored ACA 3 in 2020 as a California State Assemblymember.
Kamlager said involuntary servitude is “forced labor.”
“By removing this language from our Constitution, we are moving our state into the 21st century and taking steps to ensure that no Californian is ever put in a position of involuntary servitude again,” Kamlager said last year.
On June 23, the California Senate rejected ACA 3 with a 21-6 vote. It fell short of the two-thirds vote requirement, 27 or more, needed to move the bill to the ballot as a proposition for Californians to decide its fate.
June 30, 2022 was the last day ACA 3 could have gained the votes it needed to have been placed on the 2022 November General Election ballot. It was not heard on the Senate floor that day. Five Republicans and one Democrat, Steve Glazer (D-Orinda), voted against the amendment.
“Slavery was an evil that will forever be a stain on the history of our great country. We eliminated it through the Civil War and the adoption of the 13th Amendment,” Glazer said in a statement. “Involuntary servitude – though lesser known – also had a shameful past. ACA 3 is not even about involuntary servitude – at least of the kind that was practiced 150 years ago. The question this measure raises is whether or not California should require felons in state or local jails and prisons to work.”
“I feel like this is something that not only needs to get done but must get done,” Parthas said during the Abolition Today podcast. “How can you talk about freedom, reparations, economic equity, equality in law and education while state slavery is still legal?”
Brown wrote the language in ACA 3 while he was in prison. He was released in 2021 after serving a 24-year sentence. The language of the bill was brought to the attention of Kamlager by Sacramento activist Jamilia Land.
Land is a member of the Anti-Violence Safety, and Accountability Project (ASAP), an organization that advocates for prisoners’ rights. Wilson said she was “proud to carry on the work” of Brown and Kamlager and ensured that she is committed to striking the word slavery out of the United States constitution.
“This constitutional amendment is now a national movement,” Wilson said.
The chairperson of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC), Wilson was the first Black female Mayor to serve in Solano County.
First elected to the Suisun City Council in 2012, she served as Vice-Mayor for six years before winning the mayoral race in 2018.
Wilson was sworn into office to represent the 11th Assembly District after a special election last April following the resignation of former Assemblymember Jim Frazier. She serves as the assistant Majority Whip and is chair of the Select Committee on Transportation and Emergency Preparedness.
Wilson’s has the support of several statewide organizations in favor of removing the involuntary servitude clause: the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, Legal Services With Prisoners With Children, All Of Us Or None Of Us and the Anti-Violence, Safety, and Accountability Project. Sisters Warriors Freedom Coalition, and Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice are sponsors.
“California was founded as a free state,” Wilson said. “There is no room for slavery in our constitution. It is not consistent with our values.”
Last week, Assemblymember Corey A. Jackson (D-Riverside) introduced Assembly Bill (AB) 742, legislation that would prohibit the use of police canines for arrests, apprehensions and crowd control.
The use of police canines, supporters of the legislation say, is a throwback to the darkest days of legal slavery, Jim Crow segregation – and a reminder of America’s history of racial bias, aggression and violence against Blacks and people of color. Jackson says he wants to end the “deeply racialized, traumatic and harmful practice.”
“Since their inception, police canines have been used to inflict brutal violence and lifelong trauma on Black Americans and communities of color,” said Jackson at a press conference held to announce the bill. “It’s time to end this cruel and inhumane practice and instead work towards building trust between the police and the communities they serve.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) California Action, a co-sponsor of AB 742, echoed Jackson’s concerns. “The use of police canines has severe and potentially deadly consequences for bite victims, especially communities of color,” said Carlos Marquez III, Executive Director of ACLU California Action. “It’s time for California to take a stand and end this inhumane practice.”
Jackson says his stance on the use of canines in law enforcement is backed up by data. For him, it’s a “moral issue” as well.
“I let the data take me to where I need to go. And the data is clear that in some of the most consequential issues of our time right now – especially when it comes to the relationship between law enforcement and the African American community,” Jackson told California Black Media (CBM). “This was a no brainer for me. This is not a gotcha bill. Our own data in California shows that we have it wrong, and we have to fix it.”
“The fact that canines are harming people more than batons and tasers is astonishing to me. I would never have guessed that” added Jackson who says he has already read three reports on the topic.
The California/Hawaii (CA/HI) Conference of the NAACP, another co-sponsor, acknowledges the bill’s historical importance. “Police canines have historical roots in slavery and have continued to be used as tools of oppression for Black, Brown, and other communities of color,” said Rick L. Callender, President of the CA/HI NAACP. “With this bill, we can begin to shift and sever ties with the terrorizing past.”
AB 742 does not call for banning the use of police canines for search and rescue, explosives detection, and narcotics detection – all activities that do not involve biting.
“The use of a canine is sending a dog out that will inflict injury on a person before that person has been accused of a crime or formally convicted of one,” said Kat Carell, a member of the Sacramento Chapter of the ACLU. “So, you end up with lifelong disfigurement, or mental problems, or you could be killed before you have ever been in a court of law and proven guilty of anything.”
Reaction to the introduction of the bill by police dog handlers and some law enforcement organizations — including the Western States Canine Association — was swift, charactering the bill as misguided and going too far.
Ron Cloward, President for the Western States Police Canine Association and a veteran of the Modesto Police Department, said Jackson’s bill does not “make sense.” He argued that if AB 742 passes,
it would take away one more non-lethal weapon law enforcement relies on to fight crime.
Cloward, who owns a canine training business, told ABC news affiliate in Bakersfield that while dog bites can be harmful and “disfiguring,” they do not cause death.
“Once you’ve deployed pepper spray, it’s been deployed. It’s gonna land. Once you use your gun, it’s gone,” he said. “Once you use a taser, it’s on its way. You’re not stopping it. The only thing you can stop is a K-9.”
Jackson was elected in November of 2022 to represent the 60th Assembly District. Before that, he served on the Riverside County Board of Education in 2020 and represented portions of the cities of Riverside, Moreno Valley, Perris, and the unincorporated community of Mead Valley.
Supporters say Jackson’s background in social work gives him a keen awareness and understanding of the microaggressions Black and Brown communities face.
AB 742 is one of many pieces of legislation Jackson has introduced (or plans to) that holds individuals and institutions accountable, creating room for even larger victories towards dismantling systematic racism. He calls the effort the ‘Antiracism Bill Package.’
Another bill in the package is AB 11. That bill would authorize the creation of a commission to identify sustainable solutions to reduce the cost of living in California. The commission would consist of 11 members, including nine members appointed by the Governor, the Speaker of the Assembly, and the President pro Tempore of the Senate. Also, one member each from the Assembly and the Senate would serve as ex officio non-voting members. The bill would require the commission to complete reports describing the commission’s findings and recommendations.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Serena Williams will be honored for her tennis achievements, business success and efforts to uplift the community at the NAACP Image Awards this weekend.
The NAACP announced Thursday that Williams will receive the Jackie Robinson Sports award during the ceremony, which will air live Saturday on BET. The award recognizes individuals in sports for high achievement in athletics along with their pursuit of social justice, civil rights and community involvement.
Previous honorees include Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Magic Johnson, Wilma Rudolph and the Harlem Globetrotters.
“From her record-breaking wins on the tennis court to her business acumen to her philanthropic endeavors, she has set the bar for athletes everywhere,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP. He said Williams is the “quintessential example of Black excellence.”
Williams is regarded as one of the sports greatest athletes of all time. She holds 23 Grand Slam singles titles. She has won Wimbledon seven times as a singles competitor.
Outside of tennis, Williams was as an executive producer on the Oscar-nominated film “King Richard,” a biopic based on her family. She launched her own venture capital firm and fashion brand that focuses on female empowerment. She recently published a children’s book, “The Adventures of Qai Qai,” and teamed with two veterans to launch a cruelty-free topical pain relief and daily muscle care solutions designed to reimagine recovery.
Queen Latifah will host the 54th NAACP Image Awards in Pasadena, California. The ceremony honors entertainers, athletes and writers of colors.
NEW YORK (AP) — The family of slain civil rights leader Malcolm X marked on Tuesday the anniversary of his 1965 assassination by announcing plans to sue agencies including the CIA, FBI, the New York Police Department and others for $100 million, accusing them of playing a role in his death.
Two of his daughters, Ilyasah Shabazz and Qubilah Shabazz, were joined by attorney Ben Crump at a news conference at the site of the former Audubon Ballroom in upper Manhattan, where Malcolm X was fatally shot as a crowd gathered to hear him speak on Feb. 21, 1965.
For decades questions have circulated over who was responsible for his death.
Three men were convicted, but two were exonerated in 2021 after a renewed investigation into the cases against them showed the evidence used to gain convictions was shaky and that authorities had held back some information.
Ilyasah Shabazz, the co-administrator of her father’s estate, filed notices of claim, which is the first step in the process, saying that the agencies “conspired with each other and with other individuals and acted, and failed to act, in such a way as to bring about the wrongful death of Malcolm X.”
“For years our family has fought for the truth to come to light,” she said at the news conference. “We want justice served for our father.”
Emails seeking comment were sent to the CIA, FBI, Department of Justice and New York City’s legal department. The DOJ and NYPD declined to comment.
Crump noted the anniversary date and said that ever since then, “there has been speculation as to who was involved in the assassination of Malcolm X.”
He cited the 2021 exonerations and said that government agencies including the Manhattan district attorney, the NYPD and the FBI “had factual evidence, exculpatory evidence that they fraudulently concealed from the men who were wrongfully convicted for the assassination of Malcolm X.”
Asked if he believes government agencies conspired to assassinate Malcolm, Crump said, “That is what we are alleging, yes. They infiltrated many civil rights organizations.”
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — As Sen. Tim Scott weighs mounting a 2024 presidential candidacy, the Republican was in Iowa on Wednesday delivering a message of “a new American sunrise,” articulating a positive vision that sets him apart from some possible rivals who have focused more on railing against cultural divides.
“I see 330 million Americans getting back to celebrating our shared blessings again, tolerating our differences again, and having each other’s backs again,” Scott said in a speech to about 100 students and curious Republicans at Drake University in Des Moines. “We need new leaders who will lift us up, not tear us down.”
If he follows through with a campaign, the South Carolinian’s upbeat style could distinguish him during a GOP primary. Many of Scott’s fellow Republicans who have courted Iowa’s influential evangelical conservatives in recent weeks have focused on themes such as denying systemic racism in the U.S. or curbing transgender rights.
Scott, the Senate’s sole Black Republican, doesn’t shy away from such terrain. He has in the past railed against “woke superiority.”
But in the speech, he described a “new American sunrise. Even brighter than before.”
Such a goal requires collaboration he says is missing in government and around the country.
“I see a future where common sense has rebuilt common ground, where we’ve created real unity, not by compromising away our conservatism, but by winning converts to our conservatism,” he said.
That nod toward inclusion has generally been absent from other Republicans who have recently swung through Iowa, which is poised to hold the first contest in next year’s push for the GOP presidential nomination. Shortly after launching her presidential campaign last week, Nikki Haley was in suburban Des Moines stoking contempt for “woke ideology” and arguing “a national self-loathing has taken over our country.”
Likewise, former Vice President Mike Pence, who is weighing a presidential candidacy, in Cedar Rapids last week headlined a rally to oppose an eastern Iowa school district’s policy allowing transgender students to request a gender-affirming plan without their parents’ knowledge.
“Across the country, parents rights are being trampled by a politically correct nanny state that’s ruining our schools and telling parents they have no role in their child’s education,” he said.
It’s not as if Scott steered clear of similar criticism.
“If you wanted a blueprint to ruin America, you’d keep doing exactly what Joe Biden has let the far left do to our country for the last two years,” Scott said, deriding the view of U.S. history through a lens of racism and its slaveholding past. “Tell every white kid they’re oppressors. Tell black and brown kids their destiny is grievance, not greatness.”
Instead, Scott used his own story, as the son of a single mother living in poverty, as the template for curing what he called “a crisis of optimism.”
“A leader with faith in America would have faith in Americans,” he said, ticking through a typically Republican-themed agenda of tax cuts, energy deregulation and religious freedom as policies, along with personal responsibility, that benefited his. “Faith in the American people means faith in freedom, free enterprise and free speech, because we are a free people.”
Scott also was scheduled to headline a county Republican fundraising banquet in suburban Des Moines Wednesday. Scott has traveled often to Iowa, home of the leadoff 2024 presidential nominating caucuses, though this was his first time in 2023 and comes as he is testing potential support with speeches like Wednesday’s.
Should Scott launch a campaign, he would enjoy an instant financial advantage compared to several potential opponents. Scott, in the Senate since 2012, won what he has said would be his last Senate campaign last year, and had a robust roughly $22 million in his campaign account, which could be transferred to a campaign for president.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia voters on Tuesday elected Democrat Jennifer McClellan, a veteran state legislator from Richmond, to fill an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, where she will make history as the first Black woman to represent the state in Congress.
“We will make this commonwealth and this country a better place for everyone,” McClellan said in a victory speech at a party with supporters in Richmond. “I am ready to get to work.”
McClellan, 50, prevailed over right-wing Republican nominee Leon Benjamin in the special election for the blue-leaning 4th District, which has its population center in the capital city and stretches south to the North Carolina border.
The seat was open after the death of Democratic Rep. Donald McEachin, who passed away following a long fight with the secondary effects of colorectal cancer in November, weeks after being elected to a fourth term. McClellan’s election won’t change the balance of power of the U.S. House, which Republicans narrowly control.
“Historical. Had to be a part of it,” voter Rashida Mitchell said of the ballot she cast for McClellan on Tuesday afternoon. “She’s done great things for the city of Richmond, for the commonwealth as a whole.”
Prior to Tuesday, only 22 states had ever elected a Black woman to Congress, according to a recent Pew Research Center analysis of historical records. McClellan said breaking that barrier in Virginia carries extra weight because of her family’s history in the Jim Crow South.
Her father’s grandfather had to take a literacy test and find three white people to vouch for him just to be able to register to vote, said McClellan, a native of central Virginia. Her grandfather and father paid poll taxes and her mother, now 90, didn’t vote until after the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“It’s a huge honor, and responsibility, to ensure that I’m not the last,” she said in an interview last week.
An associate general counsel for Verizon, where she’s worked for 20 years, McClellan has represented parts of the Richmond area in the General Assembly for nearly as long.
At the statehouse, McClellan has cultivated a reputation as a deeply knowledgeable, widely respected consensus builder and legislator. A skilled debater with a polished, reserved style, she’s sponsored many of Democrats’ top legislative priorities in recent years, including bills that expanded voting access and abortion rights and legislation that set ambitious clean energy mandates.
Now the mother of two school-aged children, McClellan was the first delegate to serve while pregnant and give birth while in office after she joined the state House in 2006.
McClellan also followed in McEachin’s footsteps when she moved up to the state Senate. She announced her candidacy for a seat he previously held after he was first elected to Congress in 2016, and she easily won a January 2017 special election.
In 2021, she was part of the crowded Democratic field seeking the party’s nomination for governor, which she and three other candidates lost to Terry McAuliffe. That experience, McClellan said, helped her pivot quickly to this race and the high-speed December nominating contest that lasted just over a week.
McClellan said her interest in politics first began in middle school.
“It was listening to my parents’ stories. … They saw the best of government through the New Deal and they saw the worst of government through Jim Crow. And their stories sparked a love of history,” McClellan said.
She graduated from a suburban Richmond high school, attended the University of Richmond and obtained her law degree from the University of Virginia, initially with a goal of becoming an attorney for a congressional committee.
She changed course and first sought elected office herself in 2005. She’s been active in the state Democratic party since she was in college and met her husband, David Mills, through politics. They were married by U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, a mentor and adviser of McClellan who campaigned with her over the weekend.
Kaine said at a Saturday rally in Richmond that McClellan’s combination of legislative experience and her existing connections with Virginia’s congressional delegation — including four Republican members with whom she served in the General Assembly — means she’ll be well positioned to be effective despite the GOP majority.
“She’s a hard worker, does the homework, really gets into the details,” Kaine told reporters. “She’s very firm in her convictions, but she’s a civil, courteous person who doesn’t push anybody away.”
McClellan pledged in her speech Tuesday night to serve as a unifier.
“We can prove that when we come together and we care more about doing the work and solving the problems than soundbites and the show, that we can help people,” she said.
She opened her remarks with a remembrance of McEachin. His widow, Richmond prosecutor Colette McEachin, was among a number of high-profile endorsers of McClellan as she campaigned for and handily secured the party’s nomination for the race.
The contest between McClellan and Benjamin, a pastor and Navy veteran who as a commentator has espoused conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic and voter fraud, was not seen as competitive, though McClellan said she took nothing for granted. She campaigned and fundraised amid the ongoing General Assembly session. The two did not meet for a debate, and McClellan largely focused her message on her legislative record rather than highlighting Benjamin’s positions.
McClellan far outraised Benjamin, who was endorsed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin and other top Virginia Republicans, and she had a structural advantage in the heavily Democratic, majority-minority district.
The race marked the third loss in a row for Benjamin, who twice previously challenged McEachin.
McClellan’s victory Tuesday will set up another special election to fill her seat in the General Assembly. She declined in the interview to say whether she would issue an endorsement in what’s shaping up to be another crowded primary.
As for her own political future, she didn’t rule out another statewide run down the road but said she hopes to make progress in Congress on some of the same issues she’s championed in Richmond: environmental justice and climate change, abortion rights, public school funding, and expanding voting rights.
“All of the success that I have had with major legislation at the state level, all of that work still hasn’t been done at the federal level. And so I will bring my expertise on those issues and continue to work on those issues in Congress,” she said.
Unlike many news organizations, Voice & Viewpoint delivers content that matters to you. Help us keep it that way by making a generous donation for as low as $2. Your support will fund local, investigative journalism for the community, by the community.
