On Friday, September 12, the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles voted to deny clemency for Troy Anthony Davis. Troy Davis is still scheduled to be executed by the state of Georgia on September 23, even though his serious claims of innocence have never been heard in court.

Urge the board to reconsider its decision today!

Troy Davis was convicted of murder solely on the basis of witness testimony, and seven of the nine non-police witnesses have since recanted or changed their testimony, several citing police coercion. Others have signed affidavits implicating one of the remaining two witnesses as the actual killer. But due to an increasingly restrictive appeals process, none of this new evidence has ever been heard in court.

Take action and then forward this action to ten friends!

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles gave no reason for its denial of Troy Davis’ clemency petition, yet Board members do have the authority to reconsider their decision. On July 16, 2007, the Board did stay Troy Davis’ execution, stating that it would “not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused” (emphasis added).

The failure of courts to hear the compelling evidence of innocence in this case means that massive doubts about Troy Davis’ guilt will remain unresolved.

Urge the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider its decision and prevent this execution from proceeding!

In solidarity,

Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn
Director, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign
Amnesty International USA

Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed by the state of Georgia on September 23, even though his serious claims of innocence have never been heard in court.

Take action right now to stop this execution!

Troy Davis was convicted of murder solely on the basis of witness testimony, and seven of the nine non-police witnesses have since recanted or changed their testimony, several citing police coercion. Others have signed affidavits implicating one of the remaining two witnesses as the actual killer. But due to an increasingly restrictive appeals process, none of this new evidence has ever been heard in court.

Take action and then forward this action to ten friends!

On July 16, 2007, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles stayed Troy Davis’ execution, stating that it would “not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused” (emphasis added). The failure of courts to hear the compelling evidence of innocence in this case means that massive doubts about Troy Davis’ guilt will remain unresolved.

Urge the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to be true to its words and prevent this execution from proceeding!

In solidarity,

Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn
Director, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign
Amnesty International USA

Listen or watch at Democracy Now!

 JEREMY SCAHILL: Perhaps more than any candidate in history, Barack Obama has seen an impressive array of celebrities line up to support him. Many of these figures are flying into Denver to cheer on Obama, as they have with high-profile advertisements.

The Brooklyn-based political hip-hop group dead prez was not among those artists invited inside to perform at the DNC, like Kanye West, Wyclef Jean and Black Eyed Peas. But the duo of M1 and stic.man is here in Denver performing at rallies and evening political gatherings. And they seemed right at home among the crowds in the Denver streets.

M1: Their political objectives are limited, and we know that they are surface, surface. We’re looking at a government who’s a paper tiger and someone who wants to participate in a paper democracy.

JEREMY SCAHILL: What do you make of this major embrace, as it seems, not just of hip-hop, but the whole entertainment industry, of the Obama camp?

STIC.MAN: It’s lack of understanding, the lack of political clarity, you know what I mean? And it’s marketing, you know what I mean? It’s like Barack is hot. He’s, you know—he’s the [blank] right now, so throw him on your jacket, you know what I mean? And, you know, it ain’t really deep. It’s just people riding the wave, you know what I mean? And that’s what hip-hop is being used for, is, you know, to sell products, to sell [blank] to us, stuff [blank] down our throat that might not necessarily be good for us. So some of the hip-hop people, you know, who do hip-hop, and this is our culture, we have to speak from the vantage point of people who want real power. And hip-hop is part of that. Barack wouldn’t even be in the position he’s in without the support of hip-hop. You know, and we—

JEREMY SCAHILL: So are you guys going to vote?

M1: Hell no.

STIC.MAN: Yeah, yeah, I’m going to vote.

M1: OK, cool.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Who are you going to vote for?

STIC.MAN: I mean, I’m voting with my art.

M1: Yeah.

STIC.MAN: I’m voting with my participation in rallies like this. I’m voting—you know what I mean?—in raising my son, you know what I mean, to recognize the truth about this system. I’m voting in so many ways, I don’t even got time to go to the booth in November.

M1: I’m voting for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Free ’em all. Feel me.

Today’s launch of the film Trouble the Water directed and produced by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal and executive produced by the company I co-founded, Louverture Films, opens up a meaningful space to examine critical and pressing issues that have remained unaddressed and unresolved since the Katrina disaster three years ago to this Sunday.

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We ask you once again to join Color of Change in it’s activism of behalf of our communities.

Three years after Hurricane Katrina, there’s finally a bill in Congress that will give all Katrina survivors a fair chance to rebuild their lives. But it won’t become law if your representative doesn’t stand up to support it.The Gulf Coast Civic Works Act would hire 100,000 Gulf Coast residents and evacuees, providing them with training and jobs to rebuild their homes and communities. It started as nothing more than a good idea, but after thousands of ColorOfChange.org members called on Congress to support the plan, and after years of persistent activism from students and Gulf Coast organizations, it now has a real chance of bringing some justice to the Gulf.

Even though it’s come this far, it will take massive public pressure on each member of Congress to get the bill passed. If we want justice for Katrina survivors, we need to make our voices heard now as the media focuses its attention on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Please join us and call on your member of Congress to co-sponsor the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act, then ask your friends and family to do the same:

http://www.colorofchange.org/gulfcoast/?id=1829-173305

It’s the right thing to do

The Gulf Coast is still struggling, suffering from a lack of jobs, affordable housing, and basic infrastructure.1

For the last three years, we’ve seen public officials accept–whether out of hopelessness or carefully concealed joy–that post-Katrina New Orleans will be a smaller, whiter and wealthier city. We’ve seen politicians support plans that will push Black and poor people out of the Gulf, amplifying race and class inequalities and permanently gentrifying the area.

The Gulf Coast Civic Works Act represents a powerful shift from that path. The plan calls for hiring 100,000 Gulf Coast residents to rebuild New Orleans and the surrounding region. They’ll be provided with temporary housing and job-training and will build and repair houses, schools, parks, and other civic buildings.2

It’s been done before

The idea behind the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project is not new. During the Great Depression, the federal government believed it had a responsibility to ensure that those hit hardest did not fall through the cracks.3 It also knew that those Americans wanted a hand up, not a handout. So, in 1935, Congress created a program to hire out-of-work Americans to get things done to benefit their communities. Within 2 weeks of launching this unprecedented project, over 800,000 people were hired; within 2 months, 4.2 million were working to build bridges, roads, libraries, schools and other public facilities. If we could put 4 million people to work in just 8 weeks in 1935, why can’t we immediately put 100,000 people to work rebuilding the Gulf Coast?

It’s a plan that makes sense–for displaced survivors, for the communities of the Gulf Coast, for the nation as a whole. It provides an opportunity to invest in Americans while reversing the most glaring problems that plague current rebuilding plans: gentrification, government waste, and massive corporate profiteering. It would revitalize the Gulf Coast’s economy while rebuilding its infrastructure, and it’s a model that could be applied to solve similar problems across the country.

ColorOfChange.org members should be proud that we’ve supported this plan since long before it was a bill in Congress. Getting it introduced as a bill was a great victory and a huge step forward, but it’s going to take even more public pressure to get it voted on and passed.

Please join us and call on your representative to co-sponsor the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act. It only takes a minute:

http://www.colorofchange.org/gulfcoast/?id=1829-173305

Thanks and Peace,

– James, Gabriel, Clarissa, Andre, Kai, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
August 20th, 2008

References:

1. “Three Years After Katrina,” New York Times, August 11, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/5ahh23

2. “Gulf Coast Civic Works Project”
http://www.solvingpoverty.com/Project_Proposal.htm

3. “Works Progress Administration,” Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Projects_Administration

Altering the perception of the environmental movement among African Americans.

The closing keynote speaker of the Netroots Nation convention in Austin last month was environmental and social justice activist Van Jones. Following his Sunday morning speech TPMtv caught up with Mr. Jones and asked him about the perception of the environmental movement in the black community and how to alter that perception for the better in creating a full-blown eco-populism movement.

Watch the video!

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The Sunday magazine of the nation’s most influential newspaper predicts that Black politics as we know it is headed for extinction, that Barack Obama’s “brand of ‘race-neutrality’ shows Black politics is obsolete, and should be abandoned.”

Read Glen Ford’s analysis at Black Agenda Report.

Read The New York Time article here.

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Hear Tony Cox interview Diop Olugbala about Uhuru Movement’s recent action at an Obama rally here.

The New Media Institute is a virtual workshop series, new media production, and conference teaching new advances in new media production and distribution.

This year’s NMI will focus on the role of social networking and active citizenship in the creation of a digital Open Letter to the New Administration.

Click on the following link to download a PDF with bios for NMI 2008 project producers:

Producer Bios

NMI 2008 Information Sheet

ONLINE APPLICATION

If you have questions about the New Media Institute, please contact Denise Greene, Director, New Media Institute, at denise@nbpc.tv, or Thabi Moyo at thabi@nbpc.tv.

A report from the National Hip Hop Political Convention by Davey D via ThugLifeArmy.com

During the recently held Hip Hop Political Convention we had an explosive panel that addressed the issue of Electoral Politics and how they intersect with Hip Hop music and Culture. We wound talking specifically about the impact or lack of impact Hip Hop organizations have on the voting process.

Sitting on this panel were the following people;

Rev lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus, Professor Lamont Hill of Fox news and Temple University, Tony Cani- Young Democrats, Honorable George Martinez of H2Ed and former elected Official & emcee, Rosa Clemente-Vice presidential candidate of the Green Party.

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A story involving an Army recruiter in Texas last week has led to a call for an investigation. The recruiter in Houston was suspended after a recording of his threats aired on a local TV station. The recruiter warned eighteen-year-old Irving Gonzalez that he would be sent to jail if he decided to go to college instead of joining the military.

Excerpt from a conversation with a recruiter:

CPL. LISETTE DIAZ: Yeah, he needs—you know, you don’t want whatever is going to happen to him to happen to you.

IRVING GONZALEZ: What’s going to happen?

CPL. LISETTE DIAZ: You know, I don’t know. I mean whatever. If he ever gets pulled over or whatever [inaudible], you never know what can happen.

IRVING GONZALEZ: I think I can do better with my life out here than in there.

CPL. LISETTE DIAZ: You think so? The way the economy is going right now?

IRVING GONZALEZ: I’d rather struggle and be free.

CPL. LISETTE DIAZ: I have your best interest—what’s that?

IRVING GONZALEZ: I think I’d rather struggle.

CPL. LISETTE DIAZ: You’d rather struggle?

IRVING GONZALEZ: Yeah.

CPL. LISETTE DIAZ: Are you serious? Think about what you’re saying. The way the economy is going right now and the way it’s going to go for the next couple of years, it’s not looking good. Sometimes you have to grow up and learn how to be a man and to take care of stuff on your own. You know what I’m saying? Do you want to sit there and live with your mom for the next three, four, five, six years or whatever? You know, you want to do something different now to what your friends are doing, because when you come back and you see what your friends are doing, still living at home with mom and dad, struggling, trying to make a job, make money, make a living, you’re going to be like, bam, I’m glad I didn’t. You know what I’m saying? I’m telling you from experience, because I see that.

For more information click here.

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QUESTION: “In the face of the numerous attacks that are made against the African community or the black community, by the same U.S. government that you aspire to lead, and we are talking about attacks like the sub-prime mortgage…and it wasn’t just a general ambiguous kind of phenomenon but a phenomenon that targeted the African community and Latino community, attacks like the killing of Sean Bell… and the Jena Six and Hurricane Katrina and the list goes on, in the face of all these attacks that are clearly being made on the African community, why is it that you have not had the ability, to not one time to speak to the interest and even speak on behalf of the oppressed and exploited African community in this country?”

Thanks and praises for the Brother’s eloquent and very valid question. In the face of a void of outspoken Black leadership, and while Obama side-steps Black issues for political expediency, it was only a matter of time before the members of Black community began to speak for ourselves. We must ask ourselves what we gain in the long run by not holding Obama accountable now, before he’s elected. Should we accept less from him than any other politician? We would expect any politician to at least pay lip service to our issues. Yes, it’s a political reality that Obama must be seen as “America’s President” to win the election. But it’s also a political reality, that if we allow our issues to be forgotten, they will be. While he may be one example of the fulfillment of Dr. King’s dream, and we do support that, we still feel the void of Black leadership that uncompromisingly addresses and acts on our issues and struggles.

Props to these Brothers for bringing to light the reality that we still have a Black agenda and it should still be addressed in a direct, uncompromising and eloquent manner.

Visit Uhuru News.

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According to a new report by the Black AIDS Institute, if blacks in the United States constituted their own country, that nation would rank sixteenth in the world in the number of people living with HIV. Two percent of adult black Americans are infected with the virus, and only four countries outside Africa have a higher HIV prevalence.

Visit www.blackaids.org for  more info. Download the full report here.

Hear journalist Kai Wright discuss this report on Democracy Now! The brotha is holdin it down for real on this and subprime crime.

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Click for L.A. Times Story
The shootings occurred within the past two months. On Monday, Rep. Maxine Waters, supported by a group of protesters from the community, announced she is seeking a federal investigation.

“I don’t trust any police department to investigate itself,” Waters said Monday.

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