Ben Jealous, Lumumba snookering and pimping the Scott sisters

I want to discuss with you two old negro Civil Rights groups that have lost their way. First SCLC. They are becoming more and more irrelevant.  


As reported by wctv.tv for more than a year, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has declined to serve as president in a group her father co-founded.


Now Reverend Bernice King doesn't want the job at all.


Reverend King says she's decided to abandon the Southern Christian Leadership Conference because the once proud organization has struggled to stay relevant.


 


She says the group has split in two different directions and had its finances scrutinized. The former chairman was also indicted on theft charges last week. .

The former national chairman of an Atlanta-based civil rights organization was indicted Wednesday in Ohio on 51 charges that include grand theft, forgery and tampering with government records.

The Rev. Raleigh Trammell, 73, was indicted by a Montgomery County grand jury in Dayton, where he lives and also headed a local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Trammell was indicted on one count of grand theft and 25 counts each of forgery and tampering with government records. Read more HERE  Also read more about this story at the Washington Post

Martin Luther King, III says, "I think she was in an awkward position and she prays a whole lot, so I think as a result she was led to no longer want to accept the position."


The SCLC led the movement to end segregation in public facilities and earned more rights for million of black Americans today. More HERE







Southern Christian Leadership Conference leader Rev. Raleigh Trammell is escorted from the SCLC, Dayton, Ohio chapter office by an FBI agent Thursday, Feb. 11, 2009. (AP Photo/Dayton Daily News, Jan Underwood) AAP says: The SCLC is no longer relevant just like NAACP national office is no longer relevant. Speaking of the NAACP here is an interesting UPDATE: Word on the street is the NAACP is preparing to pimp the the Scott sisters. There is also word on the street that the national office of the NAACP may be creating conflict between the Scott sisters and the Scott sisters family. The blogosphere and blog talk raio is a buzz with Scott Sisters family members talking about the national office of the NAACP and Attorney Chokwe Lumumba are causing friction and conflict within the family. The Root's E.R. Shipp may just be right when in rights in The Root about how black folks get scorched by the spotlight of instant fame. In the article he talks about how Ted "Golden Voice" Williams isn't the only person to have his 15 minutes of fame before crashing to earth. Remember the subway hero? And what will come of the Scott sisters?

It's a must read article.  Here is a bit of what is said: "I think of Wesley Autry, who threw himself atop a man who had fallen onto a New York City subway track and saved him. He was honored by President George W. Bush at the 2007 State of the Union address and by other politicians in New York. Donald Trump gave him $10,000; he was given a Jeep and sports tickets. He was all over national television. And on and on.


But months later, when he still hoping for lucrative movie and book deals, he was passing out business cards identifying himself as "Wesley Autry Sr. -- Subway Hero." Terrie Williams says she saw him at one event carrying around some of his awards and "pulled his coat" to tell him that was not a good thing. He and an early team of managers ended up in conflict over their insistence on taking 50 percent of any income that Autry earned from the subway incident, but eventually settled out of court.


When it comes to prisoners -- from men and women freed as a result of DNA evidence brought to light through the efforts of the Innocence Project to the Scott sisters released from a Mississippi prison earlier this month after 16 years for a robbery that may have netted $11 -- there is often a rush of publicity and invitations to tell their stories. Then everything is expected to be normal.


The Scott sisters' story became international in part because of outrage that a condition of their release was that one donate a kidney to the other. They have relocated to Florida, where they have family, but the Mississippi NAACP is more or less continuing to advocate for them, according to Derrick Johnson, the state conference president. It will convene a meeting in coming days to coordinate their medical and transportation needs and to identify a facility to perform tests to determine if Gladys Scott is a match for her sister, Jamie."  More HERE

AAP says: As I said earlier, word on the street is the national office of the NAACP is creating a bunch of mess with the Scott Sisters and their family. NAACP President Ben Jealous The NAACP and Atty Chokwe Lumumba are talking it up with the Scott sisters, telling them that they too can get lucrative movie and book deals. the only problem is, the real heroes are the mother, Nancy Lockhart, black bloggers, blogtalkradio, black radio, blacktalkradio, and other activist.  Yes, the NAACP will have the Scott sisters on the NAACP Image Awards, and probably won't ask the mother or Nancy Lockhart to attend. AAP says: lets remember folks, this is "Ben Jealous, he is the same guy who issued a statement decrying  shirley Sherrod's so-called  abhorrent statements she made during an address to members of the NAACP at a banquet, about denying a white farmer as much help as she could because of the color of his skin. Then to cover his self he said the NAACP was “snookered” into condemning former Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod.  Now Ben jealous and Chokwe Lumumba are snookering the Scott Sisters." Unfortunately the national office of the NAACP and Atty Chokwe Lumumba are now selling the Scott sisters another Jena 6 dream, now the question is whether the Scott sisters will be passing out business cards identifying themselves as "the Scott Sisters. -- former prisoners of the Mississippi prisons, new prisoners of Chokwe Lumumba and the NAACP." Listen and join in the conversation on my blog talk radio show. We will discuss how the NAACP and Chokwe Lumumba are snookering and pimping the Scott sisters. Tonight on Blog Talk Radio. "If you can handle the truth."

Ben Jealous and NAACP Sleeping With The Enemy

Well it appears that NAACP is sleeping with the enemy.  You see, The NAACP believes, what Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour believes, that government should control our bodies and can do what it likes with them after it declares us to be a criminal." As Desiree Washington also noted, "This action of making organ donation compulsory if one wants a fair prison sentence transforms an act of altruism into state oppression that could imitate and rival China’s lucrative forced organ harvesting market." Read More Here 



What am I talking about? I'm talking about how Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour on Thursday of last week, suspended the life sentences of two black sisters who’d already served 16 years for an armed robbery that netted $11. Barbour conditioned the suspended life sentences on the promise that one sister would donate one of her healthy kidney to her sister, who is presently on dialysis paid for by the state to the tune of about $200,000 annually. And get this, the national office of the NAACP is making bizarre comments about his decision, saying,  “This is a shining example of how governors should use their commutation powers.”


AAP says: There goes NAACP President Benjamin Jealous again, this time he is stepping up as Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour "yes um" boss man, negro...


I agree with the Root's E.R. Shipp, "Pardoning two women serving life sentences for an $11 robbery they may not have committed is hardly a profile in courage." Read More HERE




(above) NAACP President Benjamin Jealous plays in black face and charlatan for Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour

As reported by Desiree Washington, many are saying that Barbour’s conditional pardon may be unethical and possibly illegal”


Get this, Michael Shapiro, chief of organ transplantation at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, told the Reuters news agency. “He is unaware of the procedures of transplantation that include making sure donors are not coerced.”


I'm in agreement with so many black bloggers, like who are raising questions about the NAACP Sleeping With The Enemy, and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour brand of  Mississippi justice.


As Earl Ofari Hutchinson noted, Jealous’s praise of Barbour as a “shining example” was stunning, given Barbour’s years of resistance in the face of a national campaign for the sisters’ release and the conditions he imposed on the two women when he finally did show mercy. Thirty-six-year-old Gladys must donate a kidney to 38-year-old Jamie, who is seriously ill. Meanwhile, four convicted killers whom Barbour earlier pardoned and another whose life sentence he suspended had no conditions placed on them in return for clemency, despite the brutality of their crimes.  More HERE


As Reid Report Editor Joy-Ann (“Joy”) Reid a political columnist for the Miami Herald and editor of The Reid Report noted;  Ah, Mississippi justice. … The women, who are being housed in different parts of a prison just outside Jackson, Mississippi, say they want to go to Florida to be with their mother and children. Florida corrections officials would be in charge of making sure the kidney ransom is paid.

And while it’s a very good thing for the women to be freed, one wonders whether Barbour would have done it had he not come under fire for his ridiculous comments on race and the segregation era, and were he not likely seeking the presidency. I’d wager a guess it wouldn’t have happened. The Scott sisters’ case isn’t new. It has been a cause among activists for years.


Here’s Barbour’s statement on the release. I’m surprised he didn’t add a condition that the sisters appear in a campaign commercial for his presidential run, praising him as a fine example of Southern courtliness and good favor toward the colored people."  Read more HERE

The Scott Sisters, Nancy Lockhart and the Politics of Freedom

Newspapers, national radio programs, bloggers and politicos are all talking about how Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour on Dec. 29 suspended the life sentences of two sisters jailed for an armed robbery that netted just $11—but the release of one sister will require her to donate a kidney to the other. As reported in The Afro American Newspaper today,  Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour on Dec. 29 suspended the life sentences, saying:

“To date, the sisters have served 16 years of their sentences and are eligible for parole in 2014. Jamie Scott requires regular dialysis, and her sister has offered to donate one of her kidneys to her,” Barbour said in a prepared statement, according to The Hattiesburg American. “The Mississippi Department of Corrections believes the sisters no longer pose a threat to society. Their incarceration is no longer necessary for public safety or rehabilitation, and Jamie Scott’s medical condition creates a substantial cost to the State of Mississippi.”

Jamie (left) and Gladys Scott were convicted of robbery in 1993 and given double life sentences. (Courtesy Photo)

According to The American, in 1993 the sisters lured two men down a road where they were robbed by three teens. The Scott sisters were convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon in the incident and each received reportedly unusual double life prison sentences. The teenagers who allegedly carried out the robbery only served two years in prison.

Barbour’s statement said that he asked the Mississippi Parole Board to review the Scott’s case, and that they supported his decision to suspend their sentences. 

According to the Associated Press, the sisters have received support from national groups including the NAACP. A march for them earlier this year drew hundreds of people. 

A release date for the sisters has not been decided, and will be set by the Mississippi Department of Corrections, according to Jackson, Miss. NBC affiliate WLBT.

AAP says: But with all the grandstanding that is about to happen, groups like the national office of the NAACP, Al Sharpton and the rest of the slick poverty pimp hustlers need to move over, and salute one of the key people that fought the up hill battle to get these women free. A true black woman freedom fighter who deserves accolades and support from America and America's African American community, Ms. Nancy Lockhart, who for years, through the strategic use of the Internet, and her Free the Scott Sisters Blog, along with Internet BlogTalkRadio shows began a grassroots effort to free the Scott sisters. Without Nancy Lockhart who has proven to be a modern day,  21st Century,  Harriet Tubman like, African American women working on the outside, the Scott sisters may not be looking at Freedom. Of course we have to include the recent color aroused political blunders by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, as the emphasis for the his true interest in reducing the life sentences of two black American sisters jailed for an armed robbery that netted just $11. 

Ms. Nancy Lockhart, who has worked closely with grass root groups and individuals like Jerry Robinson, a sharp mouthed grass root community organizer, political activist, and national President of the Chicago based Poor People's Campaign has worked with Nancy Lockhart in her efforts to engage grass-root Internet activist, bloggers, and community groups from across the nation to support the Scott Sisters  quest for freedom. Let the truth be told, it was not the national NAACP that lead the effort to free the Scott Sisters, it was Nancy Lockhart through her use of grassroots Internet organizing, with the support of people like Jerry Robinson of the Poor People's Campaign, Black left Internet groups like the afrospear, Black Agenda Report, and black bloggers like Electronic Village, Jack and Jill Politics, Francis L. Holland Blog, along with many dozens of Internet blogtalkradio host, such as Black Achievement USA, Black Talk Radio, JWriter, Justice4Us, Duchess of Wisdom, AANation, PPC, Kala Nation, Joli Ali, BostonAnt, Pumpkin13, Madison Media,  Antoinette former co-host of African American Pundit's SlugFest Program, along with Antionette Harrell, One Black Mans View, Scotty, and so many others, who were able to create a band of national Internet activist who worked with Nancy Lockhart to get the word out to the larger blogosphere, afrosphere, black radio and national media,  that caused the Scott Sisters to be of interest to groups like the NAACP and because of recent color aroused political blunders by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, caused him to look at the Scott Sisters case as a political opportunity to make himself look good, as part of his potential Presidential ambitions. As noted in The Washington Post, Barbour, who is weighing a run for president, announced the pardon a week after he ran afoul of civil rights advocates. Last week, Barbour backtracked on comments he made about the civil rights era in Mississippi. More HERE

AAP says: All that being said, America, particularly Black America should salute and thank Nancy Lockhart for a job well done! She has taught us a new lesson for the 21st Century, "grassroot Internet organizing can work for America, particularly black America,  if we put your mind, heart and soul into it." 

Cross posted on MYDD