Stacey Abrams v Brian Kemp: inside the bitter battle for Georgia's soul

Shields and Brooks on the mail bombs and politics as an identity

Ta-Nehisi Coates: The GOP "Has Been Playing With Fire" | All In | MSNBC

Ta-Nehisi Coates: The GOP "Has Been Playing With Fire" | All In | MSNBC

Ta-Nehisi Coates:

Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates was born September 30, 1975). He is an American author, journalist, comic book writer, and educator. Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, where he writes about cultural, social and political issues, particularly regarding African Americans. Author of "Between the World and Me","We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy", and the new book You Might Be A White Supremacist'. Coates’book, “We Were Eight Years In Power,” collects essays he published during the Obama administration and appends them with new writing and reflections.

Coates has worked for The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, and Time. He has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, O, and other publications. In 2008 he published a memoir, The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood. His second book, Between the World and Me, was released in July 2015. It won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction, and was a nominee for the Phi Beta Kappa 2016 Book Awards. He was the recipient of a "Genius Grant" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 2015. He is the writer of a Black Panther series for Marvel Comics. Ta-Nehisi Coates: The GOP "Has Been Playing With Fire" | All In | MSNBC Ta-Nehisi Coates explains what makes President Obama unique

Poor People’s Campaign rally revives Martin Luther King Jr.’s mission

        
Poor People’s Campaign rally revives Martin Luther King Jr.’s mission

It’s a culmination of a six-week Christian-led campaign against income inequality and racism.
 By Tara Isabella Burton 

 Earlier this month, several White House representatives cited the Bible verse Romans 13 to justify a vision of Christianity that, for example, demands submission to GOP politics and legitimizes the separation of migrant families at the US-Mexico border.

 Saturday, at 10 am, in front of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, DC, two Christian faith leaders will spearhead a thousands-strong interfaith cross-party rebuke to that theology. Led by Rev. William Barber, a civil rights activist and mainline Protestant pastor within the Disciples of Christ denomination, and Rev. Liz Theoharis, a Presbyterian minister and co-director of Union Theological Seminary’s Kairos Center, the Poor People’s Campaign is a revival of the historic Martin Luther King Jr.-led movement of the same name.

 King’s original movement consisted of a 1968 rally in which the civil rights leader set up a protest camp of 3,000 people of all racial backgrounds on the National Mall. The camp remained there for six weeks.

 ”All of us can feel the presence of a kind of social insanity which could lead us to national ruin,” King said at the time, arguing that civil rights could only take place alongside a radical addressing of income inequality across America.

 Fifty years later, Barber and Theoharis’s Poor People’s Campaign is indebted to that original vision. Over the past six weeks, reflecting the six weeks of the King protest, Barber, Theoharis, and campaign representatives have participated in a number of protests, rallies, teach-ins, religious services, and planned acts of civil disobedience across the United States. (Both Barber and Theoharis have been arrested during the Campaign for blocking access to the United States Capitol.) 

The six weeks of campaigning will culminate in Saturday’s rally. Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was an influential figure in the original 1968 rally, will attend, as will the actor and activist Danny Glover.

 According to Barber, who spoke to journalists with Theoharis on a press call on Friday, the rally will heavily feature marginalized and impacted voices, not just “people speaking for the poor, but [rather] impacted people of every color and sexuality … from Alabama to Alaska.”

 Afterward, Barber said, the group would march from the National Mall to the Capitol and attempt to deliver letters with demands — including reforms to the prison system, the health care system, voting rights, and more — to Congress. Barber likened the action to Martin Luther’s nailing his 95 theses to a church door, which was considered the spark of the Protestant Reformation.

 The campaign, Barber stressed, would not be limited to a single issue, whether racial justice, immigration reform, or income inequality. Rather, he said, the campaign would focus on the intersection of all these issues. “We resist those who say poor people need to ask for one thing. … We want all of what the Constitution promises.

” Both Barber and Theoharis’s statements were characterized by richly theological language and a desire to frame their political aims in an explicitly Christian context. Barber quoted Matthew 18:6, a verse in which Jesus admonishes those who fail to care for children and tells his apostles, “it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.” And he dismissed the Trump administration’s nationalistic approach to Christianity as “a heretical form of theological malpractice.”

 Barber also rejected the label of the “religious left,” or the “left” more generally, to describe the campaign. “We are talking about the moral center,” he said, citing past examples of bipartisan collaboration, such as the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

 Barber and Theoharis expressed hope for the significance of tomorrow’s event. But, Barber reminded journalists, “This is the Poor People’s Campaign, not the Poor People’s March or the Poor People’s Saturday.”

 Already, the campaign has seen some lasting results. On Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) led a two-hour hearing on Capitol Hill to examine the effects of poverty in America.

 In other words, there is a long road to travel. Saturday’s event is just the beginning.



 https://www.vox.com/2018/6/22/17494070/poor-peoples-campaign-rally-revives-martin-luther-king-william-barber

The Poor People’s Campaign

        Group demands better wages, jobs and housing
By Rick Jones | Presbyterian News Service

 Police in Washington, D.C., took the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins and other faith leaders into custody on Monday afternoon during a demonstration outside the U.S. Supreme Court building. Hawkins, director of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Office of Public Witness, was taking part in the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival. 

Standing under a banner that read “Everybody’s Got a Right to Live,” the group joined participants in nonviolent demonstrations in 40 state capitals around the country. The 40-day campaign focuses on a different topic each week. This week’s focus is on living wages, jobs, income and housing.

“We have tremendous economic, political and justice issues in this country which are compounded by leaders who produce harmful and vindictive legislation attacking health care, living wages and voting rights,” said Hawkins. “As a Christian, I am called to speak for and stand with those whose voice is stifled and silenced. We are called to be the proclaimers of ‘good news to the poor.’ ”

Hawkins has been mobilizing the faith community in and around the D.C. area since the start of the campaign.

“The voice of the church is called to speak loudest when times are most dire and to act in ‘such a time as this,’” he said. “In faithful conscience and obedience to God, I could do no less than to have my freedom limited in order to expand theirs.”

Hawkins and the others were arrested for demonstrating on Supreme Court grounds, a misdemeanor. After spending the night in jail, they were expected to be arraigned on Tuesday afternoon.

The Poor People’s Campaign kicked off on Mother’s Day as a continuation of the initiative launched by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 50 years ago when he called for direct action at statehouses across the country as well as the U.S. Capitol.

The Rev. Dr. William Barber II and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, a Presbyterian pastor and co-director of the Kairos Center, are co-chairing the national effort. The campaign will conclude with a mass mobilization at the U.S. Capitol on June 21. Hawkins says it’s just the beginning of a multi-year moral revival that will continue with mass voter registration in the fall.


https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/rev-jimmie-hawkins-other-faith-leaders-arrested-in-poor-peoples-campaign-demonstration/

Charles Barkley 'disgusted' with Trump presidency

                           Charles Barkley 'disgusted' with Trump presidency

Maddow

New Survey Reveals Trump Voters Think Blacks Are Less Deserving Than "Av...

The Huffington Post recently conducted a survey which found that Donald Trump's supporters were more motivated by an interesting notion associated with race.

The website found that Trump supporters believe African-Americans are less deserving than average Americans.

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Roland Martin Slams Carson For Proposed Change To HUD’s Mission Statement

   Roland Martin Slams Carson For Proposed Change To HUD’s Mission Statement



Secretary Ben Carson proposed a major change to the mission statement of HUD. The change would remove anti-discrimination language from the organization's mission statement.  See what Roland Martin had to say about the proposed change Carson floated in a memo to staff.

If you have not read it, check out Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s book, "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?" http://amzn.to/2FSoHeZ

Also, pick up Dorothy F. Cotton's book, "If Your Back's Not Bent: The Role of the Citizenship Education Program in the Civil Rights Movement"  http://amzn.to/2FDgVlA