http://nnpa.org/nnpa_newswire/farrakhan-stresses-importance-of-black-press-for-million-man-march-anniversary/?_sf_s=lead+story
http://nnpa.org/nnpa_newswire/president-obama-to-observe-katrinas-10th-anniversary-in-new-orleans/?_sf_s=national+news
A YEAR SINCE BLACK
YOUTH’S HANGING
By Cash Michaels
Editor
August 29th,
2014 in the Bladen County town of Bladenboro, the body of 17-year-old Lennon
Lacy, a black youth, was found hanging from an outdoor swing-set in the middle
of a mobile home trailer park.
Local
authorities ruled it a suicide, as did the State Bureau of Investigation, but
Lacy’s family, and subsequently the NC NAACP, didn’t buy it. They believed that young Lennon was murdered,
lynched, probably because he had reportedly been involved in an interracial
affair in a small, rural community down east where such a thing was still
frowned upon.
The family and the NCNAACP later
convinced the US Attorney’s Office to formally open a federal probe into
Lennon’s mysterious death. Since that time the FBI probe remains open, but thus
far, there has been no word of its progress, or of any evidence or arrests
resulting from it.
This Saturday will mark one year
since Lennon Lacy’s death, but his family and the NC NAACP still hold out hope
for a definite resolution, and justice.
This Friday, August 28th,
7 p.m. at First Missionary Baptist Church, 521 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in
Bladenboro, a memorial service is scheduled to be held marking that first
anniversary, and paying tribute to the memory of a productive young man
everyone says had a bright, promising future.
“He made me proud to be his mom, “
Claudia Lacy, his mother says.
Lennon Lee Lacy, 17, was one of the
youngest of four sons to Claudia Lacy and Larry Walton, according to public
records. The family lives in Bladenboro, population 2000. Lennon, a junior,
attended West Bladenboro High School, and played on the football team there as
a linebacker.
He would
have graduated in 2016.
By all accounts, Lennon was well
liked and respected, both as a student and as a member of the close-knit team,
for his hard-work ethic.
So
close-knit, in fact, that on the day Lennon was found dead, the team met and
decided to still play the scheduled football game that evening, but play it in
his honor.
“What hurts
me [most] is not knowing,” Mrs. Lacy told The
Carolinian during a telephone interview in September 2014, indicating that
she was not pleased with how the case was being handled by the Bladenboro
police or the State Bureau of Investigation then.
“I just
want to get to the bottom of it.”
It was soon
after that an independent pathologist, hired by the NCNAACP, examined the
autopsy records, and determined that the initial procedure was mishandled by
local authorities.
“’[The Lacy family
is]… being asked to accept the fact that their son, brother, and
cousin might have walked out of his home the night before his first big home
football game that he had been preparing for all summer,” Rev. Barber said at a
November 2014 press conference with the family present. “That he would
have hidden his brand new shoes that he had been wearing, so no one could find
them. That he would have found a pair of older low-top sneakers, taken
the strings out of them, and jammed them on his feet, although they were two
sizes too small. That he would have walked alone to a trailer park owned by a
white man who is in prison for dealing drugs. That he would have picked
up two leashes/belts along the way and fashioned a noose out of them all by
himself. That when he got there, he would have picked a swing set with no
swings hanging from it, and taken the leash/belt, tied it to the beam and
through the eyehook, and then put the leash around his neck, and swung himself
out to his self-inflicted death.”
“And he did all this with no one around, and he remained there
until 7 a.m. or so in the morning, after people were leaving for work
at the Smithfield Plant or to school,” Barber added.
“And they are being
asked to accept this without knowing that all of the other factors and leads have
been exhausted.”
Last March, a
special report on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” raised startling new questions
surrounding the death of Lennon Lacy.
One of those questions involved
Michelle Brimhall, the 32-year-old white mother who Lennon had been dating, to
the chagrin of his family, and apparently other people in the small town.
Brimhall had a giant picture of
Lennon Lacy headlining her Facebook page, which lists her as being from Bement,
Illinois, currently attending Bladen Community College, living in Bladenboro
and having one daughter who apparently still lives in Bement.
“Outside
the Lines” asked Brimhall if Lennon’s death had anything to do with the fact
that they were dating.
“I don’t
believe so,” she replied. Brimhall acknowledged that Lennon’s family “didn’t
approve”, but they didn’t try to stop the relationship.
Months
earlier, Brimhall was forced to move from the white couple’s house she had been
staying at since she had moved to Bladenboro because they didn’t approve of her
dating the black teenager, the ESPN program alleged. She got her own apartment
in the same complex where Lennon’s family lived.
A neighbor
in that complex named Whitney Michael told OTL that she saw “a steady stream of
traffic pull up to Michelle Brimhall’s door. “You know, in and out, different
guys, different vehicles, back and forth at her house,” the woman said, adding
that she “put two and two together.”
When asked
if Lennon Lacy “had put two and two together” about what was going on at
Michelle Brimhall’s apartment, Whitney Michael told OTL he did “…in a way…but
he was in denial.”
It would be
later, Michael continued, that Lennon became upset when told that Brimhall had
been allegedly …”sleeping around with other guys that he did not know
about…multiple guys, like different partners. He was hurt by it. That was his
girlfriend.”
OTL
reported that shortly after midnight, the night before Lennon Lacy died,
Whitney Michael said she and Lennon saw a car pull up to Brimhall’s apartment,
with her and a black getting out and walking inside.
“He was
like, “Oh wow, really?” she recalled.
Michelle
Brimhall told OTL that she was seeing Lacy “exclusively” at that point, so she
was not romantically involved with the black man she was with. She did confirm
that Lennon was “in some ways” jealous. But Brimhall dismissed that he had
reason to be because, she said, she got along better with men than with
women…and Lennon knew this.”
Brimhall
denied that Lacy came to her home after midnight to confront her about the
black man she had brought with her.
When asked,
Brimhall said she did not think that Lennon Lacy committed suicide. “Honestly,
I don’t know. Maybe he came across someone doing something,” she added when
asked what did she think happened to him.
Whitney
Michael believes, as does Claudia Lacy, that Lennon was killed.
But if it
was a murder, then who did it?
“I have no
idea,” Ms. Lacy told OTL, I have no idea.”
The ESPN
report also raised another troubling question - did a white male that Lacy was
in a fight with months earlier for allegedly stealing Lennon’s phone follow through
with his alleged threat to “kill and hang” Lacy?
That person
reportedly was released from jail three weeks before Lacy’s death.
The
memorial service for Lennon Lee Lacy is scheduled for this Friday, August 28th,
7 p.m. at First Missionary Baptist Church, 521 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in
Bladenboro.
-30-
BLACK STUDENT
SUSPENSIONS
HIGH IN NC, STUDY
FINDS
By Cash Michaels
Editor
A
University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education study released this
week finds that black students attending public school in North Carolina and
other southern states are subject to being suspended or expelled more than any
other group.
The report
titled, “Disproportionate Impact of K-12 School Suspension and expulsion on
Black Students in Southern States,” authored by researchers Edward J. Smith and
Shaun R. Harper, notes that, according to US Dept. of Education data, of the 1.2 million black students who, “…were
suspended from K-12 public schools in a single academic year (2011-2012) – 55
percent of those suspensions occurred in 13 Southern states.”
The report
went to state, “Districts in the South also were responsible for 50 percent of
black student expulsions from public schools in the United States.”
The study
adds that black students were 24 percent of the 3,022 school districts analyzed,
but their suspension and expulsion rates were disproportionately higher at
“…rates five times or higher than their representation in the student
population.”
And it gets
worse. In at least 84 Southern public school districts, black students
comprised one hundred percent of school suspensions. Mississippi had the
highest black student suspension rate proportionally at 74 percent, while
Florida had the highest number at 121,468.
Here in
North Carolina, the data is no less sobering.
According
to the report, “65,897 black students were suspended from North Carolina K-12
public schools in a single academic year (2011-2012). Blacks were 26 percent of
students in school districts across the state, but comprised 51 percent of
suspensions and 38 percent of expulsions.”
The study
then states that “Crosscreek Charter School, Elkin City Schools, Roxboro
Community School, and Sterling Montessori Academy and Charter School are among
the districts in which suspensions most disproportionately affect black
students.”
But there
were others.
During the
2011-2012 school year in North Carolina, blacks are 42 percent of enrollment,
but comprise 70.7 percent of suspensions. In Cumberland County Schools, blacks
are 44.8 percent of enrolled students, but are suspended 63.4 percent of the
time. Durham Public Schools have a 51 percent black student enrollment, with a
72.8 percent black suspension rate.
Black
students made up just 22.2 percent of black student enrollment in New Hanover
County Public Schools in 2011-2012, but more than doubled that number with
suspensions at 53.1 percent. The rate of suspension in Wake County was
virtually similar at 53.3 black student suspension, but only 24.7 percent black
student enrollment.
According to a foreword to the
report by Congressman Cedric Richmond, a Democrat from Louisiana, “…these punishments are not applied equally. From the data
available, we know that Black students are disproportionately suspended,
expelled, and referred to the criminal justice system by schools. The overuse
of these punishments and their disproportionate use on students of color are
serious problems that we have to address right now. “
Cong.
Richmond continued, “We need to place greater importance on getting data from
schools on the use of suspensions, expulsions, and arrests in schools. Getting
complete data on who suffers these punishments, why they receive them, and what
the outcomes of the punishment are can help us fully understand what is
happening in our nation’s schools. We need to provide better training to
teachers and administrators so that they have the tools to deescalate and
mitigate situations.”
“We
also need to provide better guidance to schools on best practices so that
student discipline is handled fairly instead of through arbitrary and
heavy-handed ‘zero tolerance’ policies. Encouraging administrators, police, and
judges to prioritize rehabilitation and school attendance over severe
punishments would also lead to better outcomes. “
The authors of the report say they want
teachers and administrators, “…to use this report to
raise consciousness about implicit bias and other forces that cyclically
reproduce racial inequities in school discipline. We hope this report is not
misused to reinforce deficit, criminalized narratives about Black children. The
alarming data presented herein go beyond student misbehavior and bad parenting
– they also are attributable to racist practices and policies.”
“Our aim is to
equip anyone concerned about the school-to-prison pipeline
and the educational mistreatment of Black youth with numbers they can use to demand justice from school boards, educational leaders, and elected officials.”
and the educational mistreatment of Black youth with numbers they can use to demand justice from school boards, educational leaders, and elected officials.”
-30-
TRIANGLE NEWS BRIEFS FOR
8-27-15
SPEAKOUT FOR YOUTH TONIGHT
AT CHAVIS HEIGHTS CENTER
“Young African-American Adult Speak-Out Session” from 7 p.m. to
9 p.m. tonight, Aug. 27 at John Chavis Memorial Park Community Center, 505
Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Former NBA players raised in Southeast Raleigh
will also be in attendance. The goal of the session is to provide young
African-American males and females between the ages of 15-25 an opportunity to
speak to the community and its leaders relating to their concerns, needs and
any recommendations they may have to improve their community. All Raleigh
residents are invited to the session.
NEW GRADING SCALE FOR WAKE
STUDENTS
As traditional school got underway
this week, students in Wake County returned to a new grading system. They are
now graded on a 10-point scale, instead of the previous seven-point system. A
grade of “A” now ranges from 90 to 100. Critics argue that a student who gets a
99 should be graded differently than one who gets a 90, but administrators say the
new grading system rewards students who put in maximum effort to study and
learn.
WAKE JUDGE TO DECIDE IF
VOTER ID CASE SHOULD GO FORWARD
When the governor and Republican
leaders in the Legislature decided to soften requirements for showing photo
voter ID last June, did that undercut the argument that requiring voter ID at
all was a violation of constitutional rights? That’s a decision Wake Superior
Court Judge Mike Morgan has to make in the coming weeks. Lawyers for the state maintain
that there is no case now because the state statute has been changed and is
less restrictive, though they really don’t say why it was changed. But
attorneys for the NC NAACP, the League of Women Voters and others contend that
their lawsuit seeks the repeal of the statute regardless. Judge Morgan is expected
to give his ruling soon.
-30-
STATE NEWS BRIEFS for
8-27-15
NCDP CHAIRWOMAN
REASSERTS THAT FLEMING IS STATE AAC-NCDP CHAIR
[RALEIGH] In the wake of
published reports here last week, North Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman
Patsy Keever attended both the Wake County African-American Caucus meeting in
Raleigh last Thursday evening, and the NCDP State Executive Committee meeting
in Durham on Saturday, and made it clear that the party recognized Willie
Fleming of Charlotte, who has served as state chair of the African-American
Caucus since 2011, as the legitimate chairman of that body.
Allegations
had been made to The Carolinian that
Fleming did not qualify to run on 2011 because in 2009, state Rep. Rodney Moore
[D-Mecklenburg] disbanded the Charlotte-Mecklenburg AAC chapter. After The Carolinian went to press with its
story last week, Rep. Moore’s office confirmed that he had, in fact, disbanded
that chapter in 2009 when he served as its chairman, but that Fleming properly
reconstituted that branch the following year in 2010, and in 2011, as its
branch chairman, officially qualified to run for state chairman, which he won.
Fleming has
since won re-election, and had the state auxiliary group to the NCDP
recertified earlier this year in Pittsboro but the SEC. A State Board of
Elections investigation requested by opponents of Willie Fleming’s tenure
earlier this year failed to confirm their allegations, and records show there
was never a two-thirds vote by the AAC-NCDP state membership to remove Fleming,
as required by AAC-NCDP bylaws. Fleming remains in office until this November.
JURY DEADLOCKS IN
CHARLOTTE POLICE SHOOTING CASE
[CHARLOTTE] After four-days of deliberations, a jury
deadlocked 8-4 in favor of acquittal in the excessive force trial of
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer Randall Kerrick, who was charged with the
Sept. 2013 fatal shooting of black motorist Jonathan Ferrell. The lone black
juror told reporters that he voted to convict, but the majority of jurors felt
that Kerrick, a white officer, shot Ferrell repeatedly ten times because he “feared
for his life.” There were demonstrations after the verdict, with two people
arrested. State prosecutors now must decide whether to retry the case against
Kerrick.
-30-
CASH IN THE APPLE FOR
8-27-15
By Cash Michaels
HOSTILITIES – I have to keep
reminding myself that none of this really new. If you check our history, there
has been a plethora of backstabbing and backbiting, all in the name of
“advancing the race,” though one must really ask if that was the primary
purpose of some of the unnecessary hostilities.
I use that word because normally,
when someone sees the need to be viciously hostile towards you, it’s because
you apparently threaten their very well-being, let alone their very existence.
No longer are minor or simple disagreements handled as low-level issues. Now,
folks actually try to destroy you just because you see things differently, or
hold firm to your point of view.
Now normally I expect this from
folks from different political persuasions. The name of the game in politics is
to win, so while it is unfortunate, it is really quite routine for folks of
different political points of views to disagree so strongly that they even come
to blows (have you seen video of debates in the British Parliament? Those folks
do get their fake wigs in an uproar).
But then you have folks who simply
can’t accept that there are other points of view than theirs, so they instantly
adopt a “scorched earth” policy to actually try and inflict harm on the other
person, feeling justified in doing so because…well because…because it just
makes them feel justified. There’s no other reason they can come up with, if
any at all.
What’s amazing is the level of what
would normally be considered to be “bad” behavior in most social circles, that
these proponents feel is properly justified. The rest of us would consider such
stuff as childish, if not downright evil. But the perpetrators don’t see it
that way, and that’s what makes it so dangerous. Not knowing, or at least
appreciating the limits of your actions, or if your actions or words should
even have limits.
Recently I’ve had interesting
online debates about what are we doing in our community to address the high,
disturbing level of so-called “black-on-black” murders and violence in our
community. Now a lot of folks have a problem with that term, and feel that it’s
really just a contrivance of the media to further label African-Americans.
To the extent that it is a
convenient media contrivance, I agree. Rarely do we hear of “white-on-white”
violence. But here’s my problem. When those same people then say, “crime is
crime” to describe young black teenagers killing other young black children
wantonly, I’m sorry but that’s where I step off. In my opinion, we are going
well beyond “crime is crime” by definition. We have now come to accept, as
“normal,” the fact that our children, acting out of self-hatred (it darn sure
ain’t love), are slaughtering each other, even to the point where just sleeping
in your own bed in your own home, or doing your homework in your own room, can
a young innocent child killed by an errant bullet.
And GOD help you if your daddy got
someone angry and they come gunning for him while he’s holding you in his arms.
That has happened in Chicago.
These are special acts of
self-hatred, and yes, we can chalk them up to generations of racism and
societal abuse, but that doesn‘t mean we can, or should excuse them. Until
there are more jobs and a better quality of life, we can’t just accept the high
level of violence that is gripping our community from coast-to-coast.
And yet, there are those who
conveniently wrap the idea of turning our backs on the problem as “being
black.” What’s even more startling is because they see this discussion as
possibly taking away from their #BlackLivesMatter argument, they try to dismiss
it, or link police killings to black-on-black violence, saying that when we
solve police killings of blacks, we’ll instantly solve the other.
And then when you press the issue
of the black community coming together to solve the problem, some of these same
apologists try to claim that unless you directly live in the “’hood,” you can’t
possibly help solve the problems of the ‘hood.
Take that nonsense one step
further, and they might as will tell you to mind your own darn business if you
don’t live in the tough neighborhoods where the killings are happening. That
violence is the business ONLY of those who live there, according to these
“Einsteins,” so those who don’t live there just need to keep on walking.
Gee, I guess that means if you and
your family use to live there but moved, then you shouldn’t care about what
happens to the friends, neighbors and family that are still there.
If you left the ‘hood to attend
college someplace, I guess this means unless to move back after you graduate,
you are no longer “black.”
I guess if you and your family
still attend church in the old neighborhood, that just doesn’t qualify.
And if you get a new job and have
to move with it, then make sure you cut ALL ties because you just don’t qualify
anymore.
The silly reasoning is endless. And
if you point this out, you’re instantly attacked for being “not black,” or not
“caring” about your community because you don’t live there anymore.
Yes this is stupid and vicious,
because unless someone has actually said or done things to prove they have
turned their backs on their community, that is dastardly thing to say.
There are many black professionals,
for any number of reasons, who no longer live or work in the ‘hood, but make
sure that they give back in some fashion to help make life better for future
generations. They contribute money, they volunteer, they donate professional
services, they teach and train…and the list goes on.
We need our total community effort
to solve the problems that plague us.
What we don’t need are dumb, ignorant loudmouths seeking to cripple
those they disagree with, when they, themselves, show little to back up their
bluster.
As a people and community, we have
too much going on that we have to deal with to stomach attacking each other. It
is so, so sad when we see some in our community doing the work of those who
would destroy us.
Make sure you tune in every Thursday
afternoon at 4 p.m. for my talk radio show, ''Make It Happen'' on Power 750
WAUG-AM, or online at www.waug-network.com. And read more about my
thoughts and opinions exclusively at my blog, ‘The Cash Roc” (http://thecashroc.blogspot.com/2011/01/cash-roc-begins.html).
Cash in the Apple - honored as the
Best Column Writing of 2006 by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.
Columnist Cash Michaels was also honored by the NNPA for Best Feature Story
Journalist of 2009, and was the recipient of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP’s
President’s Award for Media Excellence in Sept. 2011.
Until next week, keep a smile on your
face, GOD in your heart, and The Carolinian in your life. Bye, bye.
