JFK Assassination Author, John Beviliqua, Thanks Colleagues For Research Efforts

John Bevilaqua, authorJFK - The Final Solution (Red Scares, White Power and Blue Death)

Let's hear it for the proverbial 'Bull in the China Shop', yours truly, without whose persistence, this entire JFK Conundrum could have gone on for yet another 50 years. And let us thank John Simkin for opening up this thread again at Spartacus because he realized how important the role of Guy Banister actually was in the entire JFK proceedings, not only in New Orleans, but through the Southern US and Latin America. And let us also thank Susan Klopfer, who works with a group of Civil Rights Cold Case volunteers as well. Without her, it might not have become so abundantly clear that among other things, William 'Guy' Banister was first and foremost the private detective of choice for every single pro-Segregation, anti-Semitic, anti-Civil Rights proponent throughout the Southern States touching the Gulf of Mexico. 

She also pointed out that Banister was on the payroll of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission for Senator James O. Eastland, along with Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker during both the Ole Miss Riots and the Little Rock, Arkansas school desegregation crisis. Recall also that it was Walker who often visited Byron De La Beckwith in prison following the murder of Medgar Evers, Jr. and that it was none other than Jack Ruby who fingered Walker in his Warren Commission testimony. 

And how long was it the Banister's role in the Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean was totally ignored, almost deliberately, 40+ years, perhaps? And how many of you knew that Banister played a role with E. H. Hunt in the 1954 Guatamala coup of Arbenz run with 'Rip' Robertston and Allen Dulles, along with his United Fruit Company client which was less than a mile from his offices on Lafayette Street on St. Charles? Not many, I would venture to say. 

And when the information about 'Operation Red Cross', also run by Senators Eastland and Goldwater, and NOT the CIA was painstakingly extracted from Nathaniel Weyl, how many of you said: "Wow, everyone always said that one of the main keys to the understanding of the sponsors of the JFK hit was 'Operation Red Cross', now that we know it was done by SISS, under the auspices of Senator James Eastland from Mississippi who was on Draper's payroll, for the benefit of Senator Barry Goldwater from YAF and organized by Robert Morris from SISS and The China Lobby, who was the real force behind McCarthyism, this puts the entire JFK Assassination in a much clearer, brighter light!" No one besides me. 

Why does it take a Civil Rights Activist to bring us all back to our senses to realize that the JFK murder and the other 3 acts of violence done between the Summer of 1963 and the Summer of 1964 were all done by the SAME forces, paid for by the SAME person, Wickliffe Draper, for the SAME reasons using the power behind Senator James O. Eastland, the Senator from The Pioneer Fund? 

Even Jackie Kennedy said something to the effect: "What a shame that he had to die at the hands of a little nobody like Oswald instead of at least for a more nobler cause like 'The Civil Rights Movement'."

Looks like Jackie was right after all, and it looks like those like Bill Baggs, Editor of The Miami News whom I had the privilege to work for at the age of 16, and Ralph McGill, Editor of the Atlanta Constitution were also right when they said the JFK murder was first and foremost perpetrated by those in the Civil Rights movement for their own sinister purposes.

Sure, it also served the purposes of the Viet Nam lobby, the MIC, the anti-Semites, the anti-Papists, the anti-Catholics, but who actually represented ALL of these interests and was in a position to reach deep down into his pockets and deep down into his hierarchy of KKK stormtroopers and the Gestapo of the Southern Civil Rights opponents? 

Only Wickliffe Preston Draper, using Senator James O. Eastland from the MSC, the KKK and the Draper Genetics Committee and Robert J. Morris whose history included Rapp-Coudert, McCarranism, The China Lobby, the Liberty Lobby, McCarthyism, MacArthurism and then SISS with Eastland as well. Trust me, without my contributions, Robert Morris, Charles Willoughby, Wickliffe Draper, Edwin Walker and even James Eastland and Guy Banister would have gone totally scot free. And both Army Intel and ONI would have gotten off clean as a whistle, too.

(

"I'm sorry" -- Former KKK Supporter Elwin Wilson Says Before He Dies

KKK Doesn't Go Away

Who's sorry now?

Elwin Wilson has died at the age of 76, leaving behind a legacy of a man who was able to admit the error of his ways. Wilson was formerly a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan, which is frequently misspelled as Klu Klux Klan. During his affiliation with the KKK, he participated in hate crimes which haunted him in his later life, so he bravely decided to apologize, according to a March 31, 2013 report by The Huffington Post.

After a lifetime that included burning crosses and assaulting African Americans, Wilson finally found peace in forgiveness. After President Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009, he decided to apologize for his many hateful indiscretions, which included the 1961 beating of U.S. Rep. John Lewis at a Rock Hill bus station.

Elwin Wilson dies with a clear conscience and the blessing of forgiveness from the very man he assaulted on that day 50 years earlier. In 2009, Wilson offered Lewis an apology for the brutal beating, and Lewis graciously accepted. As a result, both men were honored on Worldwide Forgiveness Day later that year, and both men received the Common Ground Award for Reconciliation in Canada. Wilson even had the opportunity to honor his victim with an award in Maryland.

Suggested by the author:

• Obama Easter outfit: FLOTUS keeps it classy with familiar frock
• Ohio church shooting leaves man dead after Easter celebration
• Macy's catalog typo sells $1500 necklaces for $47 in error

Why ethics and diversity matter: The case of Trayvon Martin coverage | Poynter.

This is a good article on the problems faced by mostly white media -- it is dying through lack of diversity, as it should. No organization can remain un-diversified and survive. Business knows this, and the U.S. Supreme Court hears its message (something I find particularly interesting, coming from this conservative group). Any way...

Take a look, and then please share your comments.

Thanks,
Susan

Why ethics and diversity matter: The case of Trayvon Martin coverage | Poynter.

Mississippi trial -- back to square-1? (flawed case against Curtis Flowers goes on and on and on...)

A crumbling cover-up: Mississippi prosecutor hides the truth about his star witness

Troubled prosecutor Doug Evans

By Alan Bean, Friends of Justice

If you want to understand just how flawed the case against Curtis Flowers is, consider the state’s failed conspiracy to conceal the sad truth about its star witness.

The defense attorneys representing Curtis Flowers have filed a supplemental motion for a new trial.  As previously reported on this blog, Patricia Sullivan, the state’s key witness against Mr. Flowers was convicted on eight counts of income tax fraud in early 2011 and sentenced to 36 months in federal prison.  But Ms. Sullivan was indicted on February 17, a full four months before Curtis Flowers was convicted in Winona, and therein lies the problem.

At a pre-trial hearing in the Flowers case, defense counsel filed a standard request for updated criminal histories on all state witnesses.  District Attorney Doug Evans gave assurances that he had turned over all the information in his possession.

Read the rest of Dr. Bean's story here -- 

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/138aab1f1aaabb5a

Dear Civil Rights and Social Justice News Readers:

Just got a wonderful story passed on to me, via eMail, and I wanted to share it with you:

A 50-something year old white woman arrived at her seat on a crowded flightand ... immediately didn't want the seat. The seat was next to a black man.Disgusted, the woman immediately summoned the flight attendant and demandeda new seat. The woman said "I cannot sit here next to this black man." Thefight attendant said "Let me see if I can find another seat." Afterchecking, the flight attendant returned and stated "Ma'am, there are nomore seats in economy, but I will check with the captain and see if thereis something in first class." About 10 minutes went by and the flightattendant returned and stated "The captain has confirmed that there are nomore seats in economy, but there is one in first class. It is our companypolicy to never move a person from economy to first class, but being thatit would be some sort of scandal to force a person to sit next to anUNPLEASANT person, the captain agreed to make the switch to first class."Before the woman could say anything, the attendant gestured to the blackman and said, "Therefore sir, if you would so kindly retrieve your personalitems, we would like to move you to the comfort of first class as thecaptain doesn't want you to sit next to an unpleasant person." Passengersin the seats nearby began to applause while some gave a standing ovation.If you are against racism, share this.

After listening to all of the crap that is being said during the GOP primaries (racist, sexist, homophobic and more), this finally brought me a smile, and I hope it does to you, too.

Susan

You can follow this blog by email...

Juneteenth (June 19) Oldest Celebration Commemorating Ending of Slavery in U.S.

For more information, visit
http://juneteenth.com

The celebration known as Juneteenth is enjoying a phenomenal growth rate within communities and organizations throughout the country. Institutions such as the Smithsonian, the Henry Ford Museum and others have begun sponsoring Juneteenth-centered activities. In recent years, a number of local and national Juneteenth organizations have arisen to take their place along side older organizations - all with the mission to promote and cultivate knowledge and appreciation of African American history and culture.

It was on June 19, 1865 that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. (Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation - which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.

Later attempts to explain this two and a half year delay in the receipt of this important news have yielded several versions. Often told is the story of a messenger who was murdered on his way to Texas with the news of freedom. Another, is that the news was deliberately withheld by the enslavers to maintain the labor force on the plantations. And still another, is that federal troops actually waited for the slave owners to reap the benefits of one last cotton harvest before going to Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation.

No one will ever know if any of these versions could be true. Certainly, for some, President Lincoln's authority over the rebellious states was in question For whatever the reasons, conditions in Texas remained status quo well beyond what was statutory.

One of General Granger’s first orders of business was to read to the people of Texas, General Order Number 3 which began most significantly with:

"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer."

The reactions to this profound news ranged from pure shock to immediate jubilation. Even with nowhere to go, many felt that leaving the plantation would be their first grasp of freedom. North was a logical destination and for many it represented true freedom, while the desire to reach family members in neighboring states drove the some into Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The celebration of June 19th was coined "Juneteenth" and grew with more participation from descendants. Juneteenth continued to be highly revered in Texas decades later, with many former slaves and descendants making an annual pilgrimage back to Galveston on this date.

Certain foods became popular and subsequently synonymous with Juneteenth celebrations such as strawberry soda-pop. More traditional and just as popular was the barbecuing, through which Juneteenth participants could share in the spirit and aromas that their ancestors - the newly emancipated African Americans, would have experienced during their ceremonies. Hence, the barbecue pit is often established as the center of attention at Juneteenth celebrations.

Beginning in the early 1900s,s there was a decline in Juneteenth activities; text books proclaimed Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 as the date signaling the ending of slavery - and little or nothing on the impact of General Granger’s arrival on June 19th.

The Civil Rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s yielded both positive and negative results for the Juneteenth celebrations. While it pulled many of the African American youth away and into the struggle for racial equality, many linked these struggles to the historical struggles of their ancestors. This was evidenced by student demonstrators involved in the Atlanta civil rights campaign in the early 1960’s, whom wore Juneteenth freedom buttons.

Again in 1968, Juneteenth received another strong resurgence through Poor Peoples March to Washington D.C.. Rev. Ralph Abernathy’s call for people of all races, creeds, economic levels and professions to come to Washington to show support for the poor. Many of these attendees returned home and initiated Juneteenth celebrations in areas previously absent of such activity. In fact, two of the largest Juneteenth celebrations founded after this March are now held in Milwaukee and Minneapolis.

On January 1, 1980, Juneteenth became an official state holiday through the efforts of Al Edwards, an African American state legislator. The successful passage of this bill marked Juneteenth as the first emancipation celebration granted official state recognition. Edwards has since actively sought to spread the observance of Juneteenth all across America.

Day 9 of the Curtis Flowers Murder Trial; Defense Begins Its Case

Dr. Alan Bean, a forensic historian, is covering the trial of Curtis Flowers in Winona, Mississippi. Flowers, an African American, is on trial for the sixth time on the same murder charges -- setting a judicial record. The following comes from Bean, this morning:

On Tuesday morning, the Winona perjury parade ground to a halt. Bonita Henry is one of several witnesses in this legal marathon who are [no]longer capable of testifying. She appeared courtesy of a brief excerpt from the 2004 trial transcript.

Tardy Furniture store in Winona, Mississippi

Ms. Henry said she was sitting on her porch between 9:00 and 9:30 on the morning of the murders when she saw Curtis Flowers walk by. He was wearing white shorts and a T-shirt.

I was hoping the defense attorney in the transcript would ask if Curtis had a .380 automatic stuck inside the elastic waist band of his shorts–but the question never came.

Curiously, neither the state nor the defense asked if the witness remembered seeing Mary Jeanette Fleming heading west while Curtis was walking east. A couple of days ago, Ms. Fleming testified that Curtis passed her just a few seconds after he passed Ms. Henry, only this time he was wearing a pair of black dress pants, a dress shirt and a jacket.

Continue here -- (and please consider contributing to Friends of Justice to help pay Dr. Bean's expenses. Because of his work, several major media organizations have written about this travisty).

Winona Black Community Fears Jury Duty in Murder Trial of Curtis Flowers; Winona -- a Culture of Violence

Dr. Alan Bean, a forensic historian, covers the ongoing murder trial of Curtis Flowers of Winona, Mississipi. It's history in the making. Here is Dr. Bean's report from day two (posted on Dr. Bean's Friends of Justice website:

While Winona’s black community runs scared, would-be jurors are running a scam.

It started early. District Attorney Doug Evans was working through his standard voir dire questions. “Anything you’ve heard outside the courtroom needs to be dropped at the door,” he told the six dozen jurors remaining in the jury venire. “Does anyone think they couldn’t do that?”

An earnest-looking white woman raised her hand. “I don’t think I could,” she said. She had formed an opinion about the case, she explained, and no evidence she heard in the courtroom could possibly change her mind.

A black woman’s hand shot into the air. “I don’t think I could either,” she reported.

Seconds later, three more black jurors were saying the same thing.

Then the prosecutor asked if there was anyone who didn’t feel they could stand in judgment of another human being.

Eleven hands were raised, two white and nine black.

Ray Carter, Mr. Flowers lead counsel, used all his lawyerly skills to rehabilitate most of these people—if only for the time being. Most of them were desperate to avoid jury duty.

“Mr. Flowers is not guilty,” Carter told his captive audience. “In fact, Mr. Flowers is innocent.”

“This is improper,” Doug Evans roared, his voice dripping with indignation.

Carter was undeterred. He had expected this response.

“Judge,” he explained calmly, “I don’t want anyone to think that just because Curtis Flowers has been tried over and over again, that he’s guilty.”

Then the black attorney turned his attention to the jurors who claimed they couldn’t stand in judgment. Carter knew what they were thinking. Most of them didn’t believe Curtis Flowers was guilty, but they feared a powerful backlash from leading lights within the white community if they voted their conscience.

Almost all the “couldn’t-sit-in-judgment” people are economically dependent on influential white people, but it goes deeper than that. They wonder what would happen if their children or their grandchildren got cross-ways with the law. Would the authorities retaliate against the-guy-that-hung-the-jury-in-2010? Maybe not, but how can you be sure?

“I know some of you are uncomfortable being here,” Carter said. “But sometimes in life we are asked to do things we don’t like to do.”

Carter called one of the jurors who used the can’t-sit-in-judgment dodge by name. “Did you tell Mr. Evans you couldn’t sit in judgment, or did you just say you didn’t want to?”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t,” the woman explained, “I said I didn’t want to.”

Several black jurors adjusted their earlier comments, but others refused to budge. “I couldn’t do it,” one woman explained. “The ones who are in there, the decision that they would make, I couldn’t agree with it.”

Translation: “All those white folks are going to convict, I wouldn’t be able to go along, and I’m afraid I’d pay dearly. Either that, or I’d cave in to pressure and hate myself for the rest of my life.”

Most of the remaining white jurors are sincere Christians struggling to do the right thing. Everyone in their social world believes Curtis is guilty. It’s settled orthodoxy, like believing in God. A healthy percentage of white jurors freely admit that, from where they sit, Curtis Flowers looks guilty and no amount of evidence is going to change that belief.

Another subset of white jurors is capable of maintaining an open-mind on the guilt-innocence issue. They live on the borders of Winona’s social mainstream and haven’t been directly affected by the wagon-circling and the rush to judgment.

Then we have the smiling members of the juror class. These folks are desperate for a conviction but know they can’t admit as much. They attend church with the victims’ families, they see them socially, and, back in the day, they went to school with them. Nonetheless, they could put all that aside. They could wipe their minds of all prejudgments and remove every twinge of empathy and compassion from their hearts.

These men and women are perjuring themselves to get on the jury.

But the slightest suggestion that these folks might be less than sincere is greeted with howls of protest (literally) from Evans and Loper. If white jurors claim to be fair and impartial, they are.

At one point, Ray Carter tried to explain to the jurors that white people sometimes have trouble identifying black people, and vice versa.

Doug Evans bellowed his objection and Judge Loper sustained. “This trial isn’t about black and white,” Loper sermonized, “it’s about right and wrong and it’s about guilt and innocence.”

Really? Does the Judge believe his own rhetoric?

On some level, I think he does. Loper spent most of Day Two defending the white con artists working the room. Loper and Evans worked like experienced tag team partners.

There is something unnerving about DA Evans and his pet judge. Joey Loper lives in a world of legal platitudes and fair-and-impartial jurors who know instinctively when the state has passed the threshold of reasonable doubt.

Race is never an issue in Loperland. All-white juries are fine and dandy because race doesn’t matter. State witnesses can be trusted because they’re just doing their civic duty (at $30,000 a pop).

In Loperland, jurors work in pristine isolation from their peers—there is no such thing as jury psychology or a herd mentality, just earnest citizens motivated by persuasive evidence.

In Loperland, race is a myth and social class is a mirage. There is no history and no sociology.

In Loperland, prosecutors always operate in good faith, defendants are always guilty and defense attorneys (if they know what’s good for them) yield gracefully to the inevitable.

But while Judge Loper and DA Evans turn a blind eye to the obvious, I am beginning to wonder if a credible jury can be selected from this kind of venire.

Mississippi Looking 'A Whole Lot Better Than Arizona,' Civil Rights Author Says

News Release

Contact: Susan Klopfer
Mt. Pleasant, Iowa
Cell: 505-728-7924
sklopfer@gmail.com
http://susanklopfer.com/

Smart students get angry when they learn they have been deceived in what they have been taught. This includes removal of truth from history lessons, says an Iowa author of three civil rights books.

Susan Klopfer, recent author of “Who Killed Emmett Till,” the story of the1955 Mississippi brutal murder of a young black student visiting relatives in the Delta, asserts this week’s efforts to ban ethnic studies in Arizona is “all about racism” and further, “the state will learn that censorship won’t work.”

With today’s students camping out on the Internet, reading uncensored e-books, news and pouring through editorial content, censorship and lies are harder to accomplish, Klopfer said.

"But just the attempt to blot out history will make people angry and alienated, especially those who are the targets of white political leaders and their weak attempts to control society."

When Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the infamous anti-immigrant bill into law, “the underlying racism was clear enough,” Klopfer said.

But Arizona’s new law that bans ethnic studies programs in the schools, in effect censoring history, "makes the attempted racism even more obvious," Klopfer added.

The Mount Pleasant author has written two books on Till and a detailed book on the civil rights movement in the Mississippi Delta, a region where she lived for two years, on the grounds of the state’s main prison, Parchman Penitentiary. Klopfer’s husband was the chief corrections psychologist in Mississippi, bringing the Oregon native and journalist into the South for the first time in her life.

“As soon as I began meeting people, asking questions and listening to their stories, it was so apparent that much of the U.S. history I had been taught in school lacked in truth. This made me so angry, that I spent up to 80 hours per week researching and writing my first civil rights book,” Klopfer said. "I wanted to make sure the history would not be lost."

Previously, Klopfer had worked as a news reporter in Branson, Missouri where as the city reporter she won state awards for investigative and community news reporting.

Following activities in Arizona for the past two week, Klopfer asserts that “Mississippi is actually looking a lot better than Arizona. Educators and citizens in Mississippi have finally decided their history must be told correctly, and the state legislature even passed a law to make this start happening in the fall.”

Mississippi has become the first state in the nation to mandate that civil rights history be taught throughout the public school system, Klopfer said.

“Sure, not everyone is happy about this and it will be a tough change, but state and academic historians have been putting their heads together to develop new materials that show what really happened in early times, from the days of enslavement through the modern civil rights movement and into the present, as more and more African Americans are taking political office and demanding change.”

Arizona, Klopfer adds, was the last state in the Union to recognize the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and “suffers from a poor track record on tolerance, to start with."

--30--

Klopfer answers questions about her books and racism:

Q. Why did you become so motivated in Mississippi to write your first book?

A. “What motivated me more than ever was the anger I felt after moving to the Mississippi Delta and learning the history I’d never been taught -- the story of Emmett Till, for instance, or the history of Medgar Evers who was assassinates; Fannie Lou Hamer -- how she was beaten and raped for using a white restroom -- and shunned by the Democratic Party when she tried to tell her story at the 1964 convention; or stories about Aaron Henry and Amzie Moore who, in fact, were founding fathers of the modern civil rights movement, and yet rarely recognized in today’s history books.”

Q. What is happening in the world of text books today?

A. “Bad stuff. This spring, the Texas Board of Education approved a curriculum change that essentially mandates a conservative, white-Christian bias in the teaching of social science. This has resulted in a wholesale removal of brown and black people from the textbooks.

“People such as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and civil rights groups like LULAC and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund were stricken from the books. The story of Justice Thurgood Marshall was allowed to remain but important details were removed. The same goes for Cesar Chavez and the grape boycott.

“Conservatives defeated attempts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures in the curriculum, in that heavily Latino state. Hence, the people who determine how history is taught in many of our schools throughout the country (because they select the official textbooks) are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world."

Q. When did ethnic studies begin? Why are they important?

“This movement came about in the 1960s and early 1970s at a time of empowerment for racial and ethnic minority groups. When Harvard students demanded black studies in 1968, some faculty predicted the end of civilization! Students on campuses around the country began challenging the Eurocentric teaching of history, the social sciences and the humanities on college campuses. The feeling was that when marginalized students -- African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and others -- learned how their people were a part of American history, they would excel in their studies. Further, we all benefit as a society when we learn about the heritage of all groups, and their contributions to the world.

“As this country moves more into globalization, this is a time when we should be increasing our multicultural efforts and teaching our children to live together and understand one another. As Mississippi has come to recognize, the people of Arizona must understand they are sending the wrong message by banning ethnic studies and truth in history. It won’t work to lie and it will make many people even angrier as they learn the truth. Instead of working together, Arizona is telling people of color they don't count, that their culture doesn't matter.”

Sixth Trial for Curtis Flowers, Mississippi African American, Opens June 7 in Winona; Prosecutors 'Set a Record'

Friends of Justice
Executive Director, Dr. Alan Bean
email: abean@friendsofjustice.netcell: 817.688.6765
office: 817.457.0025
Mailing Adress: 3415 Ainsworth Court, Arlington, Texas 76016

The case against Curtis Flowers [Winona, Mississippi] started with a bloody footprint. It took just over a week to link the print pattern to a Grant Hill Fila running shoe. Then a policeman remembered seeing a Fila shoe box in the bedroom closet of Connie Mae Moore, Curtis Flowers’ live-in girlfriend.

They couldn’t prosecute Curtis on one piece of circumstantial evidence, but Doug Evans and his investigator, John Johnson, knew they had their man.

That’s how wrongful conviction begins.

[Editor's note: On the morning of July 16, 1996, four people were brutally murdered at a furniture store in the small Mississippi town of Winona. By 11:00 am everybody had heard the news: Bertha Tardy, the proprietor of Tardy ‘s Furniture, had been killed execution style. Carmen Rigby, Tardy’s longtime bookkeeper, had suffered the same fate, as had hired hands, Bobo Stewart and Robert Golden. Golden was black, the other three victims were white. Six months later, Curtis Flowers, a young black Winona resident who had worked three days for Bertha Tardy, was arrested and charged with the brutal murder of four innocent people.Thirteen years, $300,000 and five trials later, Mr. Flowers remains behind bars and the state has been unable to obtain a final conviction. This sixth trial opens June 7. Dr. Alan Bean, a forensic historian, has been investigating the incident and has much to say about what has take place, thus far.]

Link --

Bruce Davidson Stunned World With Scenes From 1960s Civil Rights Movement

Photojournalist Bruce Davidson’s stunning black-and-white images documented scenes from the 1960s civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr.—from freedom marches and sit-ins to dilapidated schoolhouses and segregated movie theaters. In the video above, listen to Davidson recall the movement, his work and its impact as you view pictures from his 2002 photography book, Time of Change. Davidson’s work recalls a period of turmoil, anger, uncertainty and inequality as racial issues took center stage in America.

Source: AARP Bulletin Today | January 8, 2010

Munirah Chronicle Offers 'Today in Black History'

1787 - Prince Hall, founder of the first African American Masonic

lodge, and others petition the Massachusetts legislative for

funds to return to Africa. The plan is the first recorded

effort by African Americans to return to their homeland.

1832 - A major insurrection of slaves on Trinidad occurs.



1901 - Cyril Lionel Richard James is born in Tunapuna, Trinidad. He

will become a writer, historian, Marxist social critic, and

activist who deeply influenced the intellectual underpinnings

of West Indian and African movements for independence. He was

born into an educated family in colonial Trinidad. At the age

of nine He earned a scholarship to Queen's Royal College, in

Port of Spain, Trinidad, and graduated in 1918. In 1932 James

left Trinidad for England. He will become involved in socialist

politics, gravitating toward a faction of anti-Stalinist

Marxists. He applied Leon Trotsky's views about a worldwide

workers' revolution to his colonial home. The result, in part,

was "The Life of Captain Cipriani: An Account of British

Government in the West Indies" (1932), in which he called for

Caribbean independence. For a time in the 1970s he taught at

Federal City College in Washington, D.C. He lived the last

years of his life in London. Three volumes of his collected

works appeared as "The Future in the Present" (1977), "Spheres

of Existence" (1980), and "At the Rendezvous of Victory"

(1984). He will join the ancestors on May 31, 1989 in London,

England.

Click HERE for more --

Emmett Till Audio Book Release Set For January

14-year-old Emmett Till, Lynched in the Mississippi Delta, Aug. 28, 1955

News Release
Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Contact: Susan Klopfer
505-728-7924 (cell)
sklopfer@gmail.com
www.susanklopfer.com



“I interviewed the mortuary assistant who worked all night back in 1955 to prepare Emmett Till’s body as best he could for Emmett’s mother, before he put it on the train to be shipped back to Chicago. While meeting several such eyewitnesses to history and discovering new information about this cold case and others, I knew it was time to write this book.” −Who Killed Emmett Till, Susan Klopfer


Emmett Till Audio Book Set For January Release


Release of the first audio book of the Emmett Till story − Who Killed Emmett Till? − is set for January 15, in time for February’s Black History month.

The story of Till, a 14-year-old Chicago boy killed in the Mississippi Delta in the summer of 1955, has resurfaced as the FBI continues to focus on this and other cold cases from the modern civil rights movement.

“Emmett Till’s lynching sparked the modern civil rights movement. There are many people who still do not know this important story and this audio book will help fill the gap,” Susan Klopfer, the book’s author, said.

While visiting the home of his uncle, in the small cotton town of Money, Emmett Till, his cousin, and several other black youth went into the town’s general store. What actually happened is still disputed, Klopfer says, but according to several versions, Till was dared by one of the other boys to flirt with white store owner’s wife, 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant.

“Some accounts state he whistled at her while others say he grabbed her hand and said ‘Bye, baby,’ as he left.”

At about 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, August 28, Till was kidnapped from his uncle’s home and taken to a weathered shed on a plantation in neighboring Sunflower County, where he was beaten and shot. A 70-pound cotton gin fan was tied to his neck with barbed wire to weigh down the body, which was dropped into the river near Glendora, another small cotton town north of Money.

Till’s corpse, surfacing three days later, was returned to Chicago where his mother decided it should be publicly displayed to show the world the brutality of the killing.

An estimated 100,000 people viewed the open casket, bringing worldwide attention to racism in the United States. Till was buried Sept. 6 in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.

Less than three weeks later, on Sept. 23, the men accused of killing Emmett Till − J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant − were found innocent by an all white jury, after 67 minutes of deliberation.

Twelve weeks after the acquittal of the two men, who later confessed to the murder in a national magazine, Rosa Parks decided to sit at the front of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

“She was not the first activist to make this move. There had been other attempts. But Parks had been planning her personal protest, and along with the NAACP knew the right time had arrived,” Klopfer said.

There had been two recent murders of black citizens, shortly before Till’s visit to the Delta. Rev. George Lee and Lamar Smith were shot to death, their murders instigated by anger over increased voter registration activities and by the United States Supreme Court’s 1954 landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

Brown I declared racial discrimination in public education unconstitutional and a second decision, Brown II, ordered one year later that desegregation occur "with all deliberate speed."

“The Delta already was an unsafe place for any black person, considering the heightened tension. It was particularly unsafe for anyone violating Jim Crow standards for acceptable behavior in the segregated south. Emmett Till was a young man who had never experienced living in such hostility. He was known to be a prankster and had no idea that his action of harassing a white woman would end his life.”

No mass movement starts all of a sudden. “Before the Civil War began and well into the 1940s and early 50s, many years before the modern civil rights movement made the pages of the white press and then television, there were brave souls trying to right wrongs. Some worked in the North and others tried their best from inside “the belly of the beast” −- Mississippi.”

Who Killed Emmett Till? covers this entire time period and comes from a unique perspective. “My husband and I moved to the Mississippi Delta in 2003 and one year later, the Till cold case was opened. Because Fred was a prison psychologist, we lived on the grounds of Parchman Penitentiary, a notorious place with a fascinating history.

“I quickly learned we were living near the location outside of Drew where Till was killed, and close to Sumner, where the trial took place. I interviewed the mortuary assistant who worked all night back in 1955 to prepare Emmett Till’s body as best he could for Emmett’s mother, before he put it on the train to be shipped back to Chicago. While meeting several such eyewitnesses to history and discovering new information about this cold case and others, I knew it was time to write this book.”

Hedquist Productions, a Libertyville, Iowa group, recorded and produced the 6-CD set. “I’m really delighted at the quality of their work. The audio book was read by Jeffrey Hedquist, a well-known voice talent whose work is associated with projects by St. Martin’s Press, Chicken Soup For the Soul and many other well known organizations,” Klopfer said.

“Hedquist has won over 700 awards, including most of the big awards – from Clio, IBA, ADDY, Hatch, New York International, Sunny, Silver Microphone, Mobius, RAC, London International, ANDY, EFFIE, The One Show, and hundreds of regional awards,” Klopfer said.

Who Killed Emmett Till? − featuring the regional music of delta blues musicians − is set for distribution in major online bookstores and in selected regional, independent bookstores.

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