Jada Justice's Body Found; Cousin, Boyfriend Charged

By: BlackAmericaWeb.com and Associated Press

Ten days after she reportedly went missing from a car parked outside of a Gary, Indiana convenience store, two-year-old Jada Justice was found dead Thursday in a nearby swamp.

Authorities announced on Friday that the remains indeed were the missing toddler, and she had been burned and encased in concrete before an attempt was made to dispose of her body.

Also on Friday, Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter announced that Engelica Castillo, 18, and her boyfriend, Tim Tkachik, 23, both of Hobart, have been charged with murder, two counts of neglect of a dependent, battery and false informing.

Castillo is the cousin of Jada’s mother, Melissa Swiontek.

Jada Justice's Body Found; Cousin, Boyfriend Charged....

Weekly Address: Opening the Door to a Clean Energy Economy

The President praises historic energy legislation passed by the House of Representatives. The legislation will help America create green jobs, ensure clean air for our children, move towards energy independence and combat climate change.

Michael Jackson Dies

By The Buzz

Pop star Michael Jackson was pronounced dead by doctors this afternoon after arriving at a hospital in a deep coma, city and law enforcement sources told The Times.

Michael Jackson Dies....

Supreme Court Set to Review Troy Davis Verdict

By: Jackie Jones

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to review Troy Davis’ case today and may render a decision by June 29.

While hopeful, many death penalty opponents and civil rights activists are not expecting action favorable to Davis.

Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing an off-duty Savannah, Georgia police officer, largely on the basis of eyewitness testimony, and was subsequently sentenced to death. But seven of the nine witnesses who implicated Davis in the murder have since recanted, and other witnesses have come forward to say another man had confessed to killing Officer Mark MacPhail. Further, Davis has no previous criminal record, and there is no physical evidence linking him to the crime.

Restrictions on federal appeals prevent Davis from having a hearing in federal court on the reliability of the witness testimony used against him, and Davis remains on Georgia’s death row.

Supreme Court Set to Review Troy Davis Verdict....

Senate urges Obama to pardon first black champ

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is urging President Barack Obama to pardon the late black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, who was sent to prison nearly a century ago because of his romantic ties with a white woman.

The Senate approved the resolution by voice vote Wednesday.

Senate urges Obama to pardon first black champ....

Jena 6 cases near conclusion

By MARY FOSTER

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Five of six black teens accused of beating a white high school classmate in a case that led to the biggest civil rights protest in decades will plead guilty in a deal expected to be finalized this week, Louisiana court officials involved with the case told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Jena 6 cases near conclusion....

In New Survey, Blacks Say Race Relations are Same Old Same Old

By The Buzz

Barack Obama has a 96% approval rating among Black Americans.

The approval rating for race relations is a sight lower than that. According to a CNN/Essence magazine poll, 55% of African Americans surveyed feel racial discrimination is a serious problem. During the 2008 election, that figure was at 38%.

In New Survey, Blacks Say Race Relations are Same Old Same Old....

How Clarence Thomas Gave Blacks the Finger - Again

By: Tonyaa Weathersbee

This week, Clarence Thomas delivered a shocker in the high court’s decision against draining the lifeblood pumping through the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

He actually outdid his arch-conservative overseer, Antonin Scalia, in giving black folks the middle finger.

By an 8 to 1 vote, the high court decided that the time wasn’t quite right to discard a provision of the act that requires most Deep South states and more than 12,000 municipalities to seek permission from the Justice Department before changing polling places or times or reshaping electoral districts or any number of other things that could make it tough for blacks or other minorities to cast votes.

How Clarence Thomas Gave Blacks the Finger - Again....

European Soccer’s Racist Present

As the world prepares for the first World Cup on African soil, a black American is challenging ongoing racism in European football.

By: Sherrilyn A. Ifill

Soccer teams from all over the world are playing right now in South Africa’s Confederations Cup—the group of qualifying matches leading up to next year’s World Cup in South Africa. But as teams prepare for 2010’s historic World Cup, the first on the African continent, an important legal case is unfolding in a courtroom in Belgium that may affect one ugly aspect of the game. There, a case filed by Oguchi Onyewu, a member of the U.S. national soccer team and until recently a defender on the Belgium club Standard Liege, is set to be decided, and it may have enormous precedential value.

European Soccer’s Racist Present....

Where's Jada? Missing Black Child Ignored by Major Media

By: Denise Stewart

Two-year-old Jada Justice of Portage, Indiana has been missing now for a week. But you wouldn’t know it from watching national television news shows.

The child, a black toddler, was last seen last Tuesday when her cousin said she left the child alone in a car at a Gary, Indiana, convenience store while she went inside.

Justice is now listed on the Web site for the Center for Missing and Exploited Children and on the "America’s Most Wanted" Web site. Television stations, radio stations and newspapers around Gary and Chicago have followed the story and shown photos of Justice with numbers to call to alert authorities if she is spotted.

But unlike the recent cases of Kaylee Anthony of Orange County, Florida and Haleigh Cummings of Satsuma, Florida, the search for Jada has not received the same kind of national attention.

“Unfortunately, in cases like this, it’s not until someone writes about the fact that there is no national attention that they start doing stories,” said Eric Deggans, media and television critic at the St. Petersburg Times.

Where's Jada?....

Weekly Address: Financial Reform to Protect Consumers

The President explains his plan to address one of the major causes of the current economic crisis -- the breakdown of oversight leading to widespread abuses in the financial world. The new Consumer Financial Protection Agency will have the sole job of looking out for the financial interests of ordinary Americans by banning unfair practices and enforcing the rules. This is a cornerstone in Americas new economic foundation.

Senate Apologizes for Slavery, Segregation

The Senate has unanimously passed a resolution apologizing for slavery and racial segregation and sent the measure to the House.

Atty. General Holder Wants New Hate Crimes Law

By: Devlin Barrett, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Citing recent killings in Arkansas, Kansas and the nation's capital, Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday said new hate crimes law were needed to stop what he called "violence masquerading as political activism."

The attorney general's call for Congress to act came as a civil rights coalition said there has been a surge in white supremacist activity since the election of the first African-American president and the economic downturn.

"Over the last several weeks, we have witnessed brazen acts of violence committed in places that many would have considered unthinkable," Holder told the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

He cited separate attacks over a two-week period that killed a young soldier in Little Rock, an abortion provider in Wichita and a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Federal agents and prosecutors already are involved in the local investigations of each attack.

Atty. General Holder Wants New Hate Crimes Law....

Who's Afraid of Bibi?

It used to be that the hard line Jewish right could torment Democrats who did not follow their pro-Israel playbook. Not anymore. President Obama and Jewish moderates are providing cover.

By: Dayo Olopade

Before Rep. Donna Edwards, of Maryland’s Fourth Congressional district, traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories for the first time in May, she hadn’t thought much about minorities in the Jewish state: “As an African-American woman, I really didn't have a perception of a significant minority population in Israel, and there is,” she told the Washington Jewish Week, adding that minority rights in Israel are “a work in progress.”

Who's Afraid of Bibi?....

Weekly Address: Health Care Reform, the Key to Our Fiscal Future

The President has long noted that skyrocketing health care costs will be disastrous for our long term national debt unless we pass real reform. In this Weekly Address, the President also explains how he will cover the upfront costs of reform by eliminating overpayments to Medicaid and Medicare and driving down costs contributing to governments health care expenditures across the board.

Don’t Racists Ever Get Tired?

John von Brunn’s murderous attack at the Holocaust Museum is another indication of a rise in violence predicted by Homeland Security. But it is the reckless right wingers who are stoking the flames of extremism.

By: Sherrilyn A. Ifill

When a Department of Homeland Security report in April predicted a rise in white supremacist violence by white men who feel increasingly marginalized and powerless, Republican leaders were up in arms. The report, they said, was a slur on the U.S. military because it explored the possibility that white supremacist violence might arise from the ranks of Iraq or Afghanistan war veterans, as it did from Gulf War veterans, such as Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano tried to stand her ground and then did a modified backtrack.

She didn’t need to do so. The report was an attempt by Homeland Security analysts to do what they are paid to do—try to predict the source and location of terrorism in the homeland, so that law enforcement can prevent violent attacks. For Republicans, the report was just another political opportunity to try to rally their base around a non-existent insult to our military. It was transparent, but sickening. Because when the violence goes down, as it did this week in the lobby of the Holocaust Museum, it’s innocent men, women and children who get hurt.

Don’t Racists Ever Get Tired?....

White Supremacist Shoots, Kills Guard at Holocaust Museum

By: David Espo, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — An 88-year-old gunman with a violent and virulently anti-Semitic past opened fire with a rifle inside the crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday, fatally wounding a security guard before being shot himself by other officers, authorities said.

The assailant was hospitalized in critical condition, leaving behind a sprawling investigation by federal and local law enforcement and expressions of shock from the Israeli government and a prominent Muslim organization.

Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the gunman was "engaged by security guards immediately after entering the door" with a rifle. "The second he stepped into the building he began firing."

White Supremacist Shoots, Kills Guard at Holocaust Museum....

Guard Dead in Holocaust Museum Shooting

An elderly gunman opened fire with a rifle inside the crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday, killing a security guard before being shot. Authorities said they were investigating a white supremacist as the suspect.

Could Alabama Elect a Black Governor?

Rep. Artur Davis will run for governor in 2010. He’s leaving Alabama’s tortured racial history in the past. But will the state’s Republican voters be able to do the same?

By: Denise Stewart

Last Saturday in Linn Park in downtown Birmingham, a 41-year-old Congressman who went to Harvard and then graduated from Harvard Law School, announced that he was running for governor of Alabama in 2010.

There were red, white and blue signs with his name on them and a diverse crowd of about 500 cheered on the candidate. There was a little white girl, her face painted like an orange cat. There were black and white retirees in lawn chairs, sipping on soft drinks and bottled water. Then there were the business owners, lawyers and politicians—black, white and brown.

The candidate, Rep. Artur Davis, is black.

Could Alabama Elect a Black Governor?....

In Obama, America’s Got the Intelligence We’ve Been Awaiting

By: Deborah Mathis

You don’t have to share the religion to appreciate the salient effect President Obama’s words had on the Muslim world in his address from Cairo University last week. They should have resounded with the oppressed, suppressed and distressed the world over, but particularly with Arab and African adherents of Islam.

By speaking honestly, frankly yet appealingly, the president treated the Muslim community not as subjects to be directed nor as children to be scolded, but as equals. Different in custom and tenets, but equal. It is a quality he has shown with the American public as well – to treat us as thinking adults, not quivering lemmings.

“I am convinced that, in order to move forward, we must say openly to each other the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors,” Obama said to a packed auditorium and an international television audience. “There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other, to learn from each other, to respect one another and to seek common ground.”

A far cry, for sure, from “Either you’re with us or you’re against us.”

In Obama, America’s Got the Intelligence We’ve Been Awaiting....

Every Woman Has the Ability to Stop the HIV/AIDS Epidemic

By: Sheryl Lee Ralph

Throughout history, African American women have taken a stand and conquered the many challenges that have faced our communities. We have joined together and fought whatever obstacles stood in our way. Now that same sisterhood and camaraderie is needed in order to fight against the HIV/AIDS crisis that continues to take the lives of so many of our African American women and girls.

I am taking a stand against HIV/AIDS and using my voice to speak up. We can no longer allow society’s stigmas to keep us quiet. Join me in an effort to educate others about this disease.

We can start by taking care of ourselves first, getting tested, and knowing our status so that we can win the fight against the AIDS epidemic in the African American community.

Not knowing your status, and not discussing the HIV/AIDS epidemic with your partner, family and friends can be a death sentence. African American women make up 12% of the female population in the United States, yet we account for 66% of new HIV infections. And the number of women infected by the disease is on the rise. This is unacceptable!

Every Woman Has the Ability to Stop the HIV/AIDS Epidemic....

Weekly Address: President Obama Calls for Real Health Care Reform

The President makes clear that as Congress works through health care reform legislation, it must include fundamental changes that lower costs, ensure Americans have choices, and establish access to quality, affordable health care for all Americans. But what we cant welcome, the President says, is reform that just invests more money in the status quo reform that throws good money after bad habits.

President Obama Speaks to the Muslim World from Cairo, Egypt

"A New Beginning"
The President gives a speech in Cairo, Egypt, outlining his personal commitment to engagement with the Muslim world, based upon mutual interests and mutual respect, and discusses how the United States and Muslim communities around the world can bridge some of the differences that have divided them. June 4, 2009.

Pa. prep school disputes racist recruiting claim

By: Dan Nephin

PITTSBURGH (AP) — One of the nation's oldest prep schools on Tuesday disputed a lawsuit brought by a former basketball coach who claims he was forced to quit after complaining that the school told him he was recruiting too many blacks.

Anthony Cheatham sued The Kiski School, an all-boys institution founded in 1888, on Monday in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh. He seeks unspecified damages for mental anguish, loss of income and humiliation, and wants his job back.

Pa. prep school disputes racist recruiting claim....

Poll: Majority of Americans Support Sotomayor Confirmation

By: Mark Sherman

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans have a more favorable first impression of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor than they did for any of President George W. Bush's choices for the high court, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.

The public also backs her confirmation in higher numbers.

Poll: Majority of Americans Support Sotomayor Confirmation....

Mideast trip next step in Obama's Muslim outreach

By JENNIFER LOVEN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama began on Day One of his presidency to "reboot" America's damaged relationship with the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. With this week's Mideast trip and long-promised speech in Cairo, he takes a perilous leap into the effort.

Tensions fueled 30 years ago when Iranians overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran were stoked white-hot by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the creation of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Perceptions of President George W. Bush, as intent on imposing his views on the world and indifferent to the suffering of Muslims in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere, only widened the gap.

To Obama, who leaves Tuesday, the success of the struggle against Islamic extremists is at stake. This fight stretches throughout the Muslim world, from the Palestinian territories and Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where largely ungoverned border areas are a haven for al-Qaida, and beyond.

Mideast trip next step in Obama's Muslim outreach....

Rangel: Holder Should Review White Cop-on-Black Cop Shootings

By: Glenn Minnis

Harlem congressman Charlie Rangel is calling on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review situations and policies in the NYPD where “black officers are killed by whites."

“It's too often the case,” Rangel said Monday in the wake of the recent shooting death of black patrolman Omar Andrews at the apparently trigger-happy hands of fellow officer Andrew Dunton. Andrews was shot multiple times, including at least once in the back, as he gave chase to a man he spied rummaging through his burglarized vehicle late last week.

Rangel: Holder Should Review White Cop-on-Black Cop Shootings....

Philadelphia Mississippi Elects First Black Mayor

By: Michael H. Cottman

James Young, a Pentecostal minister and self-described “country boy,” choked back tears while talking about his place in history as the first black mayor of Philadelphia, Mississippi, an infamous town where members of the Ku Klux Klan murdered three civil rights workers in 1964.

"When you've been treated the way we've been treated ... " Young told CNN recently, as he paused to wipe tears from his cheeks. "That's why it's so overwhelming to be a part of this history."

Young told CNN that he still remembers how the Ku Klux Klan tore through his Mississippi neighborhood and how his father once sat on the living room couch cradling a shotgun, prepared to unload on racist intruders.

A Philadelphia native, Young integrated the local elementary school in the 1960s. He was the only black student in his sixth-grade class. And today, Young is mayor of a city that is trying to move beyond its racist past.

Philadelphia Mississippi Elects First Black Mayor....