Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute Concludes This Weekend With Festival of Performance

Urban Bush Women have returned to New Orleans for another of their legendary Summer Leadership Institutes. This summer's theme is centered around the question, "Why are people poor?" You can catch some of their work this Saturday at a series of performances they are hosting. Below are the details, from a local press release:

Internationally renowned dance company Urban Bush Women (UBW) have returned to New Orleans for the fourth summer to host its long-running, nationally acclaimed Summer Leadership Institute (SLI) from July 20-29 at Tulane University. The SLI is a 10-day intensive training workshop bringing together artists and community leaders from all over the city, state, country - and even the world - to learn about UBW’s unique approach to utilizing the arts for civic engagement and social change. Participants from New Orleans and Louisiana are given priority and scholarships are offered. The SLI is co-directed by New Orleans arts professionals.

This year’s theme, “Why Are People Poor? Demystifying the Opportunity Gap in America,” will explore and lift-up the causes and effects of the wealth and opportunity gap in America and culminate in a final site-specific festival entitled “Wealth: Reclaiming and Reframing, A Festival of Art, Place and Ideas” on Saturday, July 28, throughout the city. According to UBW Founding Artistic Director, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, “Poverty matters!”  In discussing why she selected the theme of poverty for the 2012 SLI, Zollar said “issues around our country’s growing wealth gap, especially the racial wealth gap, are an ongoing concern for me born out of my own family’s circumstance and the implications the wealth gap has for our local communities and our nation. The lack of discourse in our local and national political conversations is alarming. This subject is close to us all, rich, middle class, working class or poor.”

The SLI participant schedule will includes teach-ins on poverty, daily UBW dance technique classes and a guided artistic process to create the final performances. Participants will also experience “undoing racism training” facilitated by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, an internationally acclaimed pioneer in the field, which Zollar credits with deepening the company’s awareness regarding poverty and its intersection with race and racism. For the second year, Liz Lerman, internationally acclaimed choreographer and MacArthur Fellow, will join the SLI faculty.
Lerman and Zollar, are co-creating a related artistic work around issues of economic equality.

For the first time, UBW will present a special pre-institute workshop on Thursday, July 19th entitled “LGBQTA 101”.  Through the workshop, participants will become more familiar with basic Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer & Ally history and culture and learn tools they can use in their community and cultural practices.

Wealth: Reclaiming and Reframing, A Festival of Art Place and Ideas
Saturday, July 28th from 9:30 to 6:30

Performance 1
Time: 9:30am -11:30am
Location: Christian Unity Baptist Church, 1700 Conti St. (Treme)

Performance 2 & Community Sing
Time: 12:30pm -4:00pm
Location: Ashe Cultural Arts Center, 1712 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd (Central City)

Performance 3
Time: 5:00pm - 6:30pm
Location: Tekrema Center for Art & Culture, 5640 Burgundy St. (Lower Ninth Ward)

Admission to the festival is free! UBW’s 2012 SLI is supported by the Surdna Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Tulane University’s Gulf South Center.

More information:

Urban Bush Women

Urban Bush Women’s mission is to create dance and to create community.

Founded in 1984 by choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Urban Bush Women (UBW) seeks to bring the untold and under-told histories and stories of disenfranchised people to light through dance. We do this from a woman-centered perspective and as members of the African Diaspora community in order to create a more equitable balance of power in the dance world and beyond. We do this by facilitating the use of art as a means of addressing issues of social justice and encouraging civic engagement. Based in Brooklyn, we aspire to ensure continuity by strengthening and expanding our international community via ongoing professional education, development of new audiences, nurturing young talent and presenting bold, life-affirming dance works in a variety of settings including at our annual Summer Leadership Institute.

New Orleans Leadership & Partners

Since coming to New Orleans in 2009, Urban Bush Women has extended almost 60 scholarships to New Orleans participants. The SLI is lead locally by Team NOLA, a local body of artists and SLI alumni, who co-create and co-plan the SLI in collaboration with UBW. 2nd Line Consulting and Moving Stories Inc, New Orleans-based arts-consulting firms, led by Stephanie McKee and Takema Robinson-Bradberry, also SLI alumni, facilitate Team NOLA’s local planning efforts and goals which include connecting SLI to the greater New Orleans’ arts and social justice community. UBW’s New Orleans partners include Tulane University and People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. Other local area partners include the Institute for Women’s Ethnic Studies (IWES), Ashe Cultural Arts Center, Tekrema Center for Arts and Culture, Christian Unity Baptist Church, Golden Feather Mardi Gras Indian Restaurant, Junebug Productions, Kumbuka African Drum and Dance Collective and Mondo Bizarro.

Background on the Summer Leadership Institute

Urban Bush Women’s SLI grew out of the company’s earliest community engagement work, which took place in New Orleans from 1990-1992. The SLI began at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, in 1997 and was moved to UBW’s home of Brooklyn, New York, in 2004. For the past three years, the SLI has been based in New Orleans to help support and strengthen the efforts New Orleans artists, organizers and stakeholders are making to sustain the cultural and artistic assets of this unique city. Zollar explains, “New Orleans is such a creative and personal inspiration that it was important to me to return to support the community, particularly the community of artists, as this city was the place of Urban Bush Women’s first community engagement project sponsored by Junebug and the Contemporary Arts Center. Here we made the leap from one-way outreach to an effective community engagement strategy. We want to be a part of the renewal process and hope our Summer Leadership Institute training can make a positive difference.”

Community Profile: Brenda Williams of VOTE

After attending an “outstanding” presentation that VOTE sponsored at Ashé Cultural Arts Center in Central City, Miss Brenda Williams was inspired to get “involved to make a difference in the lives of those who suffer injustice at the hands of lawmakers, judges and others involved in the criminal justice system processes.” She has heard stories from many people who were treated unfairly, exposing her personally to the powerlessness individuals face when they are forced to confront the criminal justice system. Knowing that there is power in numbers and that reclaiming the power of those who have had it taken away, “will require many people of good will to exercise informed, persistent, due diligence until change comes.”

Her favorite aspect of working with VOTE is the “persistent involvement in the legislative process.” She feels the most important things that VOTE does are to provide space where formerly incarcerated people and their families, friends and communities can “voice their concerns, meet with others of like experience and mind, learn how to effectively advocate for themselves and recognize and utilize their power in numbers.”

Through educational sessions at VOTE Miss Brenda has increased her knowledge of ways the criminal justice system is stacked against the betterment of people of color. She also became aware of the many licenses that FIPs are barred from obtaining, an issue that VOTE members have tackled head on by creating House Bill 295. She calls VOTE “the answer” to the call that is, comprehensive civic engagement necessary to transform societal ills.

In order to increase impact and scope Miss Brenda believes that it would be a benefit for VOTE to collaborate with more African American organizations such as Greek-letter organizations, Urban League, NAACP, Zulu, NOMTOC, Forresters, Masons, Knights of Peter Claver etc.

Outside of her work with VOTE Miss Brenda enjoys reading, fellowshipping with members of her church, actively participating with her sorority sisters in community affairs, advocating for a Louisiana Civil Rights museum and supporting continued growth and development of Ashé Cultural Arts Center. She also loves spending time with her 16 month old grandson whom she admits doting over.

Creating Excellent Schools is not the Same as Creating Excellent School Systems, by Dr. Lance Hill

Republished from Diane Ravitch's blog:

Charter schools that perform better by recruiting and retaining better students don’t exist in a vacuum: skimming the best and most profitable students affects other schools, though it is hard to detect in systems with few charters.  The systemic effects are easier to see in a “closed system” as we have in New Orleans in which 80% of students attend charters.  Every high-performing charter creates a chronically low-performing school somewhere in the system. The students that charters reject, who are high-needs and high-cost, become concentrated in a separate set of schools.  These “dumping schools” concentrate students with enormous skill deficits and disruptive behaviors, making it impossible for educators to teach and also creating an intractable non-compliant student subculture.  Privatization creates good schools by creating even worse schools.

The evidence of this “rob peter to pay paul” phenomenon is not difficult to find.  As charter schools increased in relative performance the first few years in New Orleans, the remaining state-run public schools were locked into chronic failure.  For four years in a row, the direct-run state schools posted an average 80% failure rate on the 8th grade math LEAP progression test.  This, despite the fact that the state had doubled the expenditure per pupil for a period of time and all these schools were directly run by Supt. Paul Vallas who selected the “world class” school administrators, contracted to staff the schools with the “best and brightest” teachers (TFA), and controlled the curriculum and hours of instruction.  It was clear that the every year charters would skim the best students from the remaining schools and dump the low-performing students forced on them by the lottery.

In 2007, the highest ranking official in the state takeover of New Orleans schools said in a meeting that I attended that some charters were systematically dumping challenging and low-performing students into the remaining public system. Six years after the takeover, only 6,000 of the total 42,000 students remain in non-charter dumping schools:  100% of those students are in state-run schools that the state graded as “D” or F” in 2011.  It is a wonder that New Orleanians can’t figure out why we have the highest per-capita murder rate in the nation, and school-age teens are the principal perpetrators of the most reckless of the violence.

Creating excellent schools is not the same as creating excellent school systems.  The free-market has one goal: profit.  It did not come into existence to create innovative and equitable public services.  The New Orleans Model ensures that successful schools are created at the expense of the system as a whole; one student advances at the expense of another.  If other school systems opt for the New Orleans Model, they need to do so knowing that the result will be a separate and unequal system of “college prep” and “prison prep” schools.

Dr. Lance Hill is the Executive Director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research, a tolerance education and race relations research center based at Tulane University in New Orleans. He is the author of The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and The Civil Rights Movement (University of North Carolina Press, 2004).

Homelessness, Displacement, Evictions . . . This Sounds Familiar, By Hannah Adams

There are a number of obvious parallels between housing needs in New Orleans after the 2005 hurricanes and housing needs in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

In both disasters, large regions lost the majority of their affordable housing stock, resulting in massive spikes in homelessness and displacement.  UNITY of Greater New Orleans reports that homelessness rates effectively doubled in the city from January 2005 to January 2009. The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center adds that New Orleans experienced a population loss of over 140,000 according to the 2010 census, and that poor New Orleanians and families with children under eighteen were among those less likely to return. Meanwhile, the Under Tents Campaign reports that 400,000 Haitians remain homeless in displacement camps where they face gender-based violence, disease, unsanitary living conditions, and flooding.

Now, like New Orleans families were forcibly evicted from public housing, apartments, and eventually FEMA trailers in the months and years following their disaster, displaced Haitians face eviction from the camps where they have been living since 2010.  The threat of eviction exists despite the lack of affordable housing options elsewhere, and despite the fact that President Michel Martelly’s relocation plan helped only 5% of the internally displaced population access rental housing via a limited rental stipend.

Strong organizing for housing justice is another thing post-Katrina New Orleans and post-earthquake Haiti have in common.  In response to the threat of eviction and the dire need for affordable housing options, Haitian grassroots housing activists formed the umbrella coalition called Force for Reflection and Action on Housing (FRAKKA).  FRAKKA demands that “the Haitian Government immediately halt all forced evictions until public or affordable housing is made available. The Haitian Government must, with the support of its allies and donor governments in the U.S., Canada, and Europe move quickly to: 1) designate land for housing; 2) create one centralized government housing institution to coordinate and implement a social housing plan; and 3) solicit and allocate funding to realize this plan.”

The Under Tents campaign recently launched a petition to support the call for affordable housing in Haiti by putting pressure on the Haitian government, as well as international powers like the United States that often control the flow of resources to Haiti.  Sign the petition here and learn more about the campaign at www.undertentshaiti.com.

This article originally appeared on the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center blog. Hannah Adams is a law student and former Education Coordinator at the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center.

Junebug Productions Welcomes Stephanie McKee as New Artistic Director

From our friends at Junebug Productions:

The Board of Directors of Junebug Productions, Inc. is pleased to announce the appointment of Stephanie V. McKee to the position of Artistic Director, effective July 1, 2012.  Junebug Productions, founded by John O'Neal in 1980, is the organizational successor to the Free Southern Theatre (FST) which was formed in 1963 to be the cultural arm of the Civil Rights Movement.  FST was a major influence in the Black Arts Movement and was often referred to as "a theatre for those who have no theatre."   Ms. McKee is a performer, choreographer, educator, facilitator and cultural organizer born in Picayune, MS and raised in New Orleans. She is the founder of Moving Stories Dance Project, an organization committed to dance education that provides opportunities for dancers and choreographers to showcase their talents. In 2007, she was awarded The Academy of Educational Development/New Voices Fellowship, an award for emerging leaders.  For the past 20 years Ms. McKee has been involved with Junebug Productions as an artist and educator.  Most recently she served as Associate Artistic Director of the first annual Homecoming Project 2011, a place-based performance project that addresses the Right of Return and what home means to communities in post-Katrina New Orleans.  In 2006, Ms. McKee was one of ten artists who collaborated to create the original production, "UPROOTED: The Katrina Project," co-produced by Junebug Productions.  As an artist and cultural organizer, Ms. McKee is deeply committed to creating work that supports social justice and aligns with the FST and Junebug legacy.

Don Marshall, President of Junebug Productions' Board of Directors says, "Junebug Productions is fortunate that an artist and administrator of Stephanie's caliber will be taking the leadership role of the organization. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated her ability to unite members of the community in building a greater world through the arts. We all look forward to new and exciting projects and programs that carry on the rich traditions of both the Free Southern Theater and Junebug Productions."

John O'Neal, founding Artistic Director, says, "Stephanie is one of those rare people who is constant, true and deeply committed to making her community and the world a better place, for her presence in it.  She's one of the best choreographers-dancers-actors-teachers-arts administrators-community organizers-public spirited citizens that the present generation of New Orleans has produced.  With Stephanie at the helm, I am confident that Junebug Productions will continue to grow and develop under her caring, committed and capable leadership."

John O'Neal, a member of Junebug Productions Board of Directors and Artistic Director, Emeritus, will focus his efforts on playwriting and essay writing on his experience of 50 years in theatre, social justice, and cultural development.

Stephanie McKee is also a member of Alternate ROOTS, Kumbuka African Dance and Drum Collective, NO Dance Collective, Peoples Touring Project, and is Co-Director of the Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute in New Orleans.

For information, contact info@junebugproductions.org

Beasts of the Southern Wild, A Hollywood Film With Roots on Louisiana’s Disappearing Coast, Opens Tomorrow

Earlier versions of this article originally were distributed via Agence France Presse, and in Louisiana Weekly.
The Gulf Coast loses a football field of land every 45 minutes, and much of that loss happens in the bayous of Southern Louisiana, where roads disappear into canals, winding their way through swiftly eroding marshes. The population here is a mix of white Cajuns, African-Americans, and several Native American tribes, and most residents can date their roots here to before Louisiana was part of the US.

Some families in this former French colony have only been speaking English for about a generation, and recall childhoods lived mostly outside of the system of monetary exchange: their family ate only what they could catch or grow, and lived in homes they built themselves on land handed down across generations. There are few shops here, and many of the homes are built on stilts, a dozen feet or more off the ground, to defend against the flooding that becomes more common with every foot of land that vanishes.

The nearest movie theater is about an hour away, but on Sunday night 600 people filled the local recreation center for a Hollywood premiere. Beasts of the Southern Wild, a feature recently acquired by Fox Searchlight, was shot in this rural community in 2010 by a filmmaking collaborative from New Orleans. The film has already won critical acclaim and top prizes at the Sundance and Cannes festivals, and been celebrated as an early Oscar contender. Now, a few days before the film’s release, the crew has come home.

Beasts tells the story of a young girl named Hushpuppy (played by Quvenzhané Wallis, who was six years old at the time of filming) and her father Wink (Dwight Henry, a 47-year-old Baker from New Orleans who like most of the cast had never acted before), struggling to survive in a magical but disappearing community called the Bathtub.

Beasts captures the vibrancy and complexity of a Louisiana community that refuses to abandon lands being lost to coastal erosion and threatened by hurricanes and oil spills. The film’s themes were given a greater intensity by real-world events: on the first day of filming, the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded not far from here, killing 11 workers, blackening beaches and marshes in five US states and devastating fishing and local economies.

The threat of disaster, both natural and man-made, constantly hovers over this region. The oil spill came as people were still rebuilding homes destroyed in the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The film premiered here as tropical storm Debby churns through the Gulf, causing warnings and raising fears in coastal communities from Florida to Texas.

A far as Montegut may seem from the modern world, much of Beasts was shot even further south of here, on the other side of the levees that provide some protection from the frequent storms. Isle de Jean Charles, site of some the films’ most enduring images, is home to just a couple dozen families, mostly from the Biloxi-Chitimacha tribe. Their houses can only be reached by traveling across a narrow road that even on the best of days is half-submerged by water coming from both sides.

For months, the cast and crew lived here and were embraced as family. Everyone in this close-knit community pitched in; appearing in the film, helping to build the sets, or feeding the cast and crew.

“They captured, touched, a little part of what its like to be down here,” said Michael Pitre, who runs a mechanic shop here and helped work on the boats used in the film. “As far as living of the land like we do. When I was coming up, that’s what we ate: shrimp, crabs. That’s all we had to eat. That’s all we could afford because we would catch it ourselves.”

Benh Zeitlin, the film’s director and cowriter, agrees. “It is all real,” he said. “I don’t think I invented anything for this movie. It’s all things that I’ve seen and heard and experienced in different parts of Louisiana, and it’s all kind of concentrated on this one island in the film.”

Dwight Henry, who plays his lead role with a passionate intensity, feels this community’s struggle to recover from recent disasters and displacement is the same as that faced in New Orleans, where more than 100,000 former residents still have mot returned since the 2005 storms. “We so resilient down here,” he said. “We going to refuse to leave the land that we live and love, and the things we built with our bare hands.”

Although Beasts is fantastical and mysterious, it moves with the propulsion of the best action films, and the crowd was clearly moved, laughing at the humorous moments and holding their breath at dramatic scenes. For Zeitlin, this is always the audience he pictured seeing the film, not New York arthouses or Cannes. He said he and his crew never dreamed they’d have Hollywood distribution - they imagined themselves touring around the US, showing the film in community centers.

As the credits rolled, the room erupted in a sustained applause. Zeitlin took the stage to thank everyone who helped, and invited all in attendance to an afterparty at the local Lions Club, a community space next door. “This was what was in my head for two years when we were editing, said Zeitlin, as he accepted hugs and congratulations. “I feel finished with the film for the first time.”

Pictures above from Beasts of Southern Wild premiere in Montegut, featuring director Benh Zeitlin, star Quvenzhané Wallis, and other cast, crew, and audience members.

Backlash Mounts as the Louisiana Supreme Court Prepares to Seat First Black Chief Justice

From a press release sent out today:

Justice Bernette Joshua Johnson, who has served as an Associate Justice on the Louisiana Supreme Court for nearly two decades, is poised to assume the office of Chief Justice in February 1, 2013, upon the retirement of the current chief justice.

She follows in an unjustly short line of African American jurists to serve on the state’s highest court: Justice Jesse Stone was appointed to briefly serve in 1979. Justice Revius Ortique was elected to a seat on the Louisiana Supreme Court in 1992.

First elected to the state’s highest court in 1994, Justice Johnson is the second longest serving judge currently on the bench. In accordance with the Louisiana constitution, Justice Johnson is the justice next in line for the office of Chief Justice upon the retirement of the current Chief. Though the state constitution is clear, a controversy is being hatched where none should exist.

Catherine D. Kimball, the retiring Chief Justice, has called for a hearing to determine who will succeed her. She has also issued an order recusing Justice Johnson from sitting on the panel who will determine how the matter will be settled.

“I’m at a loss as to the basis of Justice Kimball’s order,” said Ron Wilson, one of the lawyers who successfully sued the state of Louisiana in 1986 for Voting Rights Act violations related to the state’s method of selecting Supreme Court justices. “The constitution says who the chief justice will be, not the state Supreme Court.”

"Any effort to deny Justice Johnson the right to serve as Chief Justice is clearly an affront to the Voting Rights Act,” said Marc H. Morial, executive director of the National Urban League and a plaintiff in the original law suit.

This issue has its roots in a consent decree that the state of Louisiana signed after losing Chisom v. Roemer in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991. In that case, Ronald Chisom and other plaintiffs successfully argued that Louisiana’s system of electing Supreme Court judges effectively ensured that black voters would never be able to elect a black justice to the court.

Five of the state’s seven Supreme Court justices were elected from single-member districts. But New Orleans was combined with several surrounding parishes from which the two remaining justices were elected. Based on data from the 1980 census, expert demographer Cedric Floyd concluded that the population of New Orleans was large enough to justify that the city elect its own justice. Yet, by gerrymandering a large two-member district, the state diluted black voter strength and all but insured that the voters of New Orleans, a large majority of whom were black, would never be able to elect a state Supreme Court justice of their choosing.

“New Orleans by itself was the same size as the five single member districts. New Orleans could have constituted a district by itself,” Wilson said. “We argued that the way things were constructed, there was no way a minority person could ever get elected.”

“Black folks were a majority in Orleans Parish, but when you combined them with Jefferson, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, they were only 30 percent, and that’s a dilution of black voter strength,” said Ernest Jones, a civil rights attorney familiar with the case. “So a lawsuit was filed in federal court saying that that method was unconstitutional and should therefore be done away with.”

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Chisom’s favor, the state and the plaintiffs entered into a consent decree that would provide the most expedient way to give New Orleans voters a chance to elect their own member of the Louisiana Supreme Court. Rather than wait six years until the term ended for one of the sitting justices elected from the multi-member district or change the state constitution, a long and arduous process, it was decided that New Orleans voters would elect a member to a newly-created seat on the state 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

It was clearly understood from the beginning that the judge would never sit on the 4th Circuit. Rather, as provided for in Louisiana Revised Statute 13:314.4, she or he would “be immediately assigned to the Louisiana Supreme Court.” Moreover, the statute states, “While assigned to the supreme court, the judge shall participate and share equally in the cases and duties of the justices of the supreme court during the period of the assignment. Further, the judge shall receive the same compensation, benefits, expenses, and emoluments of office as are now or as may hereafter be provided by law for justices of the Louisiana supreme court.”

Cedric Floyd, who now serves as a member of the Jefferson Parish School Board, said that the Louisiana Supreme Court itself has always treated Justice Johnson as if she were second in seniority only to Justice Kimball.

“When someone other than a Supreme Court justice sits on a case, that is noted in the record. But they don’t note that in any cases reported out of the Supreme Court when Justice Ortique or Justice Johnson sat from 1992 to 2000.”

This case has broad national implications. It was in Chisom v. Roemer that the U.S Supreme Court established the principle that the Voting Rights Act applied to the election of judges. A denial of Justice Johnson’s right to assume the helm of the Louisiana Supreme Court would have the effect of chipping away at the gains embodied in that Supreme Court decision.  Chisom v. Roemer has been discussed by legal scholars in more than 500 law review articles, journals, and magazines. It has been cited more than 250 times by the United States Supreme Court and other federal courts throughout the country.

"Generations struggled for equal voting rights in Louisiana and the rest of the US,” said Bill Quigley, an attorney who has been working on this case since the beginning. “African American voters elected Justice Johnson to sit on the Louisiana Supreme Court after the US Supreme Court ruled in this case that the Voting Rights Act applied to the Louisiana Supreme Court.  It took over 150 years for Louisiana to allow an African American Supreme Court Justice.  We have come too far to allow anyone to turn the clock back now."

“The consent decree gave us relief moving forward from 1992, but it did nothing about all of those cases that were decided in the decades before black voters had an effective voice,” said Lolis Edward Elie, a veteran civil rights lawyer. “We accepted that compromise.  For the court to now circumvent the U.S. Supreme Court ruling and the consent decree undermines any sense of justice.”

Justice Johnson enjoys tremendous support in the New Orleans community where she is admired as a jurist and recognized for her fairness and concern. Before serving on the Louisiana Supreme Court, Justice Johnson, Justice Johnson was a Judge of Civil District Court for ten years. She is a graduate of Spelman College and was the first African American woman to graduate from the Law School at Louisiana State University. Earlier in her legal career Justice Johnson served as managing attorney of the New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation, where she represented the interests of over 3000 working poor and moderate income families in the New Orleans area.

“Justice Bernette Johnson isn’t a token judge; she’s a real judge,” said Ron Chisom, the name plaintiff in the original law suit and an active participant in the effort to ensure that Justice Johnson ascends to the Chief Justice seat. “I’m honored to play any role in fighting for her.”

Structurally Unemployed Workers Deliver Juneteenth Proclamation to City of New Orleans

From our friends at the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice:

Stand with Dignity Commemorated Juneteenth by delivering a proclamation to New Orleans City Council and Mayor.

"The 20 people who arrived at City Hall today with Stand were there to deliver a message to our city that we are going to continue fighting for full and fair employment until we see the changes that we need to see in our communities."  Said Alfred Marshall, Organizer of Stand with Dignity.

Representatives of all City Councilpersons and the Mayors office accepted the proclamation which calls for real career ladders in the Post-Katrina Reconstruction.  The group challenged city officials:

"We challenge you to work with us to fundamentally shift New Orleans’ dependency on the penal system to a system of opportunities for our community which will prevent the driving forces behind crime.  We challenge you to use the mass reconstruction of New Orleans to finally shift from a system of slavery and oppression to a system which drives toward full and fair employment.  We will all be free when we can be safe to live in our communities- to us safety is not just freedom from physical violence, but freedom from the violence of homelessness, poverty, mass incarceration that divides families, and the freedom that comes when you know you are doing what is right for you, your family, and your community."

"We are here to make sure that our elected officials understand that when we are locked out of work that not only hurts us and our families but it hurts our communities.  I understand that the Mayor is trying to take steps to deal with violence in our community- my message to Mayor Landrieu is you should work with what you got, right now what you got is a lot of construction work here- don't throw good money after bad, just make sure you get the most out of what you have to work with." said Chase Smith who was there with his young daughter.

Newly Formed Observer Group to Monitor Today’s Oil Lease Auction

From our friends at Louisiana Bucket Brigade:

 Khaki Vests and Citizen Monitor Buttons Identify Oil Monitoring Group

Fifteen Citizen Monitors trained to engage oil industry and government representatives will be on hand at today’s oil lease auction. The goal of the newly formed Oil Monitoring Group is to remind those bidding that they have legal obligations to protect the Gulf of Mexico. “We are reminding them that the Gulf of Mexico belongs to all of us,” said Anne Rolfes, Founding Director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. “We want to make sure that both the oil industry – which has a terrible accident problem – and the government responsible for protecting us know that they are being watched.”

Today is the official launch of the newly formed Oil Monitoring Group, a coalition of civil society organizations and citizens trained to engage with oil industry representatives and remind them both of their legal obligations and the fact that the resources they are using are public ones. “Our mission is to prevent oil industry accidents,” said Kristen Evans, who is spearheading the group. The group will continue to monitor oil industry events after today’s auction.

Trained Citizen Monitors will initiate conversations with those in attendance today’s. The event is auctioning off 38 million acres. While other sales have happened since the BP Disaster, this is the first in the Central Planning Area of the Gulf of Mexico, which is off the coast of Louisiana. The Bureau of Ocean, Energy and Management is coordinating the auction.

Election observers, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees are among the groups serving as a model for the newly formed group. “We realize that all too often civil society is not in the room when industry and government make decisions,” said Anne Rolfes, Founding Director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and participant in the group.

The monitors will wear khaki vests labeled Oil Monitoring Group on the back, with buttons on the front that say Citizen Monitor. They will provide brochures to those in attendance to remind them of the laws and that people are watching.

The Louisiana Bucket Brigade is an environmental health and justice organization supporting neighborhoods’ use of grassroots action to create informed, sustainable communities free from industrial pollution.
 

Celebrate Juneteenth

A Juneteenth Message from our friends at Critical Resistance:

Tuesday, June 19, marked Juneteenth, the commemoration of the end of formalized slavery in the United States.  The date coincides with the last wave of notification of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, reaching enslaved people in Texas more than two years after the document was initially signed, and its prominence across the US is often connected to the 1968 Poor People’s March on Washington, DC.  Recognizing Juneteenth provides us with an opportunity to reflect on Black people’s history in the United States, on forced labor and confinement, and on the deliberate disorganization, dispersal, and death of African peoples through the slave trade.  It also seems impossible to consider Juneteenth without reflecting on the rise of the prison industrial complex, as well as Black peoples’ undying resistance to oppression and fights for liberation.

From the emergence of modern policing from enforcement of slave laws and codes, to the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, to convict lease, to COINTELPRO, to the war on drugs, Black people have been the target of systemic exploitation, criminalization, dispossession, disenfranchisement, militarization, and brutalization in the US.  The lasting legacies of slavery are present in every aspect of our modern punishment system.  As recently as four years ago, reports indicated that one in 15 Black adults was in jail or prison.  The number soared to one in nine for Black men ages 20-34.  From Sean Bell to Oscar Grant, III, to Trayvon Martin, African Americans are consistently in the crosshairs of formal and informal policing apparatuses, understood as innately suspicious and dangerous. In charting centuries of this violence, it is not extreme to perceive a war on Black peoples in the United States.

While the legacies of slavery are still felt acutely, Juneteenth also provides us with an opportunity to remember that oppression breeds resistance.  We recall the Stono Rebellion or the St. John the Baptist Parish rebellion in Louisiana—during which enslaved people organized resistance and rose up to take their freedom.  We recall The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the National Negro Congress, the 1199 Health Care Workers' Union, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers—in which Black workers led dogged struggle against poor working conditions and racism in the workplace, and for the dignity of their labor and their right to organize.  We recall, the UNIA-ACL, SNCC, CORE, and other civil rights organizations—through which millions of Black people mobilized to expose the inhumanity of white supremacy and to fight for the most basic rights in the US.  We recall the Deacons for Defense, the Black Armed Guard, and the Monroe Chapter of the NAACP through which people armed themselves and protected their communities from racist attacks.  We recall the Revolutionary Action Movement, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, and the Black Liberation Army through which the imaginations and legacies of militant self-determination in the US, were linked in spirit and practice to worldwide revolutionary struggles against imperialism.  We recall organizations from the National Association of Colored Women to the Combahee River Collective in which Black women and queer people built deeper understandings of oppression, and liberation.  We recall the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the Black Arts Movement, and the Black Artists Guild in which the radical creativity of Black peoples blossomed and established new art forms and stretched our imaginations and hopes. These examples only scratch the surface of the vast landscape of organizations, rebellions, and communities that make up the collective struggles, histories, and traditions of Black freedom struggle that continue to push us forward.

For many people Juneteenth is also an occasion to reconnect with family—both given and made.  It is an occasion to share food and stories. For Critical Resistance, we also see it as an opportunity to imagine how we might continue to break the grip of the prison industrial complex through our work against the violence of policing, against the expansion of jails of imprisonment, against government attempts to neutralize our struggles for self-determination.  We celebrate Juneteenth as an opportunity to forge stronger alliances across movements and communities to eventually rid ourselves of all the vestiges of slavery—and the build the new world carried in the hearts of our predecessors into future generations.

Women With A Vision Opens at Temporary New Space, Launches Blog to Document Progress on Recovery After Arson

This message comes from our friends at Women With A Vision:

Dear friends and family, 

With the fire at Women With A Vision now two weeks behind us, I wanted to reach out to each of you to thank you for your support.  Your donations, your efforts to publicize the arson through your networks, your sassy fundraisers, and your concern have brought us through the immediate post-fire crisis and clean out.  We begin this week at our temporary office space at First Grace United Methodist Church truly humbled.  And our work continues...

To keep all of you updated on our rebuilding process and search for a new home, we have launched the WWAV After the Fire blog, which features a letter from our intern, Shaun King, on his first day with us – the day of the office clean out – and several updates, like the launch of our new micro-enterprise program for women in street-based economies.  We will also be disseminating future updates through our Facebook Page.  Add us if you haven't already!

In the coming weeks, we will be setting up a building fund to ensure that we find a new home and are fully operational by the end of 2012.  I will be in touch with more details on that soon.

Choice Of Weapons: A Commentary on Youth in New Orleans, by Maitefa Angaza

Sometimes Truth whispers conspiratorially; other times it gets naked in public. This was one of those times. On May 31, Truth painted an undeniably clear picture on the front page of section B of the Times Picayune. The article headlined “Frame by Frame” is a mini-feature on an event the day before at which four youth from the Gulf South Photography Project (GSPP), from 11 to 21 years of age, produced and delivered nearly 400 individual and family photographic portraits of the homeless at the Harry Tompson Rebuild Center on Gravier Street. The article is inspiring, showing young people making a meaningful impact and GSPP founder Jim Belfon immersed in his twin passions; photography and sharing his craft.

But the placement of the article is, in itself, intriguing. It’s framed on the top, left and right, by three news stories about homicides in which the victims and alleged assailants are young Black men. So the GSPP feature is framed in the context of what can happen to and for our youth. In other words, “Frame by Frame” is framed by its frame.

We get the picture: crime is rampant and hope is a luxury. But amidst the bad news, we find solutions in artful ways to empower young people and those who jump to the task. Jim Belfon is on a mission to give New Orleans youth a “Choice Of Weapons” (to quote the autobiography of his mentor, legendary photographer Gordon Parks). Belfon's Gulf South Photography Project arms youth with shooting skills and points them towards artistic fulfillment, as they identify careers within the communications industry as their primary targets.

To learn more about GSPP's programs and activities, as well as how to support their work, call Jim Belfon at 504 579 4346 or email: jbelfonpch@aol.com.

Black People, All People, Bleed Red, By Greta Gladney

On Tuesday, I returned home after ten days travel. I use my time away from the office and New Orleans to recharge, re-energize and refocus on my life and my work.

I called Cynthia Wiggins, CEO of Guste Homes Wednesday morning to confirm our first Friday of the month Mobile Market and learned of the shooting on Tuesday outside the building. The woman who died in the car, from two gunshots to the head, was the daughter of a Guste resident. She told me that a five-year old girl also died.

Last night we continued our African American Women: Breaking Silence series of speakers with Terry Mogilles, RN, a mental health provider and executive director of Positive Living Treatment Center. Terry’s co-presenter, Brandon Williams, was a young African American man, a first for our series. He presented on racial disparity while those of us in the room realized that he is an outlier, an African American male under 35, and holder of an advanced degree in public health who works in IT at Ochsner Hospital and volunteers at a mental health transitional housing facility.

During the question and answer period, our conversation turned to the recent shootings in Central City and the publication of photos in the Times Picayune, the one of a 5-year-old girl in particular.

I found a link to the photos online.

I believe that there is a psychological impact on every New Orleanian who watches the local news, sees these photos, witnesses violent death, and continues to live and breathe in this City. Black people, all people bleed red and everyone in this City is suffering.

I did not want to see the child lying on the ground as Vera Warren had described her last night. But I did. I was not prepared to see the photos of the car, including a close up of the auto interior; its driver’s side airbag covered with the blood of a woman I did not know who had just visited her mother, a resident whom I have yet to meet, from a community the Renaissance Project serves at Guste Homes.

I did not digest the news well or at all.

As an organization, are we supposed to stop providing our food pantry and fresh markets at Guste? Can we live, individually and collectively, in conscious fear of driving through the City and stop providing services to the poor? Is it time to throw in the towel and close shop?

I wanted to leave town again.

Last week our presenter Deon Haywood of Women With a Vision had her office burned the night of her presentation.

And the previous week our presenter and videographer Ashley Jones learned while setting up the projector that her home had been burglarized for the second time in less than ten days. Vera Warren, owner of Community Book Center, asked me to consider the potential connection between our Racial Healing presentations and recent acts of theft and arson. The incidents are correlated with and connected to the relationships we have established as participants in the Breaking Silence project. We know the intimate details of each others lives.

Residents, who simply like to socialize, will be restricted from congregating outside the building, a further disruption to our well-worn social fabric. Bulletproof glass will replace the office windows soon.

Everyone, across race, creed, and orientation, must respond to our call to action to alleviate poverty and reduce racial disparity in New Orleans. For our part, we will connect Positive Living and Pyramid Wellness to the Guste Community for mental health services to begin a process of healing. Our June presentations for African American Women: Breaking Silence to Heal Ourselves and Our Communities are under preparation as I speak. We will continue to provide food banking, fresh markets, SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare enrollment and racial healing story circles to low-income families in New Orleans.

Chanel Lafarge of George’s Produce delivered and we sold watermelons, bananas, oranges and strawberries to the residents today.

Greta Gladney is Executive Director of The Renaissance Project.

Call to Action: Stop Deporting Community Organizers!

From our friends at the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice:

“The main reason people don’t stand up for themselves and defend their own rights,” says Josue Diaz, “is because they’re afraid of being deported.”

Josue should know. He was arrested and put in deportation proceedings – all for having the courage to speak out.

He was hired to clean up after Hurricane Ike, but Josue and other immigrant workers were denied safety gear for working in toxic sludge – and then weren’t paid the wages they were owed. When he helped organize a strike, Josue’s employer called the police.

Josue is just one of 32 civil rights and labor organizers in the South facing deportation just because they stood up for their rights. This is not only morally wrong, but it also violates a new policy issued last year by the Obama Administration.

Click here to tell Secretary Napolitano to stop deporting these community organizers:

The Obama Administration issued a new policy to stop the practice of deporting labor organizers and civil rights defenders after advocates demanded change. But immigration officials in charge of 5 Southern states are refusing to follow orders. To add insult to injury, their boss – Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security has done nothing about it.

The Southern 32 have stood up to defend the rights of all of us, and now we need to stand up with them. Take action now and tell Janet Napolitano to stop deporting these leaders.

Thanks,
Jacinta Gonzalez
Lead Organizer
Congress of Day Laborers

Warning NOPD: Not My Sons! by Tracie Washington

My friends Richard and Hilda McCline needed a couple of guys to help them move boxes from the American Can to storage. So on Thursday, Jacob picked-up Donald (his friend) and they worked from a little after 11am until 2pm. On the way home, they stopped at the light at Carrollton and Tulane alongside a marked NOPD vehicle. When the light changed, both cars proceeded through the intersection and, immediately thereafter the police officers turned on their sirens. Jacob pulled over.

Jacob and Donald sat perfectly still (as they have been cautioned OVER AND OVER again), as they watched these officers, clad in those Black swat uniforms, jump out of their vehicle, jerk open the driver’s side and passenger car doors, and begin really gruff interrogations.

License and Registration

Where’s your I.D.? (Jacob hands over his driver’s license.)

Why don’t you have identification? Jacob just picked me up and I knew I would be driving so I didn’t think I needed to bring my license.

Is this your car? Yes, I mean, it’s owned by my mom, but it’s my car to drive.

What are you doing? We were doing a job for one of my mom’s friends.

Where are you coming from? The American Can.

What kind of job were you doing for these friends? This professor is moving to Georgia and so he and his wife needed help moving boxes to storage.

You boys in school? Yes, I attend Grinnell College. Yes, I attend Millsaps College. (each pointing to their gym shorts with the school names and logos on them; serendipity that they were wearing their college shorts that morning)

The officers look through the backseat of the car, walk to the back of the car, and then walk to their patrol car, wait about 30 seconds and return with this “warning” -- Just make sure you always wear your seatbelts.

Jacob and Donald had been wearing their seatbelts!

Everyone in the City of New Orleans knows, these NOPD Special Ops Jump Out Boys spend their days harassing young black men, hoping to pull over someone, open the doors to see if the smell marijuana, and then “justify” an illegal search under the guise that they smelled marijuana.

News Flash NOPD – You illegally stopped the wrong 19 year old. And because you don’t know whose son you may be stopping illegally, why not just end the illegal stops. ‘Cause see, when I'm done with these particular jokers, they will wish they had chosen a different profession. Sarah Palin could take lessons from this mamma-Grizzly. Orange is not on my color wheel, but I will wear it proudly if NOPD thugs harm my son. I’m just sayin’ ….. I’m scared every time my son is home from college. Not because of the New Orleans streets; Jacob knows how to avoid our “normal” thugs. I’m scared because I can’t tell him to avoid the “badge-wearing” thugs and in New Orleans they harass and kill Black men with impunity, and often without repercussions.

Jacob returns to Grinnell the day after my dad, Dr. Louis X. Washington, Sr., turns 75. I suppose I should find some comfort in the fact that my dad has survived 75 years of New Orleans. I don't.

I’ll sleep well again beginning August 11, 2012.

New Orleans Filmmakers Win Major Award at Cannes Film Festival

Beasts of the Southern Wild, the remarkable film by a collective of New Orleans filmmakers calling themselves Court 13, won the Caméra d’Or today at the Cannes Film Festival. The award, which recognizes the best film by a first-time filmmaker, is one of the most prestigious honors in the world of cinema

The film already caused a sensation at this year's Sundance Film Festival, winning the Grand Jury Prize and rave reviews from critics. The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy, one of the most influential film critics in the US, gave Beasts a rave review at its premiere at Sundance this January:

One of the most striking films ever to debut at the Sundance Film Festival, Beasts of the Southern Wild is a poetic evocation of an endangered way of life and a surging paean to human resilience and self-reliance. Shot along the southernmost fringes of Louisiana, cast with nonactors and absolutely teeming with creativity in every aspect of its being, Benh Zeitlin’s directorial debut could serve as a poster child for everything American independent cinema aspires to be but so seldom is. A handcrafted look at the struggles of some of the poorest people in the United States is no prescription for commercial success, but the presence of a dynamite little girl at the center of things could, along with critical praise and enlightened handling, push this most unlikely but entirely elating drama into a successful specialized theatrical release.

Sundance (which focuses mostly on US filmmakers) and Cannes (which deliberately spreads its gaze around the world) have notoriously different tastes. Because each festival prefers to only feature world premieres, it is rare for a film to even be selected for both. Beasts is only the second film to have ever won both the Caméra d’Or and Sundance's Grand Jury Prize - the previous was 1998's Slam, starring Saul Williams. Among the small circle of other films that have been acclaimed at both fests are Me and You and Everyone We Know, which won a Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at Sundance before going on to win the Caméra d’Or at Cannes, and 1989's sex, lies and videotape, which helped establish Sundance as an important festival when it won an Audience Award in 1989, before going on to win Cannes' Palme d’Or, the top prize at that fest, and then becoming a surprise box office success.

Steven Soderbergh, the director of sex lies and videotape, also has a local connection, having grown up mostly in Baton Rouge.

Variety, the insider journal of the film industry, has already named Beasts director Benh Zeitlin one of ten directors to watch. At Cannes, Beasts was also honored by The International Federation of Film Critics, which gave the film its Un Certain Regard prize, one of three awards it gives out. Fox Searchlight paid a reported two million dollars for the distribution rights to Beasts, and are releasing it next month.

Official Statement From Women With A Vision After Recent Arson

This letter and video is reposted from the website of Women With A Vision. You can donate on their site: http://wwav-no.org.

Dear friends, colleagues and family,

Today we reach out to express our gratitude for your support and to let you know that everyone in the Women With A Vision family is safe.

Thanks to the fast response of all of our supporters across the country, many of you have already heard that our office was broken into last night and set on fire. The worst damage was concentrated in our community organizing and outreach office where we store all of the resources we use to educate our community. We lost everything. We do not have an office to operate out of right now.

Most of our office equipment and all of our educational resources were destroyed. Because of the targeted nature, we can only assume that this was intentional.

We are shaken to be sure, and deeply worried about how we will provide for our members while we are rebuilding. But the work will continue. This cannot and will not stop us from speaking out for people who do not have a voice.

Please know that your thoughts, your prayers, your kind words and your positive energy are felt. Your care for WWAV is what is giving us the strength to make sure that we reopen, bigger and better than before, as soon as possible.

But we will literally be starting from scratch, so donations and in-kind contributions are critical right now.

Immediate Meeting Spaces for WWAV Events. We are in the process of finding a new permanent home, but also need immediate assistance with space. We have several coalition meetings that were to be held at the WWAV office next week, and our new micro-enterprise program is scheduled to launch early next week. New Orleans friends, do you have conference room space you can lend? Member programming will need to accommodate 10-15 people. Coalition events will bring together 20-25 people.

Donations to Replace our Health Education Materials. We lost all of our health education materials, including harm reduction supplies, condoms/dental dams/lube, reproductive health models, educational brochures, hygiene kits and OraSure HIV tests. Replacing these will cost thousands of dollars. If you are able, please make a tax-deductible donation through our website.
• $50 will buy a case of male condoms;
• $100 will cover a month supply of harm reduction kits,
• $250 will replace one of our reproductive health models;
• $500 will enable us to make a month’s supply of hygiene kits;
• $1000 will buy a case of female condoms; and
• $2000 to replace our two cases of OraSure rapid HIV tests.

Suits/Dresses/Shoes to Restock our Clothing Bank. We have lost all of the professional clothing that was donated to WWAV for our women to go on job interviews. Please contact us if you have suits, skirts, dress pants, dresses and shoes to donate. Women’s clothing 8 to plus-size and shoe sizes 7 to 12 are most needed.

Donations to Replace our Office Furniture & Supplies. When we are ready to move into our new office, we will need to replace most of our office furniture, all of our office supplies, and all of our decorations for WWAV member holiday events and women-centered programming. Desks, desk chairs, and furniture for our drop-in space will all be incredibly costly. And we all know how quickly copy paper and post-it notes can add up. Any donation will help us to open as quickly as possible. Gift cards to office supply stores like OfficeMax, Office Depot and Staples are welcome. In-kind contributions of women-centered art, social justice posters, and holiday decorations will all be deeply appreciated when we are nearer to our re-opening date.

Donations to Replace Computers & Printer(s). One desktop computer, one laptop and one printer were completely destroyed in the fire. We are in the process of testing our remaining computers and printer to see if they have been permanently damaged by smoke. At this point, our technology replacement costs are unknown. Again, any donation will help us to reopen as quickly as possible.

We will continue to post updates to our website as our rebuilding process continues. Please keep checking back!

For now, we thank you for your love and your support. We are truly humbled to be on this journey with such an incredible community of allies. And the work continues…

In struggle,

Deon Haywood, WWAV Board of Directors, WWAV Staff and the women we support

Break-in and Arson at Offices of Women With a Vision, Local Organization That Advocates for Poor Women of Color

UPDATED: See youtube video embedded below featuring Deon Haywood and footage from WWAV office. For the official statement from WWAV, as well as a list of needs, see this link.

Shockwaves went out across social justice communities across the US at the word that Women With a Vision, a local organization that advocates for poor women of color, was the victim of a break-in and arson at their offices in MidCity.

Women With A Vision (WWAV) was co-founded by a collective of Black women in 1991 as a response to the non-existence of HIV prevention resources for those women who were the most at risk: poor women, sex workers, women with substance abuse issues, and transgender women.

WWAV executive director Deon Haywood announced the news late last night: "Family and Friends, thank you all for the kind words, and positive energy. Someone broke into our office and torched it...We are all safe. The office with important files and outreach supply was burned and there is smoke and water damage. We're looking for a space and donations can be made on our website."

The attack seemed political in its nature, directly targeting the crucial information, files, and materials needed for WWAV's work. According to an email report from Bill Quigley, a social justice attorney and friend of the organization, "Major fire damage was done to a room which contained education and outreach materials. The arsonist seemed to have deliberately targeted this room. Destroyed were: three plastic and silicone breast models which were used to help people learn how to do self-examinations for breast cancer; a plastic pelvic model of a vagina; a two feet by one and a half foot plastic model of a woman’s reproductive system; boxes of male and female condoms; flip charts demonstrating the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV; several wooden penises which were used for condom demonstration; and boxes of educational materials. The fires in that room seem to have been set with some accelerant and scorched the walls, ceiling fan and ceiling and destroyed everything in the room....The offices were ransacked leaving drawers pulled out and papers and files on the floor. A TV and a laptop were taken but many valuables were left including computer monitors, office equipment, even some beer left over from a reception held earlier in the week. Several small fires were started inside the offices, in the bathroom, the hallway and in a sitting room."

WWAV has made national news for leading the fight against Louisiana's Crime Against Nature Statute, which targeted poor women of color, transgender women, and anyone forced to trade sex for food or a place to sleep at night, forcing them to register as sex offenders. With the leadership of WWAV, which was directly accountable to those most affected, a national coalition that also included Center for Constitutional Rights and police misconduct attorney Andrea Ritchie was able to get the law off the books and has won legal victories in the process of removing the sex offender registration requirements for those convicted in the past.

UPDATE: In a video released this afternoon (and embedded below) WWAV executive director Deon Haywood shows the damage and discusses the effects, concluding, "We are fighters, we are warriors here at Women With a Vision, and we continue our work."



We will help spread the word as more information becomes available, but for now we hope you will make a donation to support the crucial work of WWAV.

Another Day in Court for Angola Three Prisoner

From our friends at the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3:
On Tuesday, May 29th, Albert Woodfox will begin a 3 day hearing that may result in his conviction being overturned for a third time. Proceedings will begin at 9am in Courtroom 1 at the US District Court in Baton Rouge and continue through Thursday, May 31st.

Albert will be present for the proceedings, and the hearing is open to the public. Please remember if attending that the Federal Court strictly enforces a more formal, conservative dress code (no short skirts or shorts of any kind, even with tights, no bare upper arms, sleeveless, or low cut shirts) and requires that observers don't react, either visibly or audibly, to anything the might see or hear in the courtroom. Also security is tight, so bring only your ID, car keys, and a pen and paper into the courthouse.

There is limited seating in the courtroom so if you arrive and are turned away, consider your show of support a success and try coming back the next day!

Unlike the first and second time that Albert's conviction was overturned based on judges who cited racial discrimination, prosecutorial misconduct, inadequate defense, and suppression of exculpatory evidence during his first trials for the 1972 murder of Brent Miller, this proceeding will seek to overturn based on apparent discrimination in the selection of a grand jury foreperson during his 1998 retrial.

The well known facts of the A3 case will not be debated; all that will be examined is whether or not people of color were discriminated against during the grand jury selection process. This means instead of murder mystery theatre, witnesses will mostly discuss compositions of the pool of grand jury forepersons in the Parish where Albert was indicted. Expert witnesses will discuss statistical analysis and methodology, the demographics of the community, and the sociological mechanics of how discrimination can play out in the criminal justice system. If successful, this claim could serve to overturn Albert's conviction for a third time.

Judge James A. Brady, the same judge who overturned Albert's conviction the second time in 2008, will preside. That ruling was ultimately reinstated on appeal by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals who cited AEDPA-gutted habeas protections that limit federal power that allowed them to defer judgment to Louisiana.

Although there are no time limits officially imposed by law, Brady is expected to rule before the end of 2012.

You can view or download a new A3 flyer updated to be used as an organizing resource here.

Five Reasons Drone Assassinations Are Illegal, By Bill Quigley

US civilian and military employees regularly target and fire lethal unmanned drone guided missiles at people across the world. Thousands of people have been assassinated. Hundreds of those killed were civilians. Some of those killed were rescuers and mourners.

These killings would be criminal acts if they occurred inside the US. Does it make legal sense that these killings would be legal outside the US?

Some Facts about Drone Assassinations

The US has used drones to kill thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. But the government routinely refuses to provide any official information on local reports of civilian deaths or the identities of most of those killed.

In Pakistan alone, the New America Foundation reports US forces have launched 297 drone strikes killing at least 1800 people, three to four hundred of whom were not even combatants. Other investigative journalists report four to eight hundred civilians killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan.

Very few of these drone strikes kill high level leaders of terror groups. A recent article in Foreign Affairs estimated “only one out of every seven drone attacks in Pakistan kills a militant leader. The majority of those killed in such strikes are not important insurgent commanders but rather low level fighters, together with a small number of civilians.”

An investigation by the Wall Street Journal in November 2011 revealed that most of the time the US did not even know the identities of the people being killed by drones in Pakistan. The WSJ reported there are two types of drone strikes. Personality strikes target known terrorist leaders. Signature strikes target groups of men believed to be militants but are people whose identities are not known. Most of the drone strikes are signature strikes.

In Yemen, there have been at least 34 drone assassination attacks so far in 2012 alone, according to the London based Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Using drones against people in Yemen, who are thought to be militants but whose names are not even known, was authorized by the Obama administration in April 2012, according to the Washington Post. Somalia has been the site of ten drone attacks with a growing number in recent months.

Civilian deaths in drone strikes are regularly reported but more chilling is the practice of firing a second set of drone strikes at the scene once people have come to find out what happened or to give aid. Glen Greenwald of Salon, a leading critic of the increasing use of drones, recently pointed out that drones routinely kill civilians who are in the vicinity of people thought to be “militants” and are thus “incidental” killings. But also the US also frequently fires drones again at people who show up at the scene of an attack, thus deliberately targeting rescuers and mourners.

Here are five reasons why these drone assassinations are illegal.

One. Assassination by the US government has been illegal since 1976

Drone killings are acts of premeditated murder. Premeditated murder is a crime in all fifty states and under federal criminal law. These murders are also the textbook definition of assassination, which is murder by sudden or secret attack for political reasons.

In 1976 U.S. President Gerald Ford issued Executive Order 11905, Section 5(g), which states "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." President Reagan followed up to make the ban clearer in Executive Order 12333. Section 2.11 of that Order states "No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination." Section 2.12 further says "Indirect participation. No agency of the Intelligence Community shall participate in or request any person to undertake activities forbidden by this Order." This ban on assassination still stands.

The reason for the ban on assassinations was that the CIA was involved in attempts to assassinate national leaders opposed by the US. Among others, US forces sought to kill Fidel Castro of Cuba, Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, and Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam.

Two. United Nations report directly questions the legality of US drone killings

The UN directly questioned the legality of US drone killings in a May 2010 report by NYU law professor Philip Alston. Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, said drone killings may be lawful in the context of authorized armed conflict (eg Afghanistan where the US sought and received international approval to invade and wage war on another country). However, the use of drones “far from the battle zone” is highly questionable legally. “Outside the context of armed conflict, the use of drones for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal.” Can drone killings be justified as anticipatory self-defense? “Applying such a scenario to targeted killings threatens to eviscerate the human rights law prohibition against arbitrary deprivation of life.” Likewise, countries which engage in such killings must provide transparency and accountability, which no country has done. “The refusal by States who conduct targeted killings to provide transparency about their policies violates the international law framework that limits the unlawful use of lethal force against individuals.”

Three. International law experts condemn US drone killings

Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international affairs and politics at Princeton University thinks the widespread killing of civilians in drone strikes may well constitute war crimes. “There are two fundamental concerns. One is embarking on this sort of automated warfare in ways that further dehumanize the process of armed conflict in ways that I think have disturbing implications for the future,” Falk said. “Related to that are the concerns I’ve had recently with my preoccupation with the occupation of Gaza of a one-sided warfare where the high-tech side decides how to inflict pain and suffering on the other side that is, essentially, helpless.”

Human rights groups in Pakistan challenge the legality of US drone strikes there and assert that Pakistan can prosecute military and civilians involved for murder.

While stopping short of direct condemnation, international law expert Notre Dame Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell seriously questions the legality of drone attacks in Pakistan. In powerful testimony before Congress and in an article in America magazine she points out that under the charter of the United Nations, international law authorizes nations to kill people in other countries only in self-defense to an armed attack, if authorized by the UN, or is assisting another country in their lawful use of force. Outside of war, she writes, the full body of human rights applies, including the prohibition on killing without warning. Because the US is not at war with Pakistan, using the justification of war to authorize the killings is “to violate fundamental human rights principles.”

Four. Military law of war does not authorize widespread drone killing of civilians

According to the current US Military Law of War Deskbook, the law of war allows killing only when consistent with four key principles: military necessity, distinction, proportionality, and humanity. These principles preclude both direct targeting of civilians and medical personnel but also set out how much “incidental” loss of civilian life is allowed. Some argue precision-guided weapons like drones can be used only when there is no probable cause of civilian deaths. But the US military disputes that burden and instead directs “all practicable precautions” be taken to weigh the anticipated loss of civilian life against the advantages expected to be gained by the strike.

Even using the more lenient standard, there is little legal justification of deliberately allowing the killing of civilians who are “incidental” to the killings of people whose identities are unknown.

Five. Retired high-ranking military and CIA veterans challenge the legality and efficacy of drone killings

Retired US Army Colonel Ann Wright squarely denies the legality of drone warfare, telling Democracy Now: “These drones, you might as well just call them assassination machines. That is what these drones are used for: targeted assassination, extrajudicial ultimate death for people who have not been convicted of anything.”

Drone strikes are also counterproductive. Robert Grenier, recently retired Director of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center, wrote, “One wonders how many Yemenis may be moved in the future to violent extremism in reaction to carelessly targeted missile strikes, and how many Yemeni militants with strictly local agendas will become dedicated enemies of the West in response to US military actions against them.”

Recent polls of the Pakistan people show high levels of anger in Pakistan at US military attacks there. This anger in turn leads to high support for suicide attacks against US military targets.

US Defense of Drone Assassinations

US officials claim these drone killings are not assassinations because the US has the legal right to kill anyone considered a terrorist, anywhere, if they can argue it is in self-defense. Attorney General Holder and White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan recently defended the legality of drone strikes and argued they are not assassinations because the killings are in response to the 9/11 attacks and are carried out in self-defense even when not in Afghanistan or Iraq. This argument is based on the highly criticized claim of anticipatory self-defense which justifies killings in a global war on terror when traditional self-defense would clearly not. The government refuses to provide copies of the legal opinions relied upon by the government.

Growing Resistance to Drone Assassinations

In signs of hope, people in the US are resisting the increasing use of drones.

CODEPINK, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the London-based human rights group Reprieve co-sponsored an International Drone Summit in Washington DC to challenge drone assassinations. Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill noted that Congress only managed to scrape up six votes to oppose the assassination of US citizens abroad. “What is happening to this country? We have become a nation of assassins. We have become a nation that is somehow silent in the face of the idea that assassination should be one of the centerpieces of US policy.”

The American Society of International Law issued a report “Targeting Operations with Drone Technology: Humanitarian Law Implications” in March 2011. Concerned that drones may be the future of warfare, scholars examined three questions in the US use of drone technology: the scope of armed conflict (what is the battlefield upon which deadly force of drone killing is authorized); who may be targeted; and the legal implications of who conducts the targeting (since it is often not military but clandestine CIA agents who decide who dies). Concluding that the US may soon find itself “on the other end of the drone” as this technology expands, they criticize official US silence on these key legal questions.

Others are taking direct action. Select examples include: fourteen people arrested in April 2009 outside Creech Air Force base in Nevada in connection with a protest against drones by the Nevada Desert Experience; in January 2010 people protested drones outside the CIA headquarters in Langley Virginia; in April 2011, thirty-seven were arrested at Hancock Air Force base in upstate New York as part of a four hundred person protest against the use of drones; in October 2011, as part of the International Week of Protest to Stop the Militarization of Space there were protests outside of Raytheon Missile Systems plant in Tucson; in April 2012, twenty-eight people were pre-emptively arrested on their way to protest drones at Hancock Air Force Base.

There is a brilliant new book, Drone Warfare authored by global activist Medea Benjamin which documents the nuts and bolts of the drone industry and the money involved in their production and operation. She collects many global media reports of innocent civilian deaths, investigations into these deaths, and gives voice to international opposition groups like her own CODEPINK, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Fellowship of Reconciliation, War Resisters International, Human Rights Watch, the Catholic Worker movement, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and others working against the drones.

As National Public Radio and The New Republic jointly editorialized, there is good reason to doubt the veracity of US claims that drone killings are even effective. Drone use has escalated and expanded the US global war on terror and thus should be subject to higher levels of scrutiny than it is now. As the use of drones escalates so too does the risk of killing innocents which produces “legitimate anti-American anger that terrorist recruiters can exploit….Such a steady escalation of the drone war, and the inevitable increase in civilian casualties that will accompany it, could easily tip the delicate balance that assures we kill more terrorists than we produce.”

There is incredible danger in allowing US military and civilians to murder people anywhere in the world with no public or Congressional or judicial oversight. This authorizes the President and the executive branch, according to the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, to be prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.

The use of drones to assassinate people violates US and international law in multiple ways. US military and civilian employees, who plan, target and execute people in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia are violating the law and, ultimately, risk prosecution. As the technology for drone attacks spreads, protests by the US that drone attacks by others are illegal will sound quite hollow. Continuation of flagrantly illegal drone attacks by the US also risks justifying the exact same actions, taken by others, against us.

Bill is a human rights lawyer who teaches law at Loyola University New Orleans and works with the Center for Constitutional Rights. A longer version of this article with sources is available. You can contact Bill at quigley77@gmail.com.