Black History
The National Lynching Memorial Brought Two Arkansas Organizations Together to Heal the Past
The National Day of Racial Healing, which the W.K. Kellogg Foundation started as part of its Truth, Racial Healing & Reconciliation campaign, provided America another opportunity today to repair fissures in its disturbingly fractured sociological landscape. This year’s effort followed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday and capitalized on the urgency many prominent leaders expressed about a racially divided America.
“We are at a crossroads, and we are on the verge of a very dangerous period, and we will have to choose where we’re going,” Rev. Al Sharpton said at the National Action Network’s King Holiday celebration held at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.
The son of the slain Civil Rights Leader, Martin King, III, said, “Let’s keep on working, we are going to work tirelessly. Hate will not make America great, but it is love that will make America great.”
In Arkansas, Kwame and Clarice Abdul-Bey helped organize a two-day event dedicated to racial healing. The couple started working to mend racial rifts a few years ago when they founded the Arkansas Peace and Justice Memorial Movement which documents the locations in Pulaski County where incidents of racial violence, including lynching and riots, occurred.
“There is a map of lynching sites, and it has who the person was who was lynched and the locations,” Clarice Abdul-Bey explained. “In Pulaski County, there is a total of 27 with the Wrightsville Boys being part of that 27.”
The Abdul-Beys were inspired by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) founded by widely acclaimed attorney Bryan Stevenson who built the National Memorial for Peace and Justice or the Lynching Memorial as it has become known. The first marker recognizing a site of racial violence in Arkansas will be placed in May, memorializing lynching victim John Carter who was hanged from a telegraph pole in Little Rock. The mob dragged his body down Main Street, and order was not restored until the Governor called in the National Guard.
“We have been very blessed and fortunate that we have not had in Pulaski County much resistance from landowners saying, ‘No, you cannot place this marker,’” Abdul-Bey said.
Kwame Abdul-Bey added there has been a “tremendous” response to their project from fellow Arkansans who have visited the national memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.
He said, “We came back from the Museum in late August to do what we’re doing. Since we’ve been back, we have met dozens of people who have gone just as we have, and they have come back with the same mission.”
The Power of Partnership
They have formed a partnership with ‘Just Communities of Arkansas’ and its Executive Director, Donald Wood. Early in his leadership at JCA, Wood mentioned his interest in working with EJI. He had read Stevenson’s book and viewed Little Rock’s proximity to Montgomery as a harbinger of collaboration.
Wood recalled, “My wife and I went to the Memorial, and I came back, and at my next board meeting I wanted to talk in earnest about how we could bring the remembrance project to Pulaski County.”
Friends suggested he reach out to the Executive Director of the Social Justice Institute at Philander Smith College, Tamika Edwards at Philander Smith College in Little Rock. Edwards passed Wood’s information to the Abdul-Beys.
“They responded immediately with a wonderful email with bullet points,” Wood said. “We just immediately clicked and hit it off.”
That was in June 2019. Together they completed EJI’s “comprehensive and extensive” application process and by October they were accepted as a facilitator for community remembrance projects in all of Arkansas. Six counties in the state are already working on projects.
“I really do feel that Arkansas is a very special place, but we still have a haunted and horrific history just like the other southern states and most states in our country,” said Wood, an Arkansas native who has lived around the country and abroad. “I hope we can model for the rest of the country what it looks like to lead a truth and reconciliation movement. I don’t believe it can only be transformational for the state, but for the rest of the country as well.”
And, an increase in reports of racial violence around the country indicates a pressing need for community conversations dedicated to healing.
“I do think we are in a unique time right now, socially and politically,” Wood remarked. “As our world seemingly becomes more and more accessible to people because of the internet and the connections we have through digital media, we are almost forced, more than ever to be a community, and it’s up to us to decide how we will commune, whether that’s inclusively or exclusively.”
The Abdul-Beys and Wood at JCA have a plan and a national partner with worldwide respect. It’s a promising combination at a time when courageous leadership to address lingering injustice in Arkansas and America is essential to prevent a repeat performance of the acts that created such a painful past.
Black History
First Black Manhattan District Attorney Wins Historic Felony Convictions Against Donald Trump
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg led the investigation that resulted in the first felony conviction of a former United States President, Donald Trump. Bragg’s case centered on the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, a porn actor who said she and Trump had sex in 2006. The trial involved charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up the payment to Daniels.
“While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately today at this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes to the courtroom doors,” Bragg said during a press conference after the jury’s verdict was announced. “By following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor.”
Trump and his Republican supporters have accused Bragg of “weaponizing” the judicial system.
“This was a disgrace,” Trump said. “This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt as a rigged trial, a disgrace. The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people. And they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here.”
Who is Alvin Bragg
In 2021, Bragg became the first African American elected as the District Attorney for New York County covering Manhattan. He graduated from Harvard Law School and has served as an Assistant Attorney General at the New York State Attorney General’s Office and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bragg is a former member of the Board of Directors of the New York Urban League and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and a Sunday School teacher at his church.
Political Science professor, Sekou Franklin, said, “Bragg took a big risk bringing the case against former President Donald Trump. Undoubtedly, this risk is both personal and political. Despite this challenge, his willingness to prosecute Trump took great courage.”
Trump’s litany of indictments started when he left office in 2020 after losing the White House to President Joe Biden. Charges of Trump’s attempts to overthrow the 2020 election continue to generate investigations and outrage. African American prosecutors have led three of the most significant cases.
In Georgia, Trump was indicted, along with 18 of his allies, for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis brought the charges; however, the case became overshadowed by controversy when Willis was accused of hiring Nathan Wade as the special prosecutor because she was in a romantic relationship with him. Judge Scott McAfee declined to disqualify Willis, a decision Trump and his team are challenging.
Earlier this year New York State Attorney General Letitia James handed Trump a defeat after a New York judge ordered him and his business trust to pay $453.5 million in penalties and interest as part of his civil fraud case. The judge ruled that Trump fraudulently inflated the value of his real estate holdings when applying for loans.
But the latest convictions on 34 felony counts against the former President known for his boundary-breaking is historic.
“Alvin Bragg represents the new wave of prosecutors who have strong ties to public impact and community lawyering,” said Franklin, a professor at Middle Tennessee State. “Many of these prosecutors were elected as a result of protests that targeted racialized violence by law enforcement.”
Trump has described James, Willis and Bragg as “racists” – a thinly veiled attempt to tap into a vein of ingrained racism in the nation. The Republican Party lamented the convictions, decrying the trial as a political attack and a “shameful” day in American history.
Democrats view the convictions as an opportunity to sharpen their arguments that Trump is unfit to lead the nation domestically or represent America globally.
Trump faces up to four years in prison. His sentencing is set for July 11 – days before the start of the Republican National Convention.
Coco Gauff Becomes the Youngest Flag Bearer in US Olympic History
Kamala Harris Is Poised to Make History, Again
African American Leaders Stay the Course Amid Calls for President Biden To Bow Out of Race
-
Black History5 years agoThe Idlewild Resort: Once the Largest, Most Successful Resort in the Midwest for Black People
-
Black History6 years agoMeet Sarah Boone, the Woman Who Patented the Ironing Board
-
Black History4 years agoCharles Baker: African American Inventor of Friction Heat
-
Black History5 years agoAuburn Avenue: The Richest “Negro Street in the World”
-
Black History5 years agoBoley, Oklahoma: One of the Last All-Black Towns Still Standing
-
Black History9 years agoUrsula Burns, From Intern to CEO
-
Black History6 years agoMeet Elijah McCoy: The father of Lubrication, the Real McCoy
-
Black History4 years agoFive Facts to Know About the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on its Anniversary