Category: Opinion

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(NNPA)—Recently, Dorothy Height of the National Congress of Negro Women, Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network, Ben Jealous of the NAACP, and Marc Morial of the National Urban League, wrote President Barack Obama asking for a meeting about the state of Black employment and with the ensuing invitation, all but Height went to the White House in a snowstorm for a one hour meeting. The clearest version of what happened was stated by Marc Morial: “We worked very hard to share with him ideas around the need for targeted relief—and that means urban communities, to areas of high employment” so, as Ben Jealous said, the focus of the talk was more on place than race.

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Category: Opinion Written by Judge Greg Mathis

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Last fall, the Obama administration, with support of House Democrats, revealed a plan that would overhaul the way student loans were disbursed to college students. Instead of receiving loans from banks and other lenders, students would, under the proposed plan, receive funds directly from the federal government. The plan would save the nation $80 billion in fees, charged by the lenders that service student loans, over 10 years. The savings would then be used to increase Pell Grants to students, help forgive loans for students going into public service, assist community colleges and provide early childhood learning programs and modernize public school facilities.

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Category: Opinion Written by James Clingman

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(NNPA)—I thought we had seen it all after a Trenton, N.J. sixth- grader had to teach the Vice President of the United States, Dan Quayle, that potato is not spelled with an “e” on the end. But then we had eight years of Dubya and his malapropisms. Now we have Sarah Palin, no, not elected yet, but waiting in the wings. Someone said, “Get all the fools on your side, and you can be elected to anything.” The more I watch politics, the more that statement rings true. To even think for a minute that this country could actually have a president named Sarah Palin causes me to get my passport in order.

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Category: Opinion Written by George E. Curry

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(NNPA)—To young African-Americans, the “Scottsboro Boys,” may sound like the name of a country and western band. But to older Blacks, the “Scottsboro Boys” symbolize the most Southern of Southern taboos during the early 1900s: the allegation of an African-American raping a White woman—even if untrue—was certain to end with the accused being imprisoned or, more often, lynched.

A museum opened this month in Scottsboro in hopes of educating the public about one of the most infamous incidents in Alabama’s bloody past. The museum is a small section of an old African-American church in Scottsboro, a sleepy predominantly White city nestled along Highway 72 between Huntsville, Ala., and Chattanooga, Tenn.

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