Adriane Speaks with Mukasa Dada "Original Black Panther Party"

Tune in Monday Night at 9PM Est, as I talk with Willie Ricks aka Mukasa Dada.

Who Is Mukasa Dada?

1. Civil Rights Leader, Elder, Father, Organizer, Orator
2. Field Secretary of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
3. "The fiery orator of SNCC" - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here
4. "Willie Ricks must rank as one of those unknown heroes who captured the mood of history. In calling for Black Power, he caught the essence of the spirit, moving Black people in the United States and around the world who were poor, Black, and without power" - James Forman of SNCC
5. Popularized of the chant, "Black Power"

As the Field Secretary for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Ricks organized countless sit-ins, marches, demonstrations, and boycotts—all of which ere instrumental in destroying the overt forms of Jim Crow and racial oppression that were so prevalent in the United States less than thirty years ago.

Mukasa Ricks was introduced to the Civil Rights Movement in 1960 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at the age of 17. For two years he was active in Chattanooga while working with the local NAACP chapter in the sit-in movement. Quickly he became a hero in the African American community and as a result, persons in the white community made attempts on his life and the lives of his family members. Cars were burned in their yard and their neighbors were harassed.

In 1961, Ricks was contacted by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to help voter registration in Chattanooga. Speaking the language of the rural African American community, he became on e of the South’s most powerful organizer’s. Ricks continued organizing in Chattanooga until he was asked to come to Georgia by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1962. As a result he became a part of SNCC’s first Direct Action Program in Albany, Georgia where he first began to build a long-term working relationship with Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ricks continued organizing for SNCC in Georgia, and then in Alabama, Mississippi and throughout the South. While organizing in Mississippi in 1964, he helped to build the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) along with Fannie Lou Hamer and others. Subsequently, Ricks returned to Alabama and helped to organize the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. This organization became known as the Black Panther Party and was the first group inside the movement to defend themselves with guns.

By this time, Ricks, who was speaking on the same platforms with Dr. King and other important figures, had become one of the leading organizers and speakers for SNCC in particular and the movement in general. Having participated in hundreds of sit-ins, stand-ins, demonstrations, pickets and marches, Ricks paid the price by being jailed, beaten, bitten by dogs and shot. While organizing once in Americus, Georgia, he was shot at by the police which resulted in him being gazed and left with a scare he still has today.

In January of 1966, Mukasa was a key organizer in Tuskegee, Alabama where Sammy Young Jr. was shot in the head with a shotgun for using a “White Only” toilet. During this same year, SNCC put Ricks in charge of organizing students under what was called Campus Traveler’s Program.

Ricks also traveled extensively with Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) and spoke in the same platforms with him wherever he spoke. In fact, when Ture stepped down as the Chairman of SNCC, Ricks was the leading candidate to replace him but chose to work more quietly in the background. Consequently, when H. Rap Brown was selected as the Chairman of SNCC, Ricks was appointed to travel with Brown in order to show him the ropes.

In February of 1968, when over sixty-nine students were shot in the Orangeburg massacre at South Carolina State College, Ricks was one of the key organizers.

Rick’s organizing activities were so effective that the state of Georgia declared him to be one of the ten most dangerous persons in the state in 1973. As a result the police were requested not to approach his house by themselves but, instead, to signal “39” which meant “Police in Stress, Need Help.” It has been documented that they were given orders to shoot to kill!

Ricks has remained active ever since he first stated out in Chattanooga in 1960. He is one of the most committed activists and charismatic speakers around. The experiences he shares and the message he gives is powerful and needs to be heard by all.

Adriane Talks with Former Leader of KKK

broadcast listed on this page  or listen at http://www.fftradionetwork.com/

all broadcasts available on Itunes

New Changes to Hope Scholarship from Attorney Janice Mathis

LOTTERY FUNDS HELP ELITE AT EXPENSE OF WORKING FAMILIES, MINORITIES AND THE POOR
Janice L. Mathis, Esq. Rainbow PUSH Coalition – 02/22/2011
I live in Athens, Georgia, where Kiddie Condos and SUV’s abound.  They are the unintended consequences of lottery-funded scholarships.  Wealthy parents who don’t have to pay tuition, send their kids to luxuriate in Athens while they attend the state’s flagship university.  Today, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal aided by capitulation of some Democrats in the General Assembly, have decided to make the Georgia Lottery-funded Hope Scholarship even more unfair and elitist.  In order to win lottery scholarships Georgia students must take more challenging high school courses, achieve at least 1200 on the SAT and maintain a 3.7 grade point average.
It is difficult to evaluate this proposal without considering the purpose of the Hope Scholarship.  Is it to make sure that the highest-achieving students remain in the state for college? Is it to help promising but needy student afford college?  Is it to mask the effect of a declining commitment to education?  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Where you stand on lottery funded college scholarships depends on your perspective.
According to one study, “because of HOPE, enrollment for youth from families with incomes above $50,000 rose 11.4 percent, but the program has had no effect on enrollment of youth from poorer families.”  Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke recently indicated that “the best solution to income inequality is providing a high-quality education for everybody.”  The same study concludes that “HOPE appears to have benefited White students more than Black. Compared with nearby states, college attendance among White students in Georgia rose 12.4 percent faster from 1993 to 1997, but remained virtually unchanged for Black students.” 
Especially when one considers the percentage of one’s annual income spent on state lotteries, the inescapable conclusion is that lotteries function as a highly regressive tax, impacting the disadvantaged far more than the privileged.  I saw the effects in my own family.  A dear relative  spent a healthy chunk of her meager monthly income on the lottery.  Of her 30-odd grandchildren, only one received the HOPE scholarship.
On average, lottery states spend about 50% of their total state budgets on education, while non-lottery states spend an average of 60%. This seems to clearly demonstrate that once lotteries start to fund schools, states spend less of their budgets on education and instead spend money on other programs. The actual revenue produced by the lottery, then, is not actually increasing education funding at all, but serving whatever programs the legislature is most eager to fund.

In the fall of 2000, two public policy researchers at the University of Georgia, McCrary and Pavlak, undertook an extensive telephone survey to more exactly determine the economic impacts of the Georgia State Lottery. Their findings seem to clearly demonstrate that the Georgia lottery has the impact of helping the privileged with the money of the poor.

The bulk of the Georgia lottery’s educational expenditures are through the HOPE Scholarship Program. The McCrary and Pavlak study clearly indicates that recipients of HOPE scholarships are primarily white.  More importantly, they are also most likely to be children of casual players or people who do not play the lottery at all, and their parents most likely have a college degree or some college education. 

Before the state of Georgia stiffens HOPE eligibility requirements, Governor Deal and the legislature should explain to the people of Georgia what policy goals they are attempting to achieve.

Genealogy with Antoinette Harrell

Tonight on Fight for Truth

How to trace your Ancestry.  My special Guest is Antoinette Harrell, talkshow host, videographer, Genealogist will guide us through the steps of tracing our heritage. Tune in to the show at 9PM Est.  Show call in number 347-994-3501 or listen via internet at:http://www.fftradionetwork.com/.

Roadside Memorials to go Uniform

Every time State Rep. Earnest “Coach” Williams passes a roadside memorial, he thinks about his aunt, Beatrice Williams, who died on a Georgia highway driving from Macon to Albany in 1983. Like many others, Williams wanted to mark the spot where his relative died as a memorial to her. But he felt it was important to put safety first. And as a lawmaker, he wanted to make sure that others did the same thing.  This month, state legislators passed HB 1294, calling for uniform memorial signs, rather than makeshift ones, along highways and road right-of-ways. Rep. Williams sponsored the legislation, which he had worked on last year. The new law will go into effect July 1.

State Rep. Earnest

“My aunt Beatrice was like a sister to me. I authored this bill as a way to bring closure to families like mine who have experienced a loss that happened on state

highways,” Williams said. “The bill will also bring some uniform to our freeways, some of which are beginning to look like grave yards.”

In place of the candles, roses, crosses and sometimes stuffed bears to mark where a loved one lost their life, state lawmakers approved the bill to install a modest white sign that will list the name of the person who died under the words “Drive Safely, In Memory.”

The 15-inch oval signs with black lettering will be the only roadside memorials allowed on state and federal roads, according to the Georgia Department of Transportation. All others will be removed for safety reasons, DOT officials say.

The person who requests the sign from the DOT pays $100. The sign will stand for a year, and then be given to the person who paid for it.

Williams, who represents DeKalb’s District 89, says there is no easy way to deliver this message and understands families that might be upset with it.

“This is a very sensitive matter. However, this bill was created in respect to families that have lost love ones and as another way to keep our roads safe. Many roadside memorials are elaborate displays that draw the eyes of drivers away from the road, which can have fatal consequences,” Williams said.

The new bill only affects state and federal highways. Cities and counties regulate their own roadways.

DOT spokesman David Spear noted that 1,400 people die every year on Georgia roads. He says the department will work with sensitivity in regards to removing existing memorials. They are prohibited under state law, and many are removed as workers cut the grass and pick up litter along the roadways.

“We will be sensitive to the losses people have experienced,” Spear said. “But now under state regulation, we will be more diligent about removing the memorials already made.”

The new signage program is open to family or friends (with approval of immediate family), of individuals killed in accidents on federal and state routes on or after July 1, 2010.

The sign can be requested by submitting a written application, the accident report and the $100 fee to the DOT’s maintenance engineer.

More information and the application forms are available at www.dot.ga.gov/doingbusiness/PoliciesManuals/pap/Documents/Policies/6160-9.pdf. 404-363-7625.

The State of Black Dekalb

Watson to host ‘State of Black DeKalb’

Written by Site Editor

DECATUR—In celebration of Black History Month, DeKalb County Commissioner Stan Watson will present the “State of Black DeKalb: How Far Have We Come?” to the citizens of DeKalb. The event will be held Feb. 21, 4 to 7 p.m., at the Porter Sanford III Performing Arts and Community Center, 3181 Rainbow Drive. Watson said a panel of community leaders will share their thoughts on political issues that are impacting DeKalb. “We want to have a candid conversation about the progress we’ve made and the challenges and concerns that we as African Americans have regarding life in DeKalb County,” said Watson. On Common Ground News’ editor Valerie Morgan, who plans to participate on the panel, applauds Watson for hosting the Town Hall style meeting. “An honest assessment of ourselves is only going to make DeKalb that much stronger,” Morgan said. A reception will follow the panel discussion. Stan Watson

THE STATE OF BLACK DEKALB

On Feb 21, 2011 at Porter Sanford III Performing Arts Center 3181 Rainbow Drive Decatur GA .  Discussions include:  Economic Development, Education, Faith Based Community, Healthcare, Future of Dekalb, and Community Partnership and Resources.  For more information contact Commissioner Stan Watson's Office at 404-371-3681