NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE MOURNS THE PASSING OF

CIVIL RIGHTS ICON HARRY BELAFONTE

NEW YORK (April 25, 2023) – National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial issued the following statement regarding the death of Harry Belafonte:

 “The passing of civil rights icon Harry Belafonte leaves a devastating void in the racial justice community. Before his rise, no entertainer had ever used the platform and resources his fame afforded him to accomplish so much. His personal and financial support was critical to every major event of the Civil Rights Movement, from the Freedom Rides and the Birmingham Campaign to the March on Washington and the Freedom Summer of voter registration. 

“Every American who works for racial justice takes inspiration from his unwavering commitment. He faced down threats to his career, having been blacklisted during the McCarthy Era, and threats to his life, notably when he and Sydney Poitier were chased by Klansmen while delivering contributions to voting rights activists in Mississippi.

“It was an honor and a privilege to know him. The National Urban League and the Urban League Movement will cherish his memory and strive to honor his legacy.”

NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE AND AKRON URBAN LEAGUE RENEW CALLS FOR POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY

AFTER JURY DECLINES TO INDICT IN JAYLAND WALKER SHOOTING 

WASHINGTON, D.C. and AKRON, OHIO (April 19, 2023) – Today, National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial and Akron Urban League President and CEO Teresa LeGrair issued the following statement after a jury chose not to indict the officers for shooting Jayland Walker:

“A routine traffic stop should not be a death sentence for Black people in this country,” said Marc H. Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League. “I am disappointed – disappointed that the officers involved won’t be held accountable, disappointed that Jayland was killed so brutally, and disappointed that our black lives do not matter. There is no question that eight Akron Police Officers used disproportionate force against Jayland and while we are pleased to see the community has formed its own civilian review board, this is only the first step. We demand that the Department of Justice conduct a thorough investigation into the murder of Jayland Walker and urge national leaders to pass legislation creating an accountability standard for police officers into law.”

“Our hearts are heavy and filled with mourning surrounding the grand jury decision on the fatal shooting of Jayland Walker by Akron police officers. We continue to stand together with the Walker family, and we also recognize the Akron community’s hurt and outrage around the killing of Jayland Walker. The Akron Urban League will continue to advocate for systemic change to prevent future tragedies like this from occurring in our community,” said Teresa R. LeGrair, President and CEO, Akron Urban League. “For too long, there has been a sense that police officers are immune to consequences for their actions, even when they result in injury or death. Jayland Walker should still be alive, along with countless other Black lives taken too soon and too often. We understand the impact systemic racism has on the Black community and our promise has and will always be to fight for justice, stand with our community in a time of need, and to provide support and safe spaces to those that need to process this tragedy.

“We will take the necessary steps to work alongside our community to implement an effective citizen’s oversight police board that will provide an additional layer of transparency to continue to build trust between the community and the Akron Police Department (APD). Our goal is to dismantle the long-standing practices of institutional racism within police departments and build a bridge between the community and APD to reimagine public safety for Black and Brown people.”

National Urban League and Tennessee Affiliates Condemn Expulsion of Black Tennessee Lawmakers, Urge Passage of Common-Sense Gun Safety Measures

WASHINGTON, D.C and TENNESEE (April 6, 2023) – Today, National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial, Knoxville Area Urban League President and CEO Charles Lomax, Ph.D., Memphis Urban League President and CEO Tonja Fifer, Urban League of Middle Tennessee President and CEO Clifton Harris, and Urban League of Greater Chattanooga President and CEO Candy Johnson, condemned the expulsion of Tennessee Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two Black Tennessee state legislators, urge the House to reverse the move and focus on passing sensible gun safety measures:

“Tonight, Republican lawmakers have set a dangerous precedent in Tennessee, proving what we have known all along: the safety of their constituents is not their top priority. The bold and brazen attempt to silence their colleagues with an antiquated House rule and compare their advocacy to the January 6th insurrection shows that the majority will stop at nothing to maintain their status quo and their increasing willingness to silence their counterparts. These methods represent a clear and present danger to the state of our democracy.

“Nearly a week ago, another school was plagued by another mass shooting, claiming the lives of six people. Another community was devastated. Families destroyed. And instead of focusing on finding solutions to the growing threat of gun violence, the Republican majority has decided to reprimand their colleagues and expel them. When are we going to focus on the real issues? They are more concerned with rebuking Democrats for protesting rather than focusing on ways to prevent more school shootings.

“Many important reforms in this country have originated from protests against established practices. To punish these men for exercising their constitutional right to free speech is not only unjustifiable but also un-American. Unfortunately, the House of Representatives was successful in removing two of their colleagues, not only disenfranchising over 200,000 Tennesseans, and leaving them without proper representation.

“On behalf of our 92 affiliates and the Urban League movement, we stand with Reps. Pearson and Jones and other leaders in their continued fight for sensible gun safety measures and call on their Republican colleagues to end this, restore the fate of your constituents so that we can get back to fighting for real change.”

National Urban League, National Action Network, NAACP, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and National Council of Negro Women: “Together We Stand Against Fearmongers” 

WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 4, 2023) – Today, leaders of the nation’s Black-led legacy civil rights organizations emphatically rejected the effort to suppress Black history and endorsed the Freedom to Learn campaign, a movement created to fight the growing disinformation campaign against the erasure of history and lived experiences of marginalized communities, critical race theory, and equitable legislation:

“On the anniversary of the assassination of civil rights icon and leader Martin Luther King, Jr., we come together to officially endorse the Freedom to Learn campaign – a campaign initiated by Kimberlé Crenshaw and Khalil Gibran Muhammad – that will work to confront the abhorrent attack on the freedom of the next generation to learn their collective history and its impact on the present, which is an assault on democracy itself. We are alarmed by the concerted efforts to discredit and censor vital topics such as structural racism and gender inequity.

“At this very moment, 21 states have enacted measures that censor the honest examination of racism and race in this society; a measure that has already impacted millions of K-12 and college students. Those who promote this extremist agenda of ‘anti-wokeness’ are undermining not only public education, but diversity and inclusion practices throughout government, the military, and corporate America.  Vulnerable, marginalized, and historically oppressed communities are merely pawns in their game of extreme partisan politics.

“This movement to ban information is not only a detriment to future generations and their understanding of history but to the efforts of our growing multiracial democracy to combat systems of white supremacy. Our organizations understand that if we expect to be successful in creating equity and fighting for justice within the communities we serve, we must be able to address and discuss the very issues others are fighting to ban.

“As leaders of the nation’s legacy civil rights organizations, we understand acutely how our history impacts the present. Our children have a right to be taught the truth in our nation’s classrooms – all of it. Not a watered down, inaccurate, misleading, or sanitized version of it. It is a betrayal of democratic values for any responsible leader to actively participate in distorting or denying any part of our country’s history.

“That is why the Freedom to Learn campaign is vital. Together we stand against fearmongers who falsely allege that anti-racist teachings are a form of racism and stand for the honest reckoning with our history that is necessary to create an inclusive, multi-racial democracy.”

Marc H. Morial, President and CEO, National Urban League

Rev. Al Sharpton, Founder and President, National Action Network

Derrick Johnson, President and CEO, NAACP

Melanie Campbell, President and CEO, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and Convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable

Damon Hewitt, President and Executive Director, Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

Janai Nelson, President and Director-Counsel, Legal Defense Fund

Maya Wiley, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Shavon Arline-Bradley, President and National Chair, National Council of Negro Women

All parents want their children to have access to fully resourced schools, prepared and qualified teachers, safe and welcoming places for students to learn, and the supports to make sure all students can thrive. The recent introduction of the Parents Bill of Rights Act (HR 5) in the House of Representatives, however, is not only divisive and designed to politicize our schools, but redundant and out of sync with what parents want.

Some members of the House Majority have seized on the issue of “parents’ rights,” and are blaming teachers and administrators for stonewalling and silencing parents during the pandemic. In fact, they’re making this a major conservative talking point, even if it inflames the culture wars and burns down the public schoolhouse in the process. They plan to introduce parental rights and school choice legislation that could divert funds — through the expanded use of vouchers — from an already strapped public education system, in which more than half the students are students of color.  This federal legislation is inspiring a host of controversial copycat bills and proposals in a number of state legislatures that seek to outlaw CRT and undermine public education and academic freedom across the nation via parental rights laws, book bans, and other classroom censorship bills, and voucher bills that defund public schools.

The truth is that existing federal law already requires schools and districts to provide parents with information about what their kids are learning, how they are performing in school, and the qualifications of their children’s teachers. All parents really want is a great education for their children. Recent polling indicates that parents are less worried about wedge issues and more worried about protecting their children from violence in schools, and ensuring that kids get adequate mental health supports and help in post-pandemic learning recovery.

Providing these essential supports and meeting students where they are should be U.S. lawmakers’, schools’, and parents’ top priorities. Let’s start by ensuring that schools engage with families and work together with them to improve academic outcomes.

For united we stand and divided we fall.

In solidarity,
Lynn

Lynn C. Jennings, Ph.D.
Senior Director of National & State Partnerships
The Education Trust

 “Powerful lobbying by regulated industries for decades have delayed, weakened, or rolled back public safety and environmental protection regulations that have taken a toll on our communities, health, and environment. But the lesson bears repeating: Government regulations save lives and boost economic innovation – if elected officials stand up for them.” — Margo Oge

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last week didn’t unleash hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the water, soil, and air, the way the freight train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, did last month.

But the two events have one important element in common:

Deregulation.

Before Silicon Valley Bank collapsed last week, the image most Americans associated with the term “bank run” was the scene in It’s a Wonderful Life when George Bailey doles out his honeymoon fund to the panicked clients of Bailey Brothers

Building and Loan.

Bank runs – triggered by the losses banks incurred through speculation in stocks – caused much of the economic damage of the Great Depression. To stabilize and restore public confidence in the nation’s banks, Congress enacted the Glass–Steagall Act, which insured deposits and prohibited commercial banks from speculative investments.

The Glass-Steagall Act worked so well for nearly seven decades that Congress decided to gut it in 1999, allowing banks to originate fraudulent loans and sell them to their customers as securities. The financial collapse of 2008, also known as the Great Recession, was the result.

Once again, Congress stepped in to restore stability to the financial services industry, enacting the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. And once again, Congress ignored the lessons of history and gutted key provisions of the law in 2018, exempting banks like SVB from regulations and requirements that could have prevented its collapse.

Op/Ed: SB 12 opens door to secrecy, shame, fear in Indiana instead of safe learning space

March 13, 2023 – Indy Reads Op-Ed

Senate Bill 12, which passed the Indiana Senate and is on its way to the House of Representatives, would allow for teachers, school librarians, and other school employees to be charged with a level 6 felony – and even face jail time – for providing materials that some consider inappropriate for minors. (The subjective word “inappropriate” was intentionally used in the proposed legislation.)

As Indy Reads’ chief executive officer with more than 20 years of experience in literacy, public policy, and community development, I can say with certainty that government-sanctioned censorship, like Senate Bill 12, will set the clock back on social progress. A strong democracy is built upon and thrives with critical thinking and access to information necessary to make decisions that will shape this country for generations to come. Responsible citizenship results from access to diverse texts, freedom to ask questions, and agency to engage in an education unlimited by censorship.

One only needs to scan the books on the “inappropriate” list to see that what is really happening is an exercise in avoiding realities that may be uncomfortable for some. Discomfort is important and necessary. History repeats itself when we fail to learn from it. We cannot deny the realities of slavery, racism, and genocide for reasons of religion, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.

When we deny children the right to information, when we deny educators the ability to do the jobs for which they have diligently trained, we open the door to secrecy, shame, and fear. It is dangerous to deny children reading materials that might validate their own experiences, introduce them to empathy and compassion for people different than themselves, and give them language to use as they develop their own ways of walking in the world. History has proven that when societies do not cultivate empathy, compassion, and acceptance, horrific things happen to those deemed inappropriate.

America established a public education system because it believed in the importance of an informed citizenry. According to the Graduate School of Education & Human Development at George Washington University, “The Founding Fathers maintained that the success of the fragile American democracy would depend on the competency of its citizens.” An informed citizenry is impossible without access to information and critical thinking skills.

James Baldwin wrote, “The purpose of education is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions.” I have yet to meet a Hoosier who does not deeply value every American’s right to make their own decisions, and to reach their own conclusions. When we remove books from a library or classroom, we remove information and stories that are vital for providing more complete pictures for decision-making.

There is a fear intertwined through this bill that reading a book like The Bluest Eye might impose morals that a parent does not agree with. Parents may always choose to keep this text from their children. However, I would argue that when we share hard realities with our children and allow for engagement with those topics, we create a safe space for our children – and ourselves – to explore the world as it is and begin to understand our potential to shape the world as we hope to see it.

Children having a wealth of reading material to choose from is essential for validating the experiences of children who identify with that story and those characters, as well as providing nuance to children who may not share lived experiences with that story.

We are a better society, a better Indiana when adults and children have access to all the information, not just the parts with which we are comfortable. When our government censors reading materials from the hands of children, we tell children that these parts of our society, history, and country do not exist. We deny our history and reality and limit our future.

Sincerely,

Ruba Marshood

Indy Reads CEO

View this article on the Indy Star website.

“SICKENDED” BY FOOTAGE OF TYRE NICHOLS
BRUTAL BEATING,
NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE PRESIDENT MARC MORIAL
SAYS A DRASTIC CULTURE SHIFT MUST ACCOMPANY POLICE REFORMS

NEW YORK and MEMPHIS (January 27, 2023) – National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial issued the following statement after watching the video of Tyree Nichols’ fatal beating at the hands of Memphis police:

“Excessive force doesn’t begin to describe the inhumane violence these officers inflicted on a terrified and defenseless young man who posed no apparent threat to anyone.  My heart goes out to Tyre Nichols family, whose grief and trauma at this moment are hard to imagine.

“The officers weren’t defending themselves. They weren’t defending the citizens they were sworn to protect. They weren’t protecting property or stopping a crime in progress. This was violence for the sake of violence, a shocking disregard for humanity and decency. It’s indefensible under any circumstances but especially egregious coming from officers entrusted with public safety.

“This wasn’t simply a failure of policy; the department has clear guidelines on the use of force.  The larger problem is the culture of brutality and sense of impunity that still pervades law enforcement 30 years after the videotaped beating of Rodney King appalled the nation. Five officers behaving together in the same violent and lawless manner without even one intervening to stop it – apparently, without the slightest expectation that anyone would object – is clear evidence of a culture that tolerates violence and lawlessness.

“Public safety depends on trust; police brutality erodes that trust.  The National Urban League developed 21 Pillars for Redefining Public Safety and Restoring Community Trust as a guideline not only for reforming policies and procedures, but for reimagining the relationship between police and the communities they serve. Departments must set clear expectations for integrity from the moment of recruitment and strictly enforce them at every step of the way.

“The National Urban League and our affiliates around the country are committed to working with police departments to achieve this lasting change.”