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Alpha
Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Ushers In Centennial Year |
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This year, thousands of women of Alpha Kappa
Alpha Sorority, Inc., the nation's first
Greek-letter organization for Black women, are
celebrating its centennial worldwide. Shown are
members of Theta Chi Omega Chapter in Grand Rapids
who are using this time of celebration to reflect on
why they joined the distinguished organization and
chartered the local chapter in October of 1966 and
to recall the array of service programs the chapter
has provided in this city. These include: Miss
Fashionetta Scholarship Ball, ACT workshops,
"Communitywide Baby Shower," annual coat drives,
gospel concert fund-raisers, "Shower of Love," which
provides much-needed items for elderly people and
many other efforts. Locally, members are planning to
host a Politics with Purpose Forum at Grand Valley
State University on March 27, a step show featuring
the sorority's Ivylettes on Jan. 26, a spring
Centennial Gala, as well as other events. |
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Comcast Channel Moves On Hold |
The Grand Rapids Times
1-18-2008
Detroit – A federal judge issued a late-night ruling earlier this
week in favor of Meridian Township and Dearborn in their efforts to
stop Comcast Cable from moving Public, Education and Government
(PEG) channels to the 900 digital series.
Meridian Township spearheaded the suit, and was joined last week by
the city of Dearborn.
“Making important information about the community far less
accessible to residents would have been a disservice to the
community and a clear violation of federal cable industry
regulations,” said Susan McGillicuddy, Meridian Township Supervisor.
[click here to read full article] |
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King’s Son, Others Warn On His Birthday:
Don’t Be Mystified By Historic Candidacies |
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The Grand Rapids Times
1-18-2008
By Hazel Trice Edney
NNPA Editor-in-Chief
Washington (NNPA) – As millions commemorate the 79th birthday of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Jan. 21, orators and community leaders across
the nation will point to the historic presidential campaigns of Sens.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as a sign that Dr. King’s dream is
becoming real.
But, his oldest son and others who marched with Dr. King this week
cautioned observers against becoming so fixated on the candidates
that they forget about the issues that would still cause Dr. King
pain.
“This is a pivotal year for our nation because our nation is saying,
‘We are willing to potentially elect an African-American or a woman
as our number one person as our nominee’,” says Martin Luther King
III. “In a sense, the ground was tilled for all of that many years
ago by my father and many others so that we could get to this point
as it relates to this one issue. I say ‘this one issue’ because
while Barack Obama is doing incredibly well around our nation, the
masses of people of color are still being inflicted at certain
levels of pain on issues around race.”
[click here to read full article] |
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Student Involvement Essential To Success |
The Grand Rapids Times
1-18-2008
College and Career Corner
By Rose RennekampMy friend Will graduated from a large
university, but he’s an alumnus of two higher education
institutions. Will’s college career began at a community college and
he later transferred to a four-year school. The experience, he said,
was a positive one.
“I edited the school paper, took a leadership class, which was by
invitation only, and gave a commencement address,” he said. The
smaller campus, he said, made it easy to branch out and try new
things.
“The newspaper gig led to everything else,” Will said. “It’s easy to
become high-profile once you get involved with a group. Instructors
start to know you.”
[click here to read full article] |
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Vote Fraud
Costs Obama New Hampshire Primary, Tale Of Two Tallies |
The Grand Rapids Times
1-18-2008
Commentary by Kam Williams
If the fix is in, it doesn’t matter whether Barack Obama really
deserves to be the Democratic nominee, he’ll never get a fair chance
to compete for the presidency.
Debates about whether the Junior Senator from Illinois is black
enough or whether whites will be willing to vote for an
African-American are moot so long as the sanctity of the ballot box
can’t be guaranteed.
The problem is that the Diebold Corporation is at it again, and the
voting machine company appears to be already in the process of
quietly perpetrating the mother of all vote frauds. In case you
forgot, Diebold is the manufacturer of the electronic tabulator
which counted the majority of the votes in the last two U.S.
presidential elections.
I first called for the United Nations to monitor polling places all
across the country after Diebold’s wholesale disenfranchisement of
blacks in Florida decided the controversial 2000 race. And I
reiterated that demand in 2004 after irregularities in Ohio put Bush
back in office for another four years.
Now, judging by what went down virtually unnoticed in New Hampshire
on January 8th, we’re again in dire need of U.N. observers during
the 2008 primary season, just to give an the democratic process a
chance to unfold untainted by fraud.
For, while the punditocracy has been busy dubbing Hillary Clinton
the Comeback Kid and attributing her surprise victory to women
rallying to her support in the wake of her eyes welling up on
camera, no one’s looking for a more plausible explanation than that
overly-publicized Muskie moment.
The cold hard truth is that on the night of the New Hampshire
primary, all the scientifically-conducted exit polls had predicted
an Obama two-digit win. Given the +/-4.5% margin of error, this
means it wasn’t a question of whether Barack would win, only by how
much.
However, everybody forgot that Diebold would be counting the votes
electronically in 81% of the state’s precincts, while the other 19%
were being tallied by hand.
And wouldn’t you know, when the results were announced, there was a
statistically-significant difference between the tallies based on a
paper trail and those recorded by Diebold’s machines?
As reported by a watchdog organization called CheckThe Votes.com
(see below), Obama garnered 38% of the votes counted by hand,
followed by Clinton with 34%, Edwards with 17% Richardson with 5%
and Kucinich with almost 2%.
By contrast, Diebold’s tabulations had Clinton finishing first with
a whopping 40%, while every other candidate had lower percentages
than in the hand-counted districts. The computers had Obama dropping
to 35%, Edwards to 16%, Richardson to 4% and Kucinich to 1%.
Does it seem suspicious to you that all the candidates but Clinton
did worse when the votes weren’t verified, especially in the wake of
the precedent of the prior Diebold debacles?
Unless an outcry is raised, and steps are taken immediately to
monitor the electronic tallies in the upcoming primaries, it is
readily apparent that the only Democratic machine Hillary will need
to prevail is the one programmed by Diebold.
Lloyd Kam Williams is a film and book critic, and an attorney and a
member of the NJ, NY, CT, PA, MA & US Supreme Court bars.
 NOT
FEATURED IN THE GRAND RAPIDS TIMES PRINT...
View the Voter Fraud Charts from the New Hampshire Presidential
Primary.
[click here to view the charts] |
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Local King
Celebrations Feature Worship Service,
Marches, Member Of The Little Rock Nine |
The Grand Rapids Times
1-18-2008
File Photo |
Grand Rapids – The Interdenominational Ministerial
Alliance will kick off the local 2008 Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. Celebration, with a special service, 6:00 p.m.,
Sunday, January 20, 2008, at Divine Grace Ministries. The
program includes music by the MLK Community Mass Choir.
The church is located at the corner of Franklin Street and
Fuller Avenue.
Celebrations on local college campuses begin on the next
day.
The people from the community, and of all ages, are invited
to assemble for a Peace March to start at Noon, January 21,
at the Gerald R. Ford Fieldhouse, corner of Lyon Street and
Bostwick Avenue, on the campus of Grand Rapids Community
College (GRCC).The march through downtown will end with a
Community Peace Program presented by GRCC and students from
the Kent Intermediate School District.
Celebration at Grand Valley State University (GVSU) is to
start with a silent march at 1:45 p.m., assembling at the
Zumberge Library main entrance, on the Allendale Campus. The
march will proceed through campus and end at the Fieldhouse
Arena. |
A program follows from 2:15-3 p.m. and features a performance by
the Voices of GVSU and a speech by Minnijean Brown Trickey — an
activist who helped bring an end to legal segregation in American
schools in 1957.
Trickey will also speak in the evening at 6:30 p.m. at the 22nd
Annual Community Celebration Program sponsored jointly by the IDMA,
GRCC and GVSU, in the Gerald R. Ford Fieldhouse.
This year’s program will include a “Celebration Play: Depicting 50
Years of Public School Integration.”
Minnijean Brown Trickey was one of a group of African-American
teenagers known as the “Little Rock Nine.”
In 1957, under the gaze of 1,200 armed soldiers and a worldwide
audience, she and her eight classmates faced down an angry mob and
helped to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.
Trickey and the other students were honored by the federal
government last year during the 50th anniversary of the event. A
commemorative coin will be issued by the U.S. Mint to honor the
Little Rock Nine, and The Little Rock Central National Historic Site
Visitor Center, which will provide space for educational
programming, will open.
Trickey has spent her life fighting for the rights of minority
groups and the dispossessed.
Under the Clinton administration, she served as Deputy Assistant
Secretary of the Department of Interior, responsible for diversity.
She has received the U.S. Congressional Medal, the Wolf Award, the
Springam Medal, and many other citations and awards. She lives in
Arkansas, and is continuing her work for civil rights and social
equality.
She is also working on her autobiography, tentatively titled, Mixed
Blessing: Living Black in North America.
For more information about celebration events at GRCC, call the Bob
& Aleicia Woodrick Diversity Learning Center (616) 234-3390.
For more information, about GVSU events, contact the Office of
Multicultural Affairs at (616) 331-2177.
Minnijean Brown Trickey |
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Citizens Refuse To Sign Recall Petitions, Show Support For Dean |
The Grand Rapids Times
1-18-2008
 Grand
Rapids – Efforts did not pay off for petitioner outside a local
polling site during the primary election, January 15, to gather
signatures for recalling what their signs referred to as tax-hiking
lawmakers.
State Representative Robert Dean (D-Grand Rapids) is extending his
gratitude to the residents of Grand Rapids who continue to show
their support for him by refusing to sign petitions being circulated
that aim to recall the freshman lawmaker.
[click here to read full article] |
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Tired of Being Ignored |
The Grand Rapids Times
1-18-2008
Let’s Talk About It
New weekly column by Rev. David May
 I
don’t know about you, but I am tired of being ignored.
We are in one of the most exciting presidential elections in our
country’s history, and we have candidates who have chosen to ignore
our primary in deference to an allegiance to a political process.
The national Democratic organization chose to penalize Michigan for
holding an early primary.
Both Obama and Edwards withdrew their names from the Michigan
ballots, but Hillary chose to remain in defiance of the national
mandate. Good for her!
[click here to read full article] |
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