Social Justice
Obama Launches Educational Initiative For Black Americans
President Barack Obama is creating a new office to bolster education of African-American students.
President Barack Obama is creating a new educational initiative to bolster African American students.
Obama Educational Initiative
The White House says the office will coordinate the work of communities and federal agencies to ensure that African American youngsters are better prepared for high school, college and career, reports The Associated Press.
Obama will announce his initiative Wednesday night in a speech to civil rights group the National Urban League.
Executive order
Aides say his executive order, to be signed Thursday, will set a goal of producing “a more effective continuum” of programs for African American students.
In his remarks Wednesday, Obama said he is creating the office “so that every child has greater access to a complete and competitive education from the time they’re born all through the time they get a career.”
And that’s why we’re pushing all colleges and universities to cut their costs. Because we can’t keep asking taxpayers to subsidize skyrocketing tuition. A higher education in the 21st century cannot be a luxury. It is a vital necessity that every American should be able to afford. I want all these young people to be getting a higher education, and I don’t want them loaded up with tens of thousands of dollars of debt just to get an education. That’s how we make America great.
Crime & Justice
Exonerated man on a mission to rebuild his life
C.J. Rice, a man who served more than 12 years behind bars for an attempted murder he was falsely convicted of, was officially exonerated on March 18, 2024. He is now on a mission to rebuild his life.
Charles “CJ” Rice was just 17 years old when he was convicted of a crime he did not commit.
CJ Rice Exonerated
Now 30 year old Rice is using the injustice of the last 13 years to galvanize the life he almost spent behind bars after being exonerated and declared legally innocent of the crime he was convicted of in 2013 on March 18, 2024.
According to the GoFundMe, CJ wants to “embrace this opportunity” and become a paralegal.
With the help of Dream.org, the GoFundMe aims to help CJ start a new life with everything from a place to stay to clothes to wear as he builds a new future.
The CJ Rice case
CJ Rice, formally known Charles J. Rice, was convicted in a September 2011 shooting for attempted murder and sentenced to 30-60 years behind bars in 2013.
According to the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, the South Philadelphia shooting left a woman identified as Latrice Johnson, a 6-year-old girl and two others injured.
Johnson called 911 after the shooting and described the suspects as two men running away in hoodies and black sweatpants but couldn’t fully identify them.
Through an initial investigation with victims in the hospital, Rice’s co-defendant, Tyler Linder, was identified as one of the shooters. Detectives interviewed Johnson while she was in the hospital and she identified 17-year-old Rice as one of the shooters running away although she hadn’t seen the teen in a few years. Rice had been friends with Johnson’s son when he was younger, according to the Pennsylvania Innocence Project.
In her description, Johnson said Rice was wearing a hoodie and claimed that she was able to see his full face and long braids poking out the side of the hood. However, Rice’s arrest photo depicted him with shorter cornrows flushed against his head. Despite this, a case against Rice and Linder was built.
According to the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, among the evidence was a theory that the shooting was retaliatory, which wasn’t proven. That’s because Rice was shot and injured a few days prior. It’s alleged the suspects ran from the scene, and Rice’s counsel never used his medical records as evidence to help Rice’s case.
Rice’s case received national attention after CNN anchor Jake Tapper began reporting on it. His father, Dr. Theodore Tapper, is Rice’s former doctor and treated his injuries.
Although it was alleged that the shooters ran from the 2011 crime scene, this is something that Dr. Tapper believed Rice just physically couldn’t do at the time.
Officials believed the 2011 shooting involved gang affiliations, leading the DA’s Gun Violence Task Force to begin their investigation to see whether or not Rice could be re-tried for the shooting or to dismiss the charges in full.
This suggestion of motive and the sole faulty eyewitness identification of CJ led to his conviction on four counts for attempted murder.
A free man
Rice’s defense counsel filed a habeas petition to get CJ out of prison and have his conviction overturned.
On March 18, 2024, the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas granted the Commonwealth’s motion to dismiss all charges against Rice, officially making CJ a free man.
Social Justice
After more than 60 years, a championship HBCU men’s basketball team visits White House
An all-Black Tennessee A&I men’s basketball team won three back-to-back national championships at the height of the Jim Crow era, but were never recognized or invited to the White House. That changed on Friday.
This past weekend, the Tennessee A&I men’s basketball team, an HBCU squad that won a title more than 60 years ago, got a White House visit.
Tennessee A&I made history
The living members of the Tennessee A&I Tigers basketball team were honored by Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House.
“This is the greatest day of my life,” said George Finley, a player on the Tigers team, said to CBS News.
The Tennessee A&I Tigers men’s basketball team was the first HBCU team to win a national championship in 1957, and made history again by becoming the first college team to win three back-to-back national titles from 1957-1959.
“I thought this would never take place,” said Finley, who was part of the 1959 championship team, told the network. “[Winning] the championship was big, but it wasn’t as big as being here with [Vice President] Harris today.”
The challenges
In a time of segregation and the Jim Crow era, Black teams were often not recognized for their achievements but the team finally got their just due.
Harris hosted six members of the team in a meeting along with their family, friends, and those close to the group of former athletes. Henry Carlton, Robert Clark, Ron Hamilton, Ernie Jones, George Finley, and Dick Barnett joined Finley in the Roosevelt Room at the White House.
Tennessee A&I is now known as Tennessee State University.
Crime & Justice
Detroit man awarded $10 million after wrongful conviction
Alexandre Ansari was wrongfully serving a life sentence over claims that in 2012 he shot and killed Ileana Cuevas, a 15-year-old girl.
A Detroit man who was wrongfully convicted and incarcerated for over six years was awarded $10 million in damages by a jury.
$10 million for man wrongfully convicted
Alexandre Ansari was wrongfully serving a life sentence over claims that in 2012 he shot and killed Ileana Cuevas, a 15-year-old girl, and wounded two others in Detroit, according to a lawsuit filed by Ansari in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan Southern Division.
“Once I got the verdict back, my heart dropped. And I’m like, ‘Dang, I got to spend the rest of my life in here for something I didn’t do.’ And you know, I tried to kill myself,” Ansari told Linsey Davis on “ABC News Live Prime.”
“It felt like nobody didn’t put all the evidence together to see that I wasn’t the person in the first place. So things started getting overwhelming for me.”
Exonerated
Ansari, 39, was exonerated in 2019 by the Wayne County Circuit Court after it determined that Moises Jimenez, a former Detroit police detective withheld evidence for Ansari’s trial that would have implicated someone else as the shooter, according to the County of Wayne Office of the Prosecuting Attorney.
Jimenez received an anonymous tip that linked the shooter to the Mexican Drug Cartel, according to the complaint that released Ansari.
The officer withheld the evidence from Ansari’s 2013 trial, according to the lawsuit.
Jimenez’s attorneys told ABC News that the former detective claims that he provided all evidence he uncovered during his investigation and plans to appeal the $10 million lawsuit verdict.
There have been no reported arrests connected to the shooting since Ansari’s exoneration. Ansari was wrongfully arrested for the crime when he was 27 years old.
-
Entertainment8 years ago
Bad Boy Reunion Concert :: Major Let Down! (Opinion)
-
News3 years ago
Uncle of Darnella Frazier, Teen Who Filmed George Floyd’s murder, Killed in Minneapolis Police Car Crash
-
Social Justice10 years ago
11 Facts About The Michael Brown Case
-
Black Excellence6 months ago
Unheard Voices Editor-in-Chief receives prestigious Women of Color STEM Award
-
Health & Wellness4 years ago
Meet 105-year-old runner Ida Keeling
-
Interviews5 years ago
All eyes on Rick Fouche
-
New Jersey14 years ago
Bad Police Behavior: Who is looking through your garbage?
-
Entrepreneur Spotlight14 years ago
Author Larry Wilson Jr : The voice of a new African American writer