Social Justice
Dr. Walter McAfee June 2012 Unheard Voices Pioneer
Unheard Voices June 2012 pioneer is Dr. Walter Samuel McAfee a physicist of the African Diaspora. Dr. Walter S. McAfee was born on Sept. 2, 1914, in Ore City, Texas.
As a retired computer scientist and college professor I decided to add a new section to the Unheard Voices community that focuses on African Americans pioneers past and present. These pioneers play or have played an important role in American society whether on the international, national or local level.
Introduction
During World War II, Dr. Walter S. McAfee was a member of the U.S. Army Signal Corp Engineering Laboratories. There, he distinguished himself in electromagnetism and radars. He was a member of the Project Diana team that was responsible for the first lunar radar echo experiments in 1946. The goal of Project Diana was to determine if a high frequency radio signal could penetrate the outer atmosphere of the earth. The solution was to send a radar signal to the moon and bounce it back to earth. For this, they needed an accurate computation of the velocity of a position on the moon relative to a position on the earth.
Dr. McAfee performed the calculations, and on Jan. 10, 1946, the experiment was successfully conducted. Unfortunately, McAfee’s contributions to Project Diana (even his name) were not mentioned in news reports about the experiment.
About Dr. Walter McAfee
Dr. Walter McAfee was an astronomer and scientist who was an advisor to the U.S. Army Electronics Research and Development Command. For 42 years he worked for the government at New Jersey’s Fort Monmouth including service as director of a NATO study on surveillance and target acquisition. He was also a scientific advisor to the U.S. Army Electronics Research and Development Command. He lectured in atomic and nuclear physic and solid state electronics at Monmouth College from 1958 to 1975.
Education
McAfee attended Wiley College, graduating with a bachelor of science in mathematics in 1934. Following his undergraduate work, McAfee attended Ohio State University and earned his masters of science in 1937. After his work on Project Diana, McAfee returned to school. In 1949, he earned a PhD in Physics from Cornell University.
Awards Dr. Walter McAfee received
Dr. McAfee was awarded an honorary doctorate in science from Monmouth University in 1958, and the Steven’s Award from Steven’s Institute of Technology in 1985.
Dr. Walter McAfee received the Rosenwald Fellowship in Nuclear Physics and the Secretary of the Army Fellowship, presented by President Eisenhower at a White House ceremony. The fellowship enabled McAfee to study radio astronomy for two years at Harvard University.
Dr. McAfee is listed in “American Men and Women of Science,” “Who’s Who in the East,” and “Who’s Who among Black Americans. ”
McAfee was born in 1914 in Texas.
In 1935, McAfee met Viola in Columbus Ohio. In 1941, Walter and Viola married and subsequently they moved to South Belmar, New Jersey. The couple had two daughters from that union.
Just prior to his retirement, Dr. McAfee contracted glaucoma and in time he became blind where he died from cancer on February 18, 1995.
Dr. McAfee was recently honored at the InfoAge Learning Center at Camp Evans in Wall, N.J. during the InfoAge Wall of Honor ceremony where he served as one of the most brilliant scientists that came out of Camp Evans 56 years of existence.
In the photo on the right sits Viola McAfee [left], McAfee’s daughters, Mercedes McAfee and Marsha Ann Bera-Morris. In this picture they are attending a ceremony in honor of the dedication of a Fort Monmouth building, the McAfee Center, to her late husband. The building housed the Information and lntelligence Electronic Warfare Directorate of CECOM’s Research, Development and Engineering before closing in Sept 2011.
Racism
It was the norm in America for African Americans to be left out in American history. While working at the Fort Monmouth Camp Evans as a young scientist from 1982 to 1997, I learned that Mr. McAfee was badly discriminated against and unfairly treated by his peers. It was strange to me that McAfee’s name was almost non existent especially after learning that he was a genius in the scientific field. Many engineers and scientists said that it was the constant stress put upon Dr. McAfee that caused his life to end from cancer on Feb. 18, 1995.
In 1997 the newly built McAfee Center opened its doors at Fort Monmouth in honor of Dr. Walter McAfee. I had mixed emotions because although I was thrilled to see his picture hanging at the front entrance and to have an African American honored, I disliked the fact he had to battle racism on his way to success.
Dr. Walter McAfee was and still is a true pioneer to Americans all across this nation and world. His brilliant mathematical mind and scientific discovery changed the course of science and technology.
Visit the Information Age Learning center in Wall, New Jersey to learn more about Dr. Walter McAfee accomplishments.
He is a true Unheard Voices Pioneer.
Source: InfoAge Center
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.
Credit : Tennessee State University
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.
Alexandre Ansari (Photo Source: Wolf Mueller Law)
“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.
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