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Hundreds gather for ‘Stand Against Hate’ rally in New Jersey

Hundreds gathered in the Jersey Shore town of Asbury Park, NJ at Springwood Park to unify against hate, white supremacy, and bigotry.

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Stand Against Hate Rally In Asbury Park New Jersey 6
Copyright Unheard Voices Magazine LLC

Asbury Park, NJ – A day before a stand against hate rally was to take place, a trans-gender volunteer was attacked by a man at a signage making event.

Morris May, 22, of Scott Plains was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and unlawful possession of a weapon.

Authorities say the pair got into an argument over politics. Volunteer Allison Kolarik said as she tried to leave, May continually blocked her and suddenly pepper sprayed her. She told NBC, the event would not stop her fight, “What are you going to do, let it take over? Let people like that win?”

Stand Against Hate Rally

And it didn’t. Hundreds marched forward and convened at the Jersey Shore town of Asbury Park to unify against hate, white supremacy, and bigotry.

Community activist and pastor, Nicole Harris and Jess Alamino, a comedian/activist, pulled together organizations and community leaders to host the event at Springwood Park in light of the tragedy in Charlottesville, VA.

All races, colors, creeds, and backgrounds gathered to make the message clear : hate will not prevail, but love will.

Speeches

Speakers invoked the message that dialogue must continue in order to fight against hate, unify, and dismantle white supremacy.

Jennifer Lewinsky, the founding member of Black Lives Matter Chapter of Asbury Park told the audience “we’re not concerned with individual racist people, the problem is the very foundation our country is built on … that is white supremacy”

The event featured over 2 1/2 hours of speakers and community leaders including Asbury Park-Neptune NAACP President Aridenne Sanders, Executive Director of Garden State Equality Christian Fuscarino, Mychal Mills of KYDS, community activist Tyrone Laws, and many more.

Ending with a message of inspiration, Nicolle Harris said, “We cannot allow hate to win, because if hate wins, we all lose … So my question to you is, are you committed to love?”.

The crowd, full of hope, roared “yeah!”.

“And that means, you have to love them by any means necessary”, said Nicolle Harris.


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Keith Covin is a retired computer scientist turned social entrepreneur. He is the Founder and vice President of Unheard Voices Networks and Unheard Voices Magazine.

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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.

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$10 million wrongfully convicted Alexandre Ansari
Alexandre Ansari (Photo Source: Wolf Mueller Law)

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.

$10 million wrongfully convicted Alexandre Ansari

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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Black Excellence

Regina King stars as Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman in Congress

Shirley is will be released on Netflix March 22.

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Regina King Shirley
Regina King as Shirley Chisholm (Netflix)

In the first trailer for the upcoming Netflix movie Shirley, Regina King stars as the first Black woman to be elected to Congress.

Regina King as Shirley Chisholm

Chisholm’s story will be chronicled, showing her uphill battle and obstacles to win a seat in Congress as the daughter of a Barbados-born maid and a Guyanese laborer, her struggles to navigate Congress alongside her White male colleagues, and her groundbreaking 1972 presidential campaign.

Movie production

Produced by Regina King and her sister Reina King, Shirley also stars the late Lance Reddick, Lucas Hedges, Terrence Howard, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Christina Jackson and more.

King, who spent 15 years producing the film, said the project was an incredible feat.

“It was always a little disheartening for Reina and I to have so many people over the years of our lives not know who Shirley Chisholm was,” King told Harper’s Bazaar.

“What she did was so pioneering. She was a true maverick and, you know, we use this term all the time, but she was a true first.”

King said they decided to release the film during an election year as they thought it would make for a more “impactful” release.

“As a team, we felt that is probably the best way we could possibly honor Shirley: to release her in a space that she created for herself.”

Regina King as Shirley Chisholm trailer

Shirley is will be released on Netflix March 22.


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Police

Family of Black girls handcuffed by Colorado police, held at gunpoint reach $1.9 million settlement

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Black girls held gunpoint Aurora
Video Screenshot

The family of four Black girls who were wrongfully detained and held at gunpoint by Aurora, CO police have reached a settlement with the city.

Family of Black girls held at gunpoint reach settlement

Finalized on Monday, the families will collectively receive $1.9 million.

The settlement marks the latest payout the City of Aurora has been forced to make over officers’ excessive use of force.

In 2021, the city paid a $15 million settlement to Elijah McClain’s family, a 23-year-old Black man who died in 2019 after officers put him in a chokehold and paramedics injected him with ketamine.

The incident

In August 2020, four Black girls, ages 6, 12, 14 and 17, were held face down on the ground and put in handcuffs in a nail salon parking lot, crying and screaming, as officers towered over them.

Brittney Gilliam, the mother of the 6-year-old, was driving that Sunday morning with her relatives, because they were going to get their nails done together.

Wrongfully detained

But before they made it in the salon, Gilliam was detained after officers mistakenly thought she was driving a stolen S.U.V.

Police had mistakenly believed Gilliam was driving a stolen car.

And a simple second step police failed to take, resulted in the family being wrongfully detained.

Officers didn’t type in the plate number in a second database to show them the make of the vehicle. If they had, authorities said, the officers would have realized that the plate number was registered to a motorcycle in Montana.

Black girls and mother held at gunpoint traumatized

Dozens of bystanders watched the ordeal unfold, and video footage of the incident went viral, sparking protests over racial injustice, citing excessive force on Black Americans.

After the video went viral, Aurora police had apologized for their grave mistake, but the emotional trauma had already happened.

The Aurora Police Department said its officers are trained to draw their weapons before telling passengers to exit the vehicle and ordering them to lie on the ground, The Post reported.

Officers who held Black girls at gunpoint

One of the two officers who drew their guns and handcuffed members of the family was initially suspended.

However, he and the other officer that pulled his firearm remain on the police force, the New York Times reports.

To date, no officers were fired or charged in connection with the incident.


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