Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 3-31-20

Political News
Civil Rights Era Icon, MLK Aide Joseph Lowery Dead At 98
His is the epitome of a life well lived.
The Rev. Joseph E. Low- ery, a veteran civil rights leader and a co-founder of the influen- tial Southern Christian Leader- ship Conference, died on Friday at the ripe old age of 98.
His family issued a statement confirming the passing, saying he died peacefully at his Atlanta home Friday night, surrounded by his daughters.
Lowery, born in Huntsville, Ala., worked closely with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and led the SCLC for two decades before retiring in 1997.
He is credited with restoring the organization’s financial sta- bility and pressuring businesses
not to do business with South Africa during its apartheid-era regime.
Some of the fiery and outspo- ken leader’s causes included Palestinian liberation, police brutality, states’ rights and the importance of voting. According to the Associated Press, Lowery edited a news- paper and taught school in Birmingham after attending col- lege.
After marrying Evelyn Gib- son, who was a Methodist preacher’s daughter, he began his first pastorate in Birming- ham in 1948.
His dreams were somewhat crystallized when he lived to cel- ebrate the November 2008
REV. JOSEPH E. LOWERY
milestone that very few from his era witnessed — the historical election of an African American president, Barack Hussein Obama.
The esteemed member of the
Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity would go on to deliver the bene- diction at Obama’s inaugura- tion on Jan. 20, 2009:
“In the joy of a new begin- ning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back; when brown can stick around; when yellow will be mellow; when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.”
Lowery would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Free- dom in the summer of 2009.
“Change is in the wind,” he said during the ceremony. “We’ve come a long way — a
long way. But unfortunately we still have a long way to go.”
In 2001, he and his late wife Evelyn established the Lowery Institute for Justice and Human Rights at Clark Atlanta Univer- sity.
On Saturday morning, Rev. Jesse Jackson eulogized his fellow freedom fighter on social media.
“Dr. Lowery, along with Dr. King, was one of the founding members of SCLC,” Jackson wrote.”He became president for 27 years. In our tradition, he walked the dusty of roads of South, crying out for justice in the land of the world. He never stopped fighting for those whose backs were against the wall.”
Pelosi On Trump's Coronavirus Response: 'As The President Fiddles, People Are Dying'
Trump Says He Won’t Comply With
WASHINGTON, DC - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sun- day criticized President Don- ald Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying "his denial at the beginning was deadly" and that as he "fiddles, people are dying."
"We should be taking every precaution. What the President, his denial at the beginning was deadly," Pelosi said in an exclu- sive interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." As US cases surge, Pelosi ques- tioned when Trump was in- formed about the coronavirus and his knowledge on its poten- tial impact. "I don't know what the scientists said to him, when did this President know about this, and what did he know? What did he know and when did he know it? That's for an after- action review. But as the Presi- dent fiddles, people are dying. And we just have to take every precaution."
Asked by Tapper if she be- lieves Trump's downplaying of the crisis has cost American lives, Pelosi responded, "Yes, I
the White House coronavirus task force has sharpened the na- tional response, forcing in part measures to get medical equip- ment to states and hospitals.
After the number of reported coronavirus deaths in the U. S. doubled to more than 2,000 within two days, officials are ad- vising residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut not to travel domestically. The Cen- ters for Disease Control and Pre- vention issued the travel advisory Saturday, urging resi- dents of the three states to "re- frain from nonessential domestic travel for 14 days ef- fective immediately."
When asked about Trump suggesting he wants to relax so- cial distancing guidelines in parts of the country, Pelosi said, "His delaying of getting equipment to where it -- it con- tinues his delay in getting equip- ment to where it's needed, is deadly. And now I think the best thing would be to do is to pre- vent more loss of life rather than open things up, because we just don't know."
Coronavirus Stimulus Bill
HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI
am. I'm saying that."
"Because when he made the
other day when he was signing the bill, he said just think 20 days ago everything was great. No, everything wasn't great," she said. "We had nearly 500 cases and 17 deaths already. And in that 20 days because we weren't prepared, we now have 2,000 deaths and 100,000 cases."
Early in the outbreak, the President downplayed the ex- tent of the possible damage from coronavirus but in recent weeks
President Donald Trump
said on Friday that he will not adhere to a portion of the $2 tril- lion coronavirus stimulus bill that would authorize an inspec- tor general to oversee how $500 billion in business loans will be spent.
In a statement released early Friday evening, Trump an- nounced that he had signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security or CARES Act, a relief package aimed at mitigating some of the economic fallout caused by ef- forts to allay the spread of COVID-19.
That bill also establishes a Spe- cial Inspector General for Pan- demic Recovery (SIGPR) within the Treasury Department to audit and investigate half a tril- lion dollars in loans for large businesses. In his signing state- ment, Trump said that this pro- vision raises “constitutional concerns,” adding that his ad- ministration would not comply with such an official’s request for documents.
“I do not understand, and my Administration will not treat, this provision as permitting the SIGPR to issue reports to the Congress without the presiden- tial supervision required by the Take Care Clause,” part of Arti- cle II Section 3 of the Constitu- tion that states a sitting president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This seems to suggest the ad- ministration believes it is the president’s duty and not that of an inspector general to ensure the funds are distributed as the law intends.
Trump is bragging on Twitter about his coron- avirus briefings getting lots of viewers
President Donald Trump
boasted about the ratings of his
PRES. DONALD TRUMP
daily live news conferences on the coronavirus Sunday, and suggested that the large viewer numbers — rather than the mis- leading remarks he has made during them — are fueling dis- cussions in the media about end- ing the practice of broadcasting them live and unfiltered.
“Because the ‘Ratings’ of my News Conferences etc. are so high, ‘Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers’ ac- cording to the [New York Times], the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY,” Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon.
Trump followed that tweet with four others that quoted a New York Times story that re- ferred to the president’s daily briefings as “a ratings hit.”
But while Trump is framing the debate about whether his briefings should be broadcast live as stemming from envy or political ambition in the liberal press, in reality the arguments from columnists and staffers at CNN and MSNBC have centered on Trump showering the public with dangerous misinformation and spreading false narratives about the state of the coron- avirus pandemic.
Key Transparency Measures In The
PAGE 6 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY MARCH 31, 2020