Page 22 - Florida Sentinel 8-26-16 Online Edition

National
Champion Of The Black Press,
Army Of Moms Take Back Chicago Streets
George Curry, 69, Dies
George E. Curry, a vet- eran journalist who champi- oned the black press and was reviving online his beloved Emerge magazine, died Sat- urday at 69, according to a message from his sister’s Facebook account.
“It is with deep regret to inform everyone that my brother, George passed away earlier today,” said the mes- sage, from the account of Christie Love.
“It was a shock to our fam- ily and we are dealing with the news, as best we can. R.I.P. brother George Curry.” Curry lived in the Maryland
George Curry was resur- recting Emerge magazine at the time of his death.
suburbs of Washington, D.C. Hazel Trice Edney, publisher of the Trice Edney News Wire, reported Sunday that Curry “died suddenly of
heart failure.
CHICAGO, IL - We always hear the saying, “it takes a vil- lage to raise a child.” But in a society filled with an “I gotta get mine” mentality, few are actually building those vil- lages. And with that, many children become fatherless, families are broken apart and mothers are forced to become motherless.
But one group is bringing back the “old way” of raising children in the African-Ameri- can community.
According to founder Tamar Manasseh, Mother’s Against Senseless Killing or M.A.S.K. is “bringing back the village concept. We’re bringing back the time when grandma and mother sat on the front porch to watch the kids play and made sure didn’t nothing happen.”
M.A.S.K. has chapters in Staten Island and in Evans- ville, Indiana and the network of mothers is continuing to
M. A. S. K. Moms on patrol.
grow steadily.
The tactics they employ on
the streets of troubled urban communities are “practical and something easy that peo- ple can do.”
The mothers “sit on the corner, sit on the block;” they also walk around, patrol, are seen and are being seen by the community. “It’s that watchful eye that kind of cuts off any opportunity for a lot of the vi- olent crime to occur.”
Manasseh called the M.A.S.K. initiative one of the most “intensive community- policing strategies that we’ve seen in Chicago” or around the United States.
“In a place where murders and shootings were pretty much an everyday occurrence, there hasn’t been a shooting or murder on that block or within a one-mile radius in over a year.”
In the video explaining the origin of M.A.S.K., Manasseh
says she knew she had to do something when a young lady, Lucille Barnes, a 34-year- old mom, was killed in a drive by after just trying to break up a fight.
“I didn’t know her, but I was outraged. And I felt, at this point, if mothers are being murdered, something has to be done.”
And that’s exactly what she did. She did something. No hashtags, no boycotts, just mothers. Mothers who had the time and the passion for it, took time out and literally sat on the corner, played with children, fed people, and gave out a lot of hugs.
And it worked. “Ever since we were on that block, no shooting, no death, not even anything as much as a fist fight has happened, because we are mothers.” On M.A.S.K.’s web- site, it gives a frame of refer- ence of how deep this kind of village mentality actually goes.
Parents Of Teen That Died At School Ordered To Pay Legal Fees
VALDOSTA, GA --- On Thursday, Lowndes County Superior Court Judge Richard Porter ordered the parents of Kendrick John- son, the high school student found dead inside of a rolled up wrestling mat, to pay the legal fees of the brothers they alleged killed their son, as well as, the local officials they ac- cused of covering for them.
On January 11, 2013, Johnson’s body was found inside a rolled up wrestling mat of the Lowndes High School gymnasium in Val- dosta, Georgia. The prelimi- nary investigation and autopsy concluded the death was the result of positional asphyxia (presumably from being stuck in the mat after reaching for a pair of sneakers). But a second autopsy performed by a pri- vate pathologist at the request of Johnson’s parents deter- mined the teen’s death was the result of blunt force trauma.
This discovery kicked off a firestorm of controversy as Kenneth and Jackie John- son contended that their son’s death was no accident, and
Kenneth and Jackie Johnson with photo with son Kendrick Johnson.
that he was in fact killed. The couple went on to file a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit alleging the Lowndes County sheriff, school superintendent and an FBI agent conspired to cover up Johnson’s murder by making his death look like an accident.
After a nearly three-year investigation, the U.S. Depart- ment of Justice concluded that there was “insufficient evi- dence to prove beyond a rea- sonable doubt that someone or some group of people willfully violated Kendrick John- son’s civil rights or committed any other prosecutable federal crime.”
Baltimore Mom That Made Headlines During Riots Loses Home To Fire
Toya Graham became known when she was filmed hitting her son for rioting after Freddie Gray’s death.
A Baltimore mom who was proclaimed “mom of the year” after being filmed hitting her son for rioting over the death of Freddie Gray last year is back in the news, this time over tragedy.
On last Saturday, Toya Graham and her family be- came homeless after her same
teenaged son accidentally set their kitchen on fire, she told local media.
“You try to hold on, you try to do everything, you try to be strong for your children. But this is a lot,” said while stand- ing in her burned home.
The mother of six said her 17-year-old son, Michael,
was frying chicken in her kitchen when a grease fire broke out. It was intensified when he threw water on the flames.
The teen said he had only stepped away for a minute to use the bathroom, but when he returned smoke was every- where.
PAGE 10-B FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, AUGUST 26, 2016