News — Election

The Ocoee Massacre, which occurred in the town of Ocoee, Florida on November 2-3, 1920, was the largest election-related massacre in the 20th Century. Approximately 50 Blacks and two whites died in the violence and the entire Black community of Ocoee was forced to flee the town.

Ocoee, Florida, in Orange County, approximately 12 miles northwest of Orlando, had been politically dominated by conservative Democrats since the end of Reconstruction. They prided themselves on keeping Blacks, then mostly Republican, from the polls. In 1920, a number of Black organizations across Florida began conducting voter registration campaigns. Partly because of their efforts, a prosperous Black farmer, Mose Norman, who had been part of the voter registration drive in Orange County, decided to vote in the national election on November 2. When he attempted to do so, twice, he was turned away from the polls.

When Norman was driven away the second time, a white mob, then numbering over 100 men, decided to hunt him down. Concluding he had taken refuge in the home of another local Black resident, Julius “July” Perry, they rushed Perry’s home hoping to capture both men there. Norman escaped and was never found while Perry defended his home, killing two white men, Elmer McDaniels and Leo Borgard, who tried to enter through the back door. The mob called for reinforcements from Orlando and surrounding Orange County. Eventually they caught and killed Perry and hung his dead body from a telephone post by the highway from Ocoee to Orlando to intimidate other potential Black voters. Perry’s wife, Estelle Perry, and their daughter were wounded during the attack on the Perry home. They were sent to Tampa by local law enforcement officers.

The mob then turned on the Black community of Ocoee. They burned down homes and businesses and demanded that the Black residents leave Ocoee. In the face of this threatened violence, the entire African American population fled the town. Some African Americans speculated that the rioting may have been planned so that some whites could seize the property of the wealthiest Blacks in the town.

The NAACP investigated the massacre, sending Walter White, the organization’s executive director. White—who passed as a Caucasian during his visit—reported that some local whites were “still giddy with victory” when he arrived. He also said that locals reported 56 Blacks killed but he claimed 30 deaths in his official report. In 1921 the NAACP and other civil rights organizations called on the House Election Committee of the U.S. Congress to investigate the massacre and Black voter suppression in Florida, but it failed to act.

General elections in Ghana took place on December 7 as the West African nation held its eighth uninterrupted polls in 28 years to choose a president and lawmakers. Election officials say results may be known by the middle of the week although there was an earlier promise to declare the winner of the presidential race in 24 hours.

The electoral process was described by local and foreign observers as free and fair even though minor pockets of violence, including the gunning down of a ballot box snatcher, occurred in a few places.

In spite of Ghana reveling in the envy and praise showed to the country by others in Africa and the rest of the world, not everyone in the capital city Accra and beyond felt proud about Monday’s feat. The people of the small rural town of Bimbagu South in the region of North East were not even in the least inspired to take part in the election.

According to local reports that emerged during Monday’s polls, residents of Bimbagu South, a largely agrarian community, refused to vote after complaining that their local and national government had turned deaf ears to pleas for infrastructural development. The elections of 2020 were therefore boycotted in other to attract attention for the plight of the people.

Nationally-syndicated radio station Joy FM reported that on Monday morning, election officials were pictured sitting idly with no resident bothering to pass by to vote. Empty ballot boxes remained as they had been set up between 7 am and 5 pm local time.

The news of this boycott managed to arrest the attention of a considerable number of Ghanaians in bigger and better-developed cities. This was in spite of the omnipresence of information about key legislative races in more vibrant parts of Ghana.

Bimbagu South’s rebellion was praised by many including an Accra-based social activist who tweeted: “Yes, a vote strike. One of the boldest political statements in the last decade. They are expanding our political imagination. Now watch out for the bourgeois condescension that’s going to emanate from Accra.”

Ghana runs a mixed presidential and parliamentary system of government where elections are held every four years. Members of Parliament (MPs), who represent what Ghanaians call constituencies, are not legally responsible for infrastructural development although they have to lobby the executive for this.

However, the promise and expectation of such infrastructural development on the part of MPs, have come to be part of the country’s political culture. The people of Bimbagu South would have cried over the last several years to the MP who represents that electoral area to attend to the bad roads and the lack of potable water and the lack of infrastructure for education and healthcare.

According to Joy FM, the residents of the area made their intentions to boycott December’s elections known in October. But this was largely dismissed as Ghana’s politicians have become used to what they see as attempts at blackmailing them into providing for their constituents.

On the analyses of how Bimbagu South was able to maintain strictly zero turnouts, it was revealed that the northern town holds barely 2,000 people with only a little more than 400 registered to vote. In the scheme of the overall constituency, this was not much, however, that did not seem to bother the principled poor folks.

Soldiers from Ghana’s armed forces have been deployed to the volatile eastern Ghanaian region of Volta ahead of the general election which is scheduled for Monday, December 7.

The move is part of what the government says are security measures put in place to forestall feared attacks that may spring up in the lead-up or during the elections. Volta Region, in recent weeks, has been hit with protests and threats from a group that is demanding secession from the Ghanaian republic.

The group, known as the Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF), has been campaigning to break away some parts of Ghana into an independent state called Western Togoland.

The HSGF IS based in the Volta Region and was founded in 1994 by Charles Kormi Kudzordzi Papavi. The founder claims the group was founded as a platform to discuss the political, civil and human rights of the people of Western Togoland, a pre-independence territory between Ghana and Togo that voted in a 1956 United Nations plebiscite to be part of Ghana.

The ruling New Patriotic Patriotic Party (NPP) led by the country’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, has reiterated the need to secure the region that it deems liable to terror attacks. However, the region is also the stronghold of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Ghana’s largest opposition party which was founded by the late Jerry Rawlings.

The NDC has called the decision to send soldiers to Volta, a political tactic of intimidation from the government. Its leader and candidate for the presidential election, John Mahama, a former president, has campaigned for the withdrawal of the troops before the election.

Mahama’s advocacy has been supported by the Volta regional house of chiefs, a council of tribe leaders. Last week, a letter from the chiefs to Ghana’s president said the council is of the view that the presence of soldiers will intimidate and “prevent [the people] from going out on 7th December 2020 to cast their votes in a peaceful manner.”

With a little less than three weeks until Ghanaians vote in another presidential and presidential elections, the country’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, has been put under pressure by the resignation of a Special Prosecutor he appointed in 2018 as part of the government’s anti-corruption agenda.

Martin Amidu, a popular anti-graft campaigner, submitted his resignation letter to the Jubilee House, Ghana’s seat of government, on Monday evening. He cited among other things that he felt he was “not intended to exercise any independence as the Special Prosecutor” after publicizing his corruption risk analyses of a deal involving an offshore company with ties to members of the ruling party.

Amidu’s letter also hinted that he had received threats on his life after his conclusions on the deal were published a few weeks ago. However, sources say in a meeting with President Akufo-Addo on November 12, Amidu was asked to shelve his reservations on the deal for a while.

“The events of 12th November 2020 removed the only protection I had from the threats and plans directed at me for undertaking the Agyapa Royalties Limited Transactions anti-corruption assessment report and dictates that I resign as the Special Prosecutor immediately,” the letter said.

The said transactions involve a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) set up by the Ghanaian government in order to raise money against collateralized gold proceeds. The SPV, known as Agyapa Royalties Limited, was set up as an offshore limited liability on the island of Jersey with a subsidiary, ARG Royalties, in Ghana.

Per the agreement on the process, Ghana is expected to sell 49% of its shares in Agyapa to raise around $500 million on the London Stock Exchange. But critics have slammed what they call the “secrecy” and rushed manner in which the bill was put together and passed in parliament.

Questions have also been raised by sections of the Ghanaian public with regards to some of the names pushing to make the deal possible. The interim boss of Agyapa, Kofi Osafo-Maafo, is a son of Ghana’s Senior Minister, a portfolio likened to a Prime Minister.

One of the three law firms too which acted as transaction advisers for the Agyapa deal belongs to Gabby Otchere-Darko, a cousin of President Akufo-Addo.

Meanwhile, the presidency has denied any wrongdoing as implied in the resignation letter offered by Amidu. A statement on Tuesday, signed by the secretary to the president, said it was “regrettable” that the former Special Prosecutor believed the government stood in his way of fighting corruption.

President Akufo-Addo won the presidential race on his third attempt against then-President John Mahama in 2016, on the promise of fighting corruption and accelerating industrialization in Ghana. The two men are the frontrunners for this year’s elections on December 7.

However, unlike four years ago, the issue of corruption is not expected to drive Ghanaians to the polls in 2020, according to a survey by the country’s Center for Democratic Development.

Kanye West has been sued in a class-action lawsuit for unpaid wages connected to his Nebuchadnezzar Live opera. The failed presidential aspirant was sued by a group of workers who helped with his live musical production called the Hollywood Bowl.

The rapper, who is believed to be a billionaire, is accused of owing “unpaid wages” and failing to pay minimum wage and overtime when he hosted the Hollywood Bowl in 2019. He premiered the opera in December last year, after releasing his debut gospel album, ‘Jesus Is King’.

Legal documents obtained by Complex said the plaintiffs, including background actors and hairstylists, alleged they were not properly compensated for their production work. A hairstylist revealed that she was supposed to be paid $550 for two days of work but received $530 after four months and was charged $20 for a wire fee in violation of California‘s labor code.

The lawsuit also states that organizers “failed to properly compensate the hair assistant and many dozens of other persons who performed services on the production, including the background actors performing as audience members”.

“The defendants oversaw, controlled and ran the production, and the aggrieved employees worked many hours on the production and were not timely paid for their work, or paid at all,” the suit read.

“In addition, Defendants misclassified Plaintiffs and Aggrieved Employees as independent contractors as no deductions were made for payroll taxes.”

The suit was reportedly filed in July and the plaintiffs have been seeking “unpaid wages, continuing wages, damages, civil penalties, statutory penalties, and attorneys’ fees and costs.” Live Nation, the company behind the production, has also been listed as a defendant.

West, known for controversies, has been mooting several propositions apart from his recent presidential run. Recently, he revealed his plan to build a ‘city of the future’ on an island in Haiti.

Touching on the subject during an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in October, the 43-year-old explained how the project would benefit locals on the island.

“We go to Haiti and the president gives us this island to develop; to make it a city of the future,” Kanye said. “We’re gonna have the farmers and the people that live there take ownership of the land they have right now so when it raises in value, they all eat.”

West’s announcement of the partnership with Haitian president Jovenel Moïse and his government, however, did not sit down well with some people on social media, prompting him to clarify the details of the agreement on his Twitter page on October 27, GQ reports.

“Just to be CLEAR: WE ARE IN ENGAGED WITH HAITI’s GOVERNMENT to make a transformational INVESTMENT to bring JOBS, DEVELOPMENT, HELP SUPPORT LOCAL FARMERS and FISHERMEN and Build a new « CITY OF THE FUTURE » in a very beautiful country,” he tweeted

Many Black people and other minority groups feel insecure under the administration of Donald Trump. Yet the U.S. president has done little to reassure them of their safety. He has in the past refused to condemn white supremacists and in situations where he offered a condemnation, he did so reluctantly.

Concerned about the safety of Blacks in the US, former rapper, producer and DJ in the 1970s, John Fitzgerald Johnson, also known as Grand Master Jay, has formed a militia group to protect the Black community.

The Not F*cking Around Coalition (NAC) intends to carry out its activities of protecting Blacks before and after the U.S. election in the face of a growing threat from white supremacists and police brutality against unarmed Black men.

In a recent podcast, Grand Master Jay vowed to protect the rights of Black voters who may be intimidated by white supremacists at the polls. “I think that everybody needs to climb down out of their emotional tree, and remember that it is against federal law to show up at a voting place with weapons and intimidate anybody,” he said on “Run and Tell This podcast.”

“If the United States government doesn’t want to enforce that law against people that doesn’t look like us, they’re not going to enforce it against us. We have no intentions of starting a confrontation or firefight over this vote.”

According to him, the Black community feel disenfranchised by the whole US electoral system. He explained that the mission of the group is not to fight anyone who wants to vote for either Trump or Biden but to ward-off the Proud Boys and other white supremacy groups. 

According to ADL, a non-profit organization that works to stop hate groups, the Proud Boys is a misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti-immigration organization. Some members espouse white supremacist and anti-Semitic ideologies and/or engage with white supremacist groups, it added.

In the first presidential debate against Biden, Trump told the group to “stand back and stand by.” He added: “But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left, because this is not a right-wing problem. This is a left-wing problem.”

Shortly after the debate, Proud Boys organizer, Joe Biggs, posted on social media: “President Trump told the proud boys to stand by because someone needs to deal with ANTIFA… well sir! we’re ready!!.” 

For Grand Master and his militia, the president essentially gave marching orders to the Proud Boys to attack Black voters, something he and his men would not allow to happen on Election Day and beyond.

“We’re not carrying those guns for show,” he said on the podcast, adding that: “You best believe I’m prepared to die so that you and your children can have a future.”

Not F*cking Around Coalition was formed in 2017 after white supremacists marched through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, and instigated violence, leading to the death of one person and many sustaining injuries.

“This was it. We had to get serious,” Grand Master Jay told VICE News. “No more talking. No more speculating. No more ‘What ifs.’ That was when I knew race relations had gotten to a point. What were we doing here? Things are just getting worse.”

The group has two missions. The first is to form an “inter-city security force to protect Black communities and the second mission is to form an “ethnostate”, a new country that’s “owned, operated by Blacks.”

Kanye West temporarily shelved his ambition of becoming the president of the United States after he conceded defeat in the historic 2020 elections that is being keenly contested by Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

But though the controversial rapper and fashion designer has come to terms with the fact that he won’t occupy the White House for the next four years, it seems he’s open to giving it another go as he expressed his desire to contest again in 2024.

Taking to his Twitter on Tuesday, Kanye shared a photo of him with an electoral map background with the caption: “WELP KANYE 2024.” That was preceded by an earlier Tweet the same day where the 43-year-old announced he was going to vote for the president of the United States for the first, and for himself.

“God is so good,” he posted. “Today I am voting for the first time in my life for the President of the United States, and it’s for someone I truly trust…me.”

He also shared videos of his ballot process, including filling out his name as well as that of his pick for vice president Michelle Tidball on the sheet before submitting it.

Though West’s July announcement of his short-lived presidential bid and his subsequent campaign raised eyebrows and was marred with drama, the Jesus Walks rapper still appeared on ballots in 12 states and managed to secure over 50,000 votes, preliminary tallies by the Associated Press revealed, according to New York Post.

Per the preliminary tallies, the rapper got almost 6,000 votes in Colorado and secured over 1,200 votes in Vermont. He also got almost 4,000 and 2,309 votes in Arkansas and Idaho respectively. He secured 3,179 votes in Iowa while he got 6,259 votes in Kentucky. He also got votes in Louisiana (4,837), Minnesota (6,796), Mississippi (3,009), Oklahoma (5,587), Tennessee (10,188), as well as Utah (4,053)