News — United States

 Jholie Moussa, a 16-year-old African American girl, went missing in 2018. For two weeks, the police insisted that she left of her own free will, a run away. No further action was taken. Her body was later found in the woods. This is one example of hundreds of cases of black kids going missing and not much being done to address the case. Additionally, the press is more likely to highlight cases of white children going missing than black kids. Even though African-Americans making up significantly less of the US population than white people, black kids are much more likely to go missing than their white counterparts. What do you think?

The Battle of Nashville occurred on December 15-16, 1864 south of Nashville, Tennessee. The battle, between approximately 22,000 Union troops led by Major General George Henry Thomas and 40,000 Confederate troops led by Lieutenant General John Bell Hood, was considered a major Union victory in the Western Theater of the Civil War (the area west of the Appalachian Mountains). It was also significant because African American Union troops played a crucial role in the Union victory.

African American Union soldiers served in the United States Colored Troops (USCT) regiments. The USCT were eight regiments—the 12th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 44th, and 100th—all units of the U.S. Colored Infantry led by white officers. An estimated 13,000 USCT soldiers participated in the Battle of Nashville, the largest number of black soldiers on any battlefield so far in the Civil War.

On December 15, 1864, the 13th USCT and the 2nd Colored Brigade (three regiments of black troops) were ordered to move in position for an assault on a Confederate battery position along the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad near Nolensville Pike. The Confederates who expected a Union attack, positioned their artillery to open fire on the USCT brigade. Confederate troops also opened fire on the 13th USCT but they were guarded by earthworks. The 13th USCT used the earthworks as shelter as they exchange gunfire with Confederate forces. The 20th Indiana Battery arrived to give support to the 13th USCT men and with those reinforcements, they forced the Confederates to pull their cannons back.

The next day, Union Colonel Charles R. Thompson received orders to take his 2nd Colored Brigade to join General Thomas J. Woods’ 4th Corps. The 13th USCT along with the 12th and 100th USCT arrived at Peach Orchard Hill where the Confederates immediately opened fire at them but none of the USCT took any losses. General Wood told Thompson that he would attack the Confederate position at Overton Hill and requested three USCT regiments to support his left flank. Around 3:00 p.m., the Union troops began their attack. Thompson placed the 100th and 12th USCT in front and use the 13th as support. The 12th encountered a dense thicket which slowed their advance. Meanwhile the 100th USCT came upon several fallen trees that slowed their advance as well. Both regiments faced heavy fire from the Confederate troops occupying Overton Hill.

Colonel Thompson ordered the 12th USCT to take shelter to regroup. The 100th USCT and 4th Corps attempted to advance but were pushed back by the Confederates. The 13th USCT, however pushed past the 2nd Brigade and continued to advance up the hill while subject to withering fire from Confederate troops. With no support from the white Union troops or other black regiments, who fell back from their positions, the 13th USCT continued to storm the Confederate earthworks. The regiment took heavy casualties but failed to take Overton Hill. Despite that failure, Confederate troops were forced to withdraw.

The Union Army would go on to win the Battle of Nashville and end the Army of Tennessee (Confederates) as a fighting force in Tennessee. The battle, however, cost the 13TH USCT dearly. The 900-soldier regiment lost four white officers and 55 enlisted men killed along with 4 white officers and 165 enlisted men wounded. Their bravely in the battle however was acknowledged by their white counterparts and officers alike. General George H. Thomas, the Union commander who was a Virginian by birth and who previously harbored doubts about the black soldiers under his command, rode across the battlefield seeing the bodies of black Union soldiers and white Confederate soldiers lying together, said to his officers, “Gentlemen, the question is settled, negro soldiers will fight.”

The Shady Rest Golf & Country Club in Scotch Plains, New Jersey is the oldest African American golf club in the United States. It was the mecca of black middle-class society in New Jersey from the 1920s to the 1960s with members traveling from as far as the Carolinas to enjoy its amenities.

The land, previously the Ephraim Tucker Farm, was a 31-acre plot which was sold to the Westfield Golf Club whose members then converted it into a nine-hole golf course, keeping the farmhouse as its new clubhouse. On September 21, 1921, a group of black investors known as the Progressive Realty Company, Inc., including Scotch Plains resident Henry Willis Sr., purchased the club and renamed it the Shady Rest Golf and Country Club.

Designed to provide a recreational facility to its members during a time of intense racial segregation, many African American residents from surrounding New Jersey communities were able to partake in the clubs’ activities such as golfing, croquet, skeet shooting, horseback riding, and tennis. A Place For Us was its motto as many prominent black activists such as W.E.B. DuBois lectured there. And as a result of its location, just thirty miles west of New York City and its inclusion in The Negro Motorist Green Book, the clubhouse became a haven for many prominent black entertainers such as Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstein, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughn, Chick Webb, and Billie Holiday. They all came to perform there while enjoying the exclusivity that Shady Rest provided. In addition, Ora Washington and Althea Gibson, the first African Americans to win a grand slam title, honed their skills on its tennis pavilion.

The golf course was home to the first National Colored Golf Championship held in 1925 and sponsored by the United States Colored Golfers Association which had been founded earlier that year and led by its president, B.C. Gordon. Gordon was also the president of Shady Rest. Its head professional golfer, John Shippen, served as its groundskeeper. In 1896, Shippen was the first African American professional golfer to play in the U.S. Open. Shippen, an African American of Jamaican descent, played in five U.S. opens before settling in Scotch Plains in 1931 and managing Shady Rest until his retirement in 1960.

In 1964, after a legal battle, the township of Scotch Plains gained ownership of the Club and made the grounds public and racially integrated. It also changed the name to the Scotch Hills Golf and Country Club. The Club House still survives. When under a threat of demolition in 2013, local residents formed The Preserve Shady Rest Committee and raised money to have the clubhouse renovated and restored. It now includes a small museum dedicated to John Shippen and his contribution to golf history. Shady Rest is currently on the list of endangered landmarks in New Jersey in anticipation of being declared a historical landmark.

Composer, guitarist, pianist, storyteller Bukka White was born Booker T. Washington White on November 12, 1906, in Houston, Chickasaw County, Mississippi, to Herman and Sarah Farr White. He got his initial start in music, learning the violin with Cajun and blues tunes, and the guitar from his father. White’s mother and legendary blues guitarist B.B. King’s grandmother were sisters.

In 1919 when White was 13, he left for Chicago, where he played on the streets with a blind guitarist. At the age of 14 he returned to Clarksdale, Mississippi, where he stayed with an uncle. During that time, he contacted Delta blues legend Charley Patton, who taught him the rudimentary music theory for improvisation on the guitar and fiddle, and introduced him to other instruments. In addition to music, White pursued careers in sport, playing in Negro League baseball and, for a time, taking up boxing. He later served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1944.

In 1930 White met and impressed Ralph Limbo, a talent scout for the Victor label and traveled to Memphis for his first recordings, singing the blues and gospel material. However, Victor only released four of the 14 songs White recorded that day. In 1937, Bukka recorded “Pinebluff Arkansas'” and “Shake ‘em on down” for the Vocalion label in Chicago. During the music session in Memphis, Tennessee police knocked at the door to arrest him for allegedly shooting a man in self-defense. While awaiting the trial, he jumped bail and headed for Chicago, making two recordings before being apprehended and sent back to Mississippi to serve three years at the Mississippi State Penitentiary called Parchman Farm. While he was serving time, White’s record “Shake ’em on down” became a hit.

In 1939 White, while still at Parchman, recorded for folklorist Alan Lomax’s American Music Project which eventually was housed at the Library of Congress. White’s album recorded for Lomax and called Sky Songs, Vols. 1-3, included more than 60 minutes of Blues. “Parchman Farm Blues” was one of the songs. The improvised songs allowed White to tell stories about the dusty street corners, dirt roads, juke joints, and jails that felt like home to him.

By 1970, White was still performing on the blues festival circuit.  He often experimented with new material but his fans waited to hear him play “Parchman Farm Blues.”  In 1973 White released the album Big Daddy which was a commercial and critical success for the 67-year- old bluesman. It was also his last album.

Bukka White died of cancer on February 26, 1977, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 70. However, he was posthumously celebrated in 1990 by being inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. On November 21, 2011, the Recording Academy announced the addition of White’s “Fixin’ to Die Blues” to its 2012 list of Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

On August 19, 1998, 14 cruise missiles flattened El-Shifa, Sudan’s largest pharmaceutical factory producing essential medicines for people in the then-largest country in Africa. Then-U.S. President Bill Clinton ordered the attack on the factory and a training camp in Afghanistan in retaliation for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania two weeks earlier by Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network.

A total of 79 missiles was launched from a submarine in the Red Sea, with 14 hitting El-Shifa industrial facility adjacent to a residential area in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. One person died in the middle-of-the-night strike, and 10 were wounded.

Clinton said at the time that El-Shifa was part-owned by bin Laden, the main suspect for the bombings of the embassies, and was producing nerve gas.

The U.S. based its case on a single soil sample supposedly acquired by the CIA from outside the El-Shifa main gate. However, when journalists from across the world toured the bombed site days later, they realized that something was amiss. Records and documents that remained at the site clearly showed that the plant produced ‘antibiotics, malaria tablets and syrups as well as drugs for hypertension, diabetes, ulcer, tuberculosis and rheumatism, a report noted.

Another report stated that half the supply of the then-standard drug for malaria, chloroquine, and most of the veterinary drugs used in Sudan came from the plant. In effect, Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the third world, suffered from an immediate shortage of these supplies. And the worst was yet to come.

But before that, journalists at the bombed site also observed what American intelligence had failed to notice – that the plant/factory was privately owned and part-financed by a development bank in Kenya. Saleh Idris, a Sudanese-born businessman, was the owner of the plant. Shortly after the incident, the U.S. government froze his bank assets, including almost $24 million held with the Bank of America. He subsequently filed a civil suit in a U.S. court against the Treasury Department and the Bank of America claiming that his assets were blocked even though there was a lack of evidence that his plant was involved in the production of materials for chemicals weapons, one account noted.

But moments before a court response was due, the U.S. government unfroze the assets. Still, the charges linking Idris to ‘international terrorism’ were not dropped. And although the charges were not being pursued, Idris sued the U.S. government in federal court in Washington for unjustifiably destroying the plant, for defaming him, and for failing to give full compensation for the facility’s destruction.

A federal judge however dismissed the lawsuit and an appeals court upheld the dismissal. “The appeals court ruled the case involved a political question covered by a legal doctrine that means the suit cannot be reviewed by the judicial branch,” Reuters reported in 2010.

But a debate about whether the El-Shifa plant ever posed a threat took place within the U.S. government at the time, and that debate remains unsolved.

Then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen said that, before the strike, the U.S. was not aware that El-Shifa was making medicines. Curiously, the plant had before the attack signed a large U.S.-approved United Nations oil-for-food contract with Iraq. Thus, part of the medicines produced at El-Shifa were being exported to Iraq. To observers, America’s bombing of El-Shifa was to give a clear message: “Help our enemy and pay the price.”

Years before the missile attack, intelligence reports had indicated that “Iraq had shifted some chemical weapons capacity to Sudan.” This emerged years before bin Laden was kicked out of Sudan in 1996 following pressure from Washington. Bin Laden had been in Sudan’s capital Khartoum for five years, building farms, bridges, roads and his al-Qaida terrorist group. Two years after he was expelled came the Sudan missile strike.

The country was struggling to emerge from years of economic struggle, dictatorship, police and military brutality when the strike occurred. Amidst famine, El-Shifa was the only factory that was producing cheap tuberculosis drugs and veterinary drugs in Sudan when it was destroyed. A public health disaster may have been the result if replacement medicines had not been provided immediately, authorities said. Still, months after the attack, an epidemic of meningitis hit Sudan. Scores of children and adults lost their lives due to lack of antibiotics for treatment.

To Dr Idris Eltayeb, chairman of El-Shifa’s board, the bombing of Sudan’s largest manufacturer of medicinal products was “just as much an act of terrorism as at the twin towers”.

“The only difference is we know who did it,” he was quoted by the Guardian. “I feel very sad about the loss of life there, but in terms of numbers, and the relative cost to a poor country, this was worse.”

Today, millions of people in Sudan are struggling through an economic crisis that has deepened as the country emerges from years of isolation and conflict. Inflation has risen to more than 300%, with shortages of essential items like food, medicine and other commodities.

Chattel slavery was practiced in the Danish West Indies from around 1650 until July 3, 1848, when Colonial Governor Peter von Scholten issued an emancipation proclamation. The Danish government, however, then enacted rules that kept people enslaved by contracts for another two years. Moreover, in 1847, a year before the Governor’s decree, the government instituted a gradual emancipation plan that freed the children born to enslaved laborers from that point would be free. It further stated that all slavery would cease entirely in 1859.

Given the confusion and uncertainty around emancipation, sugar plantation owners made sure that the lives of former slaves changed little after emancipation. Many ex-slaves were hired at the plantations where they were previously enslaved and offered one-year working contracts that included a small hut, a plot of land, and a little money. Unlike during slavery, these free workers did not receive food or any care from their employers prompting some of them to declare that the new conditions were worse that enslavement.

Each October 1 (Contract Day) workers were allowed to leave their plantations and enter into contracts with new plantation owners. On October 1, 1878, workers gathered on the island of St. Croix to protest wages and the harsh living conditions they were forced to live in. This gathering turned into a riot. Participants threw stones at Danish soldiers, who soon barricaded themselves in the town Fort on the island. The riots were said to be organized and led by three women: Mary Thomas, Axeline Elizabeth Salomon, and Mathilda McBean.

On October 4, 1878, British, French, and American warships arrived at St. Croix help stop the riots but were turned away by local Danish authorities. The next day Governor von Scholten issued a declaration that all laborers should return to their plantations or be declared “rebels.” The uprising continued but after two weeks many workers had returned to their plantations and the revolt ended. During the unrest nearly 100 people were killed and 50 houses were burned. Almost 900 acres of sugar were destroyed.

The Danes arrested approximately 400 people. Twelve were sentenced to death and immediately executed. Another 39 were sentenced, but 34 had their sentences commuted to shorter terms. Among the last group were Mary, Axeline, and Mathilda who were sent to the Women’s Prison, Christianshavn, in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1882. They then returned to Christiansted, St. Croix in 1887, to serve out the remainder of their sentences. These three women became known as “The Three Queens.”

In 2004, historian Wayne James discovered historical documents that suggested the role of a fourth Queen, Susanna Abramsen, also known as Bottom Belly. St. Croix has a Queen Mary Highway in her honor, and The Three Queens fountain was commissioned by the St. Thomas Historical Trust and unveiled in 2005 on St. Thomas. Each statue holds a tool in their hands used in the revolt; a flaming torch, a sugarcane knife, and a lantern. In 2018, artist Jeanette Ehlers and La Vaughn Belle created the I Am Queen Mary monument in the port of Copenhagen. The statue is twenty-three feet tall and is Denmark’s first public monument to a black woman.

As one would expect, Oklahoma’s Republican governor Kevin Stitt was on the planning committee that is putting together the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the unforgettable Tulsa Race Massacre which occurred in 1921. But Stitt was kicked out of the committee this week for signing into law, a bill meant to prevent different aspects of Critical Race Theory.

Stitt’s earlier addition could be read as a respectful nod to authority as well as to bipartisan contribution considering that the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission includes both Republicans and Democrats. Oklahoma, a deeply red state, last voted for a Democratic governor in 2002. Nonetheless, Stitt’s inclusion had been “purely ceremonial” according to the commission yet, his assent to the bill was thought to inimical to the spirit of the commemoration.

A statement on Friday said “[T]he 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commissioners met Tuesday and agreed through consensus to part ways with Governor Stitt.” No elected officials were involved in the decision, the statement also said.

Even though the commissioners were “disheartened”, they were thankful of Stitt’s contributions thus far.

While Connecticut and California have passed bills embracing certain aspects of Critical Race Theory to be taught in schools, other states such as Idaho are looking to ban CRT or aspects of it in schools. The division over where you can and cannot learn CRT over the next few years is bound to be very political.

Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is better understood as a lens with which to look at the world rather than a field of studies or a defined subject area. CRT assumes that American social and political life, or the social and political life of western society in general, are rooted in suppositions that also gave birth to racial consciousness.

By this, CRT proponents such as Kimberlé Crenshaw and Derrick Bell opine that western society is a necessarily white supremacist, in the sense that western society was structured out of the humanity of those who shared whiteness. The structures these people of whiteness built were meant to perpetuate their kind and defend their ways.

The massacre

Sometimes known as the Tulsa race riot, it was a two-day massacre that happened when a white mob attacked and destroyed the properties of the black inhabitants living in Greenwood, Tulsa which was at that time the most affluent African-American community in the United States. It was even known as the “Black Wall Street” as it was home to highly successful and profitable black-owned businesses.

The riot was spurred after a 19-year old black shoeshiner by the name of Dick Rowland was accused of raping a 17-year old white female elevator operator by the name of Sarah Page. It is thought this accusation was caused by Rowland slipping and falling on Page. The white woman initially refused to press charges.

Bu the incident was reported by a white-owned local newspaper calling for his lynching. Rowland was processed and taken to court on May 31, 1921, however, tensions between the white mob who went to the courthouse to lynch Rowland and the black residents who were also around to ensure his safety escalated into a 24-hour-long armed confrontation.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has ordered a White South Carolina restaurant manager to pay $546,000 as restitution to a Black man with intellectual disabilities after he forced him to work at an eatery under his management for five years without pay.

The recent ruling comes after a district court initially ordered 56-year-old Bobby Paul Edwards to pay $273,000 to John Christopher Smith in unpaid wages and overtime compensation after he reached a plea deal with authorities in 2019, The Washington Post reported. Edwards, who ran the J&J Cafeteria in Conway, was also sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of forced labor.

However, an April 21 ruling by the appellate court determined the district court “had erred” in not calculating the initial amount based on federal labor laws – meaning Smith was actually entitled to $546,000 or twice the amount. Smith, who worked at the restaurant from 2009 to 2014 without any remuneration, was also subjected to physical and racial abuse by Edwards during that period. Smith was also reportedly forced to work for over 100 hours every week and was not entitled to any day-offs.

“When an employer fails to pay those amounts (regular and overtime pay), the employee suffers losses, which includes the loss of the use of that money during the period of delay,” the ruling determined.

Smith, 43, started working at the eatery as a dishwasher and table busser in 1990 at the age of 12. And though he initially did not have any issues with the previous restaurant managers, things started to go south when Edwards took over in 2009. With the now-convicted Edwards in charge, Smith was denied his salary and was treated without any respect for human decency.

Edwards forced the Black worker to move into an apartment that was infested with roaches, The Washington Post reported. Smith’s attorneys said the apartment, which belonged to Edwards, was “sub-human,” “deplorable” and “harmful to human health.” Besides that, a Department of Justice report also stated Edwards subjected Smith to physical abuse. This included beating him into submission, whipping him with a belt, knocking him with pots and pans, and at one time, burning him with hot grease. Edwards also prevented Smith from having any contact with his family and threatened to call the police on him.

“Most of the time I felt unsafe, like Bobby could kill me if he wanted,” Smith said, per court documents. “I wanted to get out of that place so bad but couldn’t think about how I could without being hurt.”

Edwards was eventually arrested in 2014 after a lady whose daughter-in-law worked at the restaurant reported him to authorities. Workers at the restaurant were initially hesitant to report Edwards out of fear of retaliation from him.

“For stealing his victim’s freedom and wages, Mr. Edwards has earned every day of his sentence,” U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina Sherri A. Lydon reportedly said after his 2019 sentencing. “The U.S. attorney’s office will not tolerate forced or exploitative labor in South Carolina, and we are grateful to the watchful citizen and our partners in law enforcement who put a stop to this particularly cruel violence.”

Twenty years after the United States launched an ill-advised military offensive in the Middle East, President Joe Biden has announced that American soldiers who number about 2,500 will be pulled out of Afghanistan, a process that started in May and is expected to end in September.

The war in Afghanistan is America’s longest ever and has taken more than 300,000 lives, many of whom have been Afghan civilians. A little over 2,000 American soldiers have also lost their lives. All of these are on top of a collapsed national infrastructure and the cessation of the dreams of hundreds of thousands of young Afghans.

In this year that America begins to walk the talk that has been uttered by all the presidents after George W. Bush., it is important to remember the only congressperson who voted against a joint legislature resolution to give the American president an inexhaustible right to do all that they thought to do militarily in response to the September 11 attacks: Barbara Lee of California’s 13th District.

The Authorization for Use of Military Force was passed on September 18, 2001, exactly a week after the saddest day in modern American history. America was a nation wailing and wondering who its enemies were. The foes had not been absolutely faceless but public opinion succumbed to the impression that the enmity was present and pervasive and its ammunition was imaginably dangerous. What happened was what economist Naomi Klein has called the Shock Doctrine – how governments – or better still, free-market apologists – use natural disasters or attacks as bases to assume far-reaching powers that drastically shifts the tectonics of political culture.

In the case of the United States own shock doctrine after the plane crashes, the industry that made the machines and materials for war was hopeful of a brute American response to September 11. They lobbied power to make war happen. In some including Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney, the military industry could count on men who were the farthest from pacifist.

In all honesty, public sympathies lied with revenge of different sorts and one could make sense of that as a legitimate human response. But what Lee stressed at the time was that American leadership needed to be circumspect lest they cajole the citizenry into irreparable damages. As the sole vote against the bill, Lee said on the floor:

However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of restraint. There must be some of us who say, let’s step back for a moment and think through the implications of our actions today-let us more fully understand their consequences. We are not dealing with a conventional war. We cannot respond in a conventional manner. I do not want to see this spiral out of control. This crisis involves issues of national security, foreign policy, public safety, intelligence gathering, economics, and murder. Our response must be equally multifaceted.

She would go on to criticize in media interviews, the biggest “blank check” ever handed to an American president. The law effectively gave powers to President Bush that no other president before him had had. This legal reality also translated into public spending. Between 2001 and 2003, the year America invaded Iraq, the defense budget budget grew about 30% from $330 billion to $440 billion.

Seeing how things turned out in Afghanistan, it was hard to forget Lee’s protest vote. Yet when she did it, Lee was the object of scorn and contempt. She recently revealed that she received death threats forcing to toughen her personal security. Her patriotism was questioned and was referred to by several unsavory names. Two decades on, she is not gloating but appreciative of the Biden administration’s efforts to return soldiers home.

“Finally, we are beginning to bring our troops home, which we should have done years ago. Taking them out of harm’s way and using diplomatic [means] and diplomacy tools that we to make sure that we do this right,” she told.

Hollywood star and former U.S. presidential appointee Hill Harper is on a mission to deepen financial literacy in underserved communities in a bid to drive financial inclusion. Financial literacy in underserved communities remains low and this situation has been attributed to the lack of financial inclusion and banks’ unwillingness to serve in deprived areas.

To this end, Harper has launched The Black Wall Street (TBWS), becoming the first Black person to own a digital wallet and cryptocurrency exchange platform in the United States. The actor intends to use TBWS as a major step in closing the racial wealth gap in the U.S.

The sole purpose of The Black Wall Street, unlike the traditional financial institutions, is to provide persons of color the opportunity to be involved in the transfer of wealth with cryptocurrency and decentralized finance. Also, the Black Wall Street DigitalWallet will connect financial services with the financially underserved populations, everyone from the disadvantaged “unbanked and underbanked” to the savvy cost-efficient consumer.

“Our technology seeks to replicate the brick and mortar Black Wall Street, as a digital ecosystem that will galvanize the financially excluded and directly stimulate the economic growth and spending in marginalized communities everywhere,” Harper said in a statement.

He added: “With the Black Wall Street technology, we seek to make obsolete payday lenders and other financial predators plaguing our communities, while simultaneously creating cross-generational wealth transfer, for people who have historically been taught to work for our wages instead of making our wages work for us…because Black Cash Matters.”

The name of the app was inspired by the original Black Wall Street in Tulsa, which was destroyed by White extremists 100 years ago. Despite the unfortunate incident which many believe led to the destruction of Black economic power, it is still the most successful Black economic community in the U.S.

In May, The Black Walk Street will embark on a 30-day financial literacy tour, “The Digital Financial Revolution” National Bus Tour, which will start in Los Angeles and end on Greenwood Avenue in Tulsa, OK. It will visit 30 of the most densely populated and economically challenged communities across the U.S. to educate people about The Black Wall Street App & DigitalWallet.

Harper is an entrepreneur and an award-winning actor. The former Barack Obama appointee serves on the Board of Directors of the National Black Bank Fund and he has been named Honorary National Co-Chair of the Redevelopment of Black Wall Street by the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce.

He is passionate about technology, financial literacy, and social & economic justice. The entrepreneur is a graduate of Brown University. He also holds a Master’s in Public Administration, with honors, from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and holds seven honorary doctoral degrees.

“She has stolen the highly prized status of U.S. citizenship.”

“The defendant was not a mere spectator; the defendant personally participated in the killing of men, women and children, merely because they were called Tutsi.”

Those were the words of District Court Judge Stephen J. McAuliffe in July 2013 before sentencing Beatrice Munyenyezi, then 43, to 10 years in prison in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. Munyenyezi was sentenced on two counts of procuring American citizenship unlawfully by lying about her role in the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi. McAuliffe also stripped the Rwandan woman of her U.S. citizenship on the day of her conviction.

Munyenyezi was charged in June 2010 and later convicted in March 2012 by a New Hampshire federal jury. The jury said she obtained her U.S. citizenship unlawfully by “misrepresenting material facts to U.S. immigration authorities” after fleeing her home country of Rwanda. According to a statement by the ICE, testimony during the trial disclosed that Munyenyezi concealed her role in the Rwandan genocide, including her involvement in the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND), the political party in power before and during the genocide, and its youth wing, the Interahamwe.

The Interahamwe was behind a militia that was heavily involved in the genocide, according to U.S. investigators. “Evidence at trial demonstrated that Munyenyezi, as a member of the Interahamwe, participated, aided and abetted in the persecution and murder of Tutsi people during the 1994 genocide,” ICE wrote.

At least 800,000 people – ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus – were killed in 100 days by Hutu militias during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. More than two million refugees fled Rwanda, generating a humanitarian crisis.

During Munyenyezi’s trial, scores of witnesses testified that throughout the genocide, Munyenyezi would stand on roadblocks outside her home and check identifications to identify Tutsi. She would then hand them over to the Interahamwe militia to be killed. Women were raped before being killed, witnesses said. Munyenyezi once commanded Interahamwe to rape one nun whom she later killed using a pistol, according to investigators.

“The evidence demonstrated that Munyenyezi misrepresented these facts in order to obtain immigration and naturalization benefits. She was ineligible to become a U.S. citizen because of her participation in genocide and murder,” ICE wrote in a statement in 2013.

Munyenyezi served a 10-year sentence in the state of Alabama and had faced deportation. She requested a new trial “based on a 2017 U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting the government’s ability to strip citizenship from immigrants who lied during the naturalization process,” Associated Press reported. She challenged how the jury was instructed during her trial in federal court in New Hampshire, but a judge ruled that “even if the instruction fell short, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Last Friday, she was deported to Rwanda after losing her latest court case in March. She was arrested upon arrival in Rwanda, where she faces seven charges related to the 1994 genocide — murder as a genocide crime, conspiracy to commit genocide, planning of the genocide, complicity in genocide, incitement to commit genocide, extermination, and complicity in rape.

Upon her arrival, she was handed over to the Immigrations Office before being delivered to Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB), the New Times reported. The RIB said the genocide suspect will be detained at Remera RIB station as investigations continue, before sending her case to prosecution.

In July 1994, months after the Rwandan genocide, Munyenyezi, whose husband played a leadership role in the extremist Hutu militia party, fled to Nairobi, Kenya, with a young daughter. Reports said she gave birth to twin girls there four months later before entering the United States as a refugee. She settled in Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest city, and got a job with the city housing authority.

Munyenyezi earned an associate’s degree in college and lived comfortably through mortgages, loans and credit cards. She however filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and had about $400,000 in debt discharged, according to reports.

Meanwhile, her husband, Arsene Ntahobali, and his mother Pauline Nyiramasuhuko were sentenced to life in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for their role in the genocide against the Tutsi.

The deaf community in the United States is condemning the actions of North Las Vegas police officers who allegedly handcuffed a deaf motorist in the presence of her 11-year-old twins and then made the minors interpret for them, FOX5 reports.

The incident reportedly occurred when the woman, identified as Andrea “Dre” Hollingsworth, went to her former landlord to collect a rent refund after moving out early. The landlord, however, called the police on her and when they arrived, a confrontation ensued.

In an interview with the news outlet, Hollingsworth said she was unable to effectively communicate with the officers due to her condition, adding that she also did not know why she was pulled over.

“I don’t know, I’m being pulled over and he is interrogating me … I am black, I am deaf, George Floyd just happened,” Hollingsworth, who streamed the encounter on Facebook Live, said. “The police officer pulled my arm … and I was like, ‘whoa, why?’ I have never experienced anything like that in my life.”

Hollingsworth’s twin daughters were in the car during the stop and the officer also ordered them to exit the vehicle. Meanwhile, Hollingsworth said she told the officer the only way they could communicate was through texting and writing but “he just kept on talking.”

In the video, the officer is heard telling the twins their mother is being investigated. One of the girls also tries to explain what their mother is doing in the area. “She is just here because she needs her money back from her friend,” she tells the officer.

The confrontation, however, escalated and Hollingsworth said the officer forcefully made her sit on the curb of the road after she came out of her car. She was later handcuffed while her children watched screaming. From that point, Hollingsworth said she was unable to sign.

“Tell her to put her hands behind her back,” an officer is heard saying in the video. “One of you guys need to talk some sense into her.”

Responding to the incident, the North Las Vegas Police Department said Hollingsworth “initially refused to comply with requests and was briefly detained until police completed their investigation.”

Speaking to FOX5, deaf rights lawyer Andrew Rozynski said the officers making Hollingsworth’s twins interpret for them was illegal. “Requiring an 11-year-old to interpret in a police situation is against the Americans with Disabilities Act. There are regulations in there that expressly prohibit children from being used as interpreters,” he said.

Quite a handful of police departments reportedly have round-the-clock interpreter services to facilitate effective communication in these kinds of scenarios. “There are services out there such as video relay, in which someone can bring up an interpreter on an iPhone or iPad,” Rozynski revealed.

Hollingsworth said the incident likely left her twin daughters scared and devastated. “I never thought this would happen to me because I am not a criminal,” she said. “My kids are afraid because of all the incidents that have been happening recently. They are raised Black in this community, so when they see a police officer, they are also on high alert.”

To prevent future occurrences of such nature, the Black mother said she wants to see reform in the city’s policing. “I really want all of Las Vegas police to change, because it is really scary how deaf people are treated. If my kids weren’t with me, then I would have died that day. My kids saved my life,” she said.