Article Link: Civil rights activists offer new voice

A group of Spelman graduates have formed a group asking for support as they march against the injustice in the Megan Williams case as well as other crimes against women…

The recent mass rally in Jena, La., protesting alleged racial injustice has led some pundits to ask whether it signaled the dawning of a modern civil rights movement.

Now that the Jena headlines have subsided, a group of Spelman graduates and others are asking different questions: What about cases in Logan, W.Va., or West Palm Beach, Fla.? Where are the rallies, calls to justice and media blitzes in those cases, which involved alleged crimes both horrific in their detail and with strong racial and sexual overtones.

But within those questions posed by the young women lies a more provocative one: Isn’t it time for a modern civil rights movement to protest intra-racial violence just as vigorously as inter-racial violence? Particularly when it’s a crime against women.

The young women hope to start changing that. They’ve launched a vigorous Internet campaign and blog, “Be Bold, Be Brave, Be Red.” They’ve made a YouTube-style video about the two cases, and others, on their Web site (www.documentthesilence.wordpress.com). And they’re encouraging people nationwide to wear red Wednesday and to hold observances to draw attention to the Florida and West Virginia cases. Their message is that violence against women of color is worthy of protest regardless of the perpetrator’s race.

“If it’s going to be about nooses,” said organizer Fallon Wilson, referring to the genesis of the Jena case, “it’s also got to be about other forms of violence too. You cannot just advocate for race alone. Things are more complicated than that.”

“A lot of young black women organized for Jena, but where are they for Megan Williams and others?” said Bailey.

Article Link: Ministers meet opposition for decision not to march.

A march has been scheduled for November 3rd for Megan Williams and there is a new wrinkle in that some people are not happy that the former chairman of the New Black Panther party is providing legal assistance to the family and has organized the march…

Members of the Charleston Black Ministerial Alliance are facing opposition to the group’s reluctance to join in a protest march organized by a controversial black lawyer.

The alliance held a meeting Sunday at New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church to explain its position to community members.

Instead of support, the group was met with outbursts of anger.

Some in the audience became confrontational with the black ministers, accusing them of perpetuating the perceived bigotry that will be the target of the planned protest.

At the meeting, Rev. Lloyd Hill, who heads up the alliance, denounced the organizer of the Nov. 3 march, Malik Shabazz, co-founder of Black Lawyers for Justice and a former chairman of the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense.

Shabazz’s group is providing legal assistance to the family of Megan Williams, the young Charleston woman who says she was raped and tortured for days by six Logan County residents.

Article Link: W.Va. Woman Speaks About Torture Ordeal

Megan Williams thought she was going to a party. That’s why she tagged along with a woman she hardly knew, up a remote southern West Virginia hollow to a run-down trailer surrounded by beer cans and broken-down furniture.

“But there wasn’t no party,” Williams said. “I realized I’d made a bad mistake.”

Posted by kdub under Current Headlines & Mahogany Alert |