Cristo Rey Oklahoma City Catholic School will honor student success on September 10
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Cristo Rey Oklahoma City Catholic High School (Cristo Rey OKC) will commemorate the success of their students while enjoying “An Evening of Royals” on Thursday, Sept. 10, at the Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club. This is the private high school’s second annual celebration of students, donors and corporate work study partners.
“We are really proud of these students and they deserve to be celebrated,” Cristo Rey OKC President Chip Carter said. “This evening allows us to recognize special individuals including students, staff, faculty and community members who support our mission.”
An Evening of Royals will begin at 6 p.m. with a cocktail reception followed by a dinner and celebratory program at 7 p.m. Co-chaired by Bob and Heather Ross, this event will also include honoring Judy Love as the recipient of the Cristo Rey OKC Legacy Award.
“We are deeply grateful to Judy and proud to recognize her for being such an integral part of the Cristo Rey OKC (https://ift.tt/2Ypxlc3) launch in 2018 and our school’s early success,” Carter continued. “Judy has been nothing short of miraculous for our school and has done so much for the Oklahoma City community, much more than people know.”
Announcing the event, Cristo Rey officials said "we would like to extend our appreciation to all of our 2020 sponsors including our Faith Sponsor, Bridges Health, and our Knowledge Sponsor, the Inasmuch Foundation.
"Our Purpose Sponsors include Christ the King Catholic Church, Dana and Ronald Hill, Love’s Travel Stops, Maguire O’Hara Construction, Sue and Chris Neuberger, Stella Nova and the Oklahoma Blood Institute. BancFirst and the First National Bank of Oklahoma are our Service Sponsors.
"Friends of Cristo Rey include Peggy and Kevin Corbett, Debbie and Greg Downs, Lisa and Bentley Edmonds, Kim and Chris Harrell, Jones PR, Fitzgerald Associates Architects, Karen and Martin Smith, Smith and Pickel Construction and Lee Anne and Renzi Stone."
For more information about this event, visit https://www.cristoreyokc.org/events.
NOTE: Patrick B. McGuigan contributed to this report.
Cristo Rey Oklahoma City Catholic School will honor student success on September 10 Click on the headline to read the full article at Site Articles
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OKLAHOMA CITY – The Senate Democratic Caucus released the following joint statement on Tuesday, with additional comments issued by Senators Kevin Matthews and George Young.
State Sen. Kay Floyd, Senate Democratic Leader, on June 9 sent a press release to CapitolBeatOK and other news organizations.
Three statements follow:
“In the aftermath of the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Oklahomans have responded with both grief and anger. Oklahoma Senate Democrats understand why so many people are responding the way they are. We affirm that Americans have a constitutional right to protest. We believe that black lives matter here in Oklahoma and all across our country. We are hopeful that out of this struggle will come much needed change. This is the right moment in time for us as Americans to listen to what we are feeling and work for the progress that must be made.
The Oklahoma Senate Democratic Caucus is committed to the fight for racial justice and equality in America. Though we come from many different backgrounds and represent communities all across Oklahoma, as your elected state legislators we are united in support of this movement.”
The Oklahoma Senate Democratic Caucus.
“We cannot continue to overlook the obvious injustices that we continue to see happen right before our eyes. Too many black Americans have died while those who are responsible have gone free. The people in my community want those sworn to protect and serve to do so. We want law enforcement to treat all people with the respect and dignity they deserve.”
Democratic Caucus Chair Kevin Matthews, D-Tulsa.
“We still have so much work to do. I stand with those who are demanding justice and helping to bring it about.”
Senator George Young, D-Oklahoma City, former chair of the Oklahoma Legislative Black Caucus.
Oklahoma Senate Democrats call for racial justice Click on the headline to read the full article at Site Articles
NOTE: This review first appeared in The City Sentinel newspaper during the 2016 campaign season. It was reposted in 2019. As journalism faces collapsing business models and other mounting challenges, and in the midst of another presidential election year, the themes explored in the review remain, we hope, worthy of consideration. The essay has been revised slightly to bring it to the present time.
Rarely does any one book capture a city and one of its most vital institutions as well as ‘The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America’. (The book is still widely available online or at fine bookstores.)
This tale of the Chicago newspaper founded by Robert Sengstacke Abbott in 1905 arcs, as the book’s sub-sub-title summarizes, “From the age of the Pullman Porters to the Age of Obama.”
Eventually passing into the control of Robert’s larger family, The Defender newspaper stayed in the control of his kinfolk until less than a decade ago. This is rarity in modern journalism.
Ethan Michaeli tells the story more or less chronologically, from start to finish, with two exceptions — a first chapter highlighting an historic speech by Frederick A. Douglass at the 1893 World’s Fair, and a preface centered on the 2004 “Bud Billiken Parade” (established long ago in honor of the newspaper delivery boys and salesmen of the paper’s early years) along Martin Luther King Drive, an event that drew such notables as a young Barack Obama, a community organizer turned state legislator running for the U.S. Senate.
In that Nineteenth Century speech, Douglass the wise abolitionist and patriot evoked the passionate idealism of his youth and the tempered frustrations of his latter years.
The address that day inspired the Abbots, and later the Sengstackes, to stay in the struggle for justice, sustaining an independent news voice which lifted up the hopes and chronicling the travails of those Americans the editors dubbed “the Race.”
The book is at its most compelling from the days when Chicago’s Southside Black population was rather modest through the African-American Great Migration after the First World War, then through the Depression and into the post-Second World War era.
When they arrived in Chicago in large numbers, southern Blacks were fleeing lynchings and pervasive injustice in the South.
They did not encounter a northern Utopia. Racial covenants and race-restrictive clauses in housing, enforced racial separation in schools and other public institutions and impediments to voting were commonplace.
Chicago had more than its share of race riots, street conflicts, the rise and partial fall of a Black commercial class within its borders, as well as both race progress and race-pandering.
The young newspaper reporting such things encountered opposition, including a sense of entitlement among the white-owned newspapers in the city, and the monopoly strength of unions in control of print shops.
For decades, the best local allies of the newspaper and its audience were white and black politicians in the Republican party, an alternative to the racist policies that dominated in the Democratic-controlled South.
Only in the Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman years did that alliance erode, ultimately shifting sharply toward Democrats in the 1960s and 1970s.
As decades passed and many things improved for the newspaper’s readers, from the 1950s until 2003 The Defender was a daily – and, for a quarter-century, a powerful one.
Yet, success itself bred multiple challenges.
Larger news organizations hired away some of the black journalists who had learned their craft at The Defender. Chicago lost some of its allure for African-Americans in the south. They found greener pastures, after the early successes of the Civil Rights era, closer to family roots.
Slowly but inexorably, competition and the ravages of modern distribution eroded the newspaper’s strength, as it returned to weekly publication and established a presence online.
In 2007, The Defender passed from the Abbott-Sengstacke family through a couple of stages into the control of Real Times Media, Inc.
The masthead, once with a classical look evoking (and in many ways deserving) designation as “America’s greatest weekly newspaper,” transformed by 2003 to “America’s best black weekly.”
In a happy turn of fate during an office move, the family’s Bobby Sengstacke, who supported the shift in ownership, found a massive cache of internal documents, story drafts and other priceless material.
Among the gems (one of the first items discovered) were photographs of Booker T. Washington playing with his grandchildren. More particular to the newspaper’s history he found a treasure trove of staff and family photographs spanning the near-century of the paper’s history.
At some stages of its history, The Defender provided a healthy cash flow and abundant way of life for its owners. Yet, it was never enough to sustain a long-term concentration of wealth, and slowly the extended family’s resources dissipated somewhat. This was not as a result of profligate spending, but because unselfish independent journalism always, in the long run, costs more money than it brings in.
As advertisers and eventually readers grew less faithful to The Defender, it weakened in clout and influence, a recognizable story for many whose first love is journalism.
Still, in one more gesture characteristic of his family history, Bobby ultimately passed the precious archives he had found in storage onto an arm of the Chicago Public Library, where they became known as the Abbott-Sengstacke Family Papers.
It was from that material that Michaeli masterfully constructed much of this story, and all of its unique insights.
The book is filled with compelling human stories of the first Robert Abbot, his wife Edna (who could, in the now-uncomfortable parlance of that era, “pass for white”), John Sengstacke, Myrtle Sengstacke, Bobby Sengstacke, Frederick Douglass Sengstacke and more.
What binds the family chronicle is the tension that weaves its way through aspirations for a fair share of opportunity, the blunt horror of racist policies and the personal hurt of bigotry.
The family dreamed of a city and a nation that would be inclusive and hope-oriented – as did Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This led to occasional conflict with key figures of black history, including W.E.B. du Bois, Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. Ultimately, their newspaper delivered all the news – the good, the bad and the ugly, in most cases with fairness to competing players in the human drama.
In less exhaustive detail, nonetheless central to the story, we meet in these pages dozens of great journalists in some detail – including Ethel Payne – and others in cameos, including Enoch Waters, Beverly Reed and Audrey Weaver. We also encounter in ways not always flattering the first and the second Richard Daley and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Michaeli succeeds in this magisterial work because, even as he reaches to national and world-wide themes, he keeps the story rooted in one city and one institution, focusing on those who labored so well along the shores of Lake Michigan.
The author of this book himself worked for the venerable newspaper for a few years.
Michaeli is white, and thereby lies some of this tale. Although the owners sought out, advanced and credentialed generations of African-Americans, Michaeli’s own back story as a young liberal idealist is a tribute to The Defender’s publishers.
Members of the Nation of Islam resented Michaeli’s early reporting on the controversial Minster Louis Farrakhan, in large measure due to reporter’s race. But The Defender stood by him. Ultimately he earned acceptance across the spectrum, as a fair chronicler of the era.
That same description carries through for most of this book, although his shots at some modern Republicans seemed off-key to this reviewer.
Four decades ago ago, a wonderful teacher at Oklahoma State University taught me and other graduate students a range of principles for good writing. In terms of book and movie reviews, that Sage said it was essential in good reviews to evaluate the work actually submitted to the public – rather than to infuse too much of one’s own views into the assessment.
I try still to cling to that objective.
Therefore, the observation above about those “shots” is meant as descriptive, not as disqualifying to the worthiness of this important book.
‘The Defender’ (the book) is highly recommended to all people of good will, with particular emphasis aimed at those who are interested in understanding the vital role of the independent free press in the history of the American Republic.
In the midst of the presidential election year 2016 – until that year, the least hope-filled of my lifetime — as vigorous privately-held news organizations continued to erode in market share and resources available to deliver the news, Ethan Michaeli’s ‘The Defender’ stood as testament to what was, and what is needed more than ever.
The book was timely then, and remains so in 2020.
Reading this again, I yearned anew for more independent voices, willing to dig deeper for truth, without fear or faction.
That’s right – we need more ‘players’ in journalism in the self-reliant old Chicago mold of ‘The Defender,’ original recipe.
Note: A member of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, Pat McGuigan is publisher of The City Sentinel newspaper and founder of CapitolBeatOK, an online news website. He is a certified teacher in ten subject areas, including journalism. In recent years, he employed the story of 'The Defender' to teach both history and journalism to middle school students.
Honoring ‘The Defender’ – one of America’s most consequential newspapers – and hoping for a new generation of independent voices Click on the headline to read the full article at Site Articles
The U.S. Department of the Interior today (Monday, June 8) approved gaming compacts – between the Comanche Nation and Oklahoma, and the Otoe-Missouria Tribe and the state – starting a new era in state/trial relations. Despite direct opposition from many other tribes – including the Chickasaw Nation, Oklahoma’s most economically powerful tribal entity, the pair of smaller tribes have secured a significant victory.
For decades, the federal government had made it a habit to grant every possible backdoor and monopoly advantage to the dominant nations, leaving little market share for smaller players. In state government, as the Chickasaw and other Big Tribes gained unfair advantages, much of the ruling class in Indian Country and at the seat of government in Oklahoma City got a bigger and bigger share of the economic clout that comes from tribal rights short of reservation status.
Yes, the ruling class gave lip service, mouthing sympathetic rhetoric toward smaller tribes for years, instead of supporting the hard work needed (with feet on the ground) to build small tribe economies. It has been comfortable, familiar and easy for federal bureaucrats to decide one close call after another in favor of the most powerful Indian Nations, i.e. those with economic clout and power. And it was easy and convenient for state officials to go along, to get along.
Tribal rights are important, but tribalism for the sake of the few is not, in the broader context, an answer.
What is needed in Oklahoma’s Indian Country is what is needed elsewhere in the American economy: An ability for small-scale enterprises to make and retain profits for uses they deem best, better schools (including experiments in school choice for tribal members and their neighbors) for new generations, and affordable means to invest and grow new enterprises for the benefit of tribal members, not a few lawyers and long-serving Big Tribe executives.
Once approval of the new compacts is published in the Federal Register, the Comanche and the Otoe-Missouria can advance their new options.
“Today’s approval of our compact with the state of Oklahoma will allow us to welcome in a new, modern era of tribal gaming to the benefit of both our people and the state of Oklahoma,” said Otoe-Missouria Tribe Chairman John R. Shotton. “This compact will help us further diversify our economy, bring in new revenue for services for our people and will allow us to double down on our community engagement in both our existing rural communities and future expansion opportunities. This compact is what is best for our tribal members and we appreciate the Department of the Interior for approving the compact today.”
The new accords have many highlights, as summarized in a press release form tribal leaders and their legal counsel. These “include a renegotiated revenue-sharing structure for existing and future casinos, updated gaming technologies and provisions for event wagering.”
Comanche Nation Chairman William Nelson in his statement sent to CapitolBeatOK and other news organizations, declared: “This compact represents the best of the Comanche people -- being a good neighbor, reciprocating back to our people and the communities in which we live; honoring the past while looking ahead to a brighter future for all.
“We have known since we reached this agreement with the governor of Oklahoma that our compact is legal and are pleased that the U.S. Department of the Interior has agreed.
“This compact will have a positive generational impact on our Nation and Oklahoma. It will modernize gaming in Oklahoma and makes clear that tribal sovereignty is paramount in Oklahoma and nationally. This is what the Oklahoma citizens envisioned back in 2004 when they voted unanimously that the gaming industry would be beneficial for the state, tribes, nations and townships.”
The two tribes involved will reap economic benefits, while Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt’s assertion, throughout recent months, that his ability to negotiate new compacts is based in clear language and a rational exercise of executive power.
According to today’s press release, “The compact also gives both tribes the opportunity to build new, state-of-the art casinos and expand their geographic footprints into historically-significant land for both tribes. Through a concurrence from the governor, lands in six counties (three for each tribe) can be taken into trust, following approval through a two-part determination at the federal level. Counties include Grady, Cleveland and Love for the Comanche Nation and Logan, Payne and Noble for the Otoe-Missouria Tribe."
Rob Rossete, an attorney for the two tribes, said in the release: “The legality of the compacts was never in question, as they were negotiated in good faith between sovereign governments and grounded in prior compact precedent."
Rosette, LLP partner and attorney, continued, “This decision will have national ramifications as it reinforces tribal sovereignty and moves Oklahoma away from a one-size-fits-all gaming compact. The Department of the Interior rightly chose to uphold and respect the sovereignty of these two tribes, and we are confident the department will do the same for others going forward.”
With some contentious litigation or power clashes possible, observers will watch closely to assure that government officials in all branches of government with direct personal or familial financial interests in these matters recuse themselves to avoid even an appearance of impropriety.
For his part, the governor should offer the same sort of deal to other tribes who have been out as he did to the first two.
Information from the Comanche Nation provided: The Comanche Nation is located in Southwest Oklahoma, with headquarters located right outside of Lawton. The tribe currently has approximately 17,000 enrolled tribal members with 7,000 residing in the tribal jurisdictional area around the Lawton, Ft. Sill, and surrounding counties. In the late 1600’s and early 1700’s the tribe migrated from their Shoshone kinsmen onto the northern Plains, ultimately relocating in Oklahoma. For more information about The Comanche Nation, visit https://ift.tt/2KtZdoU.
Information About The Otoe-Missouria Tribe provided: The Otoe-Missouria Tribe is located in North Central Oklahoma in Red Rock. There are currently 3,288 members enrolled in the tribe with 2,242 living in Oklahoma. The tribe was relocated to Oklahoma in 1881 from its first reservation on the border of Nebraska and Kansas. For more information about the Otoe-Missouria Tribe, visit https://ift.tt/3axBuOQ.
Information About Rosette, LLP provided: Rosette, LLP, specializes in federal Indian law, complex litigation, government negotiations, financial transactions and representation of internal tribal government matters. For more information about Rosette, LLP, visit https://ift.tt/2zgiJ6f.
Analyzing the Start of a New Era: Federal government greenlights Oklahoma gaming compacts for Comanche, Otoe-Missouria Click on the headline to read the full article at Site Articles
Oklahoma City -- The coronavirus pandemic continued to make its presence known in the latest Oklahoma Gross Receipts to the Treasury, State Treasurer Randy McDaniel announced as he released data showing a 14 percent drop in May revenue collections.
Gross receipts for May total $923.1 million, down by $150.5 million from May of last year.
“The Oklahoma economy, as reflected in state revenue collections, was significantly impacted by the pandemic during the month,” Treasurer McDaniel said on Thursday (June 4). “However, the picture in May is not as conspicuous as the April report, which included the postponement until July of income tax reporting.”
McDaniel pointed to a few positive numbers in the May report. Of the six major revenue sources tracked in gross receipts, two showed positive movement. Use tax, paid on out-of-state purchases including online, and individual income tax were both slightly higher than receipts from the prior year by a combined total of $13 million.
On the other hand, sales tax and gross production receipts were substantially lower by a combined total of $106.1 million.
Sales tax receipts, including remittances on behalf of cities and counties, fell by more than 12 percent over the year. Gross production collections were down by almost 60 percent compared to last May.
May gross production tax receipts are paid on crude oil and natural gas production during March, when the price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil at Cushing averaged $29.21. One year ago, the average price was $58.15 per barrel. Meanwhile, natural gas prices fell by almost 40 percent over the year.
Total gross receipts from the past 12 months are $13.07 billion, off by $477.1 million, or 3.5 percent, compared to the previous 12 months. Shrinking income, sales and gross production tax collections exhibited the most downward pressure during the period.
Economic indicators
The unemployment rate in Oklahoma was reported as 13.7 percent in April, up from 2.9 percent in March. The seasonally adjusted number of Oklahomans listed as jobless increased by 188,950 in one month, according to figures released by the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission. The U.S. unemployment rate was 14.7 percent in April.
The Oklahoma Business Conditions Index increased slightly in May, but remained in negative territory. The May index was set at 43.0, up from 34.2 in April. Numbers below 50 indicate economic contraction is expected during the next three to six months.
May collections
May gross collections total $923.1 million, down by $150.5 million, or 14 percent, from May 2019.
Gross income tax collections, a combination of individual and corporate income taxes, generated $289.2 million, a decrease of $15.7 million, or 5.1 percent, from the previous May.
Individual income tax collections for the month are $279.2 million, up by $7.2 million, or 2.6 percent, from the prior year. Corporate collections are $10 million, a decrease of $22.9 million, or 69.5 percent.
Combined sales and use tax collections, including remittances on behalf of cities and counties, total $424.1 million in May. That is $44.7 million, or 9.5 percent, less than May 2019.
Sales tax collections in May total $362.3 million, a drop of $50.5 million, or 12.2 percent from the same month of the prior year. Use tax receipts, collected on out-of-state purchases including online sales, generated $61.8 million, an increase of $5.8 million, or 10.3 percent, over the year.
Gross production taxes on oil and natural gas total $38.3 million in May, a decrease of $55.6 million, or 59.2 percent, from last May. Compared to April 2020 reports, gross production collections are down by $22.4 million, or 36.9 percent.
Motor vehicle taxes produced $61.1 million, down by $2.1 million, or 3.3 percent, from the same month of 2019.
Other collections composed of some 60 different sources including taxes on fuel, tobacco, medical marijuana, and alcoholic beverages, produced $110.4 million during the month. That is $32.4 million, or 22.7 percent, less than last May.
Twelve-month collections
Gross revenue totals $13.07 billion from the past 12 months, June 2019 through May 2020. That is $477.1 million, or 3.5 percent, below collections from the previous 12-month period.
Gross income taxes generated $4.37 billion for the 12 months, reflecting a decrease of $225.5 million, or 4.9 percent, from the prior 12 months.
Individual income tax collections total $3.86 billion, down by $202 million, or 5 percent, from the prior period. Corporate collections are $501.8 million for the period, a decrease of $23.5 million, or 4.5 percent, over the previous 12 months.
Combined sales and use taxes for the 12 months generated $5.47 billion, a decrease of $95.4 million, or 1.7 percent, from the prior period.
Gross sales tax receipts total $4.74 billion, down by $161.6 million, or 3.3 percent, during the period. Use tax collections generated $735.6 million, an increase of $66.2 million, or 9.9 percent, over the previous 12 months.
Oil and gas gross production tax collections brought in $901.7 million during the 12 months, down by $227.4 million, or 20.1 percent, from the previous 12 months.
Motor vehicle collections total $776.1 million for the 12 months. This is a decrease of $8.3 million, or 1.1 percent, from the trailing period.
Other sources generated $1.55 billion, up by $79.5 million, or 5.4 percent, from the previous period.
About Gross Receipts to the Treasury: The monthly Gross Receipts to the Treasury report, developed by the state treasurer’s office, provides a timely and broad view of the state’s economy.
It is released in conjunction with the General Revenue Fund report from the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, which provides information to state agencies for budgetary planning purposes.
The General Revenue Fund, the state’s main operating account, receives less than half of the state’s gross receipts with the remainder paid in rebates and refunds, remitted to cities and counties, and apportioned to other state funds.
Pandemic continues to strike Oklahoma’s economy, Treasurer McDaniel says Click on the headline to read the full article at Site Articles
A statement from the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, sent to CapitolBeatOK and other news organizations, expressed support for State Question 802, the constitutional ballot initiative aiming to expand Medicaid in the Sooner State.
The June 8 statement, issued on behalf of Oklahoma’s two Catholic bishops, read as follows:
On June 30, Oklahomans will cast an important vote on State Question 802 about whether to expand Medicaid.
Our state’s SoonerCare program currently provides critical health coverage to Oklahoma’s most vulnerable citizens, including the elderly, the disabled, pregnant women and children. This program plays a vital role in sustaining the health care delivery system in our state, particularly in rural areas where access to quality health care is increasingly unavailable.
However, based on the clients we help through the work of Catholic Charities and with patients seeking care at our Catholic hospitals, it is apparent that access to affordable health care coverage — which is so necessary for human flourishing — is becoming less available over time.
This is why we support expanding such an essential program and lend our voices in favor of SQ 802. We seek better health outcomes for our fellow Oklahomans and that requires all of us to step into the breach and make those outcomes possible.
While we agree that amending the state constitution is a method that should be reserved for special circumstances, our present health care crisis demands action that cannot wait for a political solution.
Additionally, we offer our support conditioned on a continuation of federal pro-life protections in Medicaid through the Hyde Amendment. We urge our fellow Catholics and others of goodwill to join us in support of this important effort to improve the lives of Oklahoma families.
Statement from Oklahoma Catholic Bishops in support of State Question 802 Click on the headline to read the full article at Site Articles
(Rochester, New York, July 4, 1852) – While drawing encouragement from "the Declaration of Independence," the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age.
Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind.
Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other.
The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. "Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God."
In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it:
God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o'er!
When from their galling chains set free,
Th' oppress'd shall vilely bend the knee,
And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom's reign.
To man his plundered rights again
Restore.
God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to end,
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.
Editor’s Note: These words concluded the July 4, 1852 oration of American abolitionist and patriot Frederick A. Douglass, before a massive audience in Rochester, New York. It is perhaps his best known speech. Douglass, active in the Republican Party of his era, also wrote an autobiography (which appeared in severa varied editions) covering the early decades of his life (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass). It was one of the best selling books of the Nineteenth Century. This excerpt from the speech was first posted at CapitolBeatOK.com on February 2, 2017. Pat McGuigan, publisher of The City Sentinel and founder of CapitolBeatOK, is a certified teacher. He utilized the Rochester speech for a ‘reading day’ lesson at Justice Alma Wilson Seeworth Academy, a public charter alternative school, on December 1, 2015. He has employed the speech in teaching U.S. history throughout his career as an educator and journalist.
www.CapitolBeatOK.com
A change in the affairs of mankind – ‘The arm of commerce has borne away the gates ...’ Click on the headline to read the full article at Site Articles
Oklahoma City – Mayor David Holt Sunday night (May 31) signed a proclamation of a state of emergency in Oklahoma City that includes a curfew for parts of downtown due to violent actions by people near the police station since 9 p.m.
“There are very important issues that we as a city and a nation should confront, and all daytime protests this weekend raising these issues have been peaceful,” said Mayor Holt. “However, we learned last night that things can change after dark. After 9 p.m. tonight, and after a very healthy dialogue between police and protestors the last few hours outside our police headquarters, protestors began launching fireworks and objects at police officers who were merely standing outside the headquarters. On the request of the Chief of Police and he City Manager, I am providing law enforcement with a tool they need to ensure public safety overnight in downtown. I am proclaiming a state of emergency and instituting a curfew for parts of downtown that will commence at 10 p.m [Sunday night, May 31}.”
A curfew will be in effect from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. in downtown Oklahoma City between NW 4th Street on the north, Harvey Avenue on the east, Sheridan Avenue on the south and Classen Boulevard on the west.
No one is allowed on public property or vacant premises in the curfew area, except for public safety services, during curfew hours.
The emergency proclamation prohibits the manufacture, transfer, use, possession or transportation of Molotov cocktails or similar explosive devices anywhere in Oklahoma City. It also bans transporting, possessing or using gasoline, kerosene and similar substances in glass or uncapped containers, except for normal operation of vehicles, or legitimate home or commercial use.
The state of emergency will remain in effect until the Mayor signs a proclamation to end it. It is separate from the state of emergency proclaimed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Background From City Staff
People held peaceful protests Saturday evening near NW 23rd Street and Classen Boulevard. People also held peaceful protests Sunday afternoon in Northeast [Oklahoma City] and downtown.
Late in the evening on Saturday, isolated incidents of violence broke out in an area spanning from Classen Boulevard to the Oklahoma City police headquarters. Illegal acts included throwing objects at police officers, vandalism of private property, looting of local businesses, damaged and destroyed law enforcement vehicles, and more.
The Mayor determined a state of emergency exists because disorder and rioting commenced again Sunday after 9 p.m. in the area of the police headquarters.
The City’s emergency proclamation is authorized under Chapter 15 Article III of City Code and Title 21, Section 21, Section 1321.9 of Oklahoma Statutes. The Mayor may modify the state of emergency for as long as it remains in effect.
www.City-Sentinel.com
Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt signs emergency proclamation including downtown curfew Click on the headline to read the full article at Site Articles The Sociopolitical and Historical Context That Shaped Women Like My Grandmother in the 1940s6/1/2020
In what ways are women present in political contexts? Kashmiri women, from different walks of life, have managed against all odds to express their agency during the plethora of political, social, and military transformations in the past nine decades. During the growing sense of nationhood in the 1930s, and during the political awakening in the 1940s, Kashmiri women forged broad coalitions and informal networks to challenge state-centered, feudal, and elitist notions of identity and security.
My grandmother Akbar Jehan worked with Lady Mountbatten, wife of the first Governor General of post-Partition India, to repatriate young women who had forcibly been removed from their families during the turbulent and bloody partition of the country.
She worked indefatigably to restore the honor of those unfortunate women who had borne the brunt of communal vendetta. In rehabilitating these victims of the brutalized ethos of partitioned India, the first attempt was to restore them to their families.
But if the families were untraceable in the chaotic and turbulent environment of that era, or if the women were afraid of being disowned by their families, who might have viewed their abduction as an irreparable loss of honor, they were provided with respectable lodgings in the Kashmir Valley. Some of these abducted women, even after they were found, chose to remain with their abductors in legitimate, sanctified unions, because they foresaw rejection, disgrace, and dishonorable isolation in their familial homes.
Akbar Jehan and her colleagues ensured that the women who were separated from their families, physically, emotionally, and financially, were provided vocational training in the Valley, which gave them a means of sustenance.
A significant contribution of hers, which is not as extensively written about, was the formation of the Relief Committee in 1948 to provide succor to those who had suffered immeasurable economic losses because of the blow inflicted on tourism programs in 1947 and 1948.
While a political consciousness was evolving in the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmiri women like my grandmother, Akbar Jehan, made a smooth transition from their conventional lives to people engaged in sociopolitical activism. Although women activists led the way by offering new ideas, building broad-based political coalitions, and working to bridge organizational divides, it was and continues to be an uphill climb.
Before his marriage, my maternal grandfather Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah had undertaken the gargantuan task of determining his intellectual, political, and personal trajectory in an environment that sought to stifle even embryonic expressions of Kashmiri selfhood, self-determining, and nationalism.
In this undulating landscape Akbar Jehan’s resolute and self-willed temperament is amply borne out by her intractable decision to relinquish the safety, security, and plenitude of her maternal home for life with an idealistic, self-willed rebel. The political ideology of that rebel spoke to the repressed masses of Jammu and Kashmir in the 1930s and 1940s, but his political future was uncertain.
Akbar Jehan had, of her own volition, embraced a path strewn with thorns. Lest readers perceive the former statement as the forgivable bias of a granddaughter, I would remind them that, historically, Kashmiri Muslims had not been allowed to climb the political and socioeconomic hierarchy during monarchical Dogra rule in the State. At the time, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s arduous undertaking of constructing Kashmiri nationalism, demanding the political enfranchisement and socioeconomic empowering of Kashmiri Muslims was a nebulous and tottering enterprise. The success of his mission was, by no means, guaranteed.
Having been raised in a milieu that enabled Akbar Jehan to burgeon not just academically but socially and culturally as well, she was as much at ease campaigning at a political rally for the Sheikh’s political organization, as she was in conversing with career diplomats and statesmen. I posit here that Akbar Jehan was one of the harbingers of State feminism in Jammu and Kashmir. I borrow Gul Ozyegin’s proficient definition of State feminism: “the inclusion of women in political citizenship and top-down reforms initiated by the State, without the notable participation of women, for the improvement of the legal, social, and economic status of women” (33).
With the oral and historical resources on Akbar Jehan available to me, I have investigated the impact of her work for the legal, social, economic status of women in Jammu and Kashmir in my book, “The Life of a Kashmiri Woman” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). She was an passionate advocate of women’s education, which would place girls, including those of impoverished backgrounds, in the public realm of ambition, power, and material well-being, “and scientific and intellectual life with a mission of modernizing the country and its people, side by side with their male peers” (Ozyegin 33).
Note: Dr. Nyla Ali Khan, a native of Kashmir, became a citizen of the United States this year. She writes regularly for The City Sentinel newspaper, the CapitolBeatOK news website, and other news organizations in Oklahoma. Her work also is featured prominently around the world. This essay is adapted from a reflection for CounterPunch.org.
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