Colgate-Palmolive Markets 'Blackface Toothpaste' To China

Back to the Days of Blackface


A toothpaste brand popular in China is criticized as racially offensive.

Of all the unfamiliar products in a Chinese supermarket, one of the most shocking to American visitors is a toothpaste featuring the logo of a minstrel singer in a top hat, flashing a white smile. Even more shocking: the paste, known as Darlie in English and as Black People Toothpaste in Chinese, is a product of the Hawley & Hazel Group, a Hong Kong–based company established in 1933, which is now owned in part by the Colgate-Palmolive Co.


Darlie used to be called Darkie. According to the book America Brushes Up: The Uses and Marketing of Toothpaste and Toothbrushes in the Twentieth Century, the CEO of Hawley & Hazel saw blackface performer Al Jolson in the U.S. and thought, “Jolson’s wide smile and bright teeth would make an excellent toothpaste logo.” He was right: the firm now claims to be one of the market leaders of toothpaste products in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia.


After Colgate purchased 50 percent of the firm in 1985, religious groups, African-Americans, and company shareholders protested the racially offensive nature of the brand. After more than three years of criticism, Colgate switched the name from Darkie to Darlie and modified the logo to a less crude version of a black man. In 1989 The New York Times quoted the Colgate-Palmolive chairman as saying, ‘’It’s just plain wrong … The morally right thing dictated that we must change [in a way] that is least damaging to the economic interests of our partners.’’


Yet the Chinese name of the product has remained unchanged. And China is not exactly a paradise of racial harmony. While the crucial dichotomy in China is between Chinese and non-Chinese, many blacks face discrimination in the country. A Ghanaian who lives in China and asked to remain anonymous told NEWSWEEK that a prospective employer told him, “We can’t hire you because you’re black.”


Still, the Chinese don’t view the toothpaste’s name as something reprehensible. “To most people in China it wouldn’t even occur to them that Black People Toothpaste is offensive,” says P. T. Black, who researches Chinese consumers. According to the Chinese news site Southcn.com, Hawley & Hazel has even trademarked the name and image and recently sued two companies in Shenzhen for making toothpaste using a similar logo with the words “Black People.” The court ordered the defendants to pay more than $300,000 in damages.


Yet Colgate is a Western company and, as such, “should know better,” says Kwame Dougan, an African-Canadian living in China. Colgate declined NEWSWEEK’s interview requests, instead releasing a statement saying, “There are different perspectives on this issue.” Hawley & Hazel also declined an interview request. Darlie doesn’t exactly advertise its relationship with Colgate; Colgate’s Web site has only two mentions of Darlie, both of which talk about how the brand is driving growth in the Asia-Pacific region. Darlie products examined in China for this story featured no mention of the Colgate label.


“I think that the brand should simply be retired,” says Laura Berry, executive director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, one of the organizations that originally pressured Colgate to fix its Darkie brand. Until then, Darlie smiles on.

Johnson Publishing Company Sells Worldwide Headquarters To Local College; Committee Announced To Find New Home

JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY SETS PLAN TO MOVE CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS


Columbia College Chicago to Transform 820 S. Michigan into Library


CHICAGO - Johnson Publishing Co, Inc. (JPC) announced today the sale of its Michigan Avenue headquarters building to Columbia College Chicago and launched its search for a new home as the legendary publisher opens the next chapter in its history. The move is another step in JPC’s corporate strategy to advance its business plan and serve the current needs of the company.


“I am so proud that this wonderful building, which has served Johnson Publishing so well since 1971, will continue to have a rich legacy under the stewardship of Columbia College Chicago,” said Linda Johnson Rice, Chairman, JPC. “When we learned of Columbia’s interest in preserving the building and using it to expand opportunities for young people to study visual, performing, media and communication arts, we knew this was an opportunity that we should pursue.”


Columbia College Chicago Board of Trustees Chairman Allen Turner said, “The purchase of the Johnson Building offered us a rare opportunity for much needed expansion, especially given that the space is central to our South Loop campus. Just as important, we will have a part in preserving the legacy of the Johnson Building and its legendary significance to all Chicagoans.”


JPC said that it currently utilizes only about 40 percent of the building and moving its headquarters is part of the overall strategy to reduce costs as it refocuses on the core functions of its publishing and cosmetics businesses. JPC has had four company headquarters in Chicago since its founding in 1942.


“The sale of 820 S. Michigan is part of the continuing evolution of the company that my father and mother started in the early 1942s,” said Rice. “Just as when JPC moved to this location in 1972, my father would be the first to say it makes good business sense to relocate to space that serves the current needs of the company.”


The 11-story, 110,000 square-foot historic building, which has been home to EBONY and JET magazines as well as Fashion Fair Cosmetics for almost 40 years, was completed in 1972 as the first major downtown Chicago building designed by an African-American since Jean Baptiste Point DuSable’s trading post, built two centuries earlier.


Terms call for JPC to continue to occupy the building under an 18-month lease. The company will appoint a building committee to help determine where to relocate its worldwide headquarters. The JPC building’s sale closed today. Financial terms were not disclosed.

S.C. Children Laid To Rest

COLUMBIA, S.C.- Sorrow, shock and sadness filled the sanctuary of St. Paul Baptist Church in Orangeburg, S.C., where a combined funeral was held recently for two-year-old Devean Duley and his 18-month-old brother Ja'Van. Alarm and anger gripped the state when news broke about the murder of the two toddlers allegedly at the hands of their own mother.



Shaquan Duley, 29, an unemployed single mom stands accused of suffocating the boys to death in room 31 of a cheap motel, then driving to a docking bay where she allegedly pushed the car with the toddlers into the Edisto River.


According to Orangeburg County Sheriff Larry Williams, Ms. Duley flagged a passing car for help, pleading that her car with her children inside was in the water resulting from an accident—a story investigators say didn't add up.




Sheriff Williams said there was no physical evidence as far as any vehicle leaving the road or any skid marks or anything of that nature that would be relevant to an automobile accident. Deputy sheriffs further observed that Ms. Duley was completely dry casting doubt on her initial account of what happened.


“It was our early determination that this vehicle was in the Edisto River by either being intentionally placed there or rolling from the secondary highway down to the river,” Sheriff Williams said, in a press conference.


According to the sheriff, Ms. Duley was first arrested and charged with leaving the scene of an accident. He said, however, she later confessed to committing the murders after a heated argument with her mother about the care of her children. Her five-year-old daughter wasn't taken with the brothers the night of their deaths.


Public reaction to the deaths was stinging against Ms. Duley with expressions of disbelief and bewilderment that a mother could possibly kill her own children. The funeral for the boys was held Aug. 20.


A Facebook.com page dedicated to condemning Ms. Duley posted comments ranging from the sympathetic “put it in God's hands” to total calls to “give her the electric chair” for what she has allegedly done.


“Despicable,” wrote Jamilah Gibbs on the social networking site. “We all have been stressed at one time or another, it doesn't mean that we kill our children, the ones that we carried in our stomach for 40 weeks, the ones that we are supposed to love, nurture, protect,” wrote Ms. Gibbs, a mother of four.


However, a call for public restraint was issued regarding the the young mother. In a television interview, her mother, Helen Duley, described her daughter as a “sweet, loving person” who became overwhelmed. She hopes the misfortune can be a lesson for people in crises and getting help.


"There is a deep hurt. This is a very dark time in our lives,” the elder Duley told WLTX-TV in Columbia.


“I'm asking people not to judge her for what she's done but to understand that we all have problems and we never know when things might get out of hand. That's why it's important not to keep things bottled up in you, but to let somebody know.”


“This isn't a hardened criminal. ... This is a young lady who was in trouble,” Sheriff Williams said. “She didn't know where to turn ... the responsibility of being a mom was a bit much for her.”


The elder Duley added, “You don't know what is in the minds of people.” She asked people to look for indicators of something wrong or different with their loved ones.


But what could cause a mother to snap and kill her children? What are the signs to look for? Where is the help for women in crises, overwhelmed with the weight of motherhood?


“I'm a single parent myself and know firsthand, while I deal with other women who are single mothers, I know what it is to have that experience,” said Zekita Tucker, chairwoman and CEO of the League of African-American Women in St. Louis.


“The pressures are very tough, nobody can understand it unless you are walking in those shoes,” Ms. Tucker said.


The abuse of children can never be condoned, and often it's external pressures bearing on the frustration of being the only caretaker without any help, she explained. There are relationship issues—especially where abuse exists—and the mother may act out “passive aggressive reactions,” where her children become recipients of the pain the mother feels powerless to heap on her abuser, said Ms. Tucker.


According to Parenting Partners, a South Carolina advocacy group, child abuse and neglect cuts across socio-economic, religious, racial and ethnic lines. A child is abused or neglected in South Carolina every 49 minutes.In the Midlands region of the state, every year some 11,000 children are verified as abused and neglected. In 2007, 850 cases of abuse were found involving over 1,100 children. The group estimates three times that number remains unreported.


Studies have shown that “Black people will commit homicide” most times in a moment of passion, motivated by a perception of blame on the victim, according to author and psychologist Dr. Nathaniel Hare.


“They can become more argumentative, easily angered or they can be brooding much, not saying much,” Dr. Hare said, describing some signs of changes in personality. It is hard to predict who will snap because the average person is not looking for anything out of the ordinary, he said.


South Carolina ranks 34th among states in the percent of children who are living in extreme poverty. Children in families with less than $15,000 annual income are 22 times more likely to be abused or neglected than children from families with income of $30,000 or more.


“In 20/20, when you look back there were so many signs of her (Shaquan Duley) reaching out that we missed,” said Troy Strother, executive director of Parents Anonymous. “There had to be some signs somewhere, somehow.”


The support group is designed for troubled parents to network with others going through similar problems. Mr. Strother said there has been an increase in calls to his agency because of hard times facing women and men looking for answers.


There is help available in South Carolina through agencies and organizations like Parents Anonymous, Prevent Child Abuse South Carolina and religious organizations around the state.

In Memoriam: Bishop Walter Hawkins (1949-2010)

RIPON, Calif. (AP) — Walter Hawkins, a Grammy Award-winning gospel singer, composer and pastor from Oakland, died Sunday. He was 61.



Hawkins, who was battling pancreatic cancer, passed away at his home in Ripon, Calif., his older brother Edwin Hawkins said.


"Today, I lost my brother, my pastor, and my best friend," said Edwin Hawkins. "Bishop Hawkins suffered bravely but now he will suffer no more and he will be greatly missed."


Born in Oakland, Hawkins studied for his divinity degree at the University of California, Berkeley.


While at the university, he recorded his first album titled "Do Your Best" in 1972.


The next year, Hawkins became a pastor and founded the Love Center Church in Oakland, where he also formed a choir.


In the 1980s, Hawkins recorded a number of albums and earned nine Grammy Award nominations, according to friend and family representative, Bill Carpenter.


His "The Lord's Prayer" won a Grammy in 1980 and he also performed on the televised Grammy Awards ceremony that year.


In 1990, Hawkins released "Love Alive III" which spent 34 weeks at the top on the Billboard gospel album sales chart, while going on to sell more than a million copies, according to Carpenter.


In 1993 his next album, "Love Alive IV," also hit the top spot on the album sales chart. Between work on the two albums, Hawkins was ordained a bishop in October 1992.


At the time of his death, Hawkins was planning a new "Love Alive" CD concert recording for this fall.


Besides his brother Walter, Hawkins is survived by two children, two grandchildren and a number of nieces and nephews.


Funeral arrangements were pending.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu Announces New Police Superintendent To Head Disgraced Police Force

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu today announced the selection of a new superintendent to head the city’s troubled police force.

Ronal Serpas will leave his post as chief of the Nashville police to take the reins from Warren Riley, a veteran New Orleans Police Department figure who has led the force since shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005.

A string of controversies—some of them stretching back to the Katrina time period—buffeted the department during Riley’s tenure, drawing the scrutiny of both the national media and the federal government.

The U.S. Department of Justice has confirmed there are at least eight ongoing civil rights investigations focused on the police force. Federal investigators are examining a series of incidents in which police officers shot civilians in the aftermath of the hurricane, and have already garnered guilty pleas from four ex-cops in connection to shootings on the Danziger Bridge that left two dead and four wounded.

Collaborating with other media organizations including the New Orleans Times-Picayune and PBS Frontline, ProPublica helped to expose several of the cases now under investigation, including the shootings of Keenon McCann, Henry Glover and Matthew McDonald.

Yesterday, Landrieu invited the Justice Department to deepen its scrutiny of the police force, asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for an “independent investigation” that will improve the police department’s disciplinary systems and “introduce best practices for public safety.”

The invitation from Landrieu appears to set the stage for the Justice Department to seek thorough reforms of the police force using the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act. The law provides Justice Department attorneys with an array of legal tools—including long-term monitoring by federal judges—aimed at revamping police departments deemed to have a “pattern or practice” of violating people’s civil rights.

Since 1997, Justice Department lawyers have used the act to restructure 21 law enforcement agencies, according to a 2009 study by criminologist Sam Walker and attorney Morgan MacDonald published in the George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal.

In those cases, Walker and MacDonald wrote, Justice Department attorneys sought to institute systems to flag problem cops, improve officer training and rewrite rules for using force.

Third And Fourth Cops Indicted In New Orleans Police Coverup Case

Federal prosecutors yesterday indicted New Orleans police officer Michael Hunter for his role in the Danziger Bridge incident, during which officers shot six citizens, killing two, days after Hurricane Katrina.
The indictment, on charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice and providing false information about a felony, makes Hunter the third New Orleans Police Department figure to be charged. In recent weeks, two ex-cops have pleaded guilty to similar offenses.
Hunter is the first officer who was actually on the bridge on Sept. 4, 2005, and fired shots to face charges. The other two, who have already entered guilty pleas, were involved only in the police department’s investigation of the shooting incident.
It remains to be seen if the Justice Department will ever charge officers for the killings of Ronald Madison and James Brissette, or for wounding four other people, rather than for their roles in the cover-up that followed. Given the volume of bullets flying that day, the number of victims and the missing evidence—ex-cop Jeffrey Lehrmann admitted to watching another officer kick shell casings off the bridge—figuring out exactly who shot whom may pose an epic challenge for federal investigators.
In concert with our friends at PBS “Frontline” and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, ProPublica has been scrutinizing the Danziger bridge incident, as well as the shootings of Matthew McDonald, Danny Brumfield, Henry Glover and Keenon McCann, all of which transpired in the week after Katrina made landfall. Our reporting found the NOPD conducted a series of deeply flawed investigations into these violent encounters between cops and civilians, failing to interview witnesses, collect key evidence or thoroughly question the officers involved. 

Federal investigators charged another New Orleans police officer in connection to the Danziger Bridge shootings, in which two civilians were killed and four were wounded in the days after Hurricane Katrina. The Danziger Bridge shootings are among a string of violent post-Katrina police encounters we’ve investigated in collaboration with PBS “Frontline” and the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Officer Robert Barrios, who was charged with conspiring to obstruct justice, became the fourth police officer charged in the case, and the fifth person overall. Three former officers have already pleaded guilty to charges related to the shooting. Barrios reportedly resigned from the force shortly after being charged.
Marion David Ryder, a civilian who impersonated a police officer the day of the shooting, also was indicted this month on charges of lying to federal agents and unlawful possession of a handgun.
The charge against Barrios came in a bill of information, which is only allowed in cases where the defendant has waived the requirement that a grand jury issue charges. That usually indicates the defendant is cooperating with the case.
The Times-Picayune reports that Barrios was in the back of a vehicle with four other officers when they responded to a report that officers were shot while on Interstate 10, which is parallel with the Danziger Bridge.

In Memoriam: Lena Calhoun Horne (1917-2010)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Entertainer Lena Horne, a show-stopping beauty who battled racism in a frustrating effort to become Hollywood's first black leading lady and later won acclaim as a singer, has died at age 92.

Horne died on Sunday night at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, a hospital spokeswoman said. She declined to give the cause of death.

Horne went to Hollywood in the late 1930s and while she never became a major movie star, she is credited with breaking the ground for black actresses to get bigger roles in Hollywood.

Horne had a stage persona that was mysterious, elegant, haughty and sexy and it helped her become an enchanting nightclub performer who made "Stormy Weather" her signature song.

Known as the "Negro Cinderella" early in her career, she was as complex as she was beautiful. She had a reputation for coldness and insecurity and her career frustrations led to bitterness.

With her big bright eyes, brilliant smile and light complexion, biographer James Gavin said Hollywood considered Horne "as the Negro beautiful enough -- in a Caucasian fashion -- for white Americans to accept." Until then, black women had usually been cast as servants or prostitutes -- roles that Horne did not want.

Many of her movie appearances in the 1940s and '50s were relegated to songs that had no bearing on the plot and could easily be edited out for showings in the South, where white audiences might protest the appearance of a black actress.

Her first substantial movie role did not come until 1969 when she was a brothel madam and Richard Widmark's lover in "Death of a Gunfighter." Her only other movie role after that was as Glinda the Good Witch in "The Wiz," an all-black adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz."

"I really hated Hollywood and I was very lonely," Horne said in a Time magazine interview. "The black stars felt uncomfortable out there."

WON TWO GRAMMYS

She moved back to her native New York and became a singing star in nightclubs and theaters and on television. She won two Grammys.

Gavin, author of the 2009 book "Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne," said Horne was especially sensitive to rejection.

"Every perceived or real slight, she recoiled from it in a violent way," Gavin told the Los Angeles Times. "This does not make for a happy lady. She was angry."

Horne's life was filled with contradictions. Despite being too dark for Hollywood stardom, as a girl she was taunted by peers because of her light complexion. She campaigned for civil rights in the 1950s and '60s but admitted she had ulterior motives for marrying second husband Lennie Hayton, a white bandleader, in 1947.

"It was cold-blooded and deliberate," she told Time. "I married him because he could get me into places a black man couldn't. But I really learned to love him. He was beautiful, just so damned good."

Horne and Hayton were married until his 1971 death. Horne and her first husband, Louis Jones, married in 1937 and divorced in 1944. They had a son, Teddy, who died of kidney problems, and a daughter, writer Gail Lumet Buckley.

Horne was born in New York on June 30, 1917. Her father was a gambler who left the family when she was a toddler and her mother was an actress who often left Lena to live with her grandparents while she toured with a black acting troupe.

Horne began her career as a 16-year-old dancer at the Cotton Club, the storied Harlem nightclub where the leading black entertainers of the time performed for white audiences, before going to Hollywood.

In the 1950s, her support of civil rights group landed Horne on a list of celebrities with alleged communist leanings, which further hurt her movie career.

In 1981, she received a special Tony Award for "Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music," the Broadway show in which she sang and discussed the ups and downs of her life.

Malcolm X Assassin Set Free After 44 Years In Prison

(CNN) -- Thomas Hagan, the only man who admitted his role in the 1965 assassination of iconic black leader Malcolm X, was paroled Tuesday.



Hagan was freed a day earlier than planned because his paperwork was processed more quickly than anticipated, according to the New York State Department of Correctional Services.


Hagan, 69, walked out of the minimum-security Lincoln Correctional Facility at 11 a.m. The facility is located at the intersection of West 110th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard.


Hagan had been in a full-time work-release program since March 1992 that allowed him to live at home with his family in Brooklyn five days a week while reporting to the prison just two days.


Last month, Hagan pleaded his case for freedom: To return to his family, to become a substance abuse counselor and to make his mark on what time he has left in this world.


He was dressed in prison greens as he addressed the parole board. He had been before that body 14 other times since 1984. Each time, he was rejected.


Hagan was no ordinary prisoner. He is the only man to have confessed in the killing of Malcolm X, who was gunned down while giving a speech in New York's Audubon Ballroom in 1965.


"I have deep regrets about my participation in that," he told the parole board on March 3, according to a transcript. "I don't think it should ever have happened."


Hagan had been sentenced to 20 years to life imprisonment after being found guilty at trial with two others in 1966. The other two men were released in the 1980s and have long denied involvement in the killing.


To win his release, Hagan was required to seek, obtain and maintain a job, support his children and abide by a curfew. He must continue to meet those conditions while free. He told the parole board he's worked the same job for the past seven years. He told the New York Post in 2008 he was working at a fast-food restaurant.


A parole officer checked on him while outside prison, and he had to undergo random drug tests.


CNN was unable to reach Hagan for a comment about his release. The Nation of Islam declined comment for this story.


Malcolm X is best known as the fiery leader of the Nation of Islam who denounced whites as "blue-eyed devils." But at the end of his life, Malcolm X changed his views toward whites and discarded the Nation of Islam's ideology in favor of orthodox Islam. In doing so, he feared for his own life from within the Nation.


Malcolm X remains a symbol of inspiration for black men, in particular, who are moved by his transformation from a street hustler to a man the late African-American actor Ossie Davis eulogized as "our own black shining prince."


The ballroom where he was killed has now been converted into The Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center. Board Chairman Zead Ramadan said the center doesn't have a position on Hagan's release.


"I personally find it strange that for a couple decades any person convicted in the assassination of such an iconic figure would be allowed such leniency," Ramadan said.


There's outrage among some African-Americans, he said, that he's being released. Would he be set free if he had killed an iconic white leader?


"It's really a struggle for Muslims to contemplate this issue, because our faith and our religion is full of examples where we have to exert mercy," he added. "The Malcolm X story has not ended. His populuarity has grown in death. ... Only God knows why this was allowed to happen."


The center is preparing for a special service next month to celebrate what would have been Malcolm X's 85th birthday. Would the center welcome Hagan if he asked to attend?


"We'd cross that bridge if he called us," Ramadan said, "Think about that: How far-fetched is it that he could meet one of the daughters of Malcolm X? And what's going to happen then? Mercy, fury, anger, emotions -- who knows?"


Killed in front of his family


On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X took to the stage of the Audubon Ballroom, a site often used for civic meetings. His wife, Betty Shabazz, and four children were in the crowd.


"I heard several shots in succession," his wife later told a Manhattan grand jury. "I got on the floor, and I pushed my children under the seat and protected them with my body."


Gunshots continued to ring out, she said. Her husband's body was riddled with bullets. The native of Omaha, Nebraska, was 39.


"Minister Malcolm was slaughtered like a dog in front of his family," A. Peter Bailey, one of Malcolm X's closest aides, told The New York Times on the 40th anniversary of the killing.


The assassination came after a public feud between Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam's founder, Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X had accused Muhammad of infidelity and left the Nation in March 1964.


"For the next 11 months, there was a pattern of harassment, vilification and even on occasion literally pursuit in the streets of Malcolm by people associated with the Nation," said Claude Andrew Clegg III, author of a biography on Elijah Muhammad called An Original Man.


"Malcolm felt that if Elijah Muhammad snapped his fingers, then he could stop the escalation of the violent tone around the split of the two men. And I think there's some truth to that."


Over the years, the killing of Malcolm X has been the subject of much debate, with conspiracy theories involving the Nation of Islam and others. The Nation of Islam has repeatedly denied any involvement in Malcolm X's assassination.


On a deadly mission


Hagan, then known by the name Talmadge X Hayer, was in his early 20s and a radical member of the Nation of Islam the day he entered the ballroom armed and ready to kill. His allegiance was to the Nation's founder, and he was outraged Malcolm X had broken from its ranks.


After the shooting, Hagan tried to flee the scene but he was shot in the leg. He was beaten by the crowd before being arrested outside.


Last month, he told the parole board he felt the urge to kill Malcolm X because of his inflammatory comments about the Nation's founder.


"It stemmed from a break off and confusion in the leadership," Hagan said. "Malcolm X broke with the Nation of Islam, separated from the Nation of Islam, and in doing so there was controversy as to some of the statements he was making about the leader."


He added, "History has revealed a lot of what Malcolm X was saying was true."


Two other men, Muhammad Abdul Aziz and Kahlil Islam, were also found guilty of murder in 1966 and received 20 years to life. Both proclaimed their innocence. Hagan, who eventually admitted his part in the murder, testified at trial and subsequent parole hearings that both men were innocent. Aziz was paroled in 1985; Islam was freed in 1987.


At last month's parole hearing, Hagan again maintained that Aziz and Islam were not the other assassins. He said it was two other men who helped plot, plan and participate in the killing.


Did they receive orders from the Nation to carry out the killing?


"I can't say that anyone in the Nation of Islam gave us the idea or instructed us to do it. We did this ourselves for the most part, yes," Hagan told the parole board.


Hagan said he received a master's degree in sociology while incarcerated and that helped him deal with his actions from 45 years ago.


"I understand a lot better the dynamics of movements and what can happen inside movements and conflicts that can come up, but I have deep regrets about my participation in that."


He added, "Unfortunately, I didn't have an in-depth understanding of what was really going on myself to let myself be involved in anything like that. ... I can't really describe my remiss and my remorse for my actions -- basically a very young man, a very uneducated man. "


He is still a Muslim but no longer a member of the Nation of Islam. He volunteers at a mosque to help young men. He told the parole board he hopes to become a qualified substance abuse counselor.


His primary mission is to help his four children, ages 21, 17, 14 and 10. He has two other grown children.


"My focus is to maintain my family and to try to make things a little better for them. It's upward mobility, and to encourage my children to complete their education because it's a must."

In Memoriam: Dr. Dorothy Irene Height (1912-2010)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Dorothy Irene Height, a pioneering voice of the civil rights movement whose activism stretched from the New Deal to the election of President Barack Obama, died Tuesday. She was 98.



Height, who marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and led the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years, was known for her determination and grace -- as well as her wry humor. She remained active and outspoken well into her 90s and often received rousing ovations at events around Washington, where she was easily recognizable in the bright, colorful hats she almost always wore.


Height died at Howard University Hospital, where she had been in serious condition for weeks.


In a statement, Obama called her ''the godmother of the civil rights movement'' and a hero to Americans.


''Dr. Height devoted her life to those struggling for equality ... and served as the only woman at the highest level of the civil rights movement -- witnessing every march and milestone along the way,'' Obama said.


Vice President Joe Biden said Height was one of the first people to visit him when he first took his seat in the Senate in 1973.


''She remained a friend and would never hesitate to tell me or anybody else when she thought we weren't fighting hard enough,'' he said.


Height's was the second death of a major civil rights figure in less than a week. Benjamin L. Hooks, the former longtime head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, died Thursday in Memphis at 85.


Former Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, a close friend who has spoken for Height's family and called Height her mentor, said funeral arrangements were pending.


Height received two of the nation's highest honors: the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.


In awarding the congressional medal, then-President George W. Bush noted that Height had met with every U.S. president since Eisenhower, and ''she's told every president what she thinks since Dwight David Eisenhower.''


In a statement Tuesday, Bush hailed ''her grace and her determination. Our nation will never forget Dr. Heights efforts to make America a more compassionate, welcoming and just society.''


Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, in a joint statement, said, ''Our nation is poorer for her loss but infinitely richer for the life she led, the progress she achieved and the people she touched.''


Height was born in Richmond, Va., before women could vote and when blacks had few rights. Her family moved to the Pittsburgh area when she was 4. Distinguishing herself in the classroom, she was accepted to Barnard College but then turned away because the school already had reached its quota of two black women. She went on to earn bachelor's and master's degrees from New York University.


As a teenager, Height marched in New York's Times Square shouting, ''Stop the lynching.'' After earning her degrees, she became a leader of the Harlem YWCA and the United Christian Youth Movement of North America, where she pushed to prevent lynching, desegregate the armed forces and reform the criminal justice system.


She traveled to Holland and England as a U.S. delegate to youth and church conferences, and in 1938 was one of 10 young people chosen by Eleanor Roosevelt to spend a weekend at the first lady's Hyde Park, N.Y., home preparing for a World Youth Conference at Vassar College.


One of Height's sayings was, ''If the time is not ripe, we have to ripen the time.'' She liked to quote 19th century abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who said the three effective ways to fight for justice are to ''agitate, agitate, agitate.''


In the 1950s and 1960s, she was the leading woman helping King and other activists orchestrate the civil rights movement, often reminding the men heading not to underestimate their female counterparts.


Height was on the platform at the Lincoln Memorial, sitting only a few feet from King, when he gave his famous ''I have a dream'' speech at the March on Washington in 1963.


''He spoke longer than he was supposed to speak,'' Height recalled in a 1997 Associated Press interview. But after he was done, it was clear King's speech would echo for generations, she said, ''because it gripped everybody.''


She lamented that the feeling of unity created by the 1963 march had faded, that the civil rights movement of the 1990s was on the defensive and many black families still were not economically secure.


''We have come a long way, but too many people are not better off,'' she said. ''This is my life's work. It is not a job.''


When Obama won the presidential election in November 2008, Height told Washington TV station WTTG that she was overwhelmed with emotion.


''People ask me, did I ever dream it would happen, and I said, `If you didn't have the dream, you couldn't have worked on it,'' she said.


Height dedicated most of her adult life to the National Council of Negro Women, where she first worked under her mentor, Mary McLeod Bethune, who founded the group. Height took over in 1957 and led it until 1997, fighting for women's rights on issues such as equal pay and education. She developed programs such as ''pig banks'' to help poor rural families raise their own livestock, and ''Wednesdays in Mississippi,'' in which black and white women from the north traveled to Mississippi to meet with their Southern counterparts in an effort to ease racial tensions and bridge differences.


To celebrate Height's 90th birthday in March 2002, friends and supporters raised $5 million to enable her organization to pay off the mortgage on its Washington headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue, just a few blocks from the White House. Herman said Height ''believed very strongly that we as black women deserved to be on this corridor of power.''

'Mean spirited, vicious racism' comes to surface during debates about president and U.S. politics

When will bitter protests, hateful speech and political upheaval end?
Since President Barack Obama signed the landmark health reform bill, the split between Americans, extreme right wing opponents and supporters of the legislation and ideologues, has widened, but many say this division is rooted in racial hatred, rather than health reform.


Racist and hateful acts have been carried out by supporters and those whose ideology reflects the Tea Party Movement, considered to be anti-tax, anti-government and anti-Barack Obama.


"We're in now a second phase of Reconstruction because Black governors now are being turned out. A Black president, they hope, will be a one-term president should he last four years and Black mayors, Black elected officials are being taken out of office. And when the cry comes up, they should be hounded out of town and out of office and hassle them, then the country is in for an explosion and all it needs is a spark and the people will arise and blood will be in the streets of the United States of America," warned the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan during a live, web-streamed interview with Cliff Kelley on WVON on March 24.


One Tea Party protester called Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) n----r multiple times and someone spat on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-KS) as the two men made their way through demonstrators to vote March 21 on a major health reform bill.


Several congressional offices were vandalized by brick throwers, and at least 10 members of the Democratic Party and their families have received death threats.


What people are witnessing, Min. Farrakhan said, is the beginning of the end of a civil society, because America is in the throes of Divine Judgment, according to the Bible and Quran. "From wars and rumors of wars, nations rising against nations, kingdoms against kingdoms, famine, pestilence, and earthquakes in diverse places, all of these judgments of God are coming down on America, not for her foreign policy and its wicked effect on the world, but because of her treatment of Black people in her midst," Min. Farrakhan said.


Much of the hateful rhetoric against President Obama has been revved up by Republican lawmakers, and much is being driven by conservative radio and TV talk show hosts, like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the like.


On March 27, Mr. Beck and some 8,000 fans, gathered in Orlando, Fla., for his American Revival, a daylong event aimed at taking back, or regaining America. Media Matters reported that Mr. Beck, who has been accused of "spewing such incendiary language," urged followers to stock food and water for a coming showdown. "If we don't face the truth right now, we'll be dead in five years—this country can't survive," he said, Media Matters reported. Mr. Beck also promised to put forth a federal budget that would cut spending by 50 percent. "Clearly stung by a wave of accusations that right-wing radio and Fox News are ginning up death threats and potential violence against members of Congress and progressives, Beck also expanded on a new theme that resistance to what he claims is growing socialism in America must be non-violent—again invoking Gandhi as well as Martin Luther King," said the watchdog group.


The day after Pres. Obama signed the bill, according to reports, Mr. Limbaugh told his audience, "We need to defeat these bastards. We need to wipe them out. We need to chase them out of town. … They must my friends, be hounded out of office ..."


It is their influence on that rabid, racist side of the equation that ferments and forments potential violence in the country, Min. Farrakhan said.


According to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service, since the first Black president took office, the rate of threats against Mr. Obama have increased 400 percent from the 3,000 a year under former President George W. Bush.


Like the Republican politicians, right wing religious extremists have fueled the flames over months.


Last September, protesters in Arizona confronted Baptist pastor Steven Anderson, who delivered a sermon called, "Why I Hate Barack Obama," and then called on his parish to pray for the president's death. The day after, ABC reported, one of his parishioners brought a loaded semiautomatic rifle and handgun to a rally where President Obama addressed a veteran's group. Last June, Wiley Drake, a pastor in Buena Park, Calif., said he was praying an imprecatory prayer against President Obama, meaning he was praying for the president's death.

The important challenge now, said Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, a professor at Columbia University, is to come together to think about ways to heal a nation that is deeply fractured by race, class, gender, and sexuality.


"People are using the health care debate as a kind of secret agent talk that they can use to actually smuggle in conversation about a deep disdain, deep disregard, for some of the most vulnerable citizens ... it's a sad moment," Dr. Lamont Hill said.


"The irony is that health care reform is being challenged on the grounds that it's anti-ethical to American values ... and in the midst of doing that they are holding up signs about killing people. You have Sarah Palin putting gun cross-hairs on maps."


Dr. David Horne, executive director of the California African American Political and Economic Institute, believes the climate is growing more explosive daily because:


This is the first time in 80 years, that the Democratic Party has been able to get health reform legislation off the ground, despite the $250 million pharmaceutical and insurance companies, and their lobbyists spent to try to kill the effort.


The Republican Party has been throwing rocks and trying to hide their hands, but because they have committed to undermining President Obama to make him fail, they have stirred up thugism and extremism, which they cannot rein in.


Some people who do not read, are ignorant, and will not get any facts, actually believe that what opponents say about the president is correct.


"What has happened right now is the mean spirited, vicious racism that is the bedrock of this country has been given the opportunity to come out and show itself and they're not even trying to disguise it or stop it. The Republican Party should come out publicly and say it doesn't condone this activity, but it won't come out and do that. They want it to continue," Dr. Horne told The Final Call.


Although politicians have behaved badly toward each other, cursed each other out, and even had boxing matches while in session, their negative treatment of President Obama is a first, Dr. Horne said and the reason the Republicans have no problem with showing crude and uncivil behavior is because a Black man is the brunt of their insults.


Dr. Wilmer Leon, III., political analyst and XM Satellite radio show host, told The Final Call Tea Party protesters insulted every Black person in America when they insulted Rep. Cleaver and Rep. Lewis, a veteran of the civil rights movement. But the offenders were given a pass, by Reps. Lewis and Cleaver, and especially mainstream media, he continued.


"Can you imagine if at the Million Man March, we had been walking around strapped; if we had been walking around with signs with gun sights on them with Bill Clinton's picture? They would have run Min. Farrakhan off the planet. They would have gone to every African American of note and pushed a microphone in their face and said, ‘Do you support this sentiment? Isn't this racist?,' " Dr. Leon argued.


"The press would have even called track and field great Jesse Owens from the grave to get him to denounce it," Dr. Leon added.


Dr. Leon argued the problem isn't with free speech, but with statements going unchallenged. Plus, people must connect the dots between their so-called free speech and the vandalism and the death threats, he added.


"They don't want to talk about domestic terrorism and that's what this is. What? White folks can't be terrorists all of a sudden?" Dr. Leon asked.


For example, he said, for two weeks, he could not get away from the face of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who allegedly killed 13 people and wounded 30 in a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas last November. People labeled Maj. Hasan a Muslim terrorist and the media kept the story running for two weeks, yet, made every attempt within 24 hours to report that Joseph Stack, a software engineer who flew a plane into an IRS building in Texas, was not connected in any way to an act of terrorism.


Dr. Leon wondered why Tea Party members, who are upset over healthcare and consider themselves protectors of the Constitution, were conspicuously absent when former President George W. Bush and his vice president Dick Cheney were lying about the connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, 9-11, and when the Bush administration rushed the Patriot Act and wireless wiretapping through Congress.


"There is a direct link between White nationalism and Black public policy. Folks don't want to talk about White nationalism, but that's what this is ... People don't understand that because Whites are the dominant group in our democracy, they don't have to say that race is their motivation. They couch it in terms of national interest," Dr. Leon said.

In Memoriam: Eugene Allen (1919-2010)

Eugene Allen, White House Butler For 8 Presidents, Dies At 90







By Wil Haygood


Washington Post Staff Writer


Friday, April 2, 2010


Eugene Allen, who endured a harsh and segregated upbringing in his native Virginia and went on to work for eight presidents as a White House butler, died March 31 of renal failure at Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park. He was 90.


Mr. Allen and his wife, Helene, were profiled in a Washington Post story in 2008 that explored the history of blacks in the White House. The couple were excited about the possibility of Barack Obama's historic election and their opportunity to vote for him. Helene, however, died on the eve of the election, and Mr. Allen went to vote alone. The couple had been married for 65 years.


Afterward, Mr. Allen, who had been living quietly in a simple house off Georgia Avenue NW in the District, experienced a fame that he had only witnessed beforehand. He received a VIP invitation to Obama's swearing-in, where a Marine guard escorted him to his seat. Eyes watering, he watched the first black man take the oath of office of the presidency.


Mr. Allen was besieged with invitations to appear on national TV shows. There were book offers and dozens of speaking requests, all of which he declined. He also received hundreds of letters, some from as far away as Switzerland, from people amazed at the arc of his life and imploring him to hold on while thanking him for his service to the nation. People in his neighborhood would stop him and explain to their children the outlines of his life.


"He liked to think of himself as just a humble butler," his only child, Charles, said Thursday. Aside from his son, Mr. Allen is survived by five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.


Mr. Allen was born July 14, 1919, in Scottsville, Va. He worked as a waiter at the Homestead resort in Hot Springs, Va., and later at a country club in Washington. In 1952, he heard of a job opening at the White House and was hired as a "pantry man," washing dishes, stocking cabinets and shining silverware for $2,400 a year.


He became maitre d', the most prestigious position among White House butlers, under Ronald Reagan. During Mr. Allen's 34 years at the White House, some of the decisions that presidents made within earshot of him came to have a direct bearing on his life -- and that of black America.


Mr. Allen was in the White House when Dwight D. Eisenhower dealt with the Little Rock desegregation crisis. Eisenhower once asked him about the cancellation of Nat "King" Cole's TV show, which the president enjoyed. Mr. Allen told him that the show had difficulty attracting advertisers, who were worried about white Southern audiences boycotting their products.


When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Mr. Allen was invited to the funeral. He declined for the most generous of reasons: "Somebody had to be at the White House to serve everyone after they came from the funeral," he told The Post. When first lady Jackie Kennedy returned to the White House afterward, she gave him one of the president's ties. Mr. Allen had it framed.


Mr. Allen served entertainers including Sammy Davis Jr., Duke Ellington, Pearl Bailey and Elvis Presley. He flew aboard Air Force One. He sipped root beer at Camp David with Jimmy Carter and visited Eisenhower in Gettysburg after he left the White House. There were always Christmas and birthday cards from the families of the presidents he had served.


He looked up one evening in the White House kitchen to see a lone figure standing in the doorway: It was Martin Luther King Jr., who had insisted on meeting the butlers and maids. Mr. Allen smiled when King complimented him on the cut of his tuxedo.


Mr. Allen served cups and cups of milk and Scotch to help Lyndon B. Johnson settle his stomach when protesters were yelling outside the White House gates during the Vietnam War. He longed to say something to Johnson about his son, who was serving in Vietnam at the time but dared not -- save for acknowledging that his son was alive when Johnson asked about him.


It pained Mr. Allen to hear vulgar words, sometimes racially charged, flowing from Johnson's mouth; and it delighted him when Johnson signed the historic civil rights bills of 1964 and 1965.


Sometimes Mr. Allen's own life seemed to stop beneath the chandeliered light. First lady Nancy Reagan came looking for him one afternoon, and Mr. Allen wondered whether he or a member of his staff had done something wrong. She assured him that he had not but also told him that his services would not be needed at the upcoming state dinner for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Mr. Allen tensed, wondering why.


"She said, 'You and Helene are coming to the state dinner as guests of President Reagan and myself,' " he recounted in the Post interview. Mr. Allen thought he was the first butler to receive an invitation to a state dinner. He and Helene -- she was a beautiful dresser -- looked resplendent that night. The butlers on duty seemed to pay special attention to the couple as they poured champagne for guests -- champagne that Mr. Allen himself had stacked in the kitchen.


Mr. Allen was mindful that with the flowering of the black power movement, many young people questioned why he would keep working as a butler, with its connotations of subservience. But the job gave him great pride, and he endured the slights with a dignified posture.


"He was such a professional in everything he did," said Wilson Jerman, 81, whom Mr. Allen hired to work at the White House in the early 1960s. "When my wife, Gladys, died in 1966, he told me not to worry about a thing. I didn't think I could get through that period, and he just took me by the hand. I'll never forget it."


Mr. Allen retired in 1986, after having been promoted to maitre d' five years earlier. He possessed a dazzling array of framed photographs with all of the presidents he had served, in addition to gifts and mementos from each of them.


The last item to be framed and placed on Eugene Allen's basement wall was a condolence letter from George W. and Laura Bush. It arrived from the White House just after the death of Helene.