Newly elected DNC chair appoints Ellison DNC deputy chair

Newly elected DNC chairman Tom Perez started off his term with a show of party unity by appointing Keith Ellison as DNC deputy chair. In the interest of full disclosure I supported Ellison but am now fully behind Perez because party unity is the ONLY way forward. Congratulations to both men and I believe that both will be successful in leading the Democratic Party back to prominence.

From thehill.com

Tom Perez used his first motion as chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Saturday to appoint his top rival for the position, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), as deputy chair of the DNC.

"I would like to begin by making a motion, it is a motion that I have discussed with a good friend, and his name is Keith Ellison," Perez said during his acceptance speech, announcing the appointment.

"Did I hear a second?" asked Perez, the former Labor secretary during the Obama administration.

"Second!" the DNC audience shouted.

Ellison and Perez embraced. When Ellison took to the mic, he congratulated Perez for "successfully passing his first motion" and called on his supporters to back the new DNC chairman.

“We don’t have the luxury to walk out of this room divided,” Ellison said during his speech. “If we waste even a moment of going at it over who supported who, we are not going to be standing up for those people."

Message to cowardly Republicans who won't hold town hall meetings.

Here's a message to Republican congressmen and senators who are refusing to hold town hall meetings because they don't want to face angry crowds.

State building renamed for civil rights activist, Barbara Johns

A state government building that once served as headquarters of the “Massive Resistance” campaign against racial integration of Virginia’s public schools was renamed Thursday in honor of Barbara Johns, a student activist who played an important and often overlooked role in the civil rights movement.

Johns was only 16 when she led a student protest that would one day become part of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

Like most segregated schools at the time, the all-black high school Johns attended in Farmville, Virginia, was overcrowded, underfunded and dilapidated in comparison to the white schools in the Prince Edward County. On April 23, 1951, Johns persuaded all 450 of her classmates to stage a strike and march to City Hall in protest of the school’s substandard conditions.

“When she took a stand like that, it was a dangerous time, and I was the one who was worried about what might happen to us. She didn’t seem to have any fear at all,” said Barbara Johns‘ sister, Joan Johns Cobb, who marched alongside her.

Johns enlisted the help of the NAACP, which filed a suit on behalf of 117 students against Prince Edward County, challenging Virginia’s laws requiring segregated schools.

“This was before Little Rock Nine, this was before Rosa Parks, this was before Martin Luther King. This was a 16-year-old girl who said that we will not tolerate separate but not equal,” said Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who announced in January that the newly renovated Ninth Street Office Building would be renamed in Johns‘ honor.

[SOURCE]

Keith Ellison: Trump has already done things that rise to the level of impeachment

During last night's CNN Democratic National Committee Chair debate Keith Ellison made a provocative comment in which he stated hat he believed Trump had already committed impeachable offenses. Listen to that comment below:

Black WWII veteran receives 6 long-overdue medals

A World War II veteran who is the last-known living Buffalo-area resident to have served in a segregated unit has received six long-overdue medals.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and Rep. Brian Higgins, a Buffalo Democrat, presented George Watts with the medals during a ceremony Wednesday at a city fire station.

Watts was a sergeant assigned to an all-black Army engineer unit that served in the Philippines campaign. He was honorably discharged in 1946. Two years later President Harry Truman integrated the U.S. military.

Among the belated decorations Watts received was the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory medal.

Schumer and Higgins say racism likely kept Watts and many other black soldiers from receiving the military honors they earned with their service during the war.

[SOURCE: http://www.syracuse.com]