1149: Couple of Reds

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Sun, 23 Jun 2019 13:00

Antonio Moore graduated from UCLA in 2002, and Loyola Law School in 2006. In recent years he worked as a producer on the Emmy nominated documentary entitled "Crack in the System presented by Al Jazeera". The film tells the story of the effects of Mass Incarceration, the Iran Contra & the resulting crack cocaine epidemic that swept across America. Mr. Moore is also an active member of the Urban League Young Professionals.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Moore

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Sun, 23 Jun 2019 02:07

Golden Opportunity Zone: Even as his music career accelerates, Nipsey Hussle'--pictured at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards'--is focused on his next entrepreneurial move. (Photo by David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

GettyThe tattered stretch of West Slauson Avenue just off Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles isn't the first place you'd expect to see a Cadillac Escalade roll up and deliver a Grammy-nominated musician. At the tiny strip mall on the south side of the street, storefronts include an off-brand taco joint, a Boost Mobile outlet and an accountant's office advertising same-day tax refund advances up to $6,000.

This is where Nipsey Hussle decided to spend a recent Friday morning, and for good reason. His Marathon Clothing store, which peddles Crenshaw hoodies alongside his own music, occupies the corner of the L-shaped plaza. His history here goes back even further'--in fact, it's where he got his name.

''Before we was renting here, I was hustling in this parking lot,'' says Nipsey, 33, born Ermias Asghedom. ''It's just always been a hub for local entrepreneurs.''

Change is coming to Crenshaw, and Nipsey is aiming to be on its bleeding edge: This month, Nipsey and business partner Dave Gross swooped in to pay ''a couple million'' for the plaza. Within 18 months or so, they'll knock everything down and rebuild it as a six-story residential building atop a commercial plaza where a revamped Marathon store will be the anchor tenant.

In the meantime, a light rail line is rising to link Crenshaw '-- which, crucially, qualifies as a tax-advantaged Opportunity Zone '-- to Los Angeles International Airport and other key nodes of sprawling Southern California. The plaza will be among the first to benefit: There's a brand-new train station under construction just steps away.

Nipsey may not be hip-hop's biggest name, but he's certainly among the genre's most entrepreneurial. His slow-burn career started to catch fire six years ago when Nipsey offered 1,000 copies of his mixtape Crenshaw for $100 apiece'--Jay-Z bought 100 copies'--and rolled the profits into his label, All Money In. He released just 100 copies of a subsequent offering, Mailbox Money, with a price tag of $1,000.

''[Nipsey] was not trying to be independent just for the sake of it, but thinking about the benefits of being an independent artist,'' says Chris Lyons, who has known Nipsey for several years and runs Andreessen Horowitz's Cultural Leadership Fund, which counts Nas and Diddy as investors. ''The most important thing is his ability to just see where future trends are going and not being afraid to pioneer.''

Hussle's Convention: Diddy, Usher, Jay-Z, DJ Khaled and Nipsey Hussle at the Roc Nation Grammy brunch. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Roc Nation)

GettyFor Nipsey, the hustle started at home. He grew up down the road from the plaza, in what he calls ''the worst house on the best block,'' cutting grass and shining shoes to make extra cash as a kid before falling in with local gangs. Fortunately, his musical role models were entrepreneurs as well, offering a way out of a dead-end path.

Dr. Dre, from nearby Compton, built Death Row Records into one of the most influential labels in hip-hop history before eventually shifting focus to his namesake headphone line. Watching Dre from up close and moguls like Jay-Z and Diddy from afar gave Nipsey "the blueprint of what could be done with the platform of being a successful rap artist," he says.

Nipsey started putting out mixtapes in 2005; on one of his early songs, Hussle In The House, he made sure to include a few financial lessons of his own. "Straight off the block, I sold dope to buy groceries," he rapped. "Now it's rap money, no advance, it's all royalties." Nipsey also prophetically flicked at his future Opportunity Zone gambit: "Pay taxes to these corners and put in work, it's a policy."

For his first music video, he wanted to do something that both represented his hometown and offered a path to earnings beyond music. Leafing through an old yearbook, he noticed a picture of local legend Darryl Strawberry in a vintage Crenshaw High School baseball jersey. Nipsey ordered a batch of throwback blue-and-yellow shirts with ''Crenshaw'' scripted across the front to wear in the shoot.

When the video ended up on MTV, scores of people started asking about ''Crenshaw Clothing.'' Nipsey had other ideas. A friend had given him a book called The 22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing, packed with Procter & Gamble case studies. As Nipsey ruminated on these lessons in the context of his own journey, the word ''Marathon'' came to him'--it had more potential, he thought, than Crenshaw, a location most people couldn't place on a map.

Nipsey flirted with major labels, signing with Epic but leaving in 2010'--with his catalog intact '-- after a management change left his official debut album in limbo. While continuing his prolific mixtape output, he became obsessed with the notion of social currency, prompting the release of his $100 mixtape in 2013.

''I believe that economics is based on scarcity of markets,'' he told Forbes at the time. ''And it's possible to monetize your art without compromising the integrity of it for commerce.''

Meanwhile, Nipsey continued to give away other mixtapes to satiate his fans, who in turn supported him by buying concert tickets and merchandise. He turned down new record deals because the labels all seemed to want a piece of his burgeoning broader business.

He didn't need the cash, thanks to his ancillary income and his TuneCore catalog, which was earning him monthly royalty checks in the low six figures. After a couple of years, though, Nipsey had built up a good amount of leverage. He decided to cut a deal with Atlantic that enabled him to make Victory Lap, his official major label debut.

''It's a partnership. '... I shook hands and said I wouldn't give full details, but we're sharing everything: profit, masters,'' he says. ''I was holding out for a long time for these terms.''

Nominated for Best Rap Album at this year's Grammy Awards, the record paired his rapidly improving socioeconomic status with a career-long message of fiscal responsibility. In one verse, he blustered about Benzes and Bentleys'--and touted his trust accounts alongside the "million-dollar life insurance on my flesh."

Gross Profits: With investing partner Dave Gross (left), Nipsey Hussle is building a business boosted by a tax break popular with billionaire venture capitalists.

Elmo KebourAt the same time, Nipsey was looking for other ways to expand his empire. He met Gross, a private-equity and real-estate investor, courtside at a Lakers game several years ago. (''We started drinking tequila,'' says Nipsey. ''By the third quarter, we was more friendly.'') They bonded over Gross's idea for an inner-city co-working space now known as Vector90.

They eventually teamed up to buy the plaza on West Slauson, currently zoned for buildings that max out at 40 units. Nipsey and Gross are aiming for 100 units, which requires a lengthy entitlement process, so they've been working with the city and local council members on the details'--hence the long timeline. And they're building smart.

Buried in the tax overhaul of 2017 is a provision to encourage investment in state-designated low-income enclaves known as Opportunity Zones. Under the law, investors can shift capital gains into institutions located in these areas, where the capital is taxed at a reduced rate; new opportunity investments can grow tax-free.

There are basically no limits on the amount of money that can be plowed into an Opportunity Zone or the amount of tax that can be avoided. Is it possible the program is excessively business-friendly? Not for its ambitious goals, backers say.

"The incentive needs to be powerful enough that it can unlock large amounts of capital, aggregate that capital into funds and force the funds to invest in distressed areas," billionaire Sean Parker told Forbes last year. "Instead of having government hand out pools of taxpayer dollars, you have savvy investors directing money into projects they think will succeed."

Parker was part of a diverse group of Opportunity Zone proponents that included Senators Tim Scott of South Carolina, a Republican, and Cory Booker of New Jersey, a Democrat. Like Parker, they argue that bold moves are necessary to fix entrenched ills: To qualify for the program, an area must have a median household income 80% less than nearby neighborhoods' or a poverty rate of at least 20%.

Gross and Nipsey saw a perfect fit for Crenshaw.

''This is the quintessential Opportunity Zone investment,'' says Gross. ''The law is supposed to support ground-up entrepreneurship, giving opportunities and jobs to all communities and improving the neighborhood.''

The purchase of the plaza also marks the beginning of a coalition called Our Opportunity'--led by Gross, with Nipsey as a founding partner'--that will aim to team with local legends in 10 cities as part of a broader Opportunity Zone-based fund. From there, Nipsey envisions building a tax-advantaged lifestyle empire, all linking back to his music.

''The vision is to launch franchises,'' says Nipsey, imagining a line of The Marathon Clothing stores, barbershops, fish markets, restaurants. ''There's such a narrative to this parking lot'--that's a part of my story as an artist.''

For more on the business of hip-hop, check out my Jay-Z biography Empire State of Mind and follow me on Twitter.

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Sun, 23 Jun 2019 02:07

Our highest honor, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Margaret Sanger Award, is presented annually to recognize leadership, excellence, and outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement.

Recipients 1966 - 20152015 Dr. Willie Parker

2014 Nancy Pelosi

2013Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer

2012Philip Darney, MD, MSc and Uta Landy, PhD

2011Anthony D. Romero

2010Ellen R. Malcolm

2009U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

2008Kenneth C. Edelin, MD

2007Dolores Huerta

2006Karen PearlAllan Rosenfield, MD

2005Gloria Feldt

2004Ted TurnerForum for Women, Law, and Development of NepalK-MET of Kenya

2003Jane Fonda

2001Kathleen Turner

2000Nafis Sadik, MD

1998The Reverend Howard Moody

1997Louise Tyrer, MDRobin Chandler Duke

1996Justice Harry A. Blackmun

1995Jane Hodgson, MD

1994Fred Sai

1993Richard Steele, Audrey Steele Burnand, Barbara Steele Williams

1992Faye Wattleton

1991The Honorable Bella Abzug

1990Mufaweza Khan

1989Henry Morgentaler, MD

1988Ann LandersAbigail Van Buren

1987Phil Donahue

1986Jeannie I. Rosoff

1985Guadalupe de la VegaMechai Viravaidya

1984Bishop Paul Moore

1983Katharine Hepburn

1982Madame Jihan Sadat

1981The Honorable William G. Milliken

1980Mary S. Calderone, MDSarah Weddington, Esq.

1979Alfred E. MoranThe Honorable Robert Packwood

1978Julia HendersonFrederick S. JaffeEdris Rice-Wray, MD, PhD

1977Bernard Berelson, PhD

1976John Rock, MD

1975Cass Canfield

1974Harriet F. Pilpel, JD

1973Sarah Lewit Tietze and Christopher Tietze, MD

1972Alan F. Guttmacher, MD

1971Louis M. Hellman, MD

1970The Honorable Joseph D. Tydings

1969Hugh Mackintosh Foot

1968The Honorable Ernest Gruening

1967John D. Rockefeller III

1966The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.General William H. DraperCarl G. Hartman, MDPresident Lyndon Baines Johnson

Biographies2015Willie J. Parker, MD, MPH, MScWillie J. Parker is a reproductive justice advocate. He is a graduate of Berea College in Kentucky, and holds degrees from the University of Iowa College of Medicine, the Harvard School of Public Health, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Michigan. Board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and trained in preventive medicine and epidemiology through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Parker currently provides abortion care for women in AL, MS, PA, GA, and IL, and is the former Medical Director of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, DC. He is the physician plaintiff in the federal lawsuit preventing the closure of Mississippi's only abortion clinic, a case currently in request for hearing by the U.S. Supreme Court. Currently residing in his hometown of Birmingham, AL, his work includes a focus on violence against women, sexual assault prevention, and reproductive health rights through advocacy, provision of contraceptive and abortion services, and men's reproductive health. He is a board member of The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Physicians for Reproductive Health, and URGE.

2014Rep. Nancy PeolosiFor 27 years, Nancy Pelosi has represented California's 12th District in the House of Representatives. She is the Democratic Leader of the House for the 113th Congress. From 2007-2011, Pelosi served as Speaker of the House, the first woman to do so in American history. She first made history in November 2002 when House Democrats elected her the first woman to lead a major political party in Congress. Rep. Pelosi was instrumental in the passage of the Affordable Care Act. During the health care reform debate she led her colleagues in Congress as they stood strong against attempts to insert the Stupak abortion ban into the bill. Against tremendous odds, she delivered the necessary 219 votes to send the bill to President Obama's desk.

2013Dr. Ruth K. WestheimerDr. Ruth Westheimer is a psychosexual therapist who pioneered speaking frankly about sexual matters on radio with her program, Sexually Speaking. It began in September of 1980 as a fifteen minute, taped show that aired Sundays after midnight on WYNY-FM (NBC) in New York. One year later it became a live, one-hour show airing at 10 PM on which Dr. Ruth, as she became known, answered call-in questions from listeners. Soon it became part of a communications network to distribute Dr. Westheimer's expertise which has included television, books, newspapers, games, home video, computer software and her own website.

Dr. Ruth has opened the door for generations of Americans to ask questions and speak openly about topics that were once '-- and too often still are '-- considered off limits. She is an inspiring pioneer who understands that there's no such thing as too much information when it comes to sexuality.

2012Philip Darney, MD, MSc and Uta Landy, PhDThrough the development of an abortion and family planning training program, Philip Darney, MD, MSc, and Uta Landy, PhD, are greatly responsible for the preparation of a new generation of abortion providers. The origin of their program began in 1991 when Darney established the first Fellowship in Family Planning at the University of California, San Francisco, mentoring OB/GYN doctors on a small scale. This program slowly expanded to include 6 universities. By 1999, the need for further expansion was recognized and a formal program in OB/GYN residencies '-- later named the Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program in Abortion and Family Planning '-- was established, led by Landy out of the Bixby Center at UCSF.

The mission of the Ryan Program is to increase and strengthen training opportunities in abortion and contraception for residents in obstetrics and gynecology, and to encourage and support residents' exposure to evidence-based clinical care and research in the field of family planning. The Ryan Program has established over 60 programs in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico and is responsible for the abortion care training of nearly 10,500 OB/GYN residents. With the shortage of qualified abortion providers (there are no providers in 87 percent of U.S. counties and in 97 percent of rural areas), Landy and Darney have made an enormous impact in the effort to ensure that women across the country have access to the full range of quality health care.

2011Anthony D. RomeroAnthony D. Romero is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the nation's premier defender of liberty and individual freedom. Since taking office in 2001, he has been successful in nearly doubling both the organization's budget and staff, allowing the ACLU to expand their initiatives, including the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. Through litigation, advocacy, and education, this project works to uphold the rights of individuals to decide freely, without governmental hindrance or coercion, whether or not to bear a child. Additionally, it works to ensure that all members of society have access to sexuality education, contraception, abortion access, prenatal care, and childbearing assistance. In presenting this award, PPFA President Cecile Richards said, ''Anthony is a true friend, ally and hero. For years, he and his team at the ACLU have fought to safeguard women's rights and health. Anthony's leadership has been unwavering, and we know that we can count on him for the hard fights ahead.''

2010Ellen MalcolmEllen Malcolm founded and served as president of EMILY's List for 25 years, until 2010, and now serves as the chair of the board of directors. EMILY's List is a political action committee dedicated to recruiting strong pro-choice Democratic women to run for office, raising support and funds for their campaigns, training them to win tough races, and reaching out to women voters to motivate them to vote. Malcolm has worked tirelessly as an activist and philanthropist for many years, successfully helping more than 100 female candidates who support Planned Parenthood's mission and values get elected to federal and state offices. Additionally, in 2003, she helped create America Coming Together (ACT), an enormous national organization devoted to empowering and mobilizing voters. Malcolm served as ACT's president in 2003 and 2004, helping to raise over $145 million for a well-developed voter contact effort in key states.

2009Secretary of State Hillary Rodham ClintonOn January 21, 2009, Hillary Rodham Clinton was sworn in as the 67th secretary of state of the United States, after nearly 4 decades in public service as advocate, attorney, first lady, and senator. Born in Chicago, October 26, 1947, Secretary Clinton graduated from Wellesley College and Yale Law School, where she met Bill Clinton, whom she married in 1975. During her 12 years as first lady of Arkansas, she advocated for education and the well-being of children and families. In 1992, Gov. Clinton was elected president, and First Lady Hillary Clinton became an advocate for health care reform and worked on many issues relating to children and families.

In 2000, Hillary Clinton made history as the first first lady elected to the U.S. Senate, and the first woman elected statewide in New York. She won reelection in 2006. Sen. Clinton served on the Armed Services Committee, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and the Budget Committee, among others. Additionally, she worked across party lines to build support for the expansion of economic opportunity and access to quality, affordable health care.

Secretary Clinton is the author of best-selling books, including her memoir, Living History, and her groundbreaking book on children, It Takes a Village.

2008Kenneth C. Edelin, MDKenneth C. Edelin, MD, has dedicated his life to ensuring that women have access to safe and legal reproductive health care services. In 1973, Dr. Edelin became the first African American to be named chief resident in obstetrics and gynecology at Boston City Hospital. The following year, after performing a legal second-trimester abortion, he was indicted for manslaughter and convicted by an all-white jury (9 men and 3 women) in 1975. In 1976, the verdict was overturned by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Dr. Edelin's triumph over those who sought to impose their personal religious and political views as the law of the land is still powerfully relevant, and was graphically described in his book, Broken Justice: A True Story of Race, Sex and Revenge in a Boston Courtroom.

Dr. Edelin went on to become chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Boston University School of Medicine, director of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Boston City Hospital, and gynecologist-in-chief at Boston University Hospital. From 1990''1992, he served as chairperson of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. One of the heroes of the reproductive rights movement, Dr. Edelin's lifelong commitment to women's health and rights truly embody the values and courage of Margaret Sanger.

2007Dolores HuertaFor more than 40 years, Dolores Huerta has been a strong and passionate leader in the struggle for social justice in the United States. In 1962, she and Cesar Chavez formed the National Farm Workers Association, the predecessor to the United Farm Workers (UFW). As one of the key negotiators for the union, Huerta secured the first health and benefit plans for farm workers and became one of the union's most visible spokespersons. Through grassroots efforts, which included boycotts and marches, the union helped bring awareness to the social and health issues affecting America's farm workers. Throughout her life, Huerta has been concerned with the plight of workers, immigrants, and women, and has harnessed the power of community organizing and political action to improve the lives of others. Now a great-grandmother in her 80s, she still works long hours in the name of ''La Causa.''

2006Karen PearlKaren Pearl served as interim president of PPFA from 2005 to 2006. During her tenure, she emphasized the importance of collaboration, uniting the efforts of the national organization and Planned Parenthood affiliates to fight for medical privacy in Kansas and for teen safety in California, and she joined with a broader coalition in opposing the nominations of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Alito and Roberts. For the 10 years prior to her stint at PPFA, she was president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Nassau County (PPNC). Based in Hempstead, NY, PPNC served more than 40,000 clients and had an annual budget of more than $6 million in 2005.

Pearl served as a member of the PPFA Board of Directors, chair of the Affiliates Chief Executives Council, chair of the New York State Affiliates of Planned Parenthood, and vice-chair of Planned Parenthood Advocates of New York. Dedicated to improving women's lives, her leadership at Planned Parenthood exemplified an unwavering commitment to advancing reproductive rights and health.

Allan Rosenfield, MDAllan Rosenfield, MD, dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University for 20 years and a professor of gynecology and obstetrics, was legendary for his work on reproductive health, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and human rights. He served as chairperson of PPFA from 1985 to 1986. He also served the Guttmacher Institute in a number of leadership roles, including as a board member from 1983 to 2004, as well as chair of the board, Executive Committee, and science advisory panel; and in 2006 he was elected an emeritus member of the Guttmacher board.

Before he joined Columbia University, he served for 6 years in Thailand as a representative of the Population Council and an advisor to the Ministry of Public Health on family planning. He was a pioneer in pursuing reproductive health programs to raise the status of women in less-developed regions as a means of supporting economic development. He is known for his focus on maternal health when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth.

2005Gloria FeldtGloria Feldt served as PPFA president from 1996 to 2005, setting a bold, proactive agenda to advance reproductive health and rights worldwide. Her innovative thinking and courageous leadership were the driving forces behind contraceptive equity legislation passed in many states and increased public awareness of the need for accessible emergency contraception. Previously, she was a Planned Parenthood affiliate chief executive in West Texas and in Arizona, Head Start teacher, and activist in the civil rights movement. Among other honors, she was named a 2003 Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine and one of the top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers by Vanity Fair magazine. She was featured in most major media, including The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Today show, and Good Morning America. She's the author of The War on Choice: The Right-Wing Attack on Women's Rights and How to Fight Back and Behind Every Choice Is a Story.

2004Ted TurnerTed Turner, one of the most successful businessmen in the world, is an ardent supporter of family planning worldwide. After being expelled from Brown University, he took over his father's billboard business at 24, and in 1970 began assembling the Turner Broadcasting System. In 1990 he founded the Turner Foundation to develop policies and practices to reduce population growth and encourage family planning. The Turner Foundation has supported PPFA, Planned Parenthood of New Mexico, Catholics for a Free Choice, SIECUS, the Global Fund for Women, and The Alan Guttmacher Institute. He's a committed philanthropist, who founded the United Nations Foundation and then pledged $1 billion to it for distribution to UN programs.

The Forum for Women, Law and Development of NepalThe Forum for Women, Law and Development, founded in 1994 and located in Kathmandu, Nepal, is a nongovernmental organization that aims to eliminate discrimination against women in Nepal. Its priorities are fighting discriminatory laws, combating human trafficking, implementing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and promoting international human rights. The forum engages in a variety of advocacy programs aimed at making Nepal accountable for its commitments to human rights declarations, conducting research on socio-legal issues, providing legal aid and counseling to those in need, building regional, national, and international networks of women, and lobbying to reform discriminatory laws and policies. Thanks to the Forum's efforts, abortion is now legal in Nepal, protecting the health and lives of thousands of women as a result.

K-MET of KenyaK-MET, founded in 1998, began as Kisumu Medical Education Trust, a collaboration between two Kenyan doctors, Dr. Solomon Orero, current director of K-MET, and Dr. Khama Rogo, a leading Kenyan ob/gyn. When the 2 men began working together, they treated more than 60 women suffering from unsafe abortions in the national hospital on any given day. Now known as K-MET, their organization today is a treatment and referral network of physicians, nurses, and community health workers in the western part of Kenya that reaches thousands of women. Members are trained to recognize health complications that are the result of unsafe abortions and either provide treatment or refer patients to appropriate care. The network comprises more than 341 members nationwide. More recently, K-MET has worked with Planned Parenthood to expand its services into home-based care for people with HIV/AIDS and adolescent/youth sexual and reproductive health services in 5 of Kenya's 8 provinces.

2003Jane FondaJane Fonda is one of the most famous actors in the world, but her larger-than-life reality has never stopped her from remembering those whose daily lives could not be more different. The daughter of actor Henry Fonda, she has won 2 Oscars, an Emmy, and numerous other awards, but her greatest contribution to society may be her tireless work as an advocate for those who cannot gain the public eye themselves. Fonda founded G-CAPP, the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, and has been a donor, supporter, speaker, and activist for Planned Parenthood of Georgia. At the same time she's dedicated herself to campaigning for women's rights and healthy sexuality. She's openly criticized the media for sending the wrong message to young people about sex, and gave an Atlanta hospital $1.3 million to help prevent teenage pregnancy.

2001Kathleen TurnerKathleen Turner, an Oscar-nominated movie and stage actor, grew up as the daughter of a U.S. ambassador, living in Canada, Cuba, Washington, DC, England, and Venezuela, and speaking 5 languages. As a college student in Missouri, she went to a local Planned Parenthood health center for information about contraception, thus beginning a lifelong association with the organization. A longtime advocate for reproductive rights and health, Turner has used her public position and fame to publicize the need for greater access to family planning services and to advocate for reproductive rights. Turner joined the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Board of Advocates and became chair of the group. She has traveled around the country speaking on PPFA's behalf.

2000Nafis Sadik, MDNafis Sadik was born in Jaunpur, Pakistan, to a conservative Muslim family, but her father believed in educating his children equally, and Sadik attended medical school in Karachi and did her internship in Baltimore, MD. In 1952 she returned to Pakistan, where she married and practiced obstetrics and gynecology in rural communities. The women she met there, who had no control over their own fertility, convinced her of the inextricable relationship between family planning and women's status in traditional societies. After serving as the director of Pakistan's national family planning service, she began working for UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund in 1971, and she was appointed executive director, with the rank of under-secretary-general, in 1987. After leaving UNFPA in 2000, she was appointed by the UN secretary-general in May 2002 to serve as his special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.

1998The Reverend Howard MoodyHoward Moody was, according to The Village Voice, ''a longtime activist and one of the stalwarts of the religious left.'' He was born in Dallas, TX, and ordained in the American Baptist Church and the United Church of Christ. He began his activist career in the 1950s working with drug addicts and prostitutes out of his parish in Greenwich Village, where from 1956''1992 he served as the senior minister of Judson Memorial Church. In the pre-Roe years, Moody was a dedicated supporter of reproductive rights, and in 1967 he organized the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion, which helped women obtain safe, illegal abortions. The founder of an interfaith group called Religious Leaders for a More Just and Compassionate Drug Policy, Moody spent his life working to improve the lives of the most marginalized members of society always aiming, in his words, to ''stir up '... compassion.''

1997Louise Tyrer, MDLouise Tyrer, MD, was born in Shanghai, the daughter of Seventh Day Adventist missionaries. Exposed to the dire conditions of poverty early on, she became acutely aware of the ways in which lack of access to reproductive health care perpetuated the cycle of poverty and despair. After obtaining her medical degree, Tyrer established a private practice in Reno, Nevada, where she treated local prostitutes whom no other doctor would see. In 1970 she was the first woman to be hired as a full-time staff physician by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Chicago. She joined PPFA in 1975 as its first vice president for medical affairs, and later went on to serve as medical director of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals. An ardent advocate of mifepristone, she was instrumental in bringing the drug to the United States, and she continues to work to protect women's reproductive health and choices.

Robin Chandler DukeRobin Chandler Duke grew up in Baltimore, MD, the daughter of Catholic lawyers. She left school at 16 and went to New York, where she worked first as a department store model and then as a fashion editor, while also finding time to co-found the first Girl's Club of New York. In 1961 Duke met U.S. Ambassador Angier Biddle Duke, and they were married 7 months later. Her commitment to family planning efforts led her to take on an extraordinary variety of roles. She served as president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, president of the National Abortion Rights Action Committee, consultant for the United Nation Fund for Population Activities, chair of Population Action International, trustee of the Planned Parenthood Foundation, and U.S. ambassador to Norway. Her tireless activism led one writer to quip, ''Duke is an action verb disguised as a person.''

1996Justice Harry A. BlackmunJustice Harry A. Blackmun made his mark on reproductive rights and American history in 1972, when he authored the majority decision in Roe v. Wade, thereby establishing as a matter of law a woman's constitutional right to choose abortion. Born in Illinois, Blackmun received his undergraduate and legal degrees from Harvard, and was admitted to the Minnesota Bar in 1932. When he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1970, he was a moderate conservative. But over the 24 years he spent on the Supreme Court bench, he became progressively more liberal. An intellectually rigorous judge, he nevertheless was always concerned with the human stories behind the cases that he heard.

1995Jane Hodgson, MDJane Hodgson, MD, is the only physician in U.S. history to be convicted of performing an abortion in a hospital. In 1971, she provided an abortion for Nancy Widmeyer, a 23-year-old mother of 3 with German measles, who agreed to serve as a test case for the Minnesota law banning abortions. After being arrested and convicted, Hodgson was in the process of appealing to the Minnesota Supreme Court when Roe v. Wade was decided, overturning her earlier conviction. Once abortion was legal, she played an integral role in establishing abortion services in Minnesota. More than 15 years after Roe, she was also the lead plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case Hodgson v. Minnesota, where she unsuccessfully challenged a parental notification statute that required a teenage girl to notify both parents before getting an abortion. She was a founding fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

1994Fred SaiFred Sai, an internationally renowned advocate for women and adolescents' reproductive health and rights, was born and educated in Ghana. He attended the Harvard School of Public Health on a World Health Organization Fellowship in 1959, and co-founded the Ghana Planned Parenthood Association. Serving as the director of medical services for Ghana from 1970 ''1972, Sai played an integral role in developing the nation's population policies. The president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation from 1989 ''1995, Sai participated in several major international and national conferences on family planning, including the International Conferences on Population in Mexico City in 1984 and in Cairo in 1994. The recipient of numerous awards, he's an honorary professor of community health at the University of Ghana Medical School, and an advisor on population, reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS to the president of Ghana.

1993Richard Steele, Audrey Steele Burn, and Barbara Steele WilliamsAudrey Steele Burnand, Barbara Steele Williams, and Richard Steele, the children of Harry and Grace Steele (another daughter, Virginia Steele Scott, died in 1975), spent their lifetimes supporting the arts in Orange County, CA, higher education throughout California, and family planning on a national scale. The 3 siblings served as the Board of Directors for the Harry and Grace Steele Foundation, never drawing a salary, and always shunning the limelight. Despite their aversion to the public eye, however, the Steeles gave away more than $70 million dollars between 1953 and 1991. The foundation was the single largest donor during that time to IPAS, the International Projects Assistance Services, an international family planning group, and was a major supporter of PPFA. According to Richard Steele, lack of access to family planning and the resultant population problems were "the root of all evil.''

1992Faye WattletonFaye Wattleton was the first woman to lead Planned Parenthood after its founder, Margaret Sanger, and the first black woman and youngest person to ever hold the post. She earned a BS degree in nursing from Ohio State University and MS degree in maternal and infant health, with certification as a nurse-midwife, from Columbia University. Her clinical rotation introduced her to the toll of illegal abortion '-- that year, approximately 6,500 women were admitted to Harlem Hospital for complications from incomplete abortions. She worked as a nurse in Dayton, OH, for 3 years before becoming the CEO of that city's Planned Parenthood affiliate. Eight years later, she was named president of the national organization and, under her leadership, from 1978''1992, PPFA became the nation's seventh-largest charitable organization. The author of a memoir, Life on the Line, and a member of the National Women's Hall of Fame, she is the founder and president of the Center for the Advancement of Women.

1991The Honorable Bella AbzugBella Abzug (D-NY) was a pioneer in American politics and the women's rights movement. In the 1950s and 1960s she was a labor lawyer, attorney with the ACLU, and leader in the civil rights and anti-McCarthy movements. She was the first Jewish woman elected to the House of Representatives (1970) and one of only 12 women in the House at the time, founding the National Women's Political Caucus and authoring numerous bills aimed at preventing sex discrimination and improving women's status. After leaving Congress, she served as the co-chair of the National Advisory Committee on Women from 1977''1978 until she was fired by President Jimmy Carter for criticizing his budget cuts to women's programs. In response, she founded Women USA, a grassroots political action organization, and co-founded the Women's Environment and Development Organization, an international activist and advocacy network. A fiery advocate for women's rights, she once said, ''Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.''

1990Mufaweza KhanMufaweza Khan began her family planning advocacy in the early 1970s by going door to door in the slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh, providing advice and information to Muslim women who never left their homes and had no contact with the outside world. The recipient of the Center for Development and Population Activities' 2002 Women's Global Leadership Award, Khan has been the executive director of Concerned Women for Family Planning (CWFP) for 26 years. CWFP serves low-income women throughout Bangladesh, and has outpatient clinics and programs in 13 provinces. Over the years, CWFP has expanded to encompass a range of projects empowering Bangladeshi women, including family planning services, micro-credit lending, educational programs, and AIDS initiatives. ''Women were able to capitalize on opportunities,'' Khan has said, ''only when they stopped being victims of their own fertility.''

1989Henry Morgentaler, MDHenry Morgentaler, MD, was born in Lodz, Poland, to a Jewish family. Between 1940 and 1945 he was imprisoned first in the Lodz Ghetto, and then in Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps. Upon liberation, he began studying medicine in Germany, Belgium, and Canada, and became involved in the Humanist movement. After receiving his medical degree he served as the director of the Civil Liberties Union in Montreal, and in 1968 established a reproductive rights clinic that provided abortions in Montreal. During the next 20 years, Dr. Morgentaler underwent 4 trials for performing illegal abortions, and was imprisoned once for 10 months. In 1983 he opened 2 more clinics, in Toronto and Winnipeg. Finally, in 1988 the Canadian Supreme Court ruled Canada's abortion law unconstitutional and dropped all charges against Dr. Morgentaler. He said of the decision, ''For the first time, it gave women the status of full human beings able to make decisions about their own lives.''

1988Ann LandersEppie Lederer, who wrote under the pen name Ann Landers, was considered responsible for making the advice column a modern phenomenon. Her concise and clever style nurtured several generations of readers, who wrote to her with vexing questions about every topic imaginable. A dedicated liberal, she used her column as a sounding board to promote open and public discussion of family and sexuality, while maintaining a traditional sense of personal morality and responsibility that encouraged her enormous readership to trust her advice. She began writing ''Ann Landers'' in 1955, at a time when public figures were supposed to avoid controversial topics, but she attacked them head-on. She was particularly supportive of women's reproductive rights, telling Time Magazine, ''For years '...I have taken a strong stand against the church or state telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies."

Abigail Van BurenAbigail Van Buren, known to her millions of readers as ''Dear Abby,'' began her advice-giving career only a few months after her sister, Eppie Lederer, began publishing the ''Ann Landers'' column in 1955. A staunch supporter of women's reproductive rights, she used her public voice to encourage men, women, and teens to communicate openly and responsibly about sex, family, marriage, reproductive health, and women's rights. In the late 1980s she began advising readers with questions about reproductive health, pregnancy, and abortion to consult their local Planned Parenthood centers. When criticized by anti-choice ideologues for her recommendations, she pulled no punches, using her columns to expose their disingenuous and coercive tactics. Her daughter, who also is named Abigail Van Buren and who took over her mother's column in the 1990s, continues her mother's legacy as a staunch supporter of Planned Parenthood and reproductive choice.

1987Phil DonahuePhil Donahue is widely credited with inventing the talk show platform, from which he consistently advocated for women's rights, reproductive choice, and freedom of speech. The recipient of 9 daytime Emmys and the Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award (2003), Donahue retired for the second time in February 2003. His long television career was marked by an honesty and integrity rarely seen in today's television talk shows. From its very first episode in 1967, The Phil Donahue Show tackled controversial issues like school prayer, abortion, politics, and AIDS. Donahue's audience was predominantly female, and he made a point of educating women about reproduction, abortion, and birthing techniques, even when his shows were banned by local affiliates for being too controversial or graphic in nature. He was called ''the original activist as [TV] host.''

1986Jeannie I. RosoffJeannie I. Rosoff was born in France, where she received a degree in law from the University of Paris before emigrating to the United States in 1948. A tireless advocate for family planning causes, she was instrumental in the passage of Title X federal family planning legislation and was one of the first to document the problem of teen pregnancy in America. She served as PPFA's special projects coordinator and associate director of PPFA's Center for Family Planning Program Development. In 1978, she became president of The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), a position she held until 1999. Under her leadership, AGI expanded its reputation as a global expert on reproductive rights and health. She was said to combine ''an almost mythical intuition about what makes people tick '... with very hard work.''

1985Guadalupe de la VegaGuadalupe de la Vega, also known as the ''Margaret Sanger of Mexico,'' has been called the ''moving spirit'' of family planning in her country. In 1955, she founded and ran the Red Cross Youth Committee in Monterrey, and she founded and ran the Young Women's Association, Friends of the Blind, and the Juarez Red Cross Women's Association. She also founded the first maternal/child health and family planning program in Juarez, using community-based contraceptive distribution for the first time in Mexico. In 1981, she founded and became the first president of FEMAP, the Mexican association of private family planning associations. Over the years FEMAP has founded a hospital and several clinics, educated sex workers and others about HIV/AIDS, worked to improve environmental health and sanitation, and even run programs to keep young people away from gangs, drugs, and violence.

Mechai ViravaidyaMechai Viravaidya is Thailand's foremost family planning and sexual health education advocate. Thanks to his work, in Thailand, a condom is known as a ''mechai.'' The founder and chairperson of the Population and Community Development Association of Thailand (PDA) and a recipient of many awards, including the 1997 United Nations Population Award, he's worked tirelessly since 1970 to promote safer sex and family planning. His methods are often innovative. At his Condoms & Cabbages restaurants, for instance, diners are presented with a plate of condoms instead of after-dinner mints. Largely as a result of his efforts, the Thai population growth rate dropped from 3.4 percent in 1968 to 1.2 percent in 1996, and more than 70 percent of Thai women now use contraception. The World Bank called a Thai government program initiated by Viravaidya, ''one of the most successful and effective family-planning programs in the world.''

1984Bishop Paul MoorePaul Moore was born in Morristown, NY, and attended Yale. A Marine captain, he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, and the Purple Heart. After being discharged in 1945, he attended General Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1949. An early advocate of ordaining women, he was made bishop of the New York Diocese in 1972. Bishop Moore was a champion of the marginalized, suing landlords to integrate public housing and ordaining the first lesbian Episcopal priest. Under his tenure, the dioceses seat, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, was revived into a vibrant seat of cultural and religious worship, used for everything from circus performances to rallies against racism. Although he retired in 1989, Bishop Moore continued to speak out vocally on the relationship between religion and progressive social policies until his death. He will always be remembered for being, as The New York Times called him, the ''consummate urban priest.''

1983Katharine HepburnKatharine Houghton Hepburn was born in Hartford, CT, to a doctor and a suffragist. After attending Bryn Mawr College, where she began acting, she appeared on Broadway before breaking into films with 1932's A Warrior's Husband. Although she was nominated for Oscars 12 times, and won 4 of them, she was never content to stay within the confines of Hollywood. It was a habit she learned from her mother, also named Katharine Houghton Hepburn, who helped found the birth control movement and Planned Parenthood with Margaret Sanger. In 1981 Ms. Hepburn and Planned Parenthood began a successful collaboration, including a fundraising letter signed by Ms. Hepburn that raised $1 million. In 1988, PPFA established the Katharine Houghton Hepburn Fund in honor of both the mother and the daughter.

1982Madame Jihan SadatJihan Sadat, the former first lady of Egypt, was the second wife of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated in 1981. A world-renowned advocate for women's rights, she was responsible for the Egyptian Civil Rights Law, which advanced equality in Egyptian law and society. Born to an Egyptian father and English mother, Sadat was raised as a Muslim but attended Christian schools. After marrying her husband, Sadat set up cooperatives in Egyptian villages for peasant women, established orphanages, pressed her husband to support family planning, and pushed for legislative reform, including a law that allowed 30 Parliament seats to be filled by women and one that gave women the right to sue for divorce while retaining custody of their children. Called a ''supreme pragmatist,'' she received a doctorate after her husband's assassination, and went on to teach and lecture around the world.

1981The Honorable William G. MillikenWilliam G. Milliken (R), a member of the Michigan State Senate from 1961 to 1964, held the office of Michigan lieutenant governor from 1965 to 1969, during which time he worked for social service reforms. As governor of Michigan from 1969 to 1982, he worked for the provision of adequate sexuality education in schools, adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment, citizens' right to privacy, and comprehensive health care. Governor Milliken used the power of his office to help ensure the preservation of the American family, which depends on the family members' right to reproductive choice. Ten times during his tenure, the Michigan legislature passed bills to prohibit the use of Medicaid dollars to finance abortions for poor women, and 10 times Governor Milliken vetoed those bills on the grounds that poor women cannot be denied a right that the U.S. Supreme Court extended to all other women. He steadfastly maintained his commitment to the struggle for human rights and the right of every individual to freedom of reproductive choice.

1980Mary S. Calderone, MDMary S. Calderone, MD, was a leader in the fight to expand availability of and access to comprehensive, age-appropriate sexuality education, thereby promoting healthy human sexuality. As a physician, educator, author, editor, public speaker, and internationally recognized authority on sexuality education, she increased awareness of the crucial link between sexuality education and family planning. In her remarkable career she served as co-founder and president of the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, medical director of PPFA, and adjunct professor of human sexuality in New York University's Department of Health Education.

Sarah Weddington, Esq.Sarah Weddington played a vital role as a Texas attorney in winning the 1973 Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. In 1972, she became the first woman elected from Austin to the Texas House of Representatives. Serving 3 terms as a state representative, she supported the use of nurse practitioners in family planning, the rights of minors to family planning services, and the right of Planned Parenthood to provide services; in addition, she successfully led efforts to block all anti-abortion legislation. From 1978 to 1981, as assistant to President Carter, she was an advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment and worked on the selection of women nominees for the federal judiciary. In 1979, she hosted a White House reception in honor of the 100th birthday of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. Ms. Weddington was able to translate her beliefs in the fundamental rights and freedom of the individual into action that served to improve the life and health of all American women.

1979Alfred E. MoranAlfred Moran spearheaded the development of outstanding family planning services in New York City. As CEO of Planned Parenthood of New York City, he established a service policy for teenagers; created a youth program involving parents, educators, and public service agencies; and launched a citywide pregnancy-prevention program for adolescents. He also helped to organize the New York City Family Planning Council and the Committee for Legal Abortion, and was co-founder of the New York State Abortion Education program and the New York State Coalition for Family Planning. Mr. Moran also provided expert testimony before various legislative committees and commissions dealing with reproductive health and was a consultant to other family planning organizations and many public service agencies nationwide.

The Honorable Robert PackwoodSenator Robert Packwood (R-OR) was a major force in protecting and extending the right of all people to exercise choice in deciding the size and spacing of their families. His unwavering record in support of reproductive health and rights was instrumental in shaping a positive climate for and increasing public awareness of reproductive health issues. He was the first to advocate a broad range of reproductive health services, and as early as 1970 sponsored a bill to legalize abortion nationwide. Sensitive to the family planning needs of low-income families in the United States and abroad, he consistently supported federal funding for reproductive health care and repeatedly led the fight against restrictions on access to services.

1978Julia HendersonJulia Henderson, an associate commissioner at the UN, joined the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in 1971 as secretary-general. During the years of her leadership (1971''1978), IPPF's membership grew from 72 nations to 94, and the federation gained complete freedom in the allocation of its funds, contributed by 25 governments. After her retirement, she continued to study international population issues for UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. In 1991, Ms. Henderson, at age 75, won the United Nations Population Award. Addressing a symposium on World Population Day, July 11, 1991, she stressed the link between family planning and health and environmental problems. She also noted that better education for girls and improving the status of women in developing countries are essential in reducing birthrates and raising living standards. Ms. Henderson said that family planning ''is a matter of human rights and sound child welfare policy.''

Frederick S. JaffeFrederick S. Jaffe was a leader in helping to achieve national recognition of the right of individuals to make their own private childbearing decisions. He helped expand access to reproductive health services wherever the need was greatest '-- in rural communities and among the young and the poor. He created the PPFA Center for Family Planning Program Development, which later became The Alan Guttmacher Institute. In his work on reproductive biology and population policy with the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, and in his books on reproductive rights, he argued that institutions and people can learn the principles of scientific theory and that scientific theory should be used to enhance social policy.

Edris Rice-Wray, MD, PhD Edris Rice-Wray, MD, PhD, was a pioneer in the tradition of Margaret Sanger. She founded Mexico's first family planning clinic, La Asociaci"n Pro-Salud Maternal, in Mexico City in the early 1960s at a time when Mexicans spoke of birth control only in whispers. By 1970, the facility had 30,000 registered clients and a staff of more than 80. In Puerto Rico, Dr. Rice-Wray carried out the first field study of oral contraceptives and helped set up 72 public health units where condoms, diaphragms, and spermicides were distributed. Her practice of teaching nurses in the clinics how to fit patients with diaphragms was considered revolutionary at the time. Dr. Rice-Wray also conducted sexuality education classes in jails, clinics, and at PTA meetings.

1976John Rock, MDJohn Rock, MD, the first scientist to perform in vitro fertilization of a human ovum in a test tube, was best known for his participation in the production and clinical testing of the oral contraceptive, i.e., the pill. In 1924, he started one of the nation's first fertility clinics in Brookline, MA. A professor of gynecology at Harvard University, he continued treating infertility until his retirement. Father of 5 and grandfather of 19, Dr. Rock, a devout Catholic, believed his church should accept the birth control pill, which he saw as comparable to the so-called ''rhythm method'' because it mimicked the body's natural endocrine chemistry.

1977Bernard Berelson, PhDBernard Berelson, PhD, was a professor at the University of Chicago and director of the Ford Foundation's Behavioral Sciences Program. In 1962 he moved on to the Population Council, where he became president in 1968. At the Pop Council, he initially worked on communication research, and one of his innovations was an audiovisual kit for delivering family planning messages to non-literate communities. Dr. Berelson was the originator of the first periodical to disseminate results of family planning studies to the international community; the prime force in organizing an international conference on family planning programs; and the creator of a cooperative international postpartum hospital program to provide family planning information and services. He was a scholar who combined research and academic careers with the pursuit of practical solutions to family planning concerns.

1975Cass CanfieldCass Canfield was chairperson of PPFA from1959 to 1961 and then later of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Along with his lifelong dedication to reproductive rights, the other great passion in his life was editing and publishing books. He produced works by James Thurber, Thornton Wilder, John F. Kennedy, and Eleanor Roosevelt, eventually rising to the position of chairman of the board of Harper & Row (now known as HarperCollins). He put his reputation for success in business at the service of reproductive rights, gaining respect for our cause from other leaders of communications corporations. He believed in the importance of augmenting the volunteer strength of Planned Parenthood with a core of full-time professionals. And he realized the necessity of expanding the reproductive rights movement to developing nations to foster economic and human development.

1974Harriet F. Pilpel, JD Harriet F. Pilpel, JD, championed privacy and reproductive rights over a long and distinguished legal career. In 1936, after graduating from Columbia University Law School, she assisted attorney Morris Ernst in preparing a landmark case, United States v. One Package, which challenged the U.S. government's seizure of a shipment of contraceptive devices that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger had ordered from a Japanese physician. Renowned Judge Augustus Hand ruled that the seizure stemmed from an insupportably limited reading of the federal Comstock law, which classified birth control as obscene. In preparing the case, Pilpel and Ernst marshaled an impressive body of evidence documenting the broad positive impact of contraception on maternal health and well-being. A prominent advocate for women's rights, Pilpel was a member of the Commission on the Status of Women for both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and served as PPFA's general counsel for many years until her death.

1973Christopher Tietze, MD, and Sarah Lewit TietzeChristopher Tietze, MD, and Sarah Lewit Tietze, leading authorities on the demographic and public health aspects of human fertility and its regulation, were the first to compare detailed estimates of the mortality risks of contraception, abortion, and childbearing. The1973 U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide, was based in part on the results of their research. ‰migr(C)s from Vienna and Russia, respectively, Dr. and Mrs. Tietze married and collaborated on many projects while working for the Population Council. Dr. Tietze was involved with the major national reproductive health and rights groups, and served on 7 World Health Organization scientific groups concerned with human reproduction. They authored or coauthored 250 scientific papers, more than 100 of which were on abortion. Dr. Tietze's greatest legacy was the introduction of rational, scientific means for assessing contraceptive safety and efficacy and identifying the effects of abortion policy on maternal health.

1972Alan F. Guttmacher, MDAlan F. Guttmacher, MD, served as PPFA president from 1962''1974. He fought successfully for development of federally funded domestic and international family planning programs and also helped block the efforts of demographers and politicians who urged coercive methods to halt population growth. Playing a crucial role in the development of the birth control pill and IUD, he was also a strong and articulate advocate for teen access to contraception and a woman's right to safe and legal abortion. Dr. Guttmacher joined the birth control movement in the 1920s when he was an intern, after witnessing a woman die from a botched abortion. Throughout his career, his motivation was to end discrimination in medical care based on class or race. In the 1950s, he helped end the ban on prescribing contraception at New York City's municipal hospitals, which provided the bulk of medical care for the poor.

1971Louis M. Hellman, MDLouis M. Hellman, MD, founded the family planning clinic at the College of Medicine of the State University of New York, where doctors and nurses from around the world learned procedures that enabled them to establish similar clinics in their homelands. He also recognized that nurse-midwives could alleviate the doctor shortage in family planning clinics. In 1958, he defied the New York municipal hospital system's ban on prescribing contraception, initiating a citywide revolt, led by Planned Parenthood, which succeeded in lifting the taboo on family planning in New York City public hospitals. He served as deputy assistant secretary for population affairs, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; and as chair, Advisory Committee on Obstetrics and Gynecology, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, where he headed studies that reviewed the benefits and risks of oral contraception.

1970The Honorable Joseph D. TydingsSenator Joseph D. Tydings guided Congress toward recognizing family planning as a basic human right of all Americans. He introduced 15 different bills concerned with the provision of family planning services and the exploration of population issues. In 1966, when he first introduced legislation to provide voluntary family planning services to American women, such services were virtually nonexistent. The following year, he led the way as Congress included family planning services in the maternal and child health provisions of the Social Security Act amendments and in the Economic Opportunity Act amendments. He also worked for the inclusion of family planning provisions in foreign aid legislation.

1969Hugh Mackintosh FootHugh Mackintosh Foot, otherwise known as Lord Caradon, was noted for his strong and farsighted leadership in the area of international family planning and population issues. He came from a notable liberal family, and he and his 2 brothers, Labor members of Parliament, were known as ''The Three Left Feet.'' Lord Caradon spent 30 years in the British Colonial Service, serving as an ambassador to the United Nations and as the governor-in-chief and captain-general of Jamaica and the governor and commander-in-chief of Cyprus when both were British colonies. He was credited with bringing rival Greek and Turkish leaders together to form an independent republic in Cyprus and was an integral part of the United Nations group that investigated and condemned South Africa's apartheid system. As a 3-time president of the United Nations Security Council, Lord Caradon was also intimately involved in the creation of Resolution 242, which set out intricate guidelines for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. In recognition of his work he was knighted by King George VI in 1951, and became a life peer in 1964.

1968The Honorable Ernest GrueningErnest Gruening launched the effort to recognize family planning in federal policy, particularly in regard to U.S. international family planning policy. After receiving his medical degree from Harvard, he became a crusading journalist instead, and later was managing editor of the New York Tribune and editor of The Nation and New York Post. Switching to politics, he was governor of Alaska from 1939 to 1953, during which time he helped enact an anti-discrimination law ensuring equal rights for native Alaskans and white Alaskans. Later, as a senator from Alaska from 1959 to 1969, he introduced legislation in 1965 to establish offices of population in the Department of State and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. While the bill did not pass, the resultant hearings, which lasted 3 years, raised awareness of the importance of population issues to world peace, economic development, and individual well-being, with an emphasis on personal freedom and equal access to medical services. He served as honorary vice chairman of PPFA from 1969 to 1973.

1967John D. Rockefeller IIIJohn D. Rockefeller III was instrumental in organizing the 1974 United Nations World Population Conference, the first government-sponsored conference on population. Attendees adopted the World Population Plan of Action, which established voluntary family planning as a basic human right, pledged improvement in the status of women worldwide, and gave high priority to contraceptive research. In 1952, he founded the Population Council, an international, nonprofit institution that conducts biomedical, social science, and public health research. Mr. Rockefeller's own words illustrate his lifetime concern with population issues: ''Our real concern is not with abstractions and negative controls, but with the quality of human life. Our goal is the enrichment of life '-- creating conditions that will enhance human dignity and the attainment of the individual's full potential.''

1966The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sparked the conscience of the nation as he courageously and selflessly gave direction to the early civil rights movement in the United States. Resisting bigotry, inspiring women and men worldwide, and advancing social justice and human dignity, he also lent his eloquent voice to the cause of worldwide voluntary family planning. Both he and Margaret Sanger challenged unjust laws, cruel social customs, and blind prejudice that still hold people in ignorance, poverty, and despair. Mrs. Coretta Scott King delivered her husband's acceptance speech on his behalf, saying, ''There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger's early efforts. '... Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by non-violent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her."

General William H. DraperGeneral William H. Draper was responsible for the first official recommendations that the U.S. government help other nations, on request, to deal with population issues. In 1959, as chairman of President Eisenhower's Committee to Study the Military Assistance Program, he published the ''Draper Report,'' which recommended the inclusion of family planning assistance in the foreign aid program. He was a founder of the Population Crisis Committee, a member of the governing board of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and a special consultant to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA). General Draper's administrative, negotiating, and fundraising skills resulted in international programs that recognize the role of population growth in economic development and respect the reproductive health needs of individuals.

Carl G. Hartman, MDDr. Carl G. Hartman was one of the world's leading specialists in embryology and the physiology of reproduction. His research conclusively established the role of the endocrine system in the reproductive process and helped lay the groundwork for the development of modern birth control. A scientist and educator, he authored 7 textbooks and more than 200 articles in scientific journals. Dr. Hartman was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1937 and received the Squibb Award (1946) for work in endocrinology and the Lasker Award (1949) for research in human fertility. A long-time head of the Planned Parenthood Research Committee, he praised Margaret Sanger who, he said, ''saw the need for research to make birth control methods more effective. '...''

President Lyndon Baines JohnsonPresident Lyndon Baines Johnson singled out the need for family planning as one of four critical health problems in the nation as a central element of his administration's War on Poverty. To carry out his mandate, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare developed a program to provide contraceptive services for low-income, married women, and the U.S. Agency for International Development began providing contraceptives in its overseas development programs. President Johnson placed the prestige and influence of his office behind legislative and administrative actions to increase funding and staffing for voluntary family planning services for those who need them most, here and around the world.

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Sun, 23 Jun 2019 01:20

LOS ANGELES, January 26, 2018: The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), EB-5, E-2, work visa and chain migration programs, has created a new level of hell for Black America. In Los Angeles, the epicenter of illegal immigration, racial tension is at an all-time high, the opportunity for Blacks is at a new low.

The furtherance of America's native Black communities is being pushed to the back of the bus in favor of political policies and the dissenting work programs alliances being made against black.

DACA and liberal policies are tearing apart the middle class and poor communities in Black America Taxpayer dollars are wasting away in the fight for citizen rights for non-citizens. Many urban Black America city residents are finding immigrants, refugees, and illegal immigrants taking their place in line for jobs and opportunities.

The 1990's EB-5 program and E-2 work visa is the fastest way to get into the USA where immigrants are given leverage over Black Americans. Think about it, when looking at a map from another country where do you go? What areas can you change or fit in?

If you are here illegally you go to the big cities and break into poor urban black communities.

Liberals will argue illegals came here with money and a small window. They say immigrants build their business from the ground up, and Black people have the same chance as the immigrants, but that is not true. By leveraging immigrants with EB-5 programs, and E-2 work visa, the jobs they take are the jobs Black youth are counting on.

Political leaders dominance control of America stimulates the U.S. economy through job creation, capital investment by foreign investors and exterminating working Black dreamers out of their community.

Lifting illegal immigrants 'out of the shadows'It will take more than low unemployment rates to lift Black America upPresident Trump has not fully digested the depth of what Republicans and Democrats have done to the children of indigenous Black America. Black Americans are now displaced and disenfranchised refugees.

Under Obama, our first generation Black president gave the DACA Dreamers new life and power over Americans, particularly Black America. Using the legacy of Martin Luther King and other leaders, Brown is riding atop the pain of the indigenous Black slave's history of suffrage, liberal progressives have taken the civil rights movement hostage, merging it with the demands of DACA, refugees and illegal immigrants.

Brown is hired over Black. Inner city Blacks are stepped over on the ladder to success

Illegal immigrants pushing Black America out of their communitiesIn Los Angeles, on the streets, we see Black homelessness growing. Immigrants discriminate against Blacks. Our affirmative action rights are being stripped away and police brutality now suffers bias judgment against Blacks in favor of illegal immigrants.

Ask yourself, would a Black American have received the same sentence as the illegal immigrant with multiple felonies that murdered Kate Steinly in San Francisco? Would that same person, if a Black American, been allowed out of prison in order to kill in the first place?

Kate Steinle verdict: Illegal immigrant found not guilty, the debate continues We have seen groups overtake neighborhoods before. Asian businesses hire family first. Immigrant Indians, as former Vice President Joe Biden noted, do the same.

Brown business immigrants, who do not assimilate to America, only hire other immigrants, refugees, and illegal immigrants that speak the same language. Unlike immigrants that came to America at the end of the 19th century, there is no national demand to be in America as an American.

Over the recent past, the flow of immigrants, refugees, and illegal immigrants are coming to America with high hopes and easy access to political favoritism. Black citizens who are now blocked from neighborhood opportunities in favor of Brown illegal immigrants.

Politicians have not sought to make an equal Black and White society. Their motivation is to enshrine an evolved form of slavery and keep Blacks in their chains.

Time for black America to rip off their voter plantation chains Black Americans were innovators in the progressive growth of America.At one point Black Americans knew how to progress in American. They owned banks that were able to support business and housing goals. They founded churches that became neighborhood social centers that honored their culture.

Thanks to the infrastructure of government's divisive policies endorsed by both Democrats and Republicans, governmental programs began to disable their minds, to keep poor Black America dependent on government largess. To promise Black America ''government will take care of you'' in exchange for their votes.

And because of those policies, the world perception now is that black Americans are generationally lazy with no work ethic.

Which is far from the truth.

America was built on the back of blacks yet immigrants, refugees, and illegal immigrants who are stealing the Black American Dream. Blacks are America's nation of people, now back in chains and being pushed behind illegal immigrants and refugees.

White Americans history with Black Americans is still a womb that has not healed.In 1861 CSA President Jefferson Davis was the first and only president of the Confederate States. A Democrat and a slave-owner Davis said all black people are 'not fit to govern themselves', and they should be treated in a manner similar to 'lunatics, criminals, and children''.

These words still resonate as Liberal politicians have put shackles on the minds of Blacks in America. CSA President Jefferson Davis wish for the government to stand on the backs of Black America still lives on.

All while President Trump has shown no plan of action to deal with this inherited America problem.

In 2018 African Americans are the most disabled and displaced under value culture of people in their own country, where their fathers and fathers-fathers were born. Immigrants apply leverage over Black people who simply never saw it coming.

They continue to vote for Democrats who are creating a sanctuary state out of California. A sanctuary state where Blacks are not welcome.

Democrats against Black Americans are elected officials, and Blacks stupidly elected them. Today's immigration policies are designed to replace a nation of black Americans with fresh new brown voters.

By putting Black Americans before Brown illegal immigrants, Republicans at all levels will find Blacks returning to the Republican Party that first removed our chains. But only in if the Republican party and President Trump remove the blinders and address the problem with more than low-unemployment.

How does the Trump administration solve the problem in the Black communities?Nonstop Democrat harassment means President Trump's priority has shifted towards The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Have Democrats ever once threatened to shutdown the government unless the inner city and poor Blacks are lifted up?

No. Instead DACA has become an immigration policy to allow some individuals, those who entered the country as minors, to colonize the state of California as they take on a majority presence, mostly through chain migration programs, in California's cities.

Amnesty for illegals throws Black America off the bus A tax-plan is not enough to cure Black America With the new trickle-down tax plan, black people are seeing no clear agenda for any ''New Deal'' promise to Blacks who supported Trump. Like previous administrations, President Trump has not fully digested the depth of what Republicans and Democrats have done to the children of the indigenous black slave families in America.

The new deal Trump has shown is no deals for Blacks, yet gives huge concessions to illegal immigrants and Dreamers. Current political policies, gives immigrants huge leverage over established Black America.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), EB-5, E-2, work visa and chain migration programs are political malice policies with hidden agendas to furthering an extinction of Black people, and needs to be reformed.

We need no DACA programs and no more chain migration into Black American communities.

Shirley HusarShirley Husar is an urban conservative freelance writer and CEO of UrbanGameChangers.com, Political Activist, licensed real estate agent, Co.Founder/CEO of Story.com, a tech start-up and 2016 Surrogate for President Donald Trump for the state of California. She is also 2016 delegate for the 27th Congressional District, consisting of Pasadena, Altadena and other cities. Residing in County of Los Angeles California.Appointed by the 38th California Governor, Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger to the position of Governor Appointee Board Member for The Geologists and The Geophysicists for the State of California Governor '' Appointee Board Member served for 4 years. Server as a California Republican Party Delegate, RNC Delegate for 2004 and 2017. Follow/contact Shirley via: YouTube,Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and UrbanGameChangers.comServed as a California Republican Party Delegate for 10 years and was an RNC Delegate for 2004. Follower Shirley at Twitter, Facebook and her blog, Urban GameChanger.com; The National known Hip Hop Republican TV and Hip Hop Republican.com

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Sun, 23 Jun 2019 01:04

Jannique Stewart. (Screenshot courtesy: Life Training Institute/Vimeo)

A black Christian speaker was recently disinvited from an on-campus debate due to her biblical beliefs about sexuality. It's just the latest example of American universities blocking Christian views from the spotlight.

Earlier this year, Jannique Stewart, a pro-life speaker with the Life Training Institute had been invited to speak at Cornell University's Political Union (CPU) "regarding the fact that abortion is a moral wrong."

In a Facebook post on Mar. 23, Stewart wrote that in a shocking phone call she had been disinvited from the event because of her outspoken beliefs regarding biblical sexuality - that sexual activity should be reserved for marriage and natural marriage defined by God as the union of one man and one woman.

Stewart noted in her post that it was made clear to her that she was being disinvited because of her views.

"It was explained to me that having someone on campus who believed the way I did was tantamount to allowing a racist to speak who held pro-slavery and pro- holocaust views," she wrote.

Stewart was also told by the group that their concern was that many of the students would be offended by my beliefs and would not be able to focus or listen to her speech.

When she reminded the Cornell group that they were overtly discriminating and disinviting her because of her conservative views, they reconsidered and decided not to disinvite her, but suggested it might be better for another speaker to come in her place who did not hold such views.

Stewart told the group things would remain the same and she would be looking forward to speaking on April 23. Then she received another telephone call in which she was disinvited for a second time because of her outspoken beliefs.

Later that same day, Princeton University's Robert George, director of Princeton's Madison Program, shared her post and wrote:

"Evidently, no Catholic, Evangelical Protestant, Eastern Orthodox Christian, Orthodox Jew, or Muslim, who believes what his or her tradition of faith teaches about sex and marriage is permitted to engage in debate at the Cornell Political Union. Even someone who, following thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Musonius Rufus, Xenophanes, and Plutarch, holds to traditional morality on philosophical grounds without the benefit of scriptural revelation, is ineligible to be a debater. If Plato or Aristotle were around today, they would be barred. Think about that for a second."

"Among the most appalling practices of the contemporary left is its attempt to secure its position on sex and marriage by stigmatizing anyone who dissents from it as a "bigot' or "hater"--the equivalent of a racist--and thus excluding them and shutting down all debate," George wrote. "We're seeing this all over the country. It is a sin against the House of Intellect. The bullies who commit it need to be stood up to. Their victims need to refuse to be intimidated. And all men and women of goodwill need to stand with them."

"Where oh where are the old fashioned, honorable liberals?" he asked.

Cornell alum Brad Smallridge accused Stewart of lying about why she was disinvited in a comment on her Facebook page, but he did not present another explanation.

Watch Stewart's pro-life presentation for the Life Training Institute.

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Sat, 22 Jun 2019 13:50

Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams believes there is a ''credible political path'' for reparations for African Americans and Native Americans.The New York Times asked Abrams, who will reportedly announce this week whether she will run for Senate in Georgia, for a Sunday feature if there is a ''credible political path'' for making reparations a reality.

''I do,'' Abrams said. ''I think that reparations make sense. We need to determine what that looks like. Because we've refused to have the conversation about it, we've never been able to get to the analysis and therefore the prescription. But we have to acknowledge that in the United States of America it wasn't simply that we didn't like a certain group, we've built '-- no. Not we, they. The government built systems designed to exclude and to diminish the capacity of communities to participate in their own economic survival.''

Abrams, who has not closed the door on a potential 2020 presidential bid, added that ''reparations are a necessary conversation for two groups: African-Americans and Native Americans.''

''Those are the groups that by law had been stripped of their autonomy and their participation in our society,'' Abrams continued. ''And I think there's a credible path because people are talking about it.''

Nearly all of the Democrats running for president who have been asked about reparations have endorsed Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee's (D-TX) bill to create a commission to study the issue while Julian Castro, the former San Antonio mayor who was former President Barack Obama's Housing and Urban Development Secretary, has been the only candidate to date to express an openness to cash payments for the descendants of slaves.

''[I]t's interesting to me that when it comes to Medicare for all, health care, you know the response has we need to write a big check, that when it comes to tuition-free or debt-free college, the answer has been we need to write a big check,'' Castro has said. ''So if the issue is compensating the descendants of slaves, I don't think the argument about writing a big check ought to be the argument you make if you're making the argument that a big check needs to be written for a whole bunch of other stuff. If under the Constitution we compensate people because we take their property, why wouldn't you compensate people who actually were property?''

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Sat, 22 Jun 2019 00:02

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Fri, 21 Jun 2019 23:54

As a specific group with a specific justice claim, the #ADOS movement demands a specific agenda with policy prescriptions that address the losses stemming from the institution of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, convict leasing, mass incarceration and immigration.

We demand a New Deal for Black America which includes, but is not limited to:

We need set asides for American descendants of slavery, not ''minorities'', a throw-away category which includes all groups except white men. That categorization has allowed Democrats to use programs like affirmative actions as ''giveaways'' to all groups in exchange for votes. The bribery must end. That begins with a new designation on the Census with ADOS and another for Black immigrants. Black immigrants should be barred from accessing affirmative action and other set asides intended for ADOS, as should Asians, Latinos, white women, and other ''minority'' groups. In addition, ADOS hiring and employment data must be demanded for all businesses receiving tax credits, incentives, and governmental support. As well as all governmental agencies national, state and local. It is our belief that this will show that there are minimal if any ADOS professionals in fields including but not limited to engineering, medical, legal and tech.Once affirmative action is streamlined as a government program only and specifically for ADOS, the program should be fully reinstituted.The Supreme Court decided wrongly when it gutted the Voting Rights Act. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution article ''It's Time to Solve the Mystery of the 100,000 Mystery Votes'' indicates, the protections outlined in the Voting Rights Act are essential to protecting the rights of ADOS in America. Reinstituting the protections of The Voting Rights Act is a key part of our agenda.Black businesses only received 1.7% of the $23.09 billion in total SBA loans under President Obama's SBA (Small Business Administration), after having previously received 8.2% under President George W. Bush. Succeeding as an entrepreneur requires capital, so our agenda demands that 15% of SBA loans be distributed to ADOS businesses.We seek a multi-billion dollar infrastructure plan targeted to ADOS communities, including, but not limited to, the Black Belt, Flint, Michigan. A Reuters examination published in 2016 found 3,000 cities with poisoning rates higher than Flint.Residents of majority ADOS areas that have been poisoned under the federal, local and state government's watch, such as not only Flint, Michigan, but Denmark, South Carolina, and others, must be financially compensated for the benign neglect of the Environmental Protection Agency and the government in general. The Justice Department must also institute protections which exact heavy fines and federal criminal prosecution for future offenders.Mass incarceration has wreaked havoc on Black American families. By some accounts there are literally more black males imprisoned than all women are incarcerated on the planet. To give context there are 20 million black males, and they largely descend from slavery. While there are 4 billion women globally, both groups producing the same number of incarcerated. The reinvention of slavery through use of the 13th Amendment is chronicled by Douglas Blackmon in his PBS documentary ''Slavery by Another Name'', it is our position this must be corrected. We demand a immediate assessment of the numbers of the #ADOS prison populations at the state & federal level. We also demand that there be review if punishment (bail amounts, sentence lengths, amount of time served before parole) is being levied at unfairly high levels on #ADOS based on gender and race for similar crimes to other groups. We demand that there be real prison reform in the form of investment into counseling, job training, and rehabilitation for our incarcerated.In the early eighties America committed to ''strengthen the capacity of historically Black colleges and universities to provide quality education'' in Executive Order 12320. President Obama undermined that commitment with changes to the PLUS Loan requirements. We call for legislation to triple the current federal allotment to HBCUs. Schools like Georgetown, built by slaves, have an endowment of over a billion dollars. This is a transfer of wealth from ADOS to whites. Our agenda demands that the federal government fully endow our remaining HBCUs in a dollar amount that meets the budgetary needs of each institution. In addition, ADOS students who attend HBCUs should receive a discount in the form of a 75 percent tax credit, given that our inability to pay the rising cost of education is directly tied to the racial wealth gap coming from slavery. ADOS who choose schools outside of the HBCU network should receive a 50 percent government funded credit.Findings published in USA Today concluded that top universities graduate ADOS in tech, but those graduates can't find jobs in Silicon Valley. Only 2% of technology workers at seven Silicon Valley companies are Black, according to the report,and many of those are Black immigrants, not ADOS. And according to a study by Rutgers Professor Hal Salzman, American colleges graduate more tech workers than tech companies need, hence the H1-B program reduces opportunities for ADOS searching for careers in technology. The government must strictly limit the number of H1-B Visa workers tech companies that flow in each year.Audit the banks to see if there are patterns of racial discrimination in lending, and require these banks to extend loans to ADOS businesses. These banks received bailout from taxpayers and owe a debt to all taxpayers, regardless of race. In addition, banks such as Wells Fargo used predatory schemes historically, not just during the Great Recession, to eviscerate Black Wealth. Lending to Black businesses and institutions would be a beginning for banks to redress the harm they've caused to the ADOS community.Mandate that the government's advertising budget include Black media. There is no ADOS community without our own media. Incentivize through legislative action that all major companies spend 10% of their advertising budget with ADOS media in exchange for tax credits. In addition, mandate that 10% of government advertising for governmental agencies, armed forces and other ancillary programs go to majority ADOS owned media companies.ADOS college debt should be forgiven in the same way losses were forgiven for the banks on Wall Street. Those executives oversaw the evaporation of billions in global wealth. ADOS graduates bought into the idea that the key to success in life was an education, and there was a place for us in America, only to find after graduation that we were locked out. We can't afford to bear the burden of a lie.A health care credit to pay for medical coverage for all ADOS. This would cover surgery, pharmaceutical, and counseling needs. As an example we would like to see a Lineage Therapy, whereby #ADOS leadership, in co-operation with licensed therapists and psychiatrists, develop a therapy curriculum to help members of the ADOS understand and manage their ancestral traumas. This therapy should come at no cost to the ADOS community.America has never atoned for its original sin of slavery in the form of reparations. It is our position that H.R. 40 be passed, and additional supportive measures implemented. We need to gather the data on the level of wealth that was lost as a direct result of slavery, and the era of Jim Crow that followed. The paper ''The Economics of Reparations'' assessed the value today as:Professor Sandy Darity Jr.'--a leading economist and premiere scholar in the area of American reparations'-- and Dania Frank have illustrated using the work of Vedder, Gallaway and Klingaman, the gains in wealth to white southerners from ownership of blacks in 1859 was $3.2 million. In today's dollars, the value of that debt is estimated to be somewhere between $5 to $10 trillion dollars, depending upon the interest rate used for compounding purposes.

#ADOS demands that there be a real review of direct payouts needed to be made to eligible recipients from gathered data, and progress be made toward making #ADOS families whole.

Without these measures being instituted, ADOS are locked out of the country our ancestors built during chattel slavery. Without reforms through transformative government, we will be left to continue living a third world life in a first world country.

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Fri, 21 Jun 2019 23:49

#ADOS was started by the brain trust of Howard graduate and host of the Breaking Brown political show, Yvette Carnell, and UCLA alumnus and attorney, Antonio Moore who hosts the weekly radio show Tonetalks. ADOS'--which stands for American Descendants of Slavery'--seeks to reclaim/restore the critical national character of the African American identity and experience, one grounded in our group's unique lineage, and which is central to our continuing struggle for social and economic justice in the United States.

In his book, American Slavery, American Freedom, the historian Edmund Morgan concludes that slavery was not a contradiction of American freedom, but rather that slavery was the institution that made white freedom possible. In other words, slavery was not a mistake so much as a precondition for a societal hierarchy which requires descendants of slaves to remain a bottom caste and be made to suffer the necessary failures of a brutal economic system. This was followed by a Jim Crow-era that saw #ADOS become actual contagions that lead to a destruction of wealth; through federally-supported, discriminatory practices like redlining, black presence literally made wealth disappear in communities, all while American whites'--and more recently, immigrants'-- enjoy advantage in a land of apparently equal opportunity that was in fact manufactured on the back of black failure.

According to Yale historian David Blight, ''by 1860, there were more millionaires (slaveholders all) living in the lower Mississippi Valley than anywhere else in the United States. In the same year, the nearly 4 million American slaves were worth some $3.5 billion, making them the largest single financial asset in the entire U.S. economy, worth more than all manufacturing and railroads combined.''

Codified by government and exploited by private actors, the creation of an #ADOS underclass served as the financial engine of a nation that never recognized the debt it owed to the group as a result. As such, the #ADOS movement is underpinned by the demand for reparative justice in making the group whole, and as a necessary component in fulfilling the promise of opportunity from which, by design, ADOS have been historically excluded and denied.

The truth of ADOS life is seen nowhere more clearly than the racial wealth gap in this country:

Closing the racial wealth gap requires a New Deal for Black America. President Trump's assertion during the 2016 Presidential campaign that Black Americans ''have nothing to lose'' was met with defiance by those on the Left, but the data supported the statement. From over all wealth levels, to home ownership, to student debt levels and beyond African Americans across this nation are suffering. According to a study from Brookings, half of Black Americans who are born poor stay poor. Most Black kids who are born into middle class families are downwardly mobile. And as Duke University economist Dr. William ''Sandy'' Darity, and co-founder of the ADOS movement, Antonio Moore, along with other researchers observed in their study What We Get Wrong About Closing the Racial Wealth Gap, the concentration of ADOS at the bottom economically is a consequence of lack of wealth transfers and multi-generational oppression, not individual agency or cultural patterns:

#ADOS #AmericanDOS sets out to shift the dialogue around the identity of what it is to be African American in an effort to move the discussion from melanin, and properly center the discussion around lineage.

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Sun, 23 Jun 2019 10:14

In October of last year, President Obama awarded $12 million dollars in ''assistance'' to Holocaust survivors. The money was given to help these deserving survivors to help the ''quarter of whom live below the poverty line.''

This gift was a continuation of Germany's efforts to pay Jews reparations from 1952. Then, Germany awarded over a billion dollars primarily to the government of Israel, which had resettled many Holocaust survivors. This money genuinely helped a community who had lost everything '' family members, friends, homes, clothing, jewelry, their livelihoods. It helped people who had lost everything and had to rebuild with nothing.

Reparations helped these people put their lives back on track. Much of the original reparations payment in 1952 went to building Israeli infrastructure, and look at how powerful and strong Israel is today.

As a Jew, when I read about the Holocaust, it boils my blood and makes me sick. I remember as a young girl, I was obsessed with Hitler and World War II, and learning about every circumstance that led to this enormous event in the history of my people. On my father's side, we lost many family members to the Holocaust. It wasn't just reading about history. It was personal.

When I learned about the reparations that were paid by the German government, I was pleased. No, it did not bring back my lost family members, and it didn't reverse the blow that was dealt to an entire generation of my people, but it was comforting to know that at least they weren't being sent home empty-handed. At the very least, it ensured a roof over the heads of these victims.

No, it wasn't everything, but it was at least something.

I will never forget the night when I was driving home with a family friend and we were arguing about many things: the election, the state of our economy, etc. We had been clashing over our opposing socio-political views for some time, but she really shocked me when we started talking about our views on racism in the United States.

I mention something off-hand about reparations for the Black communities in our country who have descended from slavery, and she turns to me the skyline of Manhattan gleaming in the background behind her, a place that represents diversity, a place that accepted her as an immigrant, and she explodes.

''Oh, come ON! Slavery was 150 years ago! They need to get over it! Just stop already!''

''Why?'', I retort. ''Why not? What, us Jews can holler ''Remember the Holocaust'' until our throats are sore, but Black people have to forget their history?''

''Come on Liz, it's not the same, and you know it.''

But why? Why isn't it the same?

Consider that. A government paid billions of dollars to a group of people its former leader tortured for a period of 12 years. Twelve years. This conversation is not meant to derail those classic arguments that some Jews posit: that their people have suffered because of anti-Semitism for thousands of years, so reparations were owed to them.

I am focusing on the fact that Jews suffered extreme hardships (bodies enslaved, children torn from their mothers, over 6 million dead, business destroyed, homes ransacked, wealth stolen) from one government in particular for just twelve years, and that government paid the survivors billions of dollars.

Now take the issue of reparations for Black people in this country '' those descended from slaves, which is estimated to be approximately 85-90% of the Black population.

For over three hundred years, Black people suffered extreme hardships under slavery '' bodies enslaved, children torn from their mothers, hundreds of thousands dead, wealth stolen. True, many of these atrocities were committed by regular White people'...but the U.S. government often sponsored and supported the actions of these regular people, going as far as to enact the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, which bound law enforcement to return runaway slaves to their master'...even if the slave was in a free state, even if that ''free'' state was against it.

Even after slavery was outlawed, Black people still suffered extreme hardships, sponsored and protected by the U.S. government. They were lynched, had business destroyed, homes ransacked, and wealth stolen, just like Jews. The only difference is that the Black community suffered at the hands of the state-sponsored violence for much longer than twelve years. Between slavery, Jim Crow, and the contemporary school to prison pipeline, I would say the suffering lasted (and continues to) for over four hundred years.

So why is it ridiculous for Black Americans to ask the U.S. government for reparations? After all, the U.S. just paid 12 million dollars to Holocaust survivors.

Critics say that reparations to Holocaust survivors are just that: payments to survivors, not descendants of survivors. They argue that paying reparations to people who never ''did the time'' is foolish and not useful.

However, I would argue for reparations for descendants of survivors if the original survivors did not receive any benefits to their hardships. Why? When wealth is stolen, it is not easily replaced.

After slavery ended in the United States, slaves were supposed to receive reparations of 40 acres and a mule. This sentiment was not enforced, and so Black people were sent out in the world with nothing. Even when something was built and a moderate amount of wealth was created, like in the town of Durham, North Carolina, threatened Whites would burn businesses to the ground.

A quick Google search of ''black wealth vs. white wealth'' brings forth an abundance of articles that all state the same thing: Black wealth is significantly lagging in comparison to white wealth. One article even says that it will take Black families over 200 years to amass the wealth that white people have today. How can one confidently say that billions of dollars given to former slaves, especially at the time that slavery ended, would not have narrowed this gap?

As a Jewish woman, who has family living in Israel, I wholeheartedly support reparations for the Black slave-descendant community. I can only think back to when I learned about German reparations to Jews: '''...at least that. It's not everything, but AT LEAST''. I cannot imagine reading about the atrocities of the damage that was inflicted on my people, and then to learn that NOTHING was done in an attempt to help remediate that damage.

It's time for all Jews to stand up and support the Black community when it comes to requests for reparations. Even if symbolic, if the United States can find it in its heart (and budget) to help Holocaust survivors, then it can help slavery survivors.