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	50 Years Later: Why We Must Remember by Peter Edelman Talk Poverty, NAACP, agencies USA   Last week we celebrated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the greatest and most important advance in civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. The week before we marked the horrible murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in Mississippi, as part of a remembrance of the 1964 Freedom Summer.   We have to remember all of it. So many American children growing up today – even college and graduate students – know nothing of it. They have probably heard of Dr. King, but that’s about it.   We have to remember the murders and the lynchings just as we have to remember the Holocaust. History does repeat itself. There is no certain immunization against going backwards, but the best chance of preventing retrogression is to remember, to be vigilant, and to be ready to act when we see signs of it appearing.   And we have to remember the achievements. Now is a time when many people despair of continuing progress toward justice in all of its forms – racial, economic, and social.   We need to remember the courage – of the people of Mississippi and residents of other Jim Crow states, and also those who came from elsewhere to fight for change. These are people who put their lives on the line to confront awful injustice that seemed to be permanently entrenched.   We need to remember the power of movements that expressed the power of many – really the only kind of power that can fight the power of money and bigotry today.   We need to remember that progressive politics made into law by elected officials can truly be the art of the possible, not merely a continuing exercise in futility. We need to remember that deep and corrosive injustice need not take the explicit form of state-mandated segregation. Mass incarceration, predatory lending and other strategies of residential segregation, horrible public schools, and more – these are the structural and institutional forms of racism in the 21st century.   I went to Mississippi with Robert Kennedy in 1967, where we saw extreme malnutrition that bordered on starvation – the ultimate result of which was the food stamp program we have today. The near-starvation is gone but severe and persistent poverty persists. The political class in Mississippi has discovered that – even with the right to vote and the fact of numerous African-American elected officials – assuring the continuance of deep poverty helps to keep the real power equation as it is.   To a great degree in Mississippi and elsewhere, the racism of the 21st century is one laced with a new apartheid of poverty and exclusion – one that also encompasses the people of Appalachia, of Indian reservations, and of towns like Port Clinton, Ohio where deindustrialization has engendered the same loss of hope and social disintegration.   One powerful point that Ta-Nehisi Coates makes in his must-read Atlantic article, ‘The Case for Reparations,’ is that 18th century rebellions against slavery included both slaves and white indentured servants, until the white power structure figured out how to pry the whites away from their interracial alliance.   The civil rights movement was, among other things, an endeavor of black and white together – a bonding based on a joint fight against evil even though the partners were not similarly situated in their suffering.   We need to once again find that kind of politics: one that cuts across racial, ethnic, and class lines to pursue those issues directly affecting the daily struggles of the people at the heart of the movement; and one that simultaneously maintains and articulates the identities and unique histories of people of color. Neither will suffice by itself.   This, too, is part of the proper commemoration of the events of half a century ago.   * Peter Edelman is a Professor of Law at the Georgetown Law Center, and the Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality.   http://talkpoverty.org/2014/07/10/50-years-later-must-remember/ http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ http://www.centerforsocialinclusion.org/how-policy-creates-racial-health-disparities/   http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/tackle-racial-disparity-wisconsins-capital-community-leaders-start-young/ http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/AECF-RaceforResults-2014.pdf http://datacenter.kidscount.org/ http://www.aecf.org/resources/data-snapshot-on-high-poverty-communities/ http://www.naacp.org/
	2014 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders   The 2014 World Press Freedom Index spotlights the negative impact of conflicts on freedom of information and its protagonists. The ranking of some countries has also been affected by a tendency to interpret national security needs in an overly broad and abusive manner to the detriment of the right to inform and be informed.   This trend constitutes a growing threat worldwide and is even endangering freedom of information in countries regarded as democracies.   Finland tops the index for the fourth year running, closely followed by Netherlands and Norway, like last year. At the other end of the index, the last three positions are again held by Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea, three countries where freedom of information is non-existent.   Despite occasional turbulence in the past year, these countries continue to be news and information black holes and living hells for the journalists who inhabit them. This year’s index covers 180 countries, one more than last year. The new entry, Belize, has been assigned an enviable position (29th). Cases of violence against journalists are rare in Belize but there were some problems: defamation suits involving demands for large amounts in damages, national security restrictions on implementation of the Freedom of Information Act and sometimes unfair management of broadcast frequencies.   FALLS DUE TO ARMED CONFLICTS   The 2014 index underscores the negative correlation between freedom of information and conflicts, both open conflicts and undeclared ones. In an unstable environment, the media become strategic goals and targets for groups or individuals whose attempts to control news and information violate the guarantees enshrined in international law, in particular, article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Protocols Additional 1 and 2 to the Geneva Conventions.   Syria (unchanged at 177th) has been an extreme example of this since March 2011. Now one of the countries where freedom of information and its actors are most in danger, it rubs shoulders with the bottom three. The Syrian crisis has also had dramatic repercussions throughout the region, reinforcing media polarization in Lebanon (106th, -4), encouraging the Jordanian authorities to tighten their grip, and accelerating the spiral of violence in Iraq (153rd, -2), where tension between Shiites and Sunnis is growing.   In Iran (173rd, +2), one of the Middle East’s key countries, there has so far been no implementation of the promises to improve freedom of information that the new president, Hassan Rouhani, made. Coverage of the Syrian tragedy in both the official Iranian press and on the blogosphere is closely watched by the regime, which cracks down on any criticism of its foreign policy.   This negative correlation is also seen in the big falls registered by Mali (122nd, -22) and Central African Republic (109th, -34). The open or internecine warfare destabilizing Democratic Republic of Congo (151st, -8) and the activities of guerrillas and terrorist groups in Somalia (176th, unchanged) and Nigeria (112th, +4) prevented any significant improvement in their ranking.   The formation of a government led by Mohamed Morsi in Egypt (159th, unchanged) in the summer 2012 was accompanied by an increase in abuses against journalists and all-out efforts to bring the media under the Muslim Brotherhood’s control. That was brought to a complete halt by the army’s return to power a year later. The ensuing persecution of the Muslim Brotherhood affected not only Egyptian journalists but also their Turkish, Palestinian and Syrian colleagues. In the Persian Gulf, especially the United Arab Emirates (118th, -3), bloggers and journalists were arrested and tried on charges of links to the Brotherhood.   The upsurge in violence against journalists finally elicited a response from the international community – in terms of resolutions, at least. The United Nations General Assembly adopted its first-ever resolution on the safety of journalists by consensus on 26 November. It included a call for 2 November to be celebrated as International Day to End Impunity for crimes of violence against journalists.   It was unquestionably a step in the right direction, complementing Resolution 1738 condemning attacks on journalists in armed conflicts, which the Security Council adopted in December 2006 on Reporters Without Borders’ initiative, and the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and Impunity, adopted in April 2012. Reporters Without Borders now wants the UN to create a group of independent experts with the task of monitoring respect by member states for their obligations, in particular, their obligation to protect journalists, to investigate all cases of violence against them, and bring those responsible to justice.   * Access the full report via the link below. see also: http://www.cpj.org/reports/2013/12/syria-iraq-egypt-most-deadly-nations-for-journalis.php Visit the related web page
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