‘King Day At The Dome’ with Mildred Gaddis 2011

Charles T. (Bud) Ferillo, Jr., APR, a native of Charleston, S.C., is founder and president of Ferillo & Associates, Inc., a full service public relations and advertising firm based in Columbia, S.C. The firm was founded in 1987.

“CORRIDOR OF SHAME: the neglect of South Carolina’s rural schools” is a 58 minute documentary that tells the story of the challenges faced in funding an adequate education in South Carolina’s rural school districts.

The documentary, supported by many of South Carolina’s leading foundations and community leaders, tracks the evidence presented on behalf of eight school districts in Abbeville County School District v. The State of South Carolina.

This documentary is the story of their extraordinary struggle to seek funding for an adequate education in rural South Carolina and the growing support for their cause.

“CORRIDOR OF SHAME”: the neglect of South Carolina’s rural schools” is dedicated to the children of South Carolina’s I-95 corridor. It was produced and directed by Bud Ferillo. John S. Rainey is Executive Producer.

They plan to march in the township — about 12 miles east of Ann Arbor — on Jan. 16 in an effort to call attention to a bill that could soon lead to an emergency manager in Detroit.

The group opposes the bill because an emergency manager has unilateral authority to cut union contracts, sell assets and dismiss elected officials, such as the mayor and city council.

“We started this fight in Benton Harbor but we plan to end it in Superior Township,” said Rev. D. Alexander Bullock, local leader of the Michigan Chapter Rainbow Push Coalition, a social justice group founded by Jesse Jackson. “We will show the world that democracy is at stake in Michigan just as it is in Libya or Egypt.”

“We’ve been fighting the dictator bill since its passing, all the time knowing it was meant for unilateral opportunity to take over Detroit just like it did in Benton Harbor,” said the Rev. Charles Williams II, pastor of the Historic King Solomon Baptist Church and one of the state’s leaders of Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. “An emergency manager has yet to prove that it can get rid of deficits.”

Read this entire article in the Detroit Free Press

Cornel West Arrested On The Steps Of Supreme Court In Occupy DC Protest!

Dr. West was holding a sign that said “Poverty is the Greatest Violence of All.” He was arrested because holding political signs on the Supreme Court steps is illegal. Dr. West spoke to more than 500 people on Freedom Plaza where he said that “if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, he would be on Freedom Plaza.

“West described how the struggle against, poverty, war and injustice continues and confidence that the people will succeed. He applauded the occupation as “an inclusive social revolution for all of us” and a “leaderless-leader-filled movement” where people are “finding their own political voices rather than echoing others.”

Go to October 2011 to  read more about what happened on Occupy DC

(wording–AP Charles Dharapak)

NcftTV’s Dennis Trainor and Dr. Cornell West arrested on the steps at Supreme Court

MLK Memorial: Reflections On The Day

We Must Revise The Inscription On King Monument

On April 3, 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final public speech. In a crowded church in Memphis, Tenn., King spoke of the injustice felt by the city’s sanitation workers, who were on strike protesting low pay and poor working conditions.

Martin Luther King speaks out against the Vietnam War

King’s staff at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) did not want him to go to Memphis. They were frantically organizing the Poor People’s Campaign. They argued that King had far too much to do already. Memphis would be a distraction.

But King insisted. On March 18, 1968, King spoke to an enormous crowd at the Mason Temple, a Memphis Pentecostal church. It was perhaps the largest meeting space for African Americans in the South. King based part of his speech on the New Testament parable of Dives (pronounced DYE-veez) and Lazarus. King’s point was that white Memphians were willfully indifferent to the suffering of the city’s black working poor. One day these whites would suffer for their blindness, he warned.

Read more about Dr. King’s last speech and listen to audio clips on American Radio Works

It has now been well over a year since the near collapse of our entire financial system that cost the nation more than 8 million jobs. To this day, hard-working families struggle to make ends meet.

We’ve made strides — businesses are starting to hire, Americans are finding jobs, and neighbors who had given up looking are returning to the job market with new hope. But the flaws in our financial system that led to this crisis remain unresolved.

Wall Street titans still recklessly speculate with borrowed money. Big banks and credit card companies stack the deck to earn millions while far too many middle-class families, who have done everything right, can barely pay their bills or save for a better future.

We cannot delay action any longer. It is time to hold the big banks accountable to the people they serve, establish the strongest consumer protections in our nation’s history — and ensure that taxpayers will never again be forced to bail out big banks because they are “too big to fail.”

That is what Wall Street reform will achieve, why I am so committed to making it happen, and why I’m asking for your help today.

Please stand with me to show your support for Wall Street reform.

We know that without enforceable, commonsense rules to check abuse and protect families, markets are not truly free. Wall Street reform will foster a strong and vibrant financial sector so that businesses can get loans; families can afford mortgages; entrepreneurs can find the capital to start a new company, sell a new product, or offer a new service.

Consumer financial protections are currently spread across seven different government agencies. Wall Street reform will create one single Consumer Financial Protection Agency — tasked with preventing predatory practices and making sure you get the clear information, not fine print, needed to avoid ballooning mortgage payments or credit card rate hikes.

Reform will provide crucial new oversight, give shareholders a say on salaries and bonuses, and create new tools to break up failing financial firms so that taxpayers aren’t forced into another unfair bailout. And reform will keep our economy secure by ensuring that no single firm can bring down the whole financial system.

With so much at stake, it is not surprising that allies of the big banks and Wall Street lenders have already launched a multi-million-dollar ad campaign to fight these changes. Arm-twisting lobbyists are already storming Capitol Hill, seeking to undermine the strong bipartisan foundation of reform with loopholes and exemptions for the most egregious abusers of consumers.

I won’t accept anything short of the full protection that our citizens deserve and our economy needs. It’s a fight worth having, and it is a fight we can win — if we stand up and speak out together.

So I’m asking you to join me, starting today, by adding your name as a strong supporter of Wall Street reform:

http://my.barackobama.com/StandForWallStreetReform

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

Ron Phillips is the Senior Vice President of Employee Engagement for Comcast Cable.

In this newly created role that reports directly to Ken Carrig, Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Comcast Cable, Phillips will be responsible for overseeing employee relations, labor relations, compliance, and employee loyalty and retention.  Phillips previously served as Vice President of Human Resources for Comcast’s West Division in Englewood, Colorado, and Vice President of Human Resources in Comcast’s Greater Chicago Region.

As Vice President of Human Resources in Comcast’s West Division, Phillips was responsible for leading the development and implementation of human resources policies, programs, and practices for the division, including employment, labor relations, compensation, training, and employee services.

Prior to joining Comcast, Phillips was the Senior Manager of Human Resources for Ryder Transportation, where he led the human resources function for two regions, including 21 customer business units across 18 states.  He also held human resources leadership roles with McDonald’s Corporation and the Auto Warehousing Company.

Phillips holds a B.A. degree in Criminal Justice from Virginia State University and earned his J.D. degree from the University of Richmond, T.C. Williams School of Law.  He also holds a Certificate of Organizational Development from DePaul University and is a member of the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), the National Sales Network (NSN), the National Association of African Americans in Human Resources (NAAAHR), the Organizational Development Network (ODNetwork) and the National Black MBA Association.  Phillips will be relocating with his wife, Lynette, and two children from his home in Aurora, Colorado, to the Philadelphia region.

VIA:  NewsOne.Com

By a vote of 219 to 212, the House passed the bill after a day of tumultuous debate that echoed the epic struggle of the last year. The action sent the bill to President Obama, whose crusade for such legislation has been a hallmark of his presidency.

Democrats hailed the vote as historic, comparable to the establishment of Medicare and Social Security and a long overdue step forward in social justice. “This is the civil rights act of the 21st century,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House.

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