The website and campaign, funded by the Restoration Project criticize Jackson for changing his position on abortion after being against it in the 1970s.

BET.com reports:

According to the Restoration Project, the organization behind the campaign and the billboard, African-American leaders have duped Blacks by their failure to take a stand against abortion in the African-American community.

“Something is wrong when those elected to protect the interests of their constituents turn a blind eye to the horrific impact that abortion is wreaking on the Black community,” said Catherine Davis of the Restoration Project. “In New York City, for every 1,000 Black babies born alive, 1,489 are aborted. In Washington, D.C., for every 100 Black babies born alive, 165 are aborted! Something is wrong!”

Read More At BET.com

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As the news was recently released that Black leaders had convened to attack the 40-year old “War on Drugs,” I could hear the collective “amen” coming from millions of Black folks all across America. I also heard my phone ring at 5:30 am, as a friend of mine in Kansas City told me about how her brother had been tackled by Federal Marshalls at a relative’s funeral for failing a urine analysis that had been a condition of his probation. The man had served several years in prison on a drug felony and was working hard to improve his life. But by smoking the same stuff that many attorneys and judges enjoy on the weekends, he may find himself back in prison for another five years.

I recall speaking to a police officer in one of the cities I was touring at the time. The officer candidly explained to me that nearly every official in the city was fully aware of where the drugs were coming from. They knew which boat delivered the drugs and could easily go onto the boat and make arrests that would significantly reduce the flow of drugs into their communities. The problem was that the person who owned the boat was politically connected, implying that any officer who entered the boat to make an arrest would be fired from his job. However, the officers were given full permission to make as many arrests as they wanted once the drugs had been delivered to various street corners on the urban side of town.

While these stories are anecdotal, they are also highly reflective of the racism and hypocrisy in our nation’s war on drugs. The drug war has been, for the most part, a racially-tinged fabrication that gives easy excuses to those who once felt that black empowerment had become a threat to national security. Not only has it been proven that the government consistently looked the other way as drugs flowed into Black neighborhoods, but there was the double-whammy of giving Black men long prison sentences as a result of possessing those very same drugs.

Decades later, the Black family is decimated unlike anything we’ve ever seen before: Over 70% of Black homes are fatherless and Black males are the leading victims of gun violence in America, with many of those weapons arriving into our community as a direct function of the drug trade. Black men going to prison is the norm for most families, as a recent Your Black World survey showed that over 75% of African Americans have a relative who has spent time in the penitentiary.

Last week, when I made an appearance with Jeff Henderson from the Food Network (aka Chef Jeff) regarding the state of the Black male in America, he candidly described the days in which he was a successful crack dealer in South Central Los Angeles. After serving 10 years in federal prison, Henderson has parlayed his experience into a powerful business model that leans on the cooking and business expertise he developed while being incarcerated. One thing that Jeff said which got me thinking was that “It seemed like crack just appeared in the hood,” explaining that before the crack cocaine epidemic, his community was entirely different from what it was before.

The guns and drugs that “just appear” in Black communities do not fall out of the sky. They are also not manufactured by African Americans. Most of this devastation is prepared for us in advance, with a larger agenda by greedy politicians who are not wired to care about what happens to urban children and families. The war on drugs has destroyed too many of us and killed many more, and it’s time for it to come to an end by any means necessary (yes, I am deliberately quoting Malcolm, who will always be my hero in spite of what Manning Marable chose to write about him).

Jesse Jackson said it best during the recent forum on the drug war.

“This is a crime against humanity. War on drugs is a war on Black and Brown and must be challenged by the highest levels of our government in the war for justice,” said the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson.

“This is government-sponsored terrorism,” Jackson said. “It raised the price on Black existence; it is an attack on the Black family; it has destroyed a generation. Those who are the least users have paid the most price because of race; those with money and attorneys have paid the least price. Those without attorneys remain behind bars today.”

“I’m here to tell you that one of the most fundamental pillars of what we see going on in our communities, this combustible caldron of genocide and death, is this war on drugs,” said Ron Daniels, CEO of the Institute of the Black World, which held the forum at which Rev. Jackson was speaking. “Why? It’s because it’s a racist war on drugs…I know many people are out there saying, ‘Why are you Negroes still talking about racism?’ That’s because we’ve been targeted for the police action – the war on drugs is a war on us.”

The string of statistics quoted in the Seattle Medium tell the story quite well.

• African-Americans are 62 percent of drug offenders sent to state prisons, yet they represent only 12 percent of the U. S. population.

• Black men are sent to state prisons on drug charges at 13 times the rate of White men.

• Drug transactions among Blacks are easier for police to target because they more often happen in public than do drug transactions between Whites.

• The disparities are particularly tragic in individual states where Black men are sent to federal prison on drug charges at a rate 57 times greater than White men, according to Human Rights Watch.

• More than 25.4 million Americans have been arrested on drug charges since 1980; about one-third of them were Black.

• The Black populations in state prisons are majorly disproportionate: In Georgia, the Black population is 29 percent, the Black prison population is 54 percent; Arkansas 16 percent -52 percent; Louisiana 33 percent-76 percent; Mississippi 36 percent-75 percent; Alabama 26 percent -65 percent; Tennessee 16 percent -63 percent; Kentucky 7 percent-36 percent; South Carolina 30 percent-69 percent; North Carolina 22 percent-64 percent; and Virginia 20 percent-68 percent.

• According to the Global Commission on Drug Policy arresting and incarcerating people fills prisons and destroys lives but does not reduce the availability of illicit drugs or the power of criminal organizations.

• The average daily cost per state prison inmate per day in the U.S. is $67.55. State prisons held 253,300 inmates for drug offenses in 2007. That means states spent approximately $17 million per day to imprison drug offenders, or more than $6.2 billion per year.

The individuals at the forum made some powerful recommendations on how this illicit war on drugs can come to an end:

• Ask Congress to repeal mandatory sentences for all drug offenses.

• Ask Congress to create new and fully-funded drug treatment facilities rather than more prisons.

• Press local, state and federal law enforcers to eliminate police profiling as a tactic to deal with drug trafficking.

• Encourage and support religious leaders to assist incarcerated persons and providing community and moral leadership.

• Ask President Obama to create a commission on review, remedy and action for drug laws that lead to racially disparate impacts.

• Ask local, state and federal governments to invest in activities that can both prevent young people from taking drugs in the first place and prevent those who do use drugs from developing more serious problems.

It’s time for all of us to wake up and attack the problem of mass incarceration and the drug war. If there were ever a set of realities that are reflective of the persistent racial divides that continue to plague America, this one would be it. As a man who’s biological father and older brother figure both spent time in prison, this issue is personal to me. I, like so many millions of black people across America, have experienced the hurt and pain that is caused by mass incarceration. It’s time for this system of Americanized apartheid to be brought to an end.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email,please click here.

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As I’ve traveled from state to state over the years, I’ve heard folks saying that “we need another Malcolm, we need another Martin,” as if dynamic hip-hop generational leaders like Malia Lazu, Ras Baraka, April Silver, Shani Jamila, and Brian Echols don’t even exist. In fact, I can easily count off 100 such leaders from coast to coast—all of who are doing incredible work in their communities.

We seem to have forgotten the old axiom that all movements are local. Black America has been pining for a national savior since the Civil Rights Movement came to a screeching halt in the 1970s. Apart from our flirtations with Rev. Jesse Jackson and Min. Louis Farrakhan in the 1980s and 90s, we’ve been stuck in the wilderness without any sort of national Black leadership model for forty long and difficult years.

Want to know why large pockets of Black America remain in great despair despite all our amazing post-Civil Rights era advances? Well, look no further than the incredible lack of vision and imagination of our Black leaders—be they elected officials, ministers and imams, public intellectuals, heads of social service organizations, educators, entrepreneurs, or grassroots activists.

Black American leadership has been in a state of arrested development since the days of Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Angela Davis, and the Black Panther Party. But some leaders were killed or driven mad by those times, while others wound up in jail or sold out their principles for access to the American dream, for themselves and their immediate circle, rather than for us all. Little wonder, then, that so many of us have pinned our dreams on Barack Obama in 2008. Someone like him was a long time a-coming.

But, no, President Barack Obama is not a Black leader; he is the President of the United States of America. Not the President of Black America, or of hip-hop America, or of young America. Just America. And therein lies the great irony of Mr. Obama being the first Black president in American history. There is this great expectation that President Obama will be that liberator for us, the modern-day Malcolm X-meets-Dr. King, with a swagger that fuses the jazz of John Coltrane and the hip hop of Jay-Z.

But some in Black America have been hard on President Obama for not being, well, Black enough for their taste. Part of the reason for this feeling is the huge void in visionary Black leadership. We’ve been stuck in this vacuum for so long that we expect Mr. Obama to fill it up for us. We expect him to tell it like it is on race and racism, and fulfill all the needs of Black America.

That is not only completely unfair to Mr. Obama, but it speaks of the desperation surrounding our lack of leadership. Many of us are still searching for the sort of leader that has never existed in the White House, or in the statehouse, or in any city’s City Hall.

Meanwhile, we ourselves are scattered, unfocused, and constantly reacting instead of being proactive. We react to the police murders of Sean Bell (New York) and Oscar Grant (the Bay Area), to the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, and to gentrification, mass unemployment and mass incarceration, but where are our proactive local and national agendas?

Yes, no doubt racism is alive and well in America. In spite of all its proclamations to the contrary, America has never had the kind of national conversation about race we truly need. This is not a matter of somebody just giving a speech, no matter how eloquent. What we require is something akin to the truth and reconciliation commission established in South Africa after the fall of apartheid.

But what armchair critics of Barack Obama fail to grasp, in historical terms, is that it has always been the people, not the person in the White House, who pushed our nation forward. If there were no abolitionist movement led by the likes of Frederick Douglass, then there would have been no Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln. Without A. Phillip Randolph and others threatening a massive protest in Washington, then Franklin Roosevelt would not have banned discrimination within World War II industries. And with no Civil Rights Movement, there would be no Civil Rights Bill in 1964 and no Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Whoever has occupied the White House has always had to face harsh critics. And W.E.B. DuBois, an intellectual giant who lived well into his 90s, was chief among them. But current sideline critics and some of these multimedia hustlers posing as intellectuals ought to study DuBois a bit more closely. Not only was he a scholar, a prolific writer, and a true renaissance man interacting with Black people globally, but he also helped to build institutions that served the people, including the N.A.A.C.P. He didn’t just dog out a sitting president and leave it there.

DuBois understood that talk can be wonderful, but nothing beats action. And that’s the principle behind the N.A.A.C.P. before that organization went adrift. A strong difference of opinion on the best way to deal with racism is what led DuBois out of the N.A.A.C.P. in the mid-1930s. Here’s a small part of his stinging critique:

“Today this organization, which has been great and effective for nearly a quarter of a century, finds itself in a time of crisis and change, without a program, without effective organization, without executive officers who have either the ability or disposition to guide [it] in the right direction.”

Sound familiar?

DuBois was addressing the need for Black institutions of all kinds. Something that is still badly needed in Black America in 2010.

No wonder we are at such a crossroads in Black American history. On the one hand we have groups like the N.A.A.C.P., which seem so spooked by right-wing zealots that they allow a Shirley Sherrod to go down without making sure the people hear the truth, or even listen to her entire speech. On the other end of the spectrum are all the Barack-haters, folks who never seem to miss an opportunity to verbally assault the President every chance they get. That would include certain motor-mouth Black Ph.D.s, and the sort of media pundits who have much to say about the Black community, but who are rarely ever seen in any Black community except when it’s time for a drive-by photo opportunity.

All this noise makes for great headlines and television ratings, but does absolutely nothing to empower Black America.

It really is a sad joke. Doubly sad when you consider the many challenges we face, including the HIV/AIDS pandemic, nonstop violence in all forms, serious health problems like diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity, and the lack of respect afforded to both our elders and our youth.

Black leadership will continue to be dead if we waste our time heaving hate at Barack Obama, or waiting for him to solve all our problems. We ourselves must rise to meet the challenge. The question is what are you doing, in your local community, on a consistent basis, to build or support institutions that help our people to help themselves?

My job as a leader, and your job, too—if you care enough—is to support true visionary leaders. Folks like Charlie Braxton in Jackson, Mississippi—a handicapped Black man who works day to day, thanklessly and often anonymously, with and for the people. I have seen Charlie bring feuding gang members together, mentor all kinds of young people, create one business after another, and serve as a beacon of light for a community where so many other lights are dimmed.

That is the new model of Black leadership in the twenty-first century: build or maintain institutions that provide direct service, resources, and information to our communities; change, once and for all, how we discuss the many challenges facing our people; and be on the front lines with the people as much as possible.

When we can do that—and identify and support more who do—then we in Black America will have a real shot of getting out of this wilderness. But if we do not, then it will be another long 40 years looking for a Moses who may never come.

Kevin Powell is writer, activist, author of 10 books, and most recently a Democratic candidate for the United States Congress in Brooklyn, New York. He can be reached at kevin@kevinpowell.net

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Jesse Jackson recently released a statement that addressed the rumors of him having an affair with another woman. The same businessman who has accused him of being part of plan to donate money to Rod Blagojevich has said that he also paid for a female social acquaintance, Giovana Huidobro, to fly to Chicago. Of the incident, Jackson said:

The reference to a social acquaintance is a private and personal matter between me and my wife that was handled some time ago. I ask that you respect our privacy, know I have disappointed some supporters, and for that I am deeply sorry. But I remain committed to serving my constituents and fighting on their behalf.

Jackson’s wife, Sandi Jackson, said that the situation was:

A very private, painful and unfortunate situation that my family and I have been privately addressing for several months

Source

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CHICAGO – Mulling over a possible run for mayor of Chicago, a defiant Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., spoke out publicly for the first time on Friday about potentially damning details that emerged in former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s recent corruption trial.

Prosecutors dropped a bombshell when they said in court a former state official told them Jackson attended a meeting where a businessman offered to raise $1 million for Blagojevich’s campaign if the governor appointed Jackson to President Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat.

Speaking on WLS Radio’s “The Don Wade and Roma Show,” Jackson said he was at the Oct. 28, 2008, meeting in a Chicago restaurant with several prominent members of the city’s Indian-American community but never heard talk about a donations-for-Senate-seat exchange.

One reason he couldn’t participate in the discussion was because other attendees at one point started speaking in a foreign language — possibly Hindi, he said — which he could not understand.

“I did not participate in any part of that conversation nor do I even remember hearing it,” Jackson said.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the possible development of a third regional airport in the southern Chicago suburb of Peotone, he said.

In the Friday interview, Jackson, the son of civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, also broached the possibility of charges.

“I assume that (prosecutors) have no evidence or they should have brought a charge,” he said. “If I’m a conspirator — bring it on. But I can’t possibly be a conspiracy to that which I am not a part of or have no knowledge of.”

Blagojevich’s trial ended last month with jurors deadlocked on 23 counts, including allegations he attempted to sell or trade an appointment to Obama’s old Senate seat for a top job or campaign cash. They convicted him on just one charge — lying to the FBI.

Blagojevich, who has denied wrongdoing, is slated to be retried on the deadlocked counts in January. Rep. Jackson’s name is likely to come up at least as often as it did in the first trial. If he does decide to run for Chicago mayor, the retrial could coincide with the campaign.

Mayor Richard M. Daley recently said he would not seek a seventh term, setting off speculation about candidates. The mayoral election is in February, but would-be candidates only have until Nov. 22 to file petitions to run.

Asked if he’d be at ease about his name emerging at the retrial while campaigning, Jackson responded, “No, I’m not at ease with it. Who could possibly be at ease with issues that could divert the attention of a very serious debate about the city’s economic future?”

The prospect of such diversions, he said, would be a consideration as he decided about entering the mayoral race.

Jackson, a Democratic congressman from Chicago’s South Side and adjacent suburbs, has said since Blagojevich’s arrest in December 2008 that he knew nothing about any alleged scheme to use campaign fundraising to buy his way into the Senate.

In reiterating that Friday, Jackson complained that the scrutiny of him has been unfair.

“Whatever happened to the idea that someone is innocent in America until proven guilty?” he said. “I have gone through 20 months of unprecedented accusations — unprecedented besmirching of my character.”

A phone message left Friday with Jackson’s Chicago office by The Associated Press was not immediately returned.

While his congressional seat appears safe in the November election — he has won it since 1995 with more than 80 percent of the vote each time — his association with the Blagojevich case has dimmed what once seemed a radiant political future.

Isaac Hayes, Jackson’s GOP challenger, criticized his opponent’s claim of being in the 2008 meeting but not being able to follow the conversation because it was in another language.

“He should resign now and save himself further embarrassment,” Hayes said in a statement.

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Jackson deflected questions about the resolution at a news conference during the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Kansas City.

Check out our gallery of Civil Rights leaders:

“We will not be diverted or otherwise distracted by any other message except putting America back to work,” Jackson said a day after convention delegates approved the resolution. “We want jobs and justice and peace.”

Sharpton was a little more direct, saying issues surrounding the tea party go beyond claims of racism. He said the civil rights movement sought to pressure the federal government to step in when states were enforcing segregation laws, and the tea party’s focus on states’ rights puts people at risk.

“They talk about restoring dignity. They are really talking about restoring a time before the federal government intervened and protected the rights of people,” Sharpton said.

He noted Arizona’s new law that directs local and state law enforcement to take on federal duties by questioning people about their immigration status, after they’ve been stopped for another crime, if there’s reason to suspect they’re in the U.S. illegally.

“There clearly are some racial leaves in their tea bag,” Sharpton said. “But this is not just about race. It is about how you see government.”

The resolution, approved Tuesday by delegates attending the conference, calls on tea party activists and others to “repudiate the racist element and activities” within the political movement. Tea party organizers quickly disputed its claims of racism and asked the NAACP to withdraw the resolution.

Mark Williams, a spokesman for the Tea Party Express, said Wednesday it was unfortunate that the NAACP has chosen to “profiteer off race-baiting and fear mongering” when it could be doing so much to help the black community.

He also questioned the motives of Sharpton, Jackson and NAACP officials, suggesting they were taking advantage of the publicity the resolution generated.

“I’m not surprised they are jumping into the fray here because the NAACP just tapped a Gulf oil well full of cash contributions that will arrive from this resolution,” Williams said. “And I know Al and Jesse want their piece of it. The slave traders of the 16th century should have been as good at exploiting Africans as these people are, because it’s just disgusting.”

When asked about the tea party, Jackson talked about jobs. He said the country has a plan for fixing other problems, but not for helping the millions who are without jobs — a disproportionate number of them minorities.

Sharpton stressed the Oct. 2 march in Washington, saying it would remind Congress and President Barack Obama about the challenges facing minority neighborhoods. NAACP President Ben Jealous said more than 150 organizations were involved, including civil rights, religious and labor groups.

Civil rights leaders also are planning a smaller event on Aug. 28 at the site where the Martin Luther King Jr. monument will be unveiled next year. Conservative pundit Glenn Beck also is planning a rally in Washington on the anniversary of King’s 1963 march on the nation’s capital, which was capped with his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

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Mel Gibson is not the first celebrity caught on tape going crazy and he won’t be the last. Most celebrities aren’t as nice as they seem on TV and a lot of them have issues regarding sex, race and alcohol.

10. Charlie Sheen Vs. Denise Richards

Why are white celebrities always using the n-word to their ex-girlfriends? Sheen is caught on tape calling his ex-wife and the mother of his children  the c-word (rhymes with bunt) and the n-word (1:20 in)

9. Casey Kasem Vs. Producer

Casey may be known for his cool family friendly voice and as the voice of Scooby-Doo’s Shaggy, but he gets a little irritated when things don’t go his way. When a producer tries to segway him into a story, he quickly loses his temper and goes on a curse filled rant.

8. Jesse Jackson Vs. Barack Obama

After Barack Obama won the election in 2008, Jesse Jackson was on TV, crying. Before Obama won the election, Jackson was telling a colleague that Obama was talking down to black people and he wanted to “rip his nuts off.”

7. Alec Baldwin Vs His Daughter

Alec Baldwin is very funny on “30 Rock,” but he has a serious side as well. After having some issues with his daughter, Baldwin decided to leave a very angry voicemail on her answering machine. Family, anger and voicemails are never a good combination. He threatens to straighten her out and calls he a rude thoughtless little pig, despite the fact that she is only 12 years old(he thinks).

6. Kanye West Vs. MTV

This is the rant that started it all. I think all the ones after this were set up but this rant from Kanye came from the heart.

5. Bill O’Reilly Vs. Inside Edition

O’Reilly had a small meltdown on “Inside Edition” after he had some problems with the teleprompter.

4. Mike Tyson Vs. Lennox Lewis

Tyson starts very pious and religious before ranting against Lennox Lewis and threatening to eat his children with his impregnable defense.

3. Christian Bale Vs. Terminator Crew Member

If Christian Bale can rough up his mother and sister, imagine what he would do to a crew member who interrupted him on set. This rant from the set of “Terminator, Salvation” showed just what a temper Batman really had.

2. Mel Gibson Vs. His Girlfriend

Mel Gibson is not only anti-semetic, but he’s a racist and a sexist too. I’m less disturbed by the n-word than by the fact he believes Black people travel in packs like wolves. I bet Danny Glover wouldn’t take any of that language.

1. Michael Richards Vs Heckler

Michael Richards like many of the fellow celebrity ranters like’s to use the n-word when he is angry yet says he’s not a racist. After bombing at a a comedy show and being heckled by some African Americans, the actor known for playing the fun loving eccentric character, Kramer, on “Seinfeld” went on an n-word laced rant.

I could pretend Jesse Jackson speaks for such a tiny minority that his inflammatory, predictable and misguided remarks about LeBron James and Dan Gilbert are unworthy of rebuke.

But then, I’d have to ignore the mountain of e-mails that poured into my laptop from African-American brothers and sisters making the same argument.

Jesse has a constituency, a passionate group of idiots who believe the best way to combat white-wing political bigots such as Limbaugh and Hannity is with black-wing political bigotry.

And so, in defense of LeBron’s narcissistic ego explosion and Gilbert’s emotional reaction to it, Jesse compared Gilbert to an 18th-century slave owner.

Click here to read more.

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This exclusive second episode of “On The Road With Smokey Fontaine” lands our roving reporter at 2300 Jackson St. in Gary, Indiana, the childhood home of Michael Jackson and the Jacksons. Smokey talks to fans, local residents, Reverend Jesse Jackson and Gary mayor Rudy Clay Spacer about how a Midwestern industrial town could produce the greatest entertainer of all time.

WATCH:

Check out our gallery of photos from Michael’s life:

What do you think of Gary mayor Rudy Clay Spacer?  Is he right about Joe & Katherine?  Let us know in the comments…

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