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8/29/2017

How You Can Help Those Impacted By Hurricane Harvey

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Dear Valued Reader:

As the wrath of Hurricane Harvey sends devastation to Texans in Rockport, Beaumont, Houston and other cities, towns and rural areas and soon to be parts of Louisiana, my thoughts and prayers go out to all impacted by this awful storm.

It has now become a record-setting storm, hitting an all time rainfall record in the lower 48 states from a tropical cyclone (hurricane).

With Hurricane Harvey reforming in the Gulf of Mexico and making landfall in the hours ahead, the overall devastation has yet to be determined. What offers a ray of hope is the unity we see coming from the Texas neighborhoods where every day people are reaching out to neighbors, friends, strangers and those in need of help, encouragement, and bravery. They are working with first responders, police, rescue personnel firefighters, and even the "Cajun Navy" to pluck families from rooftops and ensure that others make it safely to nearby boats and ultimately dry land.

Like many others, I vividly remembered Hurricane Katrina in 2005. My friends were impacted by that awful storm. I was one of many volunteers who drove to a nearby Massachusetts air base to greet our soaking wet Lousiana guests in the middle of the night. Seeing the television images this week of those in the Houston convention center brings back those memories.

Below is a list of places where you can donate money and other items to help the people of Texas. And while we're thinking of their suffering, let's now forget the suffering of others outside of the United States who experience cyclones, earthquakes, mudslides and other natural disasters that only get a third of the television coverage that Hurricane Harvey is getting. Those victims need our concerns, too.

In the days ahead, may the sunshine replace the rain and may the spirit of neighborhood cooperation remind us that together we can unite in facing the challenges and obstacles in our nation.

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Where You Can Help

The City Of Boston:
Mayor Marty Walsh’s announced a city-sponsored “Help for Houston” drive this week to collect clothing, toiletries, food, and other items to send to those impacted by Harvey. Contributions can be dropped off through Thursday, Aug 31st at the following locations:

Boston City Hall (3rd-floor lobby and 5th-floor mayor’s office lobby)
1010 Mass Ave. (5th floor)
Bolling Building (1st-floor lobby)
26 Court Street (1st-floor lobby)
BCYF Headquarters

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10th Episcopal District Office of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME),
4347 S. Hampton Rd., Suite 245. Dallas, Texas 75232. (214) 333-2632. Make checks payable to the 10th District AMEC, Disaster Relief on the memo line. You will be able to donate online through our website www.10thdistrict.org later this week.

Please do not send clothes. But, for those who are sending water, diapers, baby products, personal hygiene products or cleaning supplies you can send to our two staging areas in San Antonio:

Bethel AME Church
225 North Swiss Street
San Antonio, Texas 78202
Dr. Raymond Bryant, pastor, Relief Chair
Emmanuel AME Church
1600 Semlinger Road
San Antonio, Texas 78220
Rev. Carl Garmon, Pastor

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General Relief
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner established a Harvey relief fund at The Greater Houston Community Foundation. The organization connects donors with a network of nonprofits and innovative solutions in the social sector.

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GlobalGiving, which calls itself the largest global crowdfunding community, has a goal of raising $2 million for its Harvey relief fund. Funds will be used first for immediate needs of food, water and shelter and then transition to long-term recovery efforts.

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United Way of Greater Houston has launched a relief fund for storm-related needs and recovery. The organization says it already maintains a disaster relief fund but anticipates the needs of Harvey will far exceed those existing resources.

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The Center for Disaster Philanthropy has also launched a Hurricane Harvey relief fund. The organization says its strategy emphasizes "investing well rather than investing quickly, addressing the greatest needs and gaps in funding that may be yet to emerge."

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GoFundMe, the social fundraising site, has created a landing page that gathers the campaigns on its platform related to Harvey.

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The Salvation Army says it is providing food and water to first responders and preparing for massive feeding efforts for residents.

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Send Relief and Southern Baptist Disaster Relief says its teams began responding before Harvey made landfall and continues on-the-ground relief work.

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Samaritan's Purse is accepting donations as well as volunteers for Harvey disaster relief for the coming months.

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Blood

As well as the American Red Cross, local organizations accepting blood donations are Carter BloodCare and the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center.

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8/24/2017

Eyewitness Account Of The Boston Protest March And Rally Why I Had To Be There: Where We Go From Here

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CLICK HERE FOR THE MARCH & RALLY PHOTOS

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8/17/2017

Black White And Brown in the Red White and Blue: Finding Our Voices When White Supremacy Comes Calling

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8/16/2017

Short Sweet And To The Point: I Am A Diversity Crusader

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Dear Valued Subscriber

Some have criticized me for adding a healthy dose of history into my diversity training and unconscious bias workshops. The events in Charlottesville will cause to double down in my history.

Philosopher and essayist George Santayana said it best: "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them."

My fellow Americans, we are now repeating history. Our ugliest segments of American history. Thanks to the validation of Donald Trump, white supremacy is now back in fashion, as active now as is it was in 1925. Trump's refusal of calling out the right alt groups who violently marched in Charlottesville last weekend as domestic terrorists propagating hate only clarifies that they are a significant part of his base and he will never refute them. Three people died, including a 32-year-old Patriot who marched for her beliefs of equality, and two Virginia state troopers doing their job to keep the peace. White brothers and a sister who died too soon because of the hate generating by misguided YOUNG white men who have lost their way in life.

Misguided white supremacy agitators disrupted society in the 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s. They have never gone away.

However, the voices of equality, social justice AND diversity have always countered these angry hate mongers and neutralized their violence. I call them Diversity Crusaders, and I am in their midst.

I will not be silent. I will not become a bystander while civil disruption rises from the ashes. I will speak out with others who want white supremacy neutralized. I will attend the protest rally scheduled for Boston this Saturday when the alt right comes to the Boston Common.
And I will definitely keep teaching history as a significant part of my diversity and unconscious bias training sessions.

I hope you will join me. Say NO to hate and do not remain silent.

-Carole Copeland Thomas

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8/10/2017

What The Movie Detroit Didn’t Tell You

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Focus On Empowerment can be heard every Thursday at 1pm Eastern.
Log Onto: www.blogtalkradio.com/globalcarole
Listen LIVE or Download Anytime At This Blog Post. Each broadcast can be replayed immediately following the show.

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To think that the new movie, Detroit, represented a comprehensive look at a terrible event that took place in July of 1967 is only to give credence to part of a complex story. Yes, see the movie, but realize it’s only covering a segment of a citywide episode in Detroit’s long history.
I was born black hospital in Detroit and largely raised in a middle-class neighborhood on the city’s west side. My story is what the movie didn’t capture as it opened the closet door of a major metropolitan city at the cross roads of civil rights, Vietnam, and unrest everywhere.

Today’s show is a personal one for me. And an opportunity to add layers of truth onto a movie that opened old wounds dating back more than 50 years.

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The July 1967 Detroit Riots
Source: Wikipedia and The Detroit Free Press

The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot or the 1967 Detroit rebellion, was a violent public disorder that turned into a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan. It began in the early morning hours of Sunday July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, just north of the corner of 12th Street (today Rosa Parks Boulevard) and Virginia Park Avenue, on the city's Near West Side. Police confrontations with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in the history of the United States, lasting five days and surpassing the violence and property destruction of Detroit's 1943 race riot.

To help end the disturbance, Governor George W. Romney ordered the Michigan Army National Guard into Detroit, and President Lyndon B. Johnson sent in both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. The result was 43 dead, 1,189 injured, over 7,200 arrests, and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed. The scale of the riot was surpassed in the United States only by the 1863 New York City draft riots during the American Civil War, and the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The riot was prominently featured in the news media, with live television coverage, extensive newspaper reporting, and extensive stories in Time and Life magazines. The staff of the Detroit Free Press won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for general local reporting for its coverage.

By Thursday, much of the city was calm for the first time in five days. Many Detroiters and suburbanites were exhausted, sad, scared, confused and angry. And they also were curious about what had happened. Such large crowds and cars jammed 12th Street and other battered neighborhoods Thursday that Romney felt forced to reinstate the 9 p.m.- 5:30 a.m. curfew to control traffic and allow cleanup crews access.

The sights of soldiers, tanks, streets glittering with glass and smoking piles of rubble where busy businesses once stood were so much more harsh in person than on TV, and the images left many people feeling disoriented and ill.

The stats startled the world: 43 dead (33 African Americans and 10 whites); 1,189 injured; 7,231 arrests, of which 14% were white; 2,509 stores looted or burned; and 3,034 calls for fire department service. Of all structure fires, perhaps as many as 27% took place in black-owned businesses, according to historian Sidney Fine.
“The catastrophe which has struck Detroit is a disaster by any reasonable definition of that term,” Romney said.

On Thursday, Cavanagh assembled at city hall 500 Detroiters, from Henry Ford II, UAW President Walter Reuther, department store chief J.L. Hudson Jr. to numerous community and neighborhood leaders. The mayor would appoint Hudson, then 35, to lead a city rebuilding committee, which would become New Detroit Inc.

“We had to have something like this to wake us up to the fact that we have a revolution going on,” said Anthony Locricchio, an antipoverty activist. “We knew this would be bad, but we didn’t know it would be this bad.”

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Watch More About Detroit's Middle Class Neighborhoods From the 1960s And
The Events That Led To The 1967 Detroit Riots
Conrad Mallett, Jr. Former Chief Justice Michigan Supreme Court
And My Cass Tech High School Classmate - Class of 1971
Click On The Image Of Judge Mallett To Hear The Interview

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How You Can Help Those Impacted By Hurricane Harvey

Eyewitness Account Of The Boston Protest March And Rally Why I Had To Be There: Where We Go From Here

Black White And Brown in the Red White and Blue: Finding Our Voices When White Supremacy Comes Calling

Short Sweet And To The Point: I Am A Diversity Crusader

What The Movie Detroit Didn’t Tell You

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