Procurement Nondiscrimination Program
passes Metro Council’s second reading
Leaders from various areas
(religious, business, advocates,
etc,) of the community met with
several Metro Council members
on March 17 for the purpose of
reviewing the Metro
Government of Nashville and
Davidson County Procurement
Nondiscrimination Program,
Ordinance No. BL2008-161 that
was introduced by Council
members Sam Coleman, Megan
Barry and others. The meeting
took place at the Booker and
White law offices. Cyrus L.
Booker, attorney, presided.
Other members of the Metro
Council in attendance were:
Pam Murray, Vivian Wilhoirte,
Sandra Moore, and Erika
Gilmore.
The second reading of the
ordinance was to be held on
March 18. Councilman
Coleman wanted to get input
from community members.
There was much discussion
back and forth. However, there
was no doubt that unanimous
approval was given to the fact
that the ordinance was at least
being acted upon.
On the other hand, the group
felt there was not enough time
for input and discussion.
One strong voice of opposition
was that of Rev. Ronnie T.
Mitchell, pastor of New
Livingstone Baptist Church and
founder of Middle Tennessee
Diversity Contractors Assoc. He
said there were three points he
had much concern about.
“My concerns are,” he said,
“number 1: the Airport
Authority has instituted a diversity
program to address minority
contractors. This program seems
to have the acceptance of the
Black community. The new
ordinance #161 should at least
meet the standard or exceed that
of the airport.
“Number 2, the new ordi-
nance [#161] does nothing
toward minority companies
being given access to any part of
the $1 billion proposed for the
new convention center.
“And number 3, we realize
that as African Americans, we
will only have access to a
minute part of Metro’s $500
million dollar budget, because
other minorities, including
white women, will also be sharing
the work.”
Many in the group felt that
steps should be taken to insure
inclusion of MDHA, NES, and
MTA.
The group also wanted certain
components of the legislation
from the last Metro Council
included.
One such inclusion was:
4.46.070–1. Failure on the part
of a participant to submit the
promise of non-discrimination,
statement of successful subcontractors,
the letter of intent
to perform as a
subcontractor/joint venturer, the
statement of interested subcontractors/
vendors and the statement
of Bid proposal/price quotations
shall render the proposal
non-responsive.
4.46.070-2. A Contractor’s
failure or refusal to provide
information and data required
by this Program and requested
by the DMSBA shall subject the
contractor to having a proposal
deemed non-responsive.
In the final analysis, the
group agreed to accept the proposal
as it was. They also wanted
to submit a letter to Mayor
Karl Dean expressing their specific
concerns.
The letter drafted by attorney
Booker was delivered to
Mayor Dean on Tuesday, March
18. On the evening of March
18, the Metro Council passed
Ordinance No. BL2008-161 on
the second reading.
Barack Obama's speech on race, his church and former pastor
by D. Yobachi Boswell
Barack Obama delivered his
speech on race this past
Tuesday morning, which was
carried live. The speech was
made across the street from
Independence Hall in
Philadelphia, where the U. S
Constitution was written and
the Declaration of independence
was signed. Obama’s
speech was prompted by a
statement made by his former
pastor, Jeremiah Wright, in a
sermon at the Trinity United
Church of Christ in Chicago
before he retired.
The Senator compared the
dichotomy of slavery to our
constitutional pronouncements
of freedom... “yet words on a
parchment would not be enough
to deliver slaves from
bondage….” He said what
would be needed in successive
generations would be
Americans “…willing to do
their part, to narrow that gap
between the promise of our
ideals, and the reality of their
time…one of the tasks we set
forth at the beginning of this
campaign.”
He shared the story of his
birth to a Black father from
Kenya and a White mother
from Kansas. His White grand-
father survived the depression to
serve in Patton’s Army, while his
grandmother worked on a bomb
assembly line. Obama declared
that this doesn’t make him a
conventional candidate, saying
it’s “seared into my genetic
makeup that this nation is more
than the sum of its parts.”
He spoke of how the
American people are building a
“powerful coalition of all races,”
although “the press has scoured
every exit poll for the latest evidence
of racial polarization.”
He addressed former Vice
Presidential candidate Geraldine
Ferraro’s recent comments, discounting
them as “wild eye-liberals
trying to purchase racial
reconciliation on the cheap.”
But the speech was focused
on Wright’s comments: “I have
already condemned, in unequivocal
terms, the statements of
Rev. Wright... did I know him to
be a fierce critic of American
foreign and domestic policy,
yes...did I strongly disagree with
many of his political views?
Absolutely.” He said Wright’s
views expressed in video snippets
on racism and ‘9/11’ were
“profoundly distorted.”
He declared Wright wrong
on 9/11 in that he blamed the
wrong people including our
allies in Israel. He continued that
Wright was wrong in saying
“that white racism is endemic.”
He said that “Rev. Wright’s
words weren’t just wrong, but
divisive.”
Martin Luther King, Jr., was
also known to have confronted
America's faults rather than just
giving plastic patriotic lip service
to America being perfect: “I
can no longer speak against the
violence of the oppressed in the
ghettos without having first spoken
clearly to the greatest purveyor
of violence in the world
today—my own government.”
Obama said of his association
with Rev. Wright, “If Pastor
Wright was nothing more than
the clips shown on TV the past
few days and that if he and
Trinity conformed to the caricatures
of some commentators”
then he wouldn’t speak out in
support. But Obama went on to
elaborate how they are much
more than those caricatures. He
described the numerous ways in
which the church community
engages in social uplift--from
housing the homeless to AIDS
support. He said his former pastor
had “led a church that serves
the community by doing God's
work here on Earth.”
After harsh criticism of
Wrights perspective, which he
largely attributed to being generational,
Obama would not disassociate
himself from Wright saying,
“As imperfect as he may be,
he’s like family to me. He
strengthens my faith. He contains
within him the contradictions,
the good and the bad, of
the Black community. I could no
more disown him than I could
disown the Black community. I
could no more disown him than
I could my White grandmother
who…sacrificed again and again
for me…[yet who] uttered racial
or ethnic stereotypes that made
me cringe.”
Senator Obama declared
that, “race is an issue that we
cannot afford to ignore right
now.” He said that the current
row over Wright’s words and
people’s reactions to it “reflect
the complexities of race in this
country that we have never
worked out, and if we walk away
now, “if we retreat into our
respective corners,” we will
never come together to figure
out health care, jobs, etc.
Obama addressed Black disenchantment
with racial disparity
in American education, saying
“segregate schools are inferior
schools. We still haven’t fixed
them 50 years after Brown vs.
Board of Education.” The erosion
of black families he partially
blamed on welfare policy. He
said those economic and family
erosion problems “all helped
create a cycle of violence, blight,
and neglect…what is remarkable
is not how many failed in the
face of segregation, it’s how
many that succeeded.”
He also spoke of disenchanted
portions of White society.
He said that we can’t diminish
White concerns as merely
racist. He spoke of Whites
resentment: “…your opportunity
comes at my expense,” saying
the “anger over welfare and
affirmative action fueled the
Regan coalition.” He noted to
applause that politicians and
commentators have made whole
careers exposing false racism
while at the same time dismissing
real racism for their own
benefits.
Obama extolled the need for
mutual understanding of one
another’s plights. He even spoke
of, as he has before in recent
weeks, that fathers in the Black
community have to be held more
accountable to their children.
He said that we can play
Wright’s comments on every
channel all day and try to gin up
anger. We can continue with the
distractions “and nothing will
change.”
In conclusion, he said that
progress “requires all Americans
to realize that your dreams do
not have to come at the expense
of my dreams.”
by Robert H. Elliott
For the first time since the
Great Depression, a major
investment firm has failed due to
its lending practices. On Friday,
March 14, J.P. Morgan (through
the Federal Reserve) loaned
Bear Stearns several billions of
dollars to keep it a-float. At the
end of trading Friday, Bear
Stearns stock price was
$30/share.
Over the weekend behind the
scenes negotiation exposed the
fact that Bear Stearns was broke.
With a credit line of $30 billion
supplied by the Federal Reserve,
J.P. Morgan arranged to buy
Bear Stearns for $2 a share. The
$236 million price was a loss of
98.8% of the companies’ value
and its highest stock price of
$171.52/share in January 2007.
The Federal Reserve also cut
the rate by which banks loan
each other money to 3.25% from
3.50% on Sunday. These three
moves (approving Bear Stearns
sale, arranging financing for J.P.
Morgan and cutting the intrabank
rate) were highly unusual.
Coupled with the creation of a
new lending facility, where it
will accept "a broad range of
investment-grade debt securities"
(Fed quote) as collateral for
primary dealers, including those
that are not necessarily considered
banks or depositary institutions.
"This is the first time since
the Great Depression that the
Fed has extended financing to
non-banks," Merrill Lynch economist
David Rosenberg wrote in
a note to clients this morning.
Basically this was an old
fashion ‘run on the bank’ that
was prevalent just before the
Great Depression. Last week
European Union lenders would
not accept Bear Stearns as a
partner in several financial transactions
being proposed in
Europe. This caused several of
the holders of Bear Stearns notes
to call the notes (demand payment).
Most of the holders of
these notes were institutions and
as word spread Friday, it
appeared that Bear Stearns
would not have the funds to
redeem its notes. It was broke,
and the Fed stepped in with billions
to keep it able to pay its
calls.
The major reason it had no
cash was the amount of subprime
and other real estate mort-
gage backed security packages it
had but could not sell. It was the
nightmare that Wall Street had
hidden so long come into the
sunlight. All of those poor people’s
mortgages that had been
part of lenders’ predatory practices
had bitten the greedy hand
that had created them.
"Today's moves by the
Federal Reserve are the desperate
acts of failing men," Peter
Morici, professor at the
University of Maryland School
of Business and former chief
economist at the U.S.
International Trade
Commission, wrote in a note to
clients late Sunday. "The threat
of contagion and wholesale
breakdown is on a scale of 1929
is real."
The loss of over $20.2 billion
in less than 15 months led to the
stock market opening Monday
morning with a 200-point loss.
As early morning trading continued,
those losses relaxed as
stockbrokers looked at the unfolding
situation. The lawyers
for Bear Stearns clients will
probably be gearing up for years
of litigation as investors try to
recover some of their invested
dollars. The employees, along
with the management, of Bear
Stearns are the biggest losers of
this failure. Management should
be a loser, because they have
lied to investors all the way up to
and including Friday about the
health of the institution.
The real fear in the market
place is who will be next? Many
pundits have said for months
that Citigroup would be the first
to fail but the results of this
weekend show that the mortgage
backed security crisis may rear
its head in places that only management
knows. With oil, gasoline
and gold prices continuing
to climb, the economy is under
increasing pressures. This past
week GMAC reported that automobile
loans were having
increasing defaults as borrowers
shifted money around to pay
credit card and utility bills. Auto
loans are starting to follow a pattern
that resembles the beginnings
of the mortgage default
crisis in the summer of 2005.
by Marilyn Robinson
The NAACP Nashville
Branch applauds newly elected
Mayor Karl Dean and the
Metropolitan Government’s
legal department for their
efforts at creating a program
that offers more opportunities
for existing businesses owned
by African Americans, women
and other minorities.
For those that have been
involved with this issue from
day one, this has been a long
and arduous journey. To his
credit, Mayor Karl Dean initiated
action within the first five
months of his administration
and for many of us who have
been advocating for a fair
business program for more
than 14 years, this gives us a
sigh of hope.
For more of this story,
start your subscription
for the Pride today.
Call (615) 292-9150
for more information.
The 2nd Amendment challenged
By Robert H. Elliott
The week of March 17th,
2008 will go down in American
jurisprudence history. This week
the U.S. Supreme Court heard
arguments in District of
Columbia vs. Heller.
Supreme Court docket 07-
290 is a case on appeal from the
US Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia and a decision
they made on 3/9/2007. The
Appellant Court ruled that the
District of Columbia law banning
ownership of handguns was
unconstitutional and further
more violated the 2nd
Amendment of the Constitution.
The 2nd Amendment has
never been challenged before the
Supreme Court before. While
some issues related to the
amendment have been skirted
before (see 1939 case) none
have ever asked that the boundaries
of the 2nd Amendment be
established. The City of
Washington is asking the
Supreme Court to determine
“whether the 2nd Amendment
forbids the District of Columbia
from banning private possession
of handguns while allowing possession
of rifles and shotguns.”
The 2nd Amendment reads -
"a well regulated Militia, being
necessary to the security of a
free State, the right of the people
to keep and bear Arms, shall not
be infringed.'' The archaic structure
and punctuation of the
amendment have been the study
of scholars for over 200 years.
And except for what happened at
the appellant level, a city law
regulating the possession of
handguns and control/prohibition
and registration of other
weapons was over-turned, this
case would have never moved to
the Supreme Court level.
The importance of this case
can be seen by the number of
and who has filed briefs amicus
curie regarding this case. For the
Appellant (District of Columbia)
some of those filing were:
International Chiefs of Police
(IACP), the Bush
Administration, NAACP Legal
Defense and Education fund;
Police Chiefs of the Cities of Los
Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago
and Seattle; the US Conference
of Mayors, American Bar
Association and several dozen
more entities and individuals.
The IACP reported that
Nashville’s Chief of Police,
Ronal Serpas, is “an IACP member
and holds a committee
appointment.”
For the Respondent, Dick
Anthony Heller (a security
guard), some filings on his
behalf were: CORE, NRA, 32
states, Members of Congress and
several dozen other organizations
and individuals. States that
have enacted gun control laws
are saying the repeal of those
laws would cause a jump in gun
crimes and would cost millions
in the need for additional police,
jail and court facilities.
For more of this story,
start your subscription
for the Pride today.
Call (615) 292-9150
for more information.
Dr. Melvin N. Johnson honored
The Opportunities
Industrialization Center will
honor Dr. Melvin N. Johnson at
its 2008 annual Awards Banquet
on March 25.
OIC will present Johnson
with the ‘Lion of Zion’ award
during the banquet. The award is
given in honor of the Rev. Leon
H. Sullivan, who founded OIC
nationally in 1964.
Before becoming president
of Tennessee State University in
2005, Johnson held senior academic
roles at North Carolina
State A&T University and
served as provost and vice chancellor
for academic affairs at
Winston-Salem State University.
He also served in the military,
ultimately teaching at the U.S.
Air Force Academy and completing
his career as a lieutenant
colonel. Johnson holds degrees
from North Carolina A&T State
University, Ball State University
and Indiana University, and has
studied at the Institute for
Education Management,
Institute for Management and
Leadership in Education, and the
Harvard Seminar for New
Presidents at the Harvard
Graduate School of Education.
Locally, Johnson is a member
of the Nashville Downtown
chapter of Rotary International
and the 100 Black Men of
Middle Tennessee. He serves as
a board member for various
organizations including the Boy
Scouts of America (Old Hickory
Council), Nashville Alliance for
Public Education, Nashville
Area Chamber of Commerce
Board of Governors, North
Nashville Community
Development Corporation and
the Nashville Higher Education
Advisory Council.
“Dr. Johnson is extremely
deserving of this honor,” said
Margaret R. McClain, Nashville
OIC president. “His career
embodies the mission of OIC.
His commitment to education
and his vision for the Nashville
community align with our own
efforts to meet the educational
and social needs of our community.”
The dinner is Tuesday,
March 25, at 7 pm at Loews
Vanderbilt Plaza. The banquet
will be preceded by a silent auction
and cocktail reception at
5:30 pm. Free parking will be
available for attendees.
Tickets are $175, and proceeds
will support OIC’s GED
preparation, job training and job
placement services, which are
open to unemployed and underemployed
Middle Tennesseans.
Tickets can be purchased by
calling (615) 248-2906. For
more information about OIC,
visit www.oicnashville.org.
Tennessee’s Public Safety Coalition
urges rejection of legislation
Tennessee’s Public Safety
Coalition, consisting of police chiefs,
sheriffs, and district attorneys general
from across the state, have sent a letter
to Speaker Jimmy Naifeh and members
of the House of Representatives
urging them to reject legislation that
would allow handgun permit holders to
carry firearms into bars and restaurants
that sell alcohol.
The premise of the letter is that
guns and alcohol don’t mix, and that
passage of the legislation will not be
good for Tennesseans or our visitors.
Signing the letter on behalf of the
Public Safety Coalition were Metro
Police Chief Ronal Serpas, Nashville
District Attorney Torry Johnson,
Knoxville District Attorney Randy
Nichols, Shelby County Sheriff Mark
Luttrell, Shelby County District
Attorney Bill Gibbons, Memphis
Police Director Larry Godwin,
Montgomery County Sheriff Norman
Lewis, and District Attorney Mike
Dunavant, who represents the 25th
Judicial District. The Chiefs of Police
in Knoxville and Chattanooga concur
with the Public Safety Coalition’s
stand.
Do you have a band or know of a band with members
between 12 and 25 years old? Youthfest, Battle of the
Bands, at the International Dogwood Festival would like to
offer an opportunity for young adult bands to submit a CD
of your music along with an application for the Festival.
(www.winchesterdogwoodfestival.com)
Youthfest originally started in 2003. The vision of
Youthfest is to explore the musical ability of the youth in
the surrounding areas and provide a drug free, alcohol free
positive environment for youth.
Though the name Youthfest highlights the word
‘youth,’ the event is meant for spectators of all ages.
Deadline for entry is April 1, 2008. Contact Chairman
Cheyne Stewart at cheynestewart@hotmail.com or call
Winchester City Hall at 1-866-967-2532 (toll free).
Leaders from various areas
(religious, business, advocates,
etc,) of the community met with
several Metro Council members
on March 17 for the purpose of
reviewing the Metro
Government of Nashville and
Davidson County Procurement
Nondiscrimination Program,
Ordinance No. BL2008-161 that
was introduced by Council
members Sam Coleman, Megan
Barry and others. The meeting
took place at the Booker and
White law offices. Cyrus L.
Booker, attorney, presided.
Other members of the Metro
Council in attendance were:
Pam Murray, Vivian Wilhoirte,
Sandra Moore, and Erika
Gilmore.
by D. Yobachi Boswell
by Marilyn Robinson
The Opportunities
Industrialization Center will
honor Dr. Melvin N. Johnson at
its 2008 annual Awards Banquet
on March 25.