Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label murder

Michael Anthony Donald (1961-1981)

Michael Anthony Donald was a nineteen-year-old African American man who was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1981 in Mobile, Alabama. His killing was one of the last known lynchings in the United States. Donald was born on July 24, 1961, in Mobile to Beullah Mae Donald and David Donald. He was the youngest of six children. In 1981, Josephus Anderson, an African American, was charged with the murder of a white police officer in Birmingham, Alabama while committing a robbery. Anderson’s case was moved from Birmingham to Mobile, Alabama in a change of venue. While the jury was struggling to reach a verdict on Anderson, members of the United Klan of America complained that the jury had not convicted Anderson because it had African American members.  One Klansman, Bennie Jack Hays, announced to his fellow Klan members that “if a black man can get away with killing a white man, we ought to be able to get away with killing a black man.” On March 20, 1981, a mistrial was declared in An...

Geronimo Pratt

(born  Elmer Pratt , September 13, 1947 – June 2, 2011), also known as  Geronimo ji-Jaga  and  Geronimo ji-Jaga Pratt , was a high-ranking member of the  Black Panther Party . The  Federal Bureau of Investigation  targeted him in a  COINTELPRO   operation, which aimed to "neutralize Pratt as an effective BPP functionary."  Pratt was tried and convicted of the kidnap and murder of Caroline Olsen in 1972, and spent 27 years in prison, eight of which were in  solitary confinement . Pratt was freed in 1997 when his conviction was vacated. He was working as a  human rights  activist up until the time of his death. Pratt was also the  godfather  of the late rapper  Tupac Shakur .  He died of a heart attack in his adopted country,  Tanzania , on June 3, 2011. Elmer Pratt was born in  Morgan City, Louisiana , where his father was in the scrap metal business. Pratt was a high school  quart...

The Release Of Two African-American Men

       "The release of two African-American men from prison in North Carolina after 30 years of incarceration for a murder they didn’t commit is yet another example of the American justice system’s racist targeting of African-Americans as the supposed primary criminal class in the country.        Between this outrageous case, the recent police broad daylight execution of Mike Brown, and the choke hold killing of Eric Garner, we must ask: isn’t it time we launch a movement to defeat the raci st law enforcement and criminal justice system’s systematic war on Black-America?        Why do we still pretend as if these are random isolated unconnected occurrences? This week’s news of the release of Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown after 30 years in jail for the 1983 rape and murder of an 11 year-old girl, represent another case of the gross miscarriage of justice." African Globe Staff

Supreme Court Limits Cellphone Searches After Arrest

In a strong defense of digital age privacy, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police may not generally search the cellphones of people they arrest without first getting search warrants. Cellphones are powerful devices unlike anything else police may find on someone they arrest, Chief Justice John Roberts said for the court. Because the phones contain so much information, police must get a warrant before looking through them, Roberts said. "Modern cellphones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans the privacies of life," Roberts said. The message to police about what they should do before rummaging through a cellphone's contents following an arrest is simple. "Get a warrant," Roberts said. The court chose not to extend earlier rulings that allow police to empty a suspect's pockets and examine whatever they find to ensure officers' safet...