While we are watching the fireworks tonight, let’s recall that one of the principal but seldom recalled causes of the American Revolution of 1776 was the Somerset Case in London in 1772.  The high court of England ruled slavery illegal in England.  American colonial planters panicked, fearing that this precedent would be applied to the 13 colonies as well.  Their enormous amassed wealth was primarily in African slaves.  Thus, slave-owning planters became the leaders of the American Revolution, as Dr. Gerald Horne, author of The Counterrevolution of 1776 observes.  It’s not hard to see why the African slaves and freedmen sided overwhelmingly with the British in the War of Independence and the War of 1812.  Indians felt the same way.  A century earlier, in Bacon’s Rebellion, white settlers of the frontier demanded more British support for their seizing and settling of Indian lands, a war which England was also losing its stomach for.  So would I be unpatriotic if I ask what the United States would be like if the War of Independence had gone the other way?  Well, I suppose the answer is, Canada.  Enjoy the fireworks!     Jeffrey Gottesman

Juneteenth commemorates the day the last slaves were set free by the Union army in 1865 to experience a decade of relative freedom before being sold into apartheid by Rutherford Hayes in order to win the presidency. Jeffrey

New Congressional Police Reform Bill. Too limited or worth supporting? Also, a more far-reaching proposal by https://8cantwait.org/

Sponsors Nadler, Booker, Harris seeking co-sponsors. Call Representatives to urge them to co-sponsor if you support the bill. Also consider promoting the https://8cantwait.org/ proposal at the local level. Both are less dramatic than the ensuing defunding of the Minneapolis Police Dept.

The Justice in Policing Act of 2020:

• Prohibits federal, state, and local law enforcement from racial, religious and discriminatory profiling, and mandates training on racial, religious, and discriminatory profiling for all law enforcement.
• Bans chokeholds, carotid holds and no-knock warrants at the federal level and limits the transfer of military-grade equipment to state and local law enforcement.
• Mandates the use of dashboard cameras and body cameras for federal offices and requires state and local law enforcement to use existing federal funds to ensure the use of police body cameras.
• Establishes a National Police Misconduct Registry to prevent problematic officers who are fired or leave on agency from moving to another jurisdiction without any accountability.
• Amends federal criminal statute from “willfulness” to a “recklessness” standard to successfully identify and prosecute police misconduct.
• Reforms qualified immunity so that individuals are not barred from recovering damages when police violate their constitutional rights.
• Establishes public safety innovation grants for community-based organizations to create local commissions and task forces to help communities to re-imagine and develop concrete, just and equitable public safety approaches.
• Creates law enforcement development and training programs to develop best practices and requires the creation of law enforcement accreditation standard recommendations based on President Obama’s Taskforce on 21st Century policing.
• Requires state and local law enforcement agencies to report use of force data, disaggregated by race, sex, disability, religion, age.
• Improves the use of pattern and practice investigations at the federal level by granting the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division subpoena power and creates a grant program for state attorneys general to develop authority to conduct independent investigations into problematic police departments.
• Establishes a Department of Justice task force to coordinate the investigation, prosecution and enforcement efforts of federal, state and local governments in cases related to law enforcement misconduct.

A group of civil rights leaders issued a statement on Monday noting their support of the bill. A few quotes from their statement:

• “We support Congress taking an important step toward police accountability by introducing the Justice in Policing Act. In the aftermath of the recent police killings of Black people, we sent Congress a strong police accountability framework that is reflected in this legislation.”
• “Many provisions in the bill reflect the insights of national and local civil rights organizations that have worked for years on these issues.”

 The following leaders signed the statement:

• Melanie L. Campbell, president and CEO, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Convener, Black Women’s Roundtable
• Kristen Clarke, president and executive director, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
• Vanita Gupta, president and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
• Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
• Derrick Johnson, president and CEO, NAACP
• Marc H. Morial, president and CEO, National Urban League
• Reverend Al Sharpton, president and founder, National Action Network   

Audrey Schwartz, PJCNC board member, requests that we support justice for Amaud and Bre.

Hi,
Here are action steps that can be taken in order to seek some sort of justice for Ahmaud Arbery and Brianna Taylor.

Two of the men responsible for Ahmaud Arbery’s murderer were finally arrested, thankfully. The third suspect; William Bryan,  who filmed Ahmaud Arbery’s murder, and actively participated in the murder when he boxed Ahmaud in so he couldn’t get away, has not been arrested.
Please call (770) 800-0689 to demand that William Bryan be arrested and charged for his active participation in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, as well as demand the resignation of D.A. Jackie Johnson who interfered with the case when she told police not to arrest the murderers the day of the crime.

Please go to www.runwithmaud.com to seek #justiceforahmaud .

Brianna Taylor was killed in her home when police mistakenly raided it to serve a warrant for someone else. Police had the wrong home and the person they were serving a warrant to was already arrested!
Police fired a barrage of bullets from outside Brianna Taylor’s home, through a window with closed curtains! The bullets went through three different apartments!

Please call (502) 735-1784 to demand that the three officers who killed Brianna Taylor be fired immediately, arrested, and charged for their reckless actions that killed Brianna Taylor and demand an investigation be opened into the Louisville Police Department for their gross mishandling of the case.

Please sign the petition at www.standwithbre.com for justice for Brianna Taylor.

Thank you.