Mainstream media learns no lessons

Shirley and Charles Sherrod each have more than four decades of civil rights activism in southwest Georgia.

Editor’s note: The controversy surrounding the forced resignation of Shirley Sherrod from her U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) job is now well-known. However, the personal history of Mrs. Sherrod’s husband, the Rev. Charles Sherrod, also deserves to be known.

The NNPA News Service interviewed the Sherrods separately last week. Rev. Sherrod’s reflections appear here.

BY HAZEL TRICE EDNEY
NNPA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Born in 1937, Rev. Charles Sherrod first became aware of racism at age two, when his mother yanked him out of a front seat and pulled him to the back of a bus. He became a teenage activist in 1954 when he and a friend "sat-in" at White church services in his Petersburg, Va. hometown.

Carl and Emma Calhoun, owners of Body Rest Mattress Co. in St. Petersburg, have had to lay off employees due to the recession. (BRIAN BLANCO/MCT)

Checks will keep coming through December

BY DAVID ROYSE
NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

Last week, President Obama signed legislation that extends federal jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed for another six months.

Not content to wait for lawmakers to act later this year, Gov. Charlie Crist almost immediately issued an executive order last week that will make nearly a quarter-million Floridians who have been out of work for a long time eligible for additional benefits.

Jamal Jacques, 12, right, practices playing a song during the “Guitars Over Guns Operation” program at North Miami Middle School. (CARL JUSTE/MIAMI HERALD/MCT)

COMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS

WASHINGTON – Florida is once again a finalist for the "Race to the Top" grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) – a program now under fire from civil rights organizations.

Eight groups, including the NAACP, contend in a document released Monday that DOE is promoting ineffective approaches for failing schools. They also claim the $4.35 billion Race to the Top competition – a program with a goal of spurring innovative reform in states – leaves out many minority students.

Protesters disrupted a hearing on the role of Wall Street investment banks during the financial crisis on April 27 during congressional hearings. The government later accused Goldman Sachs executives of fraud. (OLIVIER DOULIERY/ABACA PRESS/MCT)

President Obama signs historic financial reform into law and plans to sign a bill extending unemployment whenever it hits his desk, but Floridians still need state legislative help.

COMPILED FROM STAFF
AND WIRE REPORTS

WASHINGTON – With a broad smile and the stroke of a pen, President Barack Obama on Wednesday capped a contentious 18-month struggle and signed into law the broadest revamp of financial regulation since the Great Depression.

Knee-jerk reactions by the NAACP and the Obama administration put Shirley Sherrod through hell for 72 hours this week. (COURTESY NAACP)

‘Collateral damage’ of war against Obama, NAACP

Click here for a related ‘Straight, No Chaser’ commentary.

COMPILED FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

It’s clear that former United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development Director Shirley Sherrod of Georgia had been hit by so-called "friendly fire."

On Tuesday, Gov. Charlie Crist rallied on the steps of the Old Capitol in Tallahassee with opponents of offshore drilling. (KEITH LAING/NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA)

BY JOHN KENNEDY and KEITH LAING
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

Gov. Charlie Crist and legislative leaders took turns Tuesday blasting each other for the ill-fated special session he called to get a constitutional amendment on November’s ballot to ban offshore oil-drilling in Florida waters.

But in the end, the truncated session – which expired in less than 2½ hours, rather than the four days called for by Crist – may actually serve the political purposes of most of the participants. Meanwhile, efforts to help Floridians hurt by the economic and environmental damage caused by the oil spill were left to languish.

The Florida Courier staff chose the top 10 of the hundreds of stories our newspaper staff reviewed, covered or wrote during 2009. Factors considered include newsworthiness, relevance, uniqueness, familiarity of the issue, the intensity of statewide interest, emotional impact, and whether there is a uniquely “Black’’ perspective.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference officials ask hard questions

It’s gone by quickly: The Florida Courier’s award-winning front page of Nov. 7, 2008, told the story of Barack Obama’s election.

After the historic 2008 election, and after nine months, where does Barack Obama now stand?