Romney and Gingrich battle for Florida's Latino vote

Though Gingrich still lags Romney in support from the bloc, he appears to be gaining ground, especially among Cuban Americans.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney campaigns at American Douglas Metals in Orlando, Fla., on Wednesday. A Univision/ABC poll showed him with a 15-percentage-point advantage over Gingrich among likely Hispanic GOP voters. (Charles Dharapak, Associated Press / January 25, 2012)

Martin Luther King, Jr.: Who misquoted King so monumentally?

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says a key quote on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial must be changed. Poet Maya Angelou had said it makes the civil rights leader sound ‘like an arrogant twit.’

A part of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is seen on the National Mall in Washington. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has ordered that a controversial truncated quote be changed.
(Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer
posted January 14, 2012 at 10:37 am EST

As America gets ready to take Monday off in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., the creators of the new MLK Monument in Washington will be thinking about how to fix what some have called a monumental misquote on the granite edifice.

At issue is a prominent quote on the side of the memorial that now states, “I was a drum major for justice, peace, and righteousness.” The problem, as MLK's son pointed out in a CNN interview, is, “That's not what Dad said.”

While the quote comes off as a boast, the actual line uttered by MLK in a speech a month before his April 4, 1968, assassination in Memphis had a different tone.

“If you want to say I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace…,” King said, putting a less self-congratulatory spin on it.

The mistake not only makes King sound like “an arrogant twit,” as the poet Maya Angelou said last year, but undermines King's point in the so-called “Drum-Major Instinct” sermon, which was about the “folly” of wanting “to be great without doing any great, difficult things.”

“As many have since pointed out, the 'if' and the 'you' entirely change the meaning,” writes the Washington Post's Rachel Manteuffel, whose editorial on the mistake started the correction process churning. “To King, being a self-aggrandizing drum major was not a good thing; if you wanted to call him that, he said, at least say it was in the service of good causes.”

On Friday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, whose department oversees the National Mall, gave the King Memorial Foundation 30 days to come up with an alternative excerpt for the north side of the 30-foot-tall statue. “This is important because Dr. King and his presence on the Mall is a forever presence for the United States of America, and we have to make sure that we get it right,” Salazar told the Post.

Salazar also addressed the issue during a Monitor breakfast before the Oct. 16, 2011 dedication of the sculpture. “I looked at the quote," he said. "I looked at all the other quotes. It is a wonderful memorial. But there are some issues that we will resolve and we will work on them ..."

What appears to have happened is Lei Yixin, the Chinese master sculptor commissioned to create the monument, and the monument's American inscription carver, Nick Benson, had an aesthetic problem they wanted to solve by shortening the quote. The change was made after the official plans of the monument were unveiled, meaning that the Interior Department and other supervisory committees had no input.

“After the plans were approved, the lead architect and the sculptor thought the stone would look better with fewer words,” writes Ms. Manteuffel. “They did the editing themselves, without considering the violence it would do to the quote’s meaning. It was as simple as that.”

Before the monument was officially unveiled last October, the monument's executive architect, Ed Jackson, Jr., defended the editing. He said that the full quote wouldn't fit in the space, and noted that “we have the historical perspective. We can say emphatically he was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.”

Mr. Salazar's demand that the quote be changed feeds into a simmering controversy about how the monument was made, and by whom.

Mr. Yixin, for example, is known for his socialist realist sculptures of Mao Zedong, the brutal founder of Communist China. That fact raised the ire of Chinese civil rights activists and the American stonecarving community, whose spokesmen said American workers should have been commissioned for the project. Subsequently, some observers have noted that King's image looks slightly Asian, and others have complained about his stern visage, which critics have said doesn't reflect King's character.

“There's no reason that an American story can't be told by Americans,” South Carolina stoneworker Clint Button told the Monitor last year. “Even if we did a statue that looked horrendous, it would be done with integrity and with the intention of American tone and an American story, and a proper interpretation of history.”

Supporters of the monument disagreed. They say the $120 million sculpture represents both King's global vision of raising hopes for the repressed and the practical realities of cost and manufacturing. The Foundation paid the King family $800,000 for rights to use quotes from King's archives.

“Brevity is the soul of saving money on chiseling fees,” Comedy Central comedian Stephen Colbert concluded last year, mangling Shakespeare.

Poor economy slows Hispanic birthrate

The number of babies born to Hispanics dropped below 1 million in 2010, a nearly 11% drop since 2007 that reflects the tough times.

Non-Hispanic whites still deliver most U.S. births. Their birthrates fell too, but at a much slower pace — down 3.7% to 58.7 per 1,000 women in 2010.

The dramatic decline in births to Hispanics, who still have the highest fertility rates, raises the specter of a long-term drop in the nation's overall fertility — now higher than that of most other developed nations. It also crystallizes the impact of the economic downturn on Hispanics.

"It's hard to ignore that Hispanics have been one of the hardest-hit groups," says Gretchen Livingston, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center and author of a recent report on declining birthrates in a down economy.

No one knows whether the trend will last.

A lower birth rate may have a significant impact on areas that would be losing population except for Hispanic growth. In 9% of the nation's 3,141 counties, mostly rural areas, the population would have declined if Hispanics had not moved in and had babies, Johnson says.

Births to Hispanics in Texas fell 7.5% since 2007 — a drop so significant that Hispanic births went from being the majority (50.2%) to less than half (48.9%), Johnson's analysis shows.

In Florida, Hispanic births dropped 15.9% and in California, they were down 7.3%.

Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies which favors controlled immigration, says lower birthrates could benefit some poor families. "Given the very high rates of poverty among Hispanic children, small families might make it easier for parents to provide for their children," he says.

AP – This undated photo released by the Union County Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey shows Nigel Dumas, …

NEWARK, N.J. – Dusk fell around Salvadoran immigrant Abelino Mazaniego as he sat on a bench on a promenade in an upscale New York suburb after finishing up his restaurant shift. As night encroached, so did a group of teenagers, including one with a cell phone videocamera at the ready.

Then, authorities say, they beat him unconscious, with the camera rolling.

Days later, the 47-year-old father of four was dead — but not before the video had been circulated among teenagers in Summit, N.J., authorities say. And not before a nurse in the emergency room where he was taken the night of July 17 was accused of pilfering several hundred dollars from his wallet.

The attacks on Mazaniego's body and dignity resulted in days of escalating court actions that culminated Tuesday in murder charges against three young men, ages 17, 18 and 19. A fourth teenager believed to have videotaped the attack hasn't been charged, but authorities weren't divulging details on the teen's involvement or potential culpability.

Mazaniego was "quite a jolly gentleman," Colin Crasto, manager and chef at Dabbawalla Indian restaurant, where the victim had worked for three years as a cook's assistant, told WNBC-TV of New York. The videotaping makes the crime "more horrific," he said.

Khayri Williams-Clark, 18, and an unidentified 17-year-old, both of Summit, were arrested Wednesday on manslaughter charges. Williams-Clark pleaded not guilty to the charge Friday.

Now they're charged with murder, along with Nigel Dumas, 19, of Morristown. A spokesman for the public defender's office, which is representing Williams-Clark and the 17-year-old, declined to comment Tuesday and said they hadn't yet received an application to represent Dumas.

The 17-year-old is being held in the Union County juvenile detention center, while Williams-Clark is being held at the Union County jail on $100,000 bail, prosecutors said. Bail for Dumas, at the same jail, has been set at $250,000.

Authorities wouldn't say how many teens were in the group or whether there would be more charges. They also weren't discussing theories on the motive for the beating — whether it was Mazaniego's background, a thrill killing or some other reason.

But it apparently wasn't an attempt to get the $640 in cash that Mazaniego was carrying.

Police found the victim after the beating and took him to the hospital, where, officials say, nurse Stephan Randolph, 39, of Flemington, took the money out of the unconscious victim's wallet.

Family members noticed the missing money and told authorities, who charged Randolph with third-degree theft Monday, six days after Mazaniego died.

Student Group Disbanded After Blacks-Only Field Trip

May 10, 2010.

The Michigan school district investigating whether an elementary school field trip that excluded white students was illegal has disbanded the black-students-only academic support group that participated in the outing two weeks ago.

The Michigan school district investigating whether an elementary school field trip that excluded white students was illegal has disbanded the black-students-only academic support group that participated in the outing two weeks ago.

“We have essentially put it on hold while we wait for the final determination on the investigation into possible violation of the State's Proposal 2,” Ann Arbor School District spokeswoman Liz Margolis told FoxNews.com. 

Thirty members of the Dicken Elementary School’s AA Lunch Bunch, a support group designed to bridge the gap in test scores between white and black students, were taken on a field trip two weeks ago to meet Alec Gallimore, an African-American rocket scientist who is an aerospace engineering professor and propulsion lab director at the University of Michigan. 

The school principal, Mike Madison, who is black, helped organize the trip, saying he hoped to encourage the students to pursue a career in the sciences. Hoping to quell rising tensions over the black-students-only outing, Madison sent a lengthy letter home to parents in which he explained the reasoning behind the trip. 

He admitted, however, that it could have been “approached and arranged in a better way.”

“The intent of our field trip was not to segregate or exclude students, as has been reported, but rather to address the societal issues, roadblocks and challenges that our African-American children will face as they pursue a successful academic education here in our community,” Madison wrote.

But instead of quashing tensions, the letter fueled a week of controversy and an onslaught of parental complaints that culminated late last week in the school district’s launch of an investigation into whether the field trip violated Proposal 2, a new state law that bans racial favoritism in public schools. 

The investigation is ongoing, and the Lunch Break will be out to lunch until it's wrapped up.

“It is likely this lunch program will be reworked to serve more students who are not testing at proficient or above on the state assessment tests,” said Margolis, who last week told FoxNews.com that the principal's motives were not in question. 

“Except for the final advice from our legal on the Proposal 2 issue and working with the school parents, staff and students on some further conversations and plans around the school's assessment, there is nothing else to decide.”

NY Senator: 'You Racist People In Here'

Sen. Kevin Parker Hurls Racism Accusations At Colleagues In Albany, Calls Republicans 'White Supremacists'

Reporting
Marcia Kramer

By JESSE WASHINGTON (AP) – 23 hours ago

Two months after ending his annual State of the Black Union conference, Tavis Smiley is gathering African-American advocates to press the case for a "black agenda."

The decision was motivated by what Smiley called recent statements from some black leaders downplaying the need for President Barack Obama to specifically help African-Americans.

"I was compelled to do it because of this debate," the activist and PBS talk show host said Wednesday.

The panel discussion will be March 20 at Chicago State University. Panelists include advertising pioneer Tom Burrell, professors Michael Eric Dyson and Cornel West, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Bennett College President Julianne Malveaux.

The meeting is free and open to the public. Negotiations to televise the event are in progress, Smiley spokeswoman Leshelle Sargent said.

Some black politicians and activists have recently begun to question Obama's longtime stance that helping the overall economy will improve the fortunes of blacks who are disproportionately poor and unemployed.

West, for example, gave Obama a grade of C minus on policies and priorities focused on poor and working people, saying, "He has really not come through in any substantial and significant way." Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have blocked some legislation until their demands were met.

Last week, Smiley and the Rev. Al Sharpton had a fierce argument about the issue on Sharpton's radio show, with Sharpton taking heated exception to Smiley's claim that the reverend was giving Obama a pass on black issues.

When Smiley ended the State of the Black Union after 10 years, he said black issues were now being addressed elsewhere.

Apparently, however, not enough to his liking.

"This is not about Obama. It's about us," Smiley said in an interview.

He said that the Obama campaign and black leaders asked African-Americans for help during the election, but that "now that he's elected, what are black people being asked to do to hold him accountable to our agenda?"

Eric Deggans, who writes about the media and race for Florida's St. Petersburg Times, said Smiley's new event is consistent with his record of criticizing Obama's race-neutral stance. But there is a perception that Smiley is personally invested in the issue, he said, because Obama declined to attend Smiley's 2008 State of the Black Union event during the presidential campaign.

"It could be hard for people watching this to see Tavis as an honest broker," Deggans said. "He's playing an odd game," he continued. "He's trying to make great television and also present something that effects social change. That's often two different things."

Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press. He is reachable at jwashington(at)ap.org or http://www.twitter.com/jessewashington.

• Tavis Smiley: http://www.tavistalks.com

Judson Berger 

 - FOXNews.com

 - January 19, 2010

Black Conservatives Take Lead Role in Tea Party Movement

Though the tea party movement has attracted criticism for its supposed lack of diversity, minority activists who are involved say the movement has little to do with race, and that it is attracting a more diverse crowd every day. 

Lloyd Marcus' conservatism started when he was 9. 

His family had just moved out of the "ghetto" to a brand-new high rise in Baltimore -- within months, he said, the "dream come true" turned into a nightmare, as the building of welfare-collecting black residents became a den of crime. 

His father moved the family out as soon as he got a job with the city fire department, but "my cousins never escaped," Marcus said. He cried as he told the story. 

Marcus, a black conservative who is now involved in the growing tea party movement, attributes the problems of his childhood neighborhood, his extended family and the black community in general to a "cradle-to-grave government dependency" that in the case of his cousins enabled an idle life of crime and drug abuse. 

To Marcus, President Obama's policies perpetuate that dependency. That's why, he says, it baffles him and other black conservatives when the tea party movement is dismissed as somehow anti-black, as a rowdy bunch of ignorant, white protesters who have it in for the nation's first black president. 

"This is the nicest angry mob I've ever seen," Marcus said. 

Marcus is one of a number of black conservatives who have joined up with, and helped lead, the conservative tea party movement since its inception. Though the movement has attracted criticism for its supposed lack of diversity -- MSNBC host Chris Matthews recently called the groups "monochromatic" and "all white" -- those minority activists who are involved say the movement has little to do with race, and that it is attracting a more diverse crowd every day. 

"I think a lot of black people are waking up from their Obama night-of-the-living-dead fog," Marcus said. "They were walking around like zombies going Obama, Obama, Obama." 

He and other black conservatives connected with one of the hundreds of tea party groups across America were largely active in conservative and Republican causes before the movement's start in early 2009. They spoke and wrote about the need for smaller government, lower spending and lower taxes and warned that Obama's candidacy would pose a threat to those values. 

But in the tea party movement they found a group that not only reflected their views but provided a platform. 

Marcus campaigned with a group against Obama in the 2008 election. But the Florida resident, who is a musician, gained a degree of fame in the tea party world a year ago when he cut a "tea party anthem" song -- in it, he belted about the dangers of wealth redistribution to a gospel-sounding backup track. 

"In less than a week, the song was national," Marcus said. He was asked to sing at an Orlando tea party rally last spring and has since performed at rallies across the country. He's traveled cross-country on both Tea Party Express tours and plans to join up for the third tour this March. 

Marcus does not advocate for the creation of a third party, but said the tea party groups should serve to pull the Republican Party back to the conservative roots from which it has strayed. 

William Owens, a black author and publisher who with his wife traveled on the Tea Party Express tours with Marcus and has spoken at just about every stop along the way, also came out strongly against Obama in 2008. He published the book, "Obama: Why Black America Should Have Doubts," before the election, in an attempt to address what he called a "misguided passion" toward the former Illinois senator in black America. 

When the tea party movement started, he said he found a way to build on what he was already doing, outside the Republican Party system which he calls out of touch. He first spoke at a rally in Las Vegas on tax day last April. 

"It was just a natural fit," Owens said. 

He said the rallies are still "mostly white," but that more blacks are getting involved. He took particular umbrage at Matthews' comment, blasting out a press release that criticized the MSNBC host for "pushing conservative black Americans to the back of the media bus." 

Owens now publishes a journal documenting the tea party cross-country tours. The Multi-Cultural Conservative Coalition is also sponsoring the next leg of the Tea Party Express. 

Despite the enthusiastic involvement of black conservatives in the tea party rallies and trips, Obama still enjoys seemingly unshakable support from the majority of black Americans. A recent poll from Gallup put Obama's approval rating among blacks at 91 percent. Among whites, that number was 42 percent. 

Tea party groups also might not be doing themselves any favors when some of their supporters are photographed holding somewhat shocking signs at rallies -- such as one last year that said, "The White House has a lyin' African." 

But such demonstrators may be the exception. 

Charles Lollar, a Maryland-based tea party supporter who is black, said there's no validity to the racism charges. 

"I've seen black faces in the crowd. I've seen Latino faces in the crowd. ... It's not a movement of color. It's not a movement of party. It's a movement of principle. It's a movement of America," Lollar said. 

Lollar started speaking at tea party events last winter and said his biggest motivation is opposition to the stimulus package -- both the $787 billion package that passed last February and the sequel that some Democrats are trying to push this year. 

Lollar has since parlayed his activism into a high-stakes campaign. The Charles County businessman is hoping win the GOP nomination to challenge House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., in the congressional midterm this November. 

"When we beat him in November, it's going to send a strong message across the country," he said. 

Lollar, whose previous post was as chairman of the Charles County Republican Central Committee, has an uphill battle to unseat the nation's second most powerful House Democrat.

Hoyer has been in office nearly three decades, and his latest campaign finance report put his available cash at $1.3 million. Lollar said he's raised $40,000 -- he aims to raise $2.5 million by fall. 

Lollar is running from within the GOP apparatus. But it remains to be seen whether the party establishment will reach out to other tea party conservatives like him to ensure they stay loyal to the Republican Party and not challenge it like Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman did in New York state. Hoffman, who is white, pushed out the Republican candidate in the race for Congressional District 23, and ended up losing narrowly to Democrat Bill Owens. 

David Avella, executive director of Republican recruiter GOPAC, said his organization hasn't been actively mining the tea party movement for state and local candidates but that the groups could prove fertile ground for candidates. 

"Many in the tea party movement are Republicans who want to make sure the party gets back to its fiscal discipline days," he said, calling those activists natural "allies."

Tea partiers point to recent political coups they say demonstrate the movement's broadening influence and appeal. And they say they feel a certain freedom in the scattered leadership of the movement, as opposed to the top-down style of the GOP.

"I think it's great that we have all these different organizations and they have nobody in charge," Marcus said. 

Marcus cited Hoffman's influence in the New York race as well as Republican Scott Brown's bid for the Massachusetts Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy. Brown, while not sprouting from the tea party movement, is supported by it as he enjoys a late-in-the-game surge in the race. 

"This is a movement that has swept the country," Marcus said. "It has really been the rebirth of conservatism in America." 

Interestingly, Marcus said he used to work with one of Obama's biggest supporters, Oprah Winfrey, decades ago at a local station in Baltimore before she moved to Chicago. 

The two have since lost touch, he said.