She hadn’t been home for long when she got the call: her Domino’s coworker had been shot dead while out on a delivery run. It could have been her.

Brenda couldn’t shake it. Nobody should die while trying to make a living, and nobody should have to work two tough jobs just to survive.

She didn’t know much about unions or organizing, but Brenda felt that it was her turn – it was time to make a difference, so that her children could have a better future. If she didn’t do something, who would?

Twenty-two years ago, Brenda committed to the struggle for workers’ rights. She’s been in it for the long haul – though it was tough work, over the past 22 years of organizing state employees, Brenda has seen Mississippi move from a dismal 50th in the nation for state workers’ rights to 44th in the nation. She’s passionate about educating workers as to their rights and their value; showing them that unions bring good things like overtime, weekends, sick leave, and vacation time; and demonstrating the relationship between certain elected officials and the reduction of benefits and lack of raises.

Today, Brenda Scott is the president of the Mississippi Alliance of State Employees: Communication Workers of America. As part of MASECWA, Brenda and her fellow organizers travel the state, signing state workers into the unions, and teaching them how to advocate for themselves in the political arena.

Brenda is also on MIRA’s Board of Directors, and has had a long-time association with MIRA’s Executive Director Bill Chandler. She says that MIRA and MASECWA both serve underprivileged people in the state. Immigrants and state employees are both working and hoping for a better tomorrow – and advocating for their cause is just the right thing to do. Brenda is proud of the progress that MIRA has made – not only in defeating a slew of anti-immigrant legislation, but also in building powerful alliances with legislators, businesses, and law enforcement groups.

Brenda Scott advocates for a future in which immigrants and state workers alike are proud to speak up for their rights, and she believes that MIRA and its allies will help make that vision a reality.

About 100 City of Vicksburg employees and union organizers rallied on the steps of City Hall Wednesday afternoon in the second pro-union demonstration by city workers since February.

The rally had bout 40 city employees and 60 union organizers from across the country. City workers held a similar rally Feb. 16.

Since the push to unionize began, close to 100 city employees have said they want the Board of Mayor and Aldermen to recognize the Mississippi Alliance of State Employees/ Communications Workers of America as their bargaining agent, gas department foreman Joe Alexander said at Wednesday’s rally.

City officials have yet to take a public stand on unionization. Mayor Paul Winfield met March 27 with about 225 city employees and MASE representatives and after gave no details except to say that he told the employees that the time was not right for union recognition.

“I’m going to have to, at some point in time, sit down with the board and reassess some of our positions,” Winfield said Wednesday but declined to give a time frame.

The city employs about 550 people, including policemen, firemen, department heads and seasonal workers, and operates on a nearly $30 million budget.

Alexander has been with the city for 16 years and said he’s seen major turnover in the gas department because of poor working conditions. “We’ve got people working on gas lines that they want to pay minimum wage, and that’s dangerous,” Alexander said.

Willie Earl Young, who also works in the gas department, said he makes less than $8 per hour after five years with the city. “They expect us to know all this and get tests and license and still don’t want to give us a pay raise,” Young said as he pulled out his gas department certification card from his wallet.

Unionization also is about equal representation for workers in disputes with the city, said Johnny Trisby, another foreman in the gas department. “It’s not all about the money. It’s about rights and fairness,” he said.

Unions provide an important bargaining tool for public employees, said Robert Shaffer, Mississippi AFL-CIO President. “Having an equal voice to me has been more important in my lifetime than anything else,” Shaffer said during the rally. “Being equal gives you all kinds of rights.”

Winfield said late Wednesday that he was unaware the rally had been scheduled for Wednesday and said he didn’t agree with the tactics of the demonstrators. “I am not an enemy to the union, but these types of demonstrations don’t further the cause in my opinion,” he said.

During the hourlong event, a number of people took Winfield to task, saying he had taken an anti-union stance by not acting on representation for city workers. By not showing support of unions, Winfield is going against the Democratic Party, said Warren County Democratic Executive Committee Chairman John Shorter. “No Democrat can say they are anti-union,” Shorter said.

Winfield said he has never come out against unionization. “The unions, in a general sense, are friends to the Democratic Party and I am most certainly a Democrat,” he said.

Discussion of unionization must be honest from both sides, Winfield said, and employees and the public need to be educated on the exact powers of unions and how unionization could affect the city. “You cannot promise raises to employees. Those types of things cause misunderstanding and confusion,” Winfield said.

Union officials have said the union would not represent the city’s police and firefighters, who are covered by the city’s Civil Service Board. Under state law, city and county workers who are part of a union are prevented from striking.

Question: I recently went to my N-400 naturalization interview with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) without an attorney.  After a grueling 50 minute interview, the immigration officer seemed to suggest that I passed the English and Civics test.  Then he asked me to give a one word definition of “allegiance.”  I couldn’t think of only one word, so I responded, “Support and defend the constitution.”  The immigration officer then told me I needed to better understand the Oath of Allegiance. He gave me a checklist letter and said I would be required to have another interview in two months regarding the Oath.   The officer then escorted me to the waiting room and told my wife that I had passed the English and Civics tests, but had to work on the Oath.  I speak and understand English very well and I believe that I understand the Oath of Allegiance.  Can you tell me what I might be tested on at my next interview?

Answer: Hopefully, only the Oath of Allegiance if that’s what was indicated on the letter.  I do, however, find it strange that you would be required to give a one word answer for “allegiance.”  When I looked it up, I found these synonyms for that word: loyalty, fidelity, devotion and faithfulness.  You might want to keep these words in mind for the follow-up interview.

One of the requirements to become a naturalized U.S. citizen is that an individual must understand and take the Oath of Allegiance to the United States.  Immigration officers sometimes ask at the naturalization interview, ”What does it mean to take the Oath of Allegiance?” A good answer might be, “I’m declaring that I am loyal to the the U.S., that I must comply with all of its laws and regulations and I am giving up all my rights as a citizen of my former country.” If the officer asks for a one word definition of “allegiance,” try one of the words I have listed in the previous paragraph.

IN SPANISH:

Pregunta: Recientemente fui sin un abogado a mi entrevista de naturalización N-400 con El Servicio de Ciudadanía e Inmigracion de Estados Unidos (USCIS). Después de una entrevista de 50 minutos agotador, el oficial de inmigración parece sugerir que había superado la prueba de inglés y educación cívica. Luego me pidió dar una definición de una palabra de “lealtad”. Que no podía pensar sólo una palabra, por lo que respondió, “apoyo y defender la Constitución.” El oficial de inmigración, luego me dijo que necesitaba para mejor comprender el juramento de lealtad. Me dio una carta lista y dijo que necesitaría tener otra entrevista en dos meses sobre el juramento. El oficial entonces me escoltó a la sala de espera y le dijo a mi esposa que había superado las pruebas de inglés y educación cívica, pero tuvo que trabajar en el juramento. Hablo y entienden el inglés muy bien y creo que entiendo el juramento de lealtad. ¿Pueden decirme lo podría ser probado en mi próxima entrevista?

Respuesta: Ojala, sólo el juramento de lealtad si eso es lo que indicó en la carta. , Sin embargo, encuentro extraño que necesitarían para dar una respuesta de una palabra por “lealtad”. Cuando me puse, me encontré con estos sinónimos para esa palabra: lealtad, fidelidad, devoción y fidelidad (loyalty, fidelity, devotion and faithfulness). Puede que desee mantener estas palabras en mente para la entrevista de seguimiento.

Uno de los requisitos para convertirse en ciudadano naturalizado estadounidense es que un individuo debe comprender y tomar el juramento de lealtad a los Estados Unidos. Funcionarios de inmigración a veces preguntar en la entrevista de naturalización, “lo que significa tomar el juramento de lealtad?” Podría ser una buena respuesta, “estoy declarando de que soy leal a los Estados Unidos, que debo cumplir todas sus leyes y reglamentos y estoy renunciar todos mis derechos como ciudadano de mi país.” Si el funcionario pide una definición de una palabra de “lealtad”, pruebe una de las palabras que he enumerado en el párrafo anterior.

by walknboston

by Rev. Rims Barber, Mississippi Human Services Coalition

When the 2012 Legislative Session began, we were faced with an agenda crafted nationally by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (A.L.E.C.) and the TEA party.

Progressive and caring people came together to provide a balance to that kind of initiative.  The surprising result was that good prevailed over evil in many instances.  A number of those very bad ideas died, and did not become law in our state.

Religious leaders, business organizations and law officials came out and opposed the copying of Alabama’s law to make criminals of immigrants.  This broad-based support for the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance carried the day and defeated the anti-immigrant legislation.

A plan to raise interest rates on small loans from 36% to 99% failed after a coalition of good citizens objected. The Mississippi Center for Justice, backed by the Mississippi Religious Leadership Conference spearheaded this successful effort.

Several attempts were made to regulate persons who receive “public benefits” but they all failed. They included such things as checking for citizenship status, drug testing and for requiring 20 hours of free labor of all recipients (which would have included people such as public retirees and residents of nursing homes).

“Personhood” was embedded in bills twice (in obvious attempts to thumb the nose of the voters last November).  Both bills died after much volatile debate.

Privatizing public schools, as part of the Charter School movement, failed after two tries. But the Republican leadership promises that it will be back after an effort to convince the public.

An attempt to privatize Child Support in the Department of Human Services was slipped into the conference report that would extend the life of D.H.S., but it was sent back to die in conference.  Another bill did extend the repealer of D.H.S. until 2015.  A bill to move child care licensing out of the Health Department into D.H.S. was killed in committee.

Bills to resurrect the old Sovereignty Commission died quietly in committee, although the Tea Party had asked for this measure.

Some bad ideas survived, but got worked over in the legislative process so that they were watered down:

There was a big push to restrict the ability of the Attorney General to act on behalf of the state (as he did in the tobacco law suit).  After vigorous debate, and much negotiation, the limitations have been reduced.  However, it is not clear that Democrat Jim Hood will be able to fight for the rights of citizens without getting approval from his Republican counterparts.

Public Employees were the target of  several bills, aimed at making it easier to fire them for political reasons.  This idea died, but the Legislature did reduce their seniority rights.

Some good ideas actually made it through the process and will become law:

Parents of Special Education children will be able to record I.E.P. meetings so that an accurate record can be kept and their rights won’t get trampled (Thanks to Parents United).  Children with Dyslexia will be able to get the services they need to take advantage of a full educational opportunity.  Blind students will be better able to access Braille materials so that their opportunities will not be limited.

Under pressure from lawsuits, The Southern Poverty Law Center, and ACLU, the state will remove children from the Walnut Grove prison.  There will be a new agency to set standards to protect the rights of juveniles in detention facilities.  Young people will be able to access Drug Courts, rather than be sent off to prisons.

Small improvements in the handling of domestic violence cases will become law.  Vulnerable adults will be protected from mental abuse (as well as physical abuse). Common Cause worked hard for open meetings and reasonably priced public records but it was a difficult year for much progress. Annual reports of agencies will be available online.

The development of a State Health Care Insurance Exchange, in compliance with the national health care reform law, will be able to move forward with help from a bill to enable the board of the High Risk Pool to come out from domination by insurance companies.

The major loss of the 2012 Session was the passage of the bill to implement the Voter identification system. This will make it difficult for many citizens to keep their right to vote.  They will now need to have a current Drivers License (or some other government document with a photo every time they go to vote).  Protests against this are being organized, asking for the U.S. Justice Department to reject this law.  It is likely to end up in Court, and take some time to become effective.  We doubt that Photo I.D.s will be required for this November’s election.  Restricting voter registration and voter assistance were both the goals of bills that died in a Senate committee.

The debate over Workers Compensation pitted workers against employers and their insurance companies.  The companies won, and it will be harder for injured workers to claim compensation.

In the last days of the Session, the Legislature voted to re-district itself, using the 2010 Census. This, too, will probably end up in Court with accusations of this as an attempt to reduce the influence of the Black Vote.

Serge Melki

by Bill Chandler, Executive Director of MIRA

It is amazing the misinformation and ignorance that abounds about Latinos.  A sad but good example is that of the perception that Cinco de Mayo is “Mexican Independence Day.”  It is not. Mexican Independence Day is September 16, 1810. While Cinco de Mayo is sometimes promoted as such mainly to sell beer and tequila in the United States, that date had far reaching consequences not only for Mexico, but also for the U.S.

Cinco de Mayo celebrates Mexico’s victory over invading French forces at Puebla, Mexico, nearly 150 years ago.  That now-celebrated battle of May 5, 1862, didn’t directly involve the United States, which at the time was engaged in its own civil war.  Mexico, suffering war and turmoil fighting off the re-establishment of slavery of its indigenous and African peoples emancipated in 1828, incurred tremendous debt to Europe.

France decided to take over the country: some 4,000 Mexican soldiers, mainly indigenous Mexicans and Afro-Mexicanos, defeated a mighty French force twice its size near Puebla. The battle didn’t end the European invasion, but Mexico’s will to fight and win was no less significant.

The French troops weren’t sent solely to take over Mexico, they had three purposes: to re-conquer Mexico for the European powers, help the Confederacy win the war against the U.S. and establish a vast slaveocracy from Central America to Washington, D.C. In fighting the French, Mexico helped change the course of events for the U.S.

May 5, 1862, has significance for Mexicans, but also for African Americans in the United States who were ultimately emancipated partly because of France’s inability to help the Confederacy in it’s rebellion against the United States.  This is one of the many examples of where the struggle of Latinos and African Americans intersect in the Americas.

Courtesy The Nation magazine

In early April, an anti-immigrant bill like those that swept through legislatures in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina was stopped cold in Mississippi. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Tea Party Republicans were confident they’d roll over any opposition. They’d brought Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State who co-authored Arizona’s SB 1070, into Jackson, to push for the Mississippi bill. The American Legislative Exchange Council, which designs and introduces similar bills into legislatures across the country, had its agents on the scene.

Their timing seemed unbeatable. Last November Republicans took control of the state House of Representatives for the first time since Reconstruction. Mississippi was one of the last Southern states in which Democrats controlled the legislature, and the turnover is a final triumph of Reagan and Nixon’s Southern Strategy. And the Republicans who took power weren’t just any Republicans. Haley Barbour, now ironically considered a “moderate Republican,” had stepped down as governor. Voters replaced him with an anti-immigrant successor, Phil Bryant, whose venom toward the foreign-born rivals Lou Dobbs.

Yet the seemingly inevitable didn’t happen.

Instead, from the opening of the legislative session just after New Years, the state’s Legislative Black Caucus fought a dogged rearguard war in the House. Over the last decade the caucus acquired a hard-won expertise on immigration, defeating over two hundred anti-immigrant measures. After New Year’s, though, they lost the crucial committee chairmanships that made it possible for them to kill those earlier bills. But they did not lose their voice.

“We forced a great debate in the House, until 1:30 in the morning,” says state Representative Jim Evans, caucus leader and still AFL-CIO staff member in Mississippi. “When you have a prolonged debate like that, it shows the widespread concern and disagreement. People began to see the ugliness in this measure.”

Like all of Kobach’s and ALEC’s bills, HB 488 stated its intent in its first section: “to make attrition through enforcement the public policy of all state agencies and local governments.” In other words, to make life so difficult and unpleasant for undocumented people that they’d leave the state. And to that end, it said people without papers wouldn’t be able to get as much as a bicycle license or library card, and that schools had to inform on the immigration status of their students. It mandated that police verify the immigration status of anyone they arrest, an open invitation to racial profiling.

“The night HB 488 came to the floor, many black legislators spoke against it,” reports Bill Chandler, director of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, “including some who’d never spoken out on immigration before. One objected to the use of the term ‘illegal alien’ in its language, while others said it justified breaking up families and ethnic cleansing.” Even many white legislators were inspired to speak against it.

Nevertheless, the bill was rammed through the House. Then it reached the Senate, controlled by Republicans for some years, and presided over by a more moderate Republican, Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves. Reeves could see the widespread opposition to the bill, even among employers, and was less in lock step with the Tea Party’s anti-immigrant agenda than other Republicans. Although Democrats had just lost all their committee chairmanships in the house, Reeves appointed a rural Democrat to chair one of the Senate’s two judiciary committees. He then sent that bill to that committee, chaired by Hob Bryan. And Bryan killed it.

On the surface, it appears that fissures inside the Republican Party facilitated the bill’s defeat. But they were not that defeat’s cause. As the debate and maneuvering played out in the capitol building, its halls were filled with angry protests, while noisy demonstrations went on for days until the bill’s final hour. That grassroots upsurge produced political alliances that cut deeply into the bill’s support, including calls for rejection by the state’s sheriffs’ and county supervisors associations, the Mississippi Economic Council (its chamber of commerce), and employer groups from farms to poultry packers.

That upsurge was not spontaneous, nor the last minute product of emergency mobilizations. “We wouldn’t have had a chance against this without twelve years of organizing work,” Evans explains. “We worked on the conscience of people night and day, and built coalition after coalition. Over time, people have come around. They way people think about immigration in Mississippi today is nothing like the way they thought when we started.”

Evans, Chandler, attorney Patricia Ice, Father Jerry Tobin, activist Kathy Sykes, union organizer Frank Curiel and other veterans of Mississippi’s social movements came together at the end of the 1990s not to stop a bill ten years later but to build political power. Their vehicle was the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, and a partnership with the Legislative Black Caucus other coalitions fighting on most of the progressive issues facing the state.

Their strategy has been based in the state’s changing demographics. Over the last two decades, the percentage of African-Americans in Mississippi’s population has been rising. Black families driven from jobs by factory closings and unemployment in the north have been moving back south, reversing the movement of the decades of the Great Migration. Today at least 37 percent of Mississippi’s people are African-Americans, the highest percentage of any state in the country.

Then, starting with the boom in casino construction in the early 1990s, immigrants from Mexico and Central America, displaced by NAFTA and CAFTA, began migrating into the state as well. Poultry plants, farms and factories hired them. Guest workers were brought to work in Gulf Coast reconstruction and shipyards. “Today we have established Latino communities,” Chandler explains. “The children of the first immigrants are now arriving at voting age.”

In MIRA’s political calculation, blacks and Latinos, plus unions, are the potential pillars of a powerful political coalition. HB 488’s intent to drive immigrants from Mississippi is an effort to make that coalition impossible.

MIRA is not just focused on defeating bad bills, however. It built a grassroots base by fighting immigration raids at the Howard Industries plant in Laurel in 2008, and in other worksites as well. Its activist staff helped families survive sweeps in apartment houses and trailer parks. They brought together black workers suspicious of the Latino influx, and immigrant families worried about settling in a hostile community. Political unity, based in neighborhoods, protects both groups, they said.

For unions organizing poultry plants, factories and casinos MIRA became a resource helping to win over immigrant workers. It brought labor violation cases against Gulf employers in the wake of Katrina. Yet despite being on opposing sides, employers and MIRA recognized they had a mutual interest in fighting HB 488. Both opposed workplace immigration raids and enforcement, which are based on the same “attrition through enforcement” idea. Since 1986 US immigration law has forbidden undocumented people from working by making it illegal for employers to hire them. Called “employer sanctions,” the enforcement of this law, especially under the Bush and Obama administrations, has caused the firing of thousands of workers.

Yet over the last decade, Congressional proposals for comprehensive immigration reform have called for strengthening sanctions, and increasing raids and firings. “That’s why we didn’t support those bills,” Chandler says. “They violate the human rights of working people to feed their families. For employers, that opposition was a meeting point. They didn’t like workplace enforcement either. All their associations claimed they didn’t hire undocumented workers, but we all know who’s working in the plants. We want people to stay as much as the employers do. Forcing people from their jobs forces them to leave—an ethnic cleansing tactic.” During the protests Ice, Sykes and others underlined the point by handing legislators sweet potatoes with labels saying, “I was picked by immigrant workers who together contribute $82 million to the state’s economy.”

MIRA, however, also fought guest worker programs used by Mississippi casinos and shipyards to recruit workers with few labor rights. “When it came to HB 488 employers were tactical allies,” Chandler cautions. Unions, on the other hand, are members of the MIRA coalition. While MIRA and employers saw a mutual interest in opposing the bill, MIRA helps unions when they try to organize the workers of those same employers, and helps workers defend themselves when employers violate their rights. MIRA, in fact, was started by activists like Chandler, Evans and Curiel, who all have a long history of labor activity in Mississippi. When HB 488 hit, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1529 brought workers from poultry plants in Scott County, Laborers from Laurel, and Retail, Wholesale union from Carthage. Black catfish workers came from Indianola, and electrical union members from Crystal Spring. The black labor mobilization was largely organized by the new pro-immigrant leadership of the state chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the AFL-CIO constituency group for black union members.

Catholic congregations, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Evangelical Lutherans, Muslims and Jews also brought people to protest HB 488, as did the Mississippi Human Services Coalition — a result of a long history working on immigrant issues. And groups around MIRA and the Black Caucus not only fought that bill, but others introduced by Tea Party Republicans as well. One would ban abortions if a fetal heartbeat is detected. Another promotes charter schools. A third would restrict access to workers compensation benefits, while another would remove civil service protection from state employees.

Dr. Ivory Phillips, a MIRA director and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jackson Public Schools, explains that charter school proposals, voter ID bills and anti-immigrant measures are all linked. “Because white supremacists fear losing their status as the dominant group in this country, there is a war against brown people today, just as there has long been a war against black people,” he says. “In all three cases—charter schools, ‘immigration reform’ and voter ID—what we are witnessing is an anti-democratic surge, a rise in overt racism, and a refusal to provide opportunities to all.”

Tea Party supporters also saw these issues linked together. In the wake of the charter school debate during the same period the immigration bill was defeated, a crowd gathered around Representative Reecy Dickson, a leading Black Caucus member, in which she was shoved and called racist epithets.

“Because of our history we had a relationship with our allies,” Chandler concludes. “We need political alliances that mean something in the long term — permanent alliances, and a strategy for winning political power. That includes targeted voter registration that focuses on specific towns, neighborhoods and precincts.” Despite the national importance of stopping the Southern march of the anti-immigrant bills, however, the resources for the effort were almost all local. MIRA emptied its bank account fighting HB 488. Additional money came mostly from local units of organizations like the UAW, UNITE HERE and the Muslim Association. “The resources of the national immigrant rights movement should prioritize preventing bills from passing as much as fighting them after the fact,” Chandler warns.

On the surface, the fight in Jackson was a defensive battle waged in the wake of the Republican legislative takeover of the legislature. And the Tea Party still threatens to bring HB 488 back until it passes. Yet Evans, who also chairs MIRA’s board, believes that time is on the side of social change. “These Republicans still have tricks up their sleeves,” he cautions. “We’re worried about redistricting, and a Texas-style stacking of the deck. But in the end, we still believe our same strategy will build power in Mississippi. We don’t see last November as a defeat but as the last stand of the Confederacy.”

Also, be sure to like us on our new Facebook page and follow us on Twitter.

Among those in attendance was Father Jerry Tobin, a priest with a predominantly immigrant congregation in Carthage, Mississippi. He commented that this years’ conference was one of the best that MIRA has hosted. He particularly appreciated that Imam Ali Siddiqui linked Islamic theology with concepts of social justice common to both Christian and Jewish faiths, and said that the Imam’s “masterful use” of American idiom put his highly diverse audience at ease.

Okolo Rashid, Director of the International Museum of Muslim Cultures, was also present at the conference. She was part of the driving organizational and planning force for this year’s conference, and hoped that the conference would offer Mississippi’s diverse Muslim community an opportunity to form alliances with groups like MIRA and SCLC. After the weekend’s events, she said that she was very excited about the relationship that was begun between the different groups, and felt that the opportunity for Muslim communities to build partnerships with actively engaged organizations like MIRA is very significant. She said that she is “very hopeful” about the future of this new alliance, since the groups are all facing similar challenges and may work together in the future to galvanize support.

WJTV in Jackson covered the conference. Click here for a story and a video from Friday night’s feature news story.

These are some of the most significant moments from this year’s conference:

Panel: “A Serious Look at Islam: Its Promotion of Social Reform and Global Unity.” Led by Okolo Rashid, Director of the International Museum of Muslim Cultures, the panel included Fahd Ahmed of DRUM; Rev. Fred Hammond of the Unitarian Universalist Church; Imam Ameen Abdur-Rashied of Masjid Muhammad; Minister David Muhammad, Nation of Islam; Judge Ali ShamsidDeen, Municipal Judge; and Roberta Avila, Director of STEPS Coalition.

Tour of the IMMC. After the panel discussion, Okolo Rashid, Director of the IMMC, led conference-goers on a guided tour of the International Museum of Muslim Cultures.

Legislative Outlook Panel. The Friday afternoon panel, “Legislative Outlook in Mississippi: Killing HB488, and Local Ordinances Good & Bad” was moderated by Mississippi State Representative and MIRA President Jim Evans. MIRA extends a special thanks to panel members Mississippi Senator Derrick Simmons, Jackson City Councilman Chokwe Lumumba, Reverend Rims Barber of the Mississippi Human Services Coalition, and Bill Chandler of MIRA.

Overview of One Nation Indivisible by Susan Eaton, Research Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. Susan shared her initial work of this new initiative to find and share the human stories  of the varied efforts  in communities across the country to expand opportunities and break down racial and cultural barriers. She also shared her recent article about immigration issues in Mississippi, which you can read here: Same New Struggle- Building a Better Southern Strategy in Multiracial Mississippi.

Friday Awards Dinner. Friday evening was one of delicious food, lively entertainment, compelling stories, and messages and prayers that created real impact in the hearts of listeners. Montage Dance Theater, a company based in Jackson, Mississippi, that has been invited to perform in the 2012 London Olympics, presented two vibrant pieces during the evening. After the dinner, Imam Ali Siddiqui spoke on Islam’s relationship with other major religions in the context of current society and events, addressing differences and similarities between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. He shared verses and prayers from the Qur’an, speaking the quotations first in Arabic, and then offering English interpretations.

The final event of the evening was the presentation of the Courage Under Fire Awards.

MIRA is proud to congratulate this year’s award recipients:

David Hampton: Profile in Courage Award. SCLC / MIRA Unity Conference 2012 bestows upon David Hampton, Editorial Director of the Clarion Ledger this Profile in Courage Award for supporting through his writings the effort to make Mississippi a fair and just society.

Hampton is the longtime editorial page editor of the Clarion Ledger daily newpsaper in Jackson. He has produced thousands of thoughtful editorials, and has invited many guest editorials from MIRA and other progressive community organizations.

Nsombi Lambright: Outstanding Leader Award. SCLC / MIRA Unity Conference 2012 bestows upon Nsombi Lambright, Executive Director of the ACLU of Mississippi, this Outstanding Leader Award for her dedication and commitment to defending liberty and fighting against biases of all types for all Mississippians.

Lambright is the executive director of the ACLU of Mississippi. Under her leadership, the Mississippi ACLU carries out a program of public education, legislative activity, and litigation on voting rights, race and criminal justice, freedom of speech and religion, and reproductive rights and gender issues.

Mississippi Senator Alice V. Harden: Lifetime Leadership Award. SCLC / MIRA Unity Conference 2012 bestows upon Senator Alice v. Harden, Ms Senate District 28, Hinds County this award of appreciation for a lifetime of leadership and excellence in the chambers of the Mississippi State Senate. For introducing and championing legislation that supports all human beings in their quest for freedom, justice and equality, we salute you!

Harden began her career as a classroom teacher, and rose to the leadership of the Mississippi Association of Educators in their struggle for decent education. In 1988, she was elected to the Mississippi Senate, where she has consistently stood up for education, public workers, and immigrants’ rights.

White House Roundtable Discussion. Saturday morning began with a discussion on Immigration Reform, led by L. Patricia Ice of MIRA and Monami Maulik of DRUM. After opening remarks by Maulik on legislative principles, conference attendees broke into small groups to discuss equitable immigration reform. President Obama has called on leaders and community members across the nation to participate in this discussion, and the results of the dialogues will be submitted to the White House Immigration Reform Team.

Youth in Action. We heard inspired presentations from Rafael Samanez of Vamos Unidos in New York, and from Sarah Del Castillo (a student at Millsaps College), Angela McKay of Southern Echo, and Victor Palafox of Alabama DREAMers for the Future on the ways that young people are participating in the struggle for immigrants’ and workers’ rights.

Conference Special Thanks MIRA extends a special thanks to Okolo Rashid for her inspired work in helping plan, organize, and direct this year’s conference. Through her influence and support, we were able to unite with Muslim faith leaders from around the country. MIRA also greatly appreciates Okolo’s presentation of a guided tour of the International Museum of Muslim Cultures.

MIRA would also like to thank its generous sponsors: The International Museum of Muslim Cultures, Southern Echo, UNITE HERE Local 2262, Leadership Conference Education Fund, Chokwe Lumumba Attorney at Law, United Auto Workers, St. Moses the Black Priory, Action Communication and Education Reform, Inc., Hinds County Democratic Executive Committee, Dr. Anne Marie Ice MD, Pamela E. Ice, Aladdin Mediterranean Grill, Southern Poverty Law Center, Mississippi State Conference NAACP, ACLU, El Torero Mexican Grill, Carniceria Valdez, STEPS Coalition, Classic Printing, The Jackson Advocate, Sir Speedy, La Noticia de Mississippi, and The Mississippi Muslim Association.

Participants in a protest against Alabama’s HB-56 march through Linn Park, Saturday, June 25, 2011, in Birmingham, Ala. (AP Photo/ The Birmingham News, Mark Almond)

Courtesy Huffington Post

It’s hard to keep Alabama out of the news. Two of its recent newsworthy events deserve attention. The first is its attempt to improve on the Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, a 76-page statutory creation as remarkable for its length as for its content that was designed to rid the state of undocumented immigrants.

As drafted, the Act prohibits anyone from giving an undocumented immigrant a ride to church (or any other place for that matter). In addition, undocumented immigrants may “not be permitted to enroll in or attend any public post secondary education institution.” Both of those provisions, among some others, were blocked by a federal court whose decision is being appealed. The proposed revisions slightly soften some of the harsher provisions. Among those softened is the protocol to be followed when a law enforcement officer stops someone. Whereas the original legislation required a law enforcement officer to determine the immigration status of anyone stopped by the law enforcement officer for any reason, the determination is now only required if a person is “lawfully arrested or is issued a traffic citation…” Mysteriously, the amendment adds a provision that says when an arrest or citation is issued to the driver, the officer may also inquire as to the citizenship of everyone else in the car even though none of them has been issued a citation or been arrested. Someone smarter than I can explain the logic of that.

Another change is to the provision that requires that schools determine the citizenship status of all children when they enroll. As originally enacted, that determination was not satisfied by asking the children on the first day of school to raise their hands if they were undocumented immigrants. The law required proof of the child’s status together with detailed provisions. All those will be replaced by a requirement that the Alabama State Department of Education “compile a report that calculates the estimated annual fiscal impact of providing free public educational services to those Alabama public school students who are the children of, or in the custody and control of, aliens believed to be unlawfully present in the United States.” A student of the legislation could be forgiven for failing to understand how the State Department of Education can figure out the “annual fiscal impact to the state” of educating undocumented immigrants without finding out who is and is not an undocumented immigrant. Lest the undocumented aliens become nervous, however, the legislation tells them they need not be. It specifically says that: “Under no circumstance does the Legislature intend to deny anyone the opportunity to receive a free public education in Alabama’s public educational system. Nor does the Legislature intend for the provisions of this section to discourage anyone from accessing a free public education in Alabama’s public educational system.” There are a number of other changes made but since the Bill is now 83 pages long those who want more information should read it for themselves. The other event of significance is the return to the judicial scene in Alabama of Roy Moore. Roy is the former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

Roy first gained notoriety in 1997 when he was a state circuit court judge. In his courtroom he hung a hand-carved wooden plaque of the Ten Commandments because, one assumes, he could not remember what they said without prompting from the plaque. He refused a higher court’s order to remove the plaque and then-Governor Fob James said he would call out the national guard, if necessary, to prevent the removal of the plaque. The plaque remained. In 2001, Judge Moore was elected Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Within six months of his election he supervised the construction and installation of a 5,280-pound granite monument to the Ten Commandments in the central rotunda of the State Judicial Building. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling ordering removal of the monument. When Chief Justice Moore refused, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary removed him. The monument left the rotunda and was placed in a back room. That was in 2003.

The news from Alabama in March that accompanies revisions to the immigration bill is that unless the unexpected happens, Roy will soon once again be the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, having won the Republican primary in that state. Jurisprudence in Alabama has lots to look forward to. During his prior tenure he wrote a concurring Alabama Supreme Court opinion in a custody battle involving a lesbian mother in which he said that homosexuality is “abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” Homosexuals in Alabama were “presumptively unfit to have custody of minor children.”

It is too soon to say whether or not Roy will be elected. His opponent is Harry Lyon, a criminal defense lawyer who has reportedly unsuccessfully run for office 10 times. He is also said to have once publicly joked that undocumented immigrants should be publicly executed. Were that to become Alabama law, the Beason Hammon Act would be superfluous. Whichever candidate becomes the new chief justice, Alabamans won’t have much to brag about.

Christopher Brauchli can be emailed at brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu. For political commentary see his web page at http://humanraceandothersports.com

In anticipation of Sen. Bryan’s opposition to the bill, the House Judiciary Committee B Chaired by Rep. Andy Gibson (R), Braxton, met last Thursday and amended SB 2549, a bill regarding counterfeit goods, with the entire HB 488, and it was placed on the House Calendar for action.  Opponents to anti-immigrant bills mobilized to challenge the amendment as it was not germane to the original intent of the bill as written.  Led by House Minority Leader Rep. Bobby Moak (D), Bogue Chitto, Rep. Jim Evans (D) Jackson with the members of the Mississippi Black Legislative Caucus, and many others, they prepared to move a Point of Order.

When the bill was brought up this morning, Rep. Gibson conceded that it was not germane and offered a motion to remove the HB 488 from SB 2549.  His motion carried on a voice vote, and the original SB 2549 was passed in its original form without HB 488.  This is its Second Death.

However the 2012 Mississippi Legislative session continues on until Saturday, May 5th—Cinco de Mayo.  We cannot let our guard down.  There is a slim possibility that it could emerge again.  Further, Gov. Phil Bryant, in an interview on the “J.T. Show,” a hard-core, right-wing talk show, indicated that HB 488 could be revived in a Special Legislative Session at any time during the current session or later on this year.

So it is not Dead, Dead, Dead, just yet for this year.  For over a decade MIRA has fought off some 220 bills of this kind.  We know well from our experience that their attempts to drive immigrants, especially Latinos, out of Mississippi and the South will continue.

Stay vigilant, stay strong, and stay united!  We will keep you informed.

Politicians of every stripe in this country seem to lack the will, creativity and sheer guts to deal in some practical and humane way with the complicated issue of immigration. But where they have failed, the Albany Park Theatre Project — the prodigiously gifted, exquisitely directed youth theater ensemble rooted in a classic “gateway for the world” Chicago neighborhood — has triumphed.

In its latest production, “Home/Land,” now playing to consistently sold-out houses and extended through April 28, the company has transformed an often virulent and intensely partisan subject into the highest art. Even those with attitudes other than those expressed here might find themselves profoundly moved by the nearly two dozen fervent young performers who magically unspool a series of stories in this knockout of a show — a work that should be mandatory viewing for every current and/or wannabe government official.

Read more here (story)