On the Dock for this Snippet

Dr. Gates, Edwards, Moats, Grant, Louima, White, Diallo

This Black man was shot through the heart by police men in Los Angeles, California, and they are dumb enough to think we have forgotten it.

                                                                                                 - Malcolm X

Cambridge - July 2009 - Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. PhD, was arrested in his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible

break-in.

East Harlem - May 2009
The NYPD has "to stop assuming that every Black male with a gun is a perpetrator," said Corey Pegues, commanding officer of Brooklyn's 67th Precinct after about 20 high-ranking cops visited Omar J. Edwards’ Brooklyn home to offer their sympathy to his grieving family after he was shot by a White fellow cop.

Edwards, in street clothes, was shot on a Harlem street. Police later said Edwards had just finished his shift, had his service weapon out and was chasing a man who had broken into his car when three plainclothes officers on routine patrol arrived at the scene and yelled for Edwards and the real suspect to stop. One officer, Andrew Dunton, opened fire and hit Edwards three times as he turned toward them with his service weapon. It was not until medical workers were on scene that it was determined Edwards was a police officer, too.

Houston - March 2009 - Running back Ryan Moats rushed to Baylor Hospital in Plano, Texas after hearing that his mother-in-law was dying. However, Moats and his wife were stopped before they could get into the building. Dallas police officer Ryan Powell stopped him in the ER parking.

Oakland - January 2009 - It wasn't just one cop attacking Oscar Grant in Oakland on New Year's Day, just days before the Obama inauguration. A new video shows that before Grant, who was African-American, was killed, officer Tony Pirone punched him in the face without cause. It took two weeks and thousands of people speaking out before the district attorney charged Grant's killer with murder.

Upper Marlboro, MD - June 2008 - Ronnie White, 19, was found dead in his jail cell in the maximum-security section of the Prince George's Corrections Center on June 29, two days after he was arrested and charged with first-degree murder for allegedly running down and killing Prince George's County police Sgt. Richard Findley in a stolen truck. The state medical examiner ruled White's death a homicide, but corrections officers said White committed suicide. White suffered two broken bones in his neck and died of asphyxiation caused by strangulation, according to the medical examiner.

New York - February 1999 - Amadou Bailo Diallo was a 23-year-old Guinean immigrant in New York City who plained-clothed police killed February 4, 1999 in The Bronx. The four officers, Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss, fired a total of 41 rounds.

New York - August 1997- Abner Louima is a Haitian immigrant who was assaulted, brutalized and forcibly sodomized with a broken broom stick by New York City police officers after being arrested outside a Brooklyn nightclub in 1997.

According to the Sentencing Project

• Disproportionate life imprisonment: Two-thirds of persons serving life sentences are racial and ethnic minorities

• No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America represents the first nationwide collection of life sentence data documenting race, ethnicity and gender.

The renovated Eastern Market is now open and jewelry designer Anthony Driver, who is best known for bold silhouettes and hammered metal adornments couldn't be happier. “People are out enjoying themselves and business has picked up,” he says. In addition to his creations, Driver now carries products created by 125 women in Ugandan refugee camps and marketed by the non-profit Paper to Pearls.

Eastern Market is also now home of the city’s first public 24-hour WiFi spot. Hot spots allow those with a computer, personal digital assistant or other equipment with digital Wi-Fi capability to connect to the Internet for free.

More than 7, 500 people filled the 6,000 seat U.S. Steel Yard baseball stadium to pay tribute to Gary’s most famous native son Michael Jackson, and native son and actor Karl Malden.  Jackson's first music teacher, Anita Hill, spoke of teaching Jackson to sing "Climb Every Mountain.” Former Garnett Elementary School Principal Gladys Johnson recalled the Jackson 5 giving an early concert in the school lunch room for 10 cents admission and Former Miss Indiana Kellee Patterson recalled competing in talent shows with the Jackson 5.

One company, JWR Tours, started a MJ Hometown Tour, July 25. The company also provides jazz tours on Chicago’s South Side, 20 minutes from Gary.

Inner Light Ministries celebrated it 16th anniversary recently as it made plans to buy its own church home at 1912 Q Street, SE off Minnesota Avenue. Born out of the Unity Fellowship Movement, Inner Light carries the tag line “The Radical Inclusiveness of Christ.”

“The church allows me to be me,” testified Charles Pearson during the celebration. “I use to be the one sitting in the back,” proclaimed Megan Williams from the front of the church. And Lynn Gray added, “Inner Light is a healing ministry.” Inner Light plans to move to its new location by the end of August.

Sam Gilliam’s Limited Edition “Museum Moment”

Sam Gilliam’s limited-edition screen print. “Museum Moment” is on display at the Graphic Eloquence exhibition in the Smithsonian’s Ripley Center.

Signed and numbered prints are available for $1,500 for Associate members and $1,800 for nonmembers. To purchase at the member price, visit the Art Collectors Program Web site or call (202) 633-8680.

Attitude Exact Gallery also stocks various other Gilliam prints. For more information call 202-546-7186.

Gilliam is considered one of the foremost contemporary African American artists in the United States. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Norman Walt Harris Prize from the Art Institute of Chicago. His works are displayed in museum permanent collections around the country, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Denver Museum of Art and Chrysler Museum of Art.

In the shadows of the iconic Arturo Alfonso Schomburg Center (named after the African- Puerto Rican historian) and the historic Harlem YMCA, thousands strolled along two long New York City blocks lined with book sellers and other vendors including Port of Harlem at the 2009 Harlem Book Fair.

135th Street before the crowd arrives.
Famed New Amsterdam News writer Herb Boyd.	Avid POH reader Uta Pierce visits POH.
Amari Baraka (Tales of the Out & the Gone) and Melvin Van Peebles (Confessions of a Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha) sign their new books at the Harlem Book Fair 2009.