PASQUOTANK SHERIFF AGREES TO
PAY BLACK MAN’S ESTATE
$3 MILLION FOR 2021 FATAL SHOOTING
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The sheriff of Pasquotank County has agreed to pay $3 million to settle a $30 million lawsuit in the April 2021 fatal shooting of Andrew Brown, Jr.. As part of the settlement, announced Monday, all remaining claims are dropped by Brown’s family.
Brown was killed when three deputies fired upon his car in his driveway as he attempted to drive away when confronted with an arrest warrant.. Brown was unarmed.
Andrew Womble, the Pasquotank Ditrict Attorney, latter tried to justify the fatal shooting by the three deputies, saying that it was in self-defense, and that no criminal charges would be filed. However, a police body cam of the incident convinced the public that the shooting was anything but justified.
Sheriff Tommy Wooten’s department is covered by liability and property insurance which will pay $2 million of the settlement. Pasquotank County commissioners voted 6-1 Monday night to pay the $1million balance to Brown’s estate.
In a statement, Sheriff Wooten expressed his regret as to the loss of life.
The settlement will go to Brown’s children, who are heirs to Andrew Brown’s estate.
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DERRICK JOHNSON
NATIONAL NAACP UNDER
FIRE NOT JUST IN N.C.
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
With the NAACP National Convention scheduled for next month in Atlantic City, NJ (July 14-20), delegates from the North Carolina State Conference won’t be the only ones attending wondering out loud about the direction their civil rights organization is going under Pres/CEO Derrick Johnson.
For North Carolina, delegates are wondering about the $20 million sexual harassment lawsuit pending in Durham Superior Court regarding former NC NAACP Youth Director Jazmyne Childs and her allegations against her former supervisor Rev. Curtis Gatewood, in addition to suing Pres/CEO Johnson for allegedly publicly humiliating her at the 2019 NC NAACP State Convention in Winston-Salem.
Add to that the recent October 2021 election controversy which saw the ouster of then state conference Pres. T. Anthony Spearman under questionable means allegedly orchestrated by Administrator Gloria Sweetlove.
An Article 10 complaint per the NAACP Constitution and Bylaws was filed by a group of NC NAACP members who called themselves the Justice Coalition, and dismissed. Rev. Spearman was suspended, and is also expected to file suit in the matter.
That will be two multi-million dollar lawsuits against the national NAACP from North Carolina alone.
Then there’s the San Diego branch of the NAACP, where Johnson and the national office removed Branch Pres. Francine Maxwell for allegedly refusing “…to adhere to the communicated process or to cooperate with the appointed Administrator, Alphonso Braggs.
Ms. Maxwell is the second of two San Diego chapter presidents in recent years removed by Pres./CEO Johnson. Maxwell’s defenders say she is a fine leader, and has helped to make that chapter one of the best in the nation.
The editorial in The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint, the local Black newspaper, said, “The National NAACP President Should Be Suspended, not the SanDiego Branch President.
An editorial in the local major market newspaper touted, “In San Diego, national NAACP now represents everything it’s supposed to fight against.”
And in Atlanta, the chapter president there was forced to publicly apologize to former Mayor Kasim Reed for urging Atlanteans not to vote for Reed’s re-election because he felt Reed’s previous policies for and stewardship of the Peachtree City were bad for Black people.
Atlanta NAACP Pres. Richard Rose was warned by Johnson that he could be either suspended or expelled if he continued to criticize Reed, but many of Rose’s supporters countered how Rose’s criticisms weren’t any different from when Johnson criticized former Pres. Donald Trump. The NAACP’s 501(c)4 status does allow it to criticize elected officials.
To put a cap on recent controversies, Dr. John E. Warren, publisher of the Voice & Viewpoint wrote in an opinion piece published just last Thursday titled “National NAACP Lynches its Own,” It appears that the National NAACP (National Association For the Advancement of Colored People), has moved from fighting such illegal actions to committing them against their own members. According to the Justice Coalition, a coalition of NAACP members seeking redress of the issues of the National Organization illegally taking over branches and state organizations, the National Organization has taken action against no less than 52 branches, chapters, and individuals throughout the country.”
Dr. Warren referenced the controversy here in North Carolina concerning the October 2021 election, and then notes a controversy Pres./CEO Derrick Johnson was involved in in 2013 “…that he was brought under scrutiny …by the Mississippi Secretary of State for the co-mingling of funds from his One Voice non-profit organization with that of the Mississippi State NAACP while he was State President.
It appears that now might be a good time for the national NAACP to take a close look at its leadership as well as its Board of Directors, Dr. Warren continued. Today’s need for the NAACP at all levels of the organization is too great during these difficult times.
According to TV station WLBT3, a Jackson, Miss. NAACP member called for Derrick Jackson to step down in 2013 amid a probe by the Mississippi Secretary of State that showed Johnson’s One Voice non-profit group was audited and taken to task “…for spending money on the NAACP Image Awards [show] in Los Angeles, for Broadway tickets, spa treatments and other other expenses not related to it’s charitable work.”
Johnson’s group agreed to “correct the spending problems.”
The current incidents are not to suggest that there aren’t legitimate problems between the national NAACP office in Baltimore, Md. and branches or state conferences across the country, including here in North Carolina. And those previous problems have been well documented in the Black and general press for years.
But the leadership of Pres./CEO Derrick Johnson has led to several questions about the “oldest and baddest”civil rights organization following it’s own bylaws and Constitution in certain cases, especially when the national office under Johnson, appoints an administrator to a state conference.
As has been documented , Johnson’s administrators have been shown not just to oversee the operation of state conferences and branches, but, many longtime members say, substitute their judgement in place of the NAACP Constitution and Bylaws, with the approval of Johnson. When members complain, the national office uses the Constitution and bylaws as it’s administrative shield.
Members with the Justice Coalition say Johnson wanted NC NAACP Pres. Spearman out of the way when he had his Administrator Gloria Sweetlove change the rules of the state conference election last October without proper notice.
When press inquiries are made to the NAACP national office about these issues, it maintains that the NAACP and NAACP Empowerment Programs, Inc are private organizations that are not obligated to answer press inquiries.
What that reason was isn’t entirely clear yet, they say, but they hope that the pending lawsuits will shed some light.
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NORTH CAROLINA WILL BE
WATCHING JAN. 6TH COMMITTEE
HEARINGS WITH INTEREST
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
When the Bipartisan January 6th Select Committee holds its first nationally televised hearings tonite at 8 p.m. on its ten-month probe into the U.S. Capitol riots, one set of eyes watching the proceedings with great interest will belong to North Carolina Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC-12).
That’s because the four-term congresswoman representing Charlotte/Mecklenburg was there at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, virtually trapped with other members of Congress as reckless marauders trashed the political sanctuary of the American people, demanding that President Donald Trump be named winner of the November 2020 elections, and threatening to kill anyone who stood in their way.
Five people died as a result.
“It was frightening,” Rep. Adams recalled to this reporter, noting how her family from across the country were constantly ringing her cellphone to check on her safety while she took refuge with her colleagues.
Months later, Rep. Adams lauded the formation of the Bipartisan January 6th Select Committee, chaired by veteran Black Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss), to look into the matter, and uncover why it happened.
Rep. Adams already knows.
“…the attack was a white nationalist insurrection against our government,” she later said.
Adams’ North Carolina colleague, Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D-NC-1), told this reporter a week afterwards it appeared the Capitol siege was “well-planned,” and that it’s obvious that the rioters had assistance, possibly from the inside. He recalls seeing people he found “interesting” touring the Capitol the day before the siege. That was strange because the Capitol had been closed to public tours since March 2020 because of COVID-19.
According to press reports, several North Carolinians connected with white supremacist groups have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the January 6th siege. At least one, identified as Matthew Mark Wood of Rockingham County, was convicted in federal court on May 27th. Wood admitted to entering Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, and stayed in the Capitol building for more than an hour unauthorized.
Wood faces several years in federal prison.
The popular reason given for the Capitol riots is anti-government forces trying to stop the certification of the state’s Electoral College votes to confirm that Democrat Joe Biden had indeed been elected president over Republican Trump.
But as pointed out in North Carolina Black Press analysis in January 2021, Trump blamed certain states with large black voting populations for allowing “illegal” voting.
“The underlying focus of the January 6, 2021 attempted insurrection was a national effort, which was orchestrated by Donald Trump and his right-wing supporters, to undermine the exercise of the right to vote by African Americans and other people of color,” said Irving Joyner, NCCU law professor. “This coordinated national effort to attack African American votes which were cast in Atlanta and its surrounding area; Detroit and its surrounding area; Philadelphia and its surrounding area and Milwaukee mirrored, in real time, that 1898 voter suppression campaign (here in North Carolina) and was designed to convince the public that African Americans and people of color were unqualified and had illegally voted against Donald Trump.”
Ironically, in 2016, then Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, having lost a close re-election, also falsely claimed Black voter fraud.
And before either McCrory or Trump, the Republican majority in the NC General Assembly has been cited for using voter ID legislation, and racial gerrymandering in redistricting to, again, cripple the Black vote in order to maintain power and control.
That common goal of White Republicans and Trump to neuter the political power of African-Americans was at the true roots of the January 6, 2021 siege on the U.S. Capitol, black analysts and historians say. And the fear of not stopping the constitutional takeover of a White (politician) who is sympathetic to Blacks, and his Black female vice president, sparked a violent desperation.
By all accounts, Donald Trump’s deadly attempt to “make America great again,” failed for a very important reason.
“America is clearly brown now, and that’s the fear of these white supremacists, and all of the people who felt like they are superior,” said Congresswoman Alma Adams,. “I think that’s where [Trump] was coming from from the beginning. His whole attack is on Black and Brown people.”
In press reports about tonite’s January 6th Select Committee hearings, we are told to expect shocking details about the planning of the Capitol riots, who was involved, how badly our U.S. intelligence agencies failed and how close the Trump loyalists and white supremacists were to almost overthrowing the U.S. government.
Editor’s note - the hearings will be seen on most major networks at 8 p.m.
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