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FinalCall.com News
FCN Specials
People of Impact: 2004 In Review
By FinalCall.com News
Updated Jan 11, 2005 - 9:44:00 AM
Historic radio
conversation
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and
Reverend Jesse Jackson, two pre-eminent leaders among Black people in America,
met publicly for a rare political summit in November, just three days after the
presidential election, at WVON-AM radio in Chicago, the “capital” of Black
intellectual dissemination. The conversation, according to convener and
talk show host Cliff Kelley, amounted to the African American “State of the
Union.”
Michael Jackson in court
“I would
never hurt a child. It’s totally false. I was outraged. I could never do
something like that,” Michael Jackson said during a December 28 interview
with Ed Bradley on the CBS show “60 Minutes”—his first time
speaking to the media since felony charges were brought against him Dec. 18,
2003. That case was the talk of 2004. Mr. Jackson was charged with nine
counts, seven for child molestation and two for administering an intoxicating
agent for the purpose of committing a felony. The incidents allegedly occurred
in February and March of 2003, according to Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom
Sneddon.
Lionel Tate’s redemption
The
story of Lionel Tate was so much more than the media headlines
of his release from prison and his plea agreement to second-degree murder. It
was the story of two mothers who faced great losses with humanity and
hope. Deweese Eunick-Paul lost her 6-year-old daughter, Tiffany, in what
the court ruled was murder. Kathleen Grossett-Tate lost her 12-year-old son,
Lionel, to the Broward County, Fla. criminal justice system as a convicted
murderer.
Yet, Ms. Eunick-Paul demonstrated an incredible heart of humanity when she
rose above the emotions of her loss and grief and agreed to sign off on the plea
agreement that reduced Mr. Tate’s sentence. “There’s no reason to be angry.
If you’re that angry, you can’t move on,” she told the South Florida
Sun-Sentinel newspaper. “For God to bless you, you have to
forgive.”
Farrakhan
holds world press conference
His resolute fearlessness
resonating throughout the standing-room only ballroom of the National Press Club
in Washington, D.C., the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered a two-hour
address during a May 3 world press conference, entitled “Guidance to America
and the World in a Time of Trouble,” that was watched via satellite on four
major continents, viewed widely on web cast, and broadcasted live on
C-Span television. The basis of his message emerged from two letters that
he penned to President George Bush, cautioning the president against the plans
of war in the Middle East that were brewing in his mind after 9/11. The first
letter was written Dec. 1, 2001—far in advance of the insider disclosures and
tell-all books that revealed the secret manipulations of the Bush cabinet to the
public.
The death of Gary Webb, a
‘suicide’
Many observers find it hard to believe that the
Dec. 10 death of Gary Webb was a suicide, as described by law
enforcement. Found in his home with a gunshot to his head, the former San
Jose Mercury News reporter is noted for a series of articles that exposed
the CIA’s connection to a Nicaraguan drug cartel that brought cocaine into the
U.S. to be converted to crack, which has ravaged the communities of people of
color, particularly the Black community. His research, which exposed the CIA for
aiding and abetting in the destruction of the Black community, was later
published in a book, “Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras and the Crack Cocaine
Explosion.”
White House temperature’s rising
The political
heat was turned up on the Bush administration with the record-breaking June 25
release of Fahrenheit 9/11, a documentary written, directed and produced by
Michael Moore. With an estimated three million people flocking to the show its
opening weekend, it grossed $21.8 million with only a limited release
nationwide, becoming the first political documentary to debut at the box office
at No.1.
Mr. Moore delivered a scalding rebuke of the president, following the yellow
brick road of propaganda that the Bush administration led the public along after
the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It presented a piercing examination of the
manipulation of those attacks as a pretext for amassing oil profits to the
corporate cronies of the Bush family—all at the expense of ignorant and
unsuspecting poor, young soldiers looking for a job and an education, the rights
of U.S. citizens clinging to patriotic hopes, and the lives of Iraqi civilians
praying for peace.
Lee Boyd Malvo and teen executions
To sentence a
juvenile to death or not to sentence a juvenile to death—that was the question
facing the jury in the Lee Boyd Malvo case. Their deliberation raised
questions all over the country about killing juveniles who kill. In the
end, the jury spared his life and sentenced him to life in prison for the
shooting death of FBI analyst Linda Franklin.Virginia State Delegate Vivian
Watts told reporters that the Malvo case gives death penalty opponents a
powerful argument: People don’t want to put youngsters to death for even the
most egregious crimes. “There is a shift in public attitude,” she said.
Flowchart proves AIDS is man-made
For decades,
stories have filtered through the press that AIDS was a man-made virus. For Dr.
Boyd Graves, these stories were more than conspiracy theory, for he has
persistently maintained—although courts as high as the Supreme Court dismissed
his case—that he discovered a flowchart that proves AIDS was manufactured in
U.S. laboratories, as well as its cure. His research began in 1992, and in 1999
he discovered the greatest evidence to date of records and reports of the
experiments that led to the development of the AIDS virus. That document is the
“1971 Flow Chart of the Special Virus Program of the United States.”
