Wade Rathke, founder of ACORN and Chief Organizer of ACORN International, joined us from Mississippi to take about the Voter Purge Project. This protects eligible voters against disenfranchisement by monitoring, reporting on, and organizing against wrongful voter purging. Wade has a list of purged Ohio voters and asked for volunteers to help call them and get them re-registered. Volunteer for Wade Rathke’s voter purge project - OHIO

Sunday, Sept. 13, 3pm
Gather at Ohio Supreme Court Justice Fountain, 65 S. Front and march to City Hall, 90 W. Broad St.
Call for more counselors in schools, feed the hungry and isolated, educate youth, rebuild the breach that racism causes, and welcome everyone into our community.
Mark Stansbery, walk@igc.org, 614-252-2955.

At a time when long-winded polemics and punditry about the upcoming presidential election are all over the place, a longtime progressive populist author and agitator has just summarized it all in less than a minute.

“Hi, Jim Hightower here,” a just-released video begins, “with a message for progressives who don’t like Joe Biden’s corporate-hugging politics. Neither do I! But — and it’s a very big ‘but’ — Trump is a crackpot, a total plutocratic toady who’s literally destroying the lives of workaday people and killing America’s progressive possibilities.”

Hightower continues: “Trump has to be gone before we the people can move forward with our agenda of fairness and justice for all. So I don’t care if Biden is a 200-pound sack of concrete, we have to carry him into the White House to eject the Orange Menace. I urge all of you, especially in swing states like mine, to suck it up and do this heavy lifting. Let’s dump Trump, then we’ll take on Biden!”

The struggle to make the Columbus Division of Police reflect the racial make-up of urban neighborhoods goes back nearly 50 years and perhaps longer. But even though federal lawsuits and demands to have more African Americans on the force have been ongoing for more than half-a-century, the number of Black Columbus police officers is still woefully short compared to the number of African-American residents.

Columbus police union’s FOP President Keith Ferrell has said “systemic racism” does not plague the division, but there is too much evidence showing the division’s hiring process has historically “removed many good Black officers,” several current and retired African-American Columbus police officers told the Free Press.

One question these officers raised is: Have Black and People of Color candidates been removed deliberately by systemic racism or is implicit bias to blame?

The Black officers told the Free Press they agree both factors have played a role in keeping their numbers down.

September 11th, 12th, 13th, 2020 
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