JOURNALIST IFILL ON 43RD BLACK HERITAGE STAMP
The late PBS journalist Gwen Ifill will be commemorated as the 34th face on the U.S. Postal Service’s annual Black Heritage Stamp.
Ifill served as moderator on PBS’ “Washington Week,” the first African-American woman to host a nationally televised political show, and co-anchored “NewsHour.” She moderated the 2004 vice-presidential debate of Dick Cheney and John Edwards, the 2008 vice-presidential debate of Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, and co-moderated the Democratic primary debate of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
Her book “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama” was released on the day of President Obama’s 2009 inauguration. She died of cancer in 2016, at age 61.
NJ SEMINARY VOLUNTEERS $27 MILLION FOR REPARATIONS
Princeton Theological Seminary, in Princeton, NJ, has set aside $27 million to pay reparations for its ties to slavery. The Seminary recently began a study of its history with the enslavement of African Americans at the urging of three Black seminarians.
Although the Seminary never owned slaves, Barnes said, it was complicit in the slave trade when it invested in Southern banks. They also received funds from donors who directly profited from slavery, and the founding fathers of the academy used slave labor.
A school task force hosted more than 25 events, meetings, and conversations on the campus in the previous academic year to determine a reparation plan. $27.6 million will be placed in an endowment, with more than $1 million being used annually in a multi-point plan that includes:
– Offering 30 new scholarships, valued at the cost of tuition plus $15,000, for students who are descendants of slaves or from underrepresented groups.
– Hiring a full-time director of the Center for Black Church Studies and funding faculty and fellowships to give critical attention to African American experience and ecclesial life.
– Enhancing community partnerships and supporting historically disenfranchised communities in and around Princeton.
ZIMMERMAN SUING TRAYVON’S FAMILY
Nearly eight years after George Zimmerman was acquitted on all charges related to his shooting of Trayvon Martin during a scuffle in a gated Florida community where Martin’s father lived, Zimmerman is now suing Martin’s family for $100 million claiming he was the victim of a conspiracy, along with malicious prosecution and defamation.
Zimmerman claimed he shot Martin in self-defense and faced charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the case, which shed light on Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law.
Based on evidence presented in a new documentary “The Trayvon Hoax,” Zimmerman and his lawyer, Larry Klayman, allege that Rachel Jeantel, a key witness for the prosecution who testified about being on the phone with Martin just before the shooting, was an impostor. They accuse her of standing in for another teenager, Brittany Diamond Eugene, whom the suit describes as Jeantel’s half-sister who did not want to testify in the case.