Ticker tape

Jet, July 21, 2003 by Simeon Booker

Confidential: Gaining the inside financial track in the struggle to build the first Black museum in the nation's capital is civil rights legend, Atlanta Rep. John Lewis, who heads a coalition determined to erect the national museum of African-American history and culture on the National Mall. President Bush and a GOP-controlled Congress approved the funding, leaving behind other efforts such as the Revolutionary War Heroes shrine, during these hard economic times ...

For more than a decade, thousands of Black farmers in the South have complained of Agriculture Department bias in crop allowances, subsidies and support. Even a Federal Court decision in their favor has failed to eliminate the protests. Now the U.S. Civil Rights Commission shortly will publish a criticism of the farm policy ... In the '90s, Texas Rep. George Thomas "Mickey" Leland fought on behalf of "the hungry, poor and less fortunate around the world." He was killed in a plane crash in Ethiopia in 1989 while trying to help famine victims at a refugee camp. In a House speech, Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel asked members not to forget "the greatest advocate for the hungry the House has ever known." ... Extending a tradition that began decades ago, JPC's team of EBONY senior editor Kevin Chappell and D.C. Bureau Photographer Fred Watkins accompanied President George W. Bush on Air Force One on his first visit to Africa. The delegation traveled to five countries, including Nigeria. JPC foreign travel was started by former Editor Era Bell Thompson of EBONY, but the Washington Bureau has traveled with federal officials since the Nixon era.