Her platform sounds like exactly what's needed and so does she!

I wish her all the luck in the world - but I don't think she'll need it!

This movement addresses a real problem in this country. No one deserves to be killed, I agree, but unarmed black men are being killed by law enforcement with no consequences and that's what this movement is about.

to try to repudiate the subject a month later.

Very, very strange, isn't it?

Here's a photo of Lezley McSpadden, wearing a reminder of Billie Holliday's song, and there is most certainly a reason for that:

Michael Brown’s Mother Running For Ferguson City Council
News J'na Jefferson @JnaJefferson | August 13, 2018 - 6:53 pm



https://www.vibe.com/2018/08/michael-brown-mother-city-council/

And here's the song, for anyone who hasn't heard the song, or heard of the reason behind the song:

Wikipedia:

"Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. Written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and published in 1937, it protested American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the South at the turn of the century, but continued there and in other regions of the United States.[2][3] According to the Tuskegee Institute, 1,953 Americans were murdered by lynching, about three quarters of them black.[4] The lyrics are an extended metaphor linking a tree’s fruit with lynching victims.[5] Meeropol set it to music and, with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan, performed it as a protest song in New York City venues in the late 1930s, including Madison Square Garden.

The song continues to be covered by numerous artists, including Nina Simone, UB40, Jeff Buckley, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Dee Dee Bridgewater and has inspired novels, other poems, and other creative works. In 1978, Holiday's version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[6] It was also included in the list of Songs of the Century, by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. Lyricist E. Y. Harburg referred to the song as a "historical document".[4] It was also dubbed, "a declaration of war ... the beginning of the civil rights movement" by record producer Ahmet Ertegun.[4]

"Strange Fruit" was originated as a poem written by American writer, teacher and songwriter Abel Meeropol, under his pseudonym Lewis Allan, as a protest against lynchings.[8][9][10] In the poem, Meeropol expressed his horror at lynchings, inspired by Lawrence Beitler's photograph of the 1930 lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana.[9] He published the poem under the title "Bitter Fruit" in 1937 in The New York Teacher, a union magazine.[11] Though Meeropol had asked others (notably Earl Robinson) to set his poems to music, he set "Strange Fruit" to music himself. His protest song gained a certain success in and around New York. Meeropol, his wife, and black vocalist Laura Duncan performed it at Madison Square Garden.

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Fruit

~ ~ ~

How ‘Strange Fruit’ Killed Billie Holiday
by Brandon Weber

February 20, 2018



"Strange Fruit” may have been written by American song-writer and poet Abel Meeropol (a.k.a. Lewis Allen), but ever since Billie Holiday sang the three brief stanzas to music in 1937, she’s owned it.

Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan, said she always thought of her father when she sang “Strange Fruit.” He died at age thirty-nine after being denied medical treatment at a Texas “whites only” hospital. Because of that memory, Holiday was reluctant to perform the song, but did so anyway to tell people about the reality of life as a black man in America.

“It reminds me of how Pop died,” she wrote in her autobiography. “But I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died, the things that killed him are still happening in the South.”

. . .

"Lady Day,” as Holiday was called by many at the time, began to work the song into her repertoire sixteen years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Jazz writer Leonard Feather referred to the song as “the first significant protest in words and music, the first significant cry against racism.”

More:
https://progressive.org/dispatches/strange-fruit-caused-the-murder-of-billie-holiday-180220/

. . .

Thank you for your kindness in dealing with people, Rhiannon12866. Clearly some are crying out for a swift kick from behind, and your patience and respectable attitude speaks so well for you. People will always remember you, while we know the racists are worth far less than a dime a dozen.

On edit:

Missouri, as in Ferguson, Missouri, was a slave state during the Civil War, while its neighbor to the west, Kansas, was a free state, in case anyone wants to know.

On edit:

Learned, in the Wikipedia entry, that Rebecca Ferguson

British singer Rebecca Ferguson publicly declined an invitation from president-elect Donald Trump to sing at his inauguration, saying that she would perform only if she could sing Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit".



Rebecca Ferguson, singing Amazing Grace:

Song starts around 1:15.

Beautiful lady and I especially love the pic with the pup.

And I've served on MIRT, those who initially reply to old posts are often a red flag, indicates they may have come with an agenda - or to post Spam.

It is sad that sometimes folks are forced to be so involved in just day to day living that they didn't have time for or couldn't get involved or didn't know how to participate in politics and administration of the municipality's affairs. Fortunately that is changing. Sometimes change is slow but as long as it is steady, it will build towards something that will hopefully be beneficial for all who live there.