African Americans have a history in both major political parties of the United States. After the Civil War almost all Blacks considered them-selves Republicans. It was the Republican Party that was started by abolitionists and of course the party of President Abraham Lincoln. Mean-while Southern Democrats strongly opposed any rights to Blacks at the time and for almost a century there-after. African Americans were not even allowed to officially attend the Democratic convention until 1924.
Rev. Jesse Jackson Back in the Game with Hillary Clinton
WASHINGTON – APRIL 29: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) talks with Rev. Jesse Jackson at the funeral service for civil rights leader Dorothy Height at the Washington National Cathedral April 29, 2010 in Washington, DC. Height led the National Council of Negro Women and marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — On March 13, a Sunday, after Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders wrapped up a Democratic town hall forum in Columbus, Ohio, she boarded a charter plane and headed to Chicago.
With the Illinois primary that Tuesday, Clinton had a heavy campaign schedule in Chicago the next day.
Among the passengers on the aircraft traveling from Ohio was Cleo Pendleton, the mother of Hadiya Pendleton, who was shot to death near the Kenwood home of President Barack Obama and his family.
There was also Geneva Reed-Veal, whose daughter, Naperville native Sandra Bland, was found hanged in her Texas jail cell after being pulled over for a traffic stop near Houston. Bland’s death threw a spotlight on racial inequalities in the U.S. criminal justice system.
The two mothers were part of Clinton’s “mothers of the movement” group, whose sad entry to membership was the tragic loss of a child.
And in another seat on the Clinton aircraft en route to O’Hare was the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson.
Jackson has been an outcast during the Obama era. But with Clinton the presumptive Democratic nominee, the civil rights leader is back in the game.
Jackson’s been close to Bill and Hillary for decades. It’s a complicated relationship that has endured despite its ups and downs, from Sister Souljah to welfare reform to tougher sentencing rules in the 1994 crime bill.
Africa: What Are the Qualities of a Presidential Candidate?
African Heads of State
By Charles Kachikoti
It is time to contemplate the qualities that presidential candidates must have towards the August elections.
As much as political parties have their manifestos and collective personalities, the presidential candidate always is the flag-bearer and the face of the whole apparatus. By virtue of that position, that aspirant is exposed and vulnerable to all kinds of fair and unfair scrutiny.
Voters cast ballots because every election places two major interests at stake: the interests of political clubs and their sponsors against the interests of ordinary citizens.
Every presidential aspirant represents either the interests of the political establishment and therefore not the wishes of the electorate; or the aspirations of the electorate.
This last consideration has seen the ongoing US presidential primaries, namely in the Republican and Democratic parties, produce two aspirants widely described as ‘outsiders.’
These are Donald Trump, heading the Republican pack; and Bernie Sanders, hot on the heels of Hillary Clinton who currently dominates the Democrats’ process.
The ‘outsiders’ are seen to genuinely represent voter interests and concerns while ‘establishment candidates’ like Jeb Bush (who dropped out of the Republican tussle several weeks ago) and Hillary herself are seen to represent corporate interests–fears being that should such a person become head of state and government, he or she would obey corporate kingmakers and do their will.
The electorate would as a consequence suffer more years of complete oblivion.
Presidential hopefuls cannot successfully conceal whatever negatives they stand for: if they stand for big business, it will show. If they stand for political covens whose goals will be achieved only by trampling on the dreams of the common man and woman, it will show.
The longest-serving parliamentary speaker in the Commonwealth, Dr Robinson Nabulyato, said in his 2008 book, African Realities: A Memoir, “When a country has a Parliament, it is natural for its enlightened citizens to aspire to become Members of Parliament to protect the interests of the people as a whole. But tyrannical rulers will normally endeavour to have a Parliament of their own liking.”
The African Women Who Ran for President – How They Fared
Nigeria’s Remi Sonaiya was only the country’s third female presidential candidate. (Photo/AFP)
HILLARY Clinton Sunday announced her candidature for the US presidency, the second time she will seek the Democratic Party’s nomination following her failed bid in 2008.
The First Lady between 1993 and 2000 when her husband Bill was president, and Secretary of State in 2009-2013 during President Barack Obama’s first term in office, Clinton is the clear front-runner for the party nomination, so much that the New York Times said it could be one of the “least contested races in recent history.”
It is a stark contrast from seven years ago when Clinton started with an early lead, only to be drawn into a long and expensive battle. She ended up placing third behind Obama and Senator John Edwards.
While Clinton is virtually a shoo-in, in Africa, the story often unfolds very differently. On the very day that she launched her candidature, the leader of South Africa’s main opposition party Helen Zille announced she would not stand for re-election at the party’s upcoming congress next month.
Zille’s sudden decision has largely been interpreted as forced by circumstances: her party’s parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane is the new, fast-rising kid on the block, and significantly, he is black.
Channing Phillips – Democratic Party Presidential Candidate – 1968
Channing Emery Phillips (March 23, 1928 – November 11, 1987) was an American minister, civil rights leader and social activist, who made history as the first African-American placed in nomination for President of the United States by a major political party.
Elaine Brown – Green Party Presidential Candidate – 2008
Elaine Brown (born March 2, 1943) is an American prison activist, writer, singer, and former Black Panther Party chairwoman who is based in Oakland, California.[1] Brown briefly ran for the Green Party presidential nomination in 2008.
Andre Barnett – Reform Party Presidential Nominee – 2012
Andre Nigel Barnett (born June 2, 1976) is an American politician and entrepreneur. He was a candidate for President of the United States as the 2012 nominee of the Reform Party of the United States of America.
Peta Lindsay – Party for Socialism and Liberation Presidential Nominee – 2012
Peta Lindsay (born 1984) is an American anti-war activist and was a presidential nominee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation in the 2012 U.S. presidential election.
Stewart Alexander – Socialist – 2012
Stewart Alexis Alexander (born 1 October 1951) is an American democratic socialist politician, presidential nominee for the Socialist Party USA in the 2012 election,[2][3][4] and former SPUSA nominee for Vice President of the United States in the 2008 election.
A resident of California, Alexander was the Peace and Freedom Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 2006. He received 43,319 votes, 0.5% of the total. In August 2010, Alexander declared his candidacy for the President of the United States with the Socialist Party and Green Party.[5] In January 2011, Alexander also declared his candidacy for the presidential nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party.
Herman Cain – Republican Party Presidential Candidate – 2012
Herman Cain (born December 13, 1945)[4] is an American author, business executive, radio host, syndicated columnist, and Tea Party activist from Georgia.[5][6][7] He was a candidate for the 2012 U.S. Republican Party presidential nomination.
In May 2011, Cain announced his presidential candidacy. By the fall, his proposed 9–9–9 tax plan and debating performances had made him the Republican front-runner and he briefly led President Obama in the polls.[20] In November, however, his campaign struggled with allegations of sexual misconduct – all denied by Cain[21] – and he announced its suspension on December 3.[22] At the end of 2011, the Pew Research Center reported that, of the Republican candidates, “Herman Cain was the most covered candidate” during the year.
Alfred C. Sharpton – Democratic Party Presidential Candidate – 2004, 2008
Alfred Charles “Al” Sharpton Jr.[2] (born October 3, 1954) is an American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, television/radio talk show host[3][4] and a trusted White House adviser who, according to 60 Minutes, has become President Barack Obama‘s “go-to black leader.”[5] In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election. He hosts his own radio talk show, Keepin’ It Real,[6] and he makes regular guest appearances on Fox News (such as on The O’Reilly Factor),[7][8][9] CNN, and MSNBC. In 2011, he was named the host of MSNBC’s PoliticsNation, a nightly talk show.[10] In 2015, the program was shifted to Sunday mornings.
Cynthia McKinney – Green Party Presidential Nominee – 2008
Cynthia Ann McKinney (born March 17, 1955) is an American politician and activist. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms in the United States House of Representatives. In 2008, the Green Party of the United States nominated McKinney for President of the United States. She was the first black woman to represent Georgia in the House.
Carol Moseley-Braun – Democratic Party Presidential Candidate – 2004
Carol Elizabeth Moseley-Braun, also sometimes Moseley-Braun[2] (born August 16, 1947), was the first and to date only female African-American Senator, the first African-American U.S. Senator for the Democratic Party, the first woman to defeat an incumbent U.S. Senator in an election, and the first and to date only female Senator from Illinois. She was a candidate for the Democratic nomination during the 2004 U.S. presidential election.
Alan Keyes – Americas Independent Party Presidential Nominee – 2008
On June 5, 2007, We Need Alan Keyes for President was formed as a political action committee to encourage Alan Keyes to enter the 2008 presidential election.[62] On September 14, 2007, Keyes officially announced his candidacy in an interview with radio show host Janet Parshall.[63] On September 17, 2007, Keyes participated in the Values Voter Debate streamed live on Sky Angel, the Values Voter website, and radio. In a straw poll of the attending audience, Keyes placed third among the invited candidates, after Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul.[64] Keyes was excluded from the Republican CNN/YouTube debate on November 28, 2007.
Alan Keyes – Republican Party Presidential Candidate – 1992, 1996, 2000
Alan Keyes in Bedford, N.H., officially joined the crowded race for the Republican presidential nomination, billing himself as the “real conservative choice” in the crowded field. Keyes, a talk show host who also ran for president in 1996, had a message for conservatives–stick with the GOP. “This is not the time for us to abandon the decent heart of the Republican majority,” he told a crowd of about 60 supporters.
He ran for President of the United States in 1992, 1996 and 2000.
Ballot Access News
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