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Posted at 04:25 PM in Education Reform, Educational Technology, Innovation, Philly Phresh Start, PhillyPhreshStart.me, Social Media, Social Networks, Social Web, STEM, STEMeverywhere, The Innovators, Tracking Change | Permalink
Tags: Coding, Philly Phresh Start Project, PhillyPhreshStart.me, STEM
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) requires jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination to receive preapproval from the Justice Department or a federal district court in D.C. for any voting change to ensure such changes do not discriminate against voters who are racial, ethnic or language minorities. In 2006, an overwhelmingly bipartisan majority of Congress reauthorized the VRA for 25 more years.
Those jurisdictions include the former confederate states of Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. What’s at stake for these states is an issue as old as the Civil War: states’ rights. Stateline reports:
But in asking whether a key part of the federal law is constitutional, the court also will reopen a debate that long predates the measure’s enactment in 1965. It’s an argument that was at the heart of the U.S. Civil War, and one that has seen resurgence in recent years as Republicans around the country bristle at what they perceive as meddling from Washington.That debate is the battle over states’ rights.
On its face, the challenge to the Voting Rights Act is about how state and local officials run elections. But states’ rights have underpinned much of the opposition to the law since it was first enacted, and Wednesday’s hearing will feature familiar arguments.
The issue is Section 5 of the law, which requires all or part of 16 states to get any changes to election law preapproved by either the Justice Department or a federal court. That requirement, based on findings of discrimination and racism years ago, applies to most every aspect of elections, from technical changes to the high-profile issue of photo ID requirements that recently spawned court battles for states such as Texas and South Carolina. The challenge was brought by Shelby County, Alabama, and argues that the act’s preclearance requirement is unconstitutional on its face, no matter how it’s employed.
Civil rights leaders, Members of Congress and voting rights activists from across the country will rally at the steps of the Supreme Court.
For more information, visit ProtecttheVRA.org.
Posted at 08:51 AM in Black Voters, Black Women Voters, Civic Engagement, Civil Rights, Politics, Power of the Sister Vote, Race, Voter ID, Voting Rights | Permalink
Tags: Civil War, Shelby County v. Holder, States' Rights, U.S Supreme Court, Voter ID, Voting Rights, Voting Rights Act of 1965
Posted at 12:08 PM in Philly Phresh Start, PhillyPhreshStart.me, STEM, Tracking Change | Permalink
Tags: Basic Literacy, Philly Phresh Start Project, PhillyPhreshStart.me, STEM
Seven-year-old Zora Ball is a student at Philadelphia’s Harambee Institute of Science and Technology Charter School. Her teacher, Tariq Al-Nasir, told CBS Philly:
She was given very basic information. She transformed her screen into a nail salon! She found a picture of a ballerina, she found a picture of a jewel, and then another picture of a vampire. The game she created is called “Vampire Diamonds,” and the object is to get the diamond and avoid the vampire.
Little Zora, the youngest computer programmer in the country, was recently featured at an event hosted by STEM evangelist will.i.am. Awesome!
Posted at 10:04 AM in Black Innovators, Philly Phresh Start, PhillyPhreshStart.me, Race, STEM, STEMeverywhere, Tracking Change | Permalink
Tags: Black History Month, Harambee Institute of Science and Technology Charter School, Philly Phresh Start Project, PhillyPhreshStart.me, STEM, Zora Ball
Posted at 01:45 AM in President Obama, STEM, Voter ID, Voting Rights | Permalink
Tags: #SOTU, Energy, Natural Gas, Philly Phresh Start Project, State of the Union, STEM
I grew up listening to Frankie “Hollywood” Crocker.
Back in the day, Hollywood went, well, Hollywood and appeared in five films, including Cleopatra Jones and Darktown Strutters. In Five on the Black Hand Side, he played Rolls Royce, a numbers runner. Before state lotteries, folks played the numbers, the “poor man’s stock market”:
Once known as the “policy numbers game” in Harlem, playing the numbers was a way of making ends meet as well as a way of meeting other needs in the economically starved community. Playing the numbers, a game where players betted on a series of three digit numbers from 000 to 999, was considered the “poor man’s stock market.”
The numbers man carried the money and betting slips to the policy bank. Some were mathematical geniuses who didn’t need slips; instead, they memorized the numbers.
Today’s Black History Month lesson: From runaway slaves looking for the North Star to their descendants running numbers to make ends meet, STEM is in black folks’ DNA.
Posted at 11:17 AM in Civic Engagement, Culture, Music, Philly Phresh Start, PhillyPhreshStart.me, Race, STEM, STEMeverywhere, Tracking Change | Permalink
Tags: Black History Month, Frankie Crocker, Philly Phresh Start Project, PhillyPhreshStart.me, STEAM, STEM