Afro-Netizen

Supreme Court stalls on Troy Davis death penalty case

According to AP reports yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court has "recessed for summer without acting on his latest appeal, likely delaying any developments in his case until fall".

While this is likely a de facto stay of execution, it is by no means certain.

What is certain, that the elected officials who influence the outcome of this case are moved towards justice by appealing to their self-preservation instincts as incumbents.

What does this mean?

It means that Larry Chisolm who was elected in 2008 as first Black district attorney of Chatham County (which encompasses Savannah, Georgia) presumably wants to get re-elected. A campaign plank of his during his campaign centered on fairness.

Now, with our help on a national level, we can help his constituents keep him accountable to that pledge. Clearly, if he chooses to look the other way, Black voter turn-out the next time around may not be what he'll need to stay in office.

Let's help Troy Davis by signing this petition to DA Chisolm requesting that he reopen Troy's case.

For more information on Troy's case, please visit the AmnestyUSA site.

For more information on the death penality, please visit the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP).

Amateur Klansman & professional Clear Channel radio pundit Jim Quinn lauds slavery for making Blackfolk Americans

H/T to Media Matters for America for capturing this gem from the post-racial world of conservative talk radio . . .

Ever heard (or uttered) the trite expression, "Don't hate the player; hate the game"? Well, in this instance, the player is grand wizard Jim Quinn and the game is media consolidation.

So, if you're feathers are the least bit ruffled over Jim Quinn's racism, you'll know that whatever you're top issue is, your second issue must be media justice.

Afro-Netizen supports boycotting Clear Channel and other serial offenders. But the roots of these democracy-strangling weeds must be yanked from their deeply burrowed home on Capitol Hill that are left untouched by bipartisan complacency and self-preservation.

Media consolidation is anti-democratic and runs against the founding principles of our nation.

If we express righteous indignation about the Iranian government's crackdown on its citizens, journalists and media outlets, then we should have a much better understanding of the paucity of media democracy that exists on a practical, government-sanctioned level in our own country.

A warrior woman: fighting for life against breast cancer, brother Troy Anthony Davis’ death sentence

By Margaret Summers
Guest Contributor
Courtesy of National Coalition for the Abolition of the Death Penalty (NCADP)
 
Martina Correia, a 42-year-old African American from Savannah, Georgia, is a “warrior woman,” inspiring death penalty abolitionists as well as women like her struggling with breast cancer.

Correia’s brother is Troy Anthony Davis, convicted in 1991 for the shooting death of white police officer Mark MacPhail. There is no physical evidence linking Davis to the crime.  No murder weapon was produced. Seven of nine witnesses who initially implicated Davis have since recanted, stating in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into naming him.   Davis’ attorneys are appealing his case before the U.S. Supreme Court.  The Court will determine whether or not to review Davis’ habeas petition on June 25, and make its decision public on June 26 or June 29. If the appeal is rejected, Davis will be executed.

The case has generated global attention. Former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, the NAACP, and human rights organization Amnesty International, have called for Georgia Governor Sonny Purdue to grant Davis clemency. Former U.S. Representative Bob Barr, former FBI Director William Sessions, and several former prosecutors and judges, have filed an amicus brief supporting Davis’ plea.

Long before her brother’s involvement in the criminal justice system, Correia opposed the death penalty. An Amnesty International member since age 13, she resigned her U.S. Army nurse position when told she couldn’t express “political opinions” against capital punishment. Since her brother’s conviction, “I speak at universities, high schools and before community groups.  I talk about the injustices that lead to arrests of innocent people, why so many people of color get the death penalty, and how and why prosecutors select people for death sentences. I don’t just talk about my brother on death row, but the system that put him there.”

She didn’t know what to expect when Davis was tried. “I anticipated that my brother would get his day in court,” she explains. “But our judicial system is fraught with biases.    Until my brother was accused of killing a white police officer, I didn’t realize just how black I was.”

Watching Davis’ trial, “I felt like people were angry that my brother had attorneys from out of town,” says Correia.  “I thought he would have more time in the courtroom to argue his case, but he only got 20 minutes, and then a bell rang when he ran out of time.” Alarmed, Correia stepped up her fight for Davis’ exoneration.

Then in 2001, Correia was diagnosed with breast cancer. When chemotherapy treatments resulted in hair loss, she shaved her head and wore hats or scarves. The prison initially barred Correia from wearing head coverings during visits with Davis for “security reasons”; weapons could be hidden in headgear. Davis intervened. Correia was made an exception, “but whenever I wore a scarf the prison guards made me take it off to search it.”

Determinedly working through exhaustion, Correia’s only concession to debilitating chemotherapy is to request airfare from sponsors of appearances located more than five hours from her home. Otherwise, she drives herself, although chemotherapy makes her sleepy. “I have to try to stay awake while driving. When a speaking engagement’s over, I go home and rest, ”she says.  

Correia serves on the boards of death penalty abolition organizations like Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and New Hope House.  She also participates in efforts to increase federal funding for breast cancer research. She is a lobby delegation team leader in the National Breast Cancer Coalition. She teaches health maintenance classes to women with cancer in Savannah’s St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System.

Somehow Correia balances her advocacy with raising her 14-year-old son Antone, an Honor Roll middle school student, whose winning social studies project in a state competition last year was entitled: “How Does the Troy Anthony Davis Death Penalty Case Impact Georgia?” Antone, who considers “Uncle Troy” a role model, wants to be a medical researcher when he grows up, and find the cure for breast cancer that has stricken his mother and thousands of women.

Correia says her brother’s confinement on death row and her illness are difficult for her and their family but “I trust God, I have faith. It’s like Troy said when he was minutes away from execution (before the current U.S. Supreme Court appeal), ‘God didn’t take me this far to leave me.’ I pray for Troy and for Mark MacPhail’s family. I ask God to let me live to see my brother freed and my son graduate from school.  My biggest prayer is that my mother doesn’t continue to suffer. If Troy is executed it will break her heart.

“I’m going to fight this system until somebody says, ‘We made a mistake,’ she adds. “I know that the name Troy Anthony Davis is a name known all over the world by people who believe in truth, justice and fairness. That’s all I’m asking for, fairness.”

The NAACP and Amnesty International U.S.A. are co-sponsoring a “Week of Witness” for Troy Anthony Davis, June 19-26 2009. Faith communities are asked to pray for the Davis and MacPhail families during that week, sign a petition, ask their religious leaders to sign a clergy letter, or discuss Davis’ case during regular weekend worship services.  Additional information, please visit the “Week of Witness”.

10-year old boy delivers eloquent, moving Black History Month address about the "n-word"

Aside from young Jonathan E. McCoy's exemplary oratory and critical/analytical skills, what did you like about the content of his address in Baltimore, MD and what would you have changed?

[H/T to Linda Yudin for bringing this to our attention!]

Shell's Settlement Doesn't Hide Unsettling Reality in Nigeria

By Stephen Kretzmann
Republished courtesy of Huffington Post
 
After thirteen years and countless hours by lawyers, community members, and activists around the world, Royal Dutch Shell finally settled the Wiwa v Shell case in a New York court for $15.5 million.

Plaintiffs in the case, which included Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., and the families of other Ogoni men hanged in November 1995, charged that the Royal Dutch/Shell company, its Nigerian subsidiary, and the former chief of its Nigerian operation, Brian Anderson, with complicity in the torture, killing, and other abuses of Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and other non-violent Nigerian activists in the mid-1990s in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta.

Shell says they settled the case as a "humanitarian gesture" to the Ogoni. Does anyone really believe that after fighting for more than a decade to keep this out of court, Shell suddenly woke up and felt great compassion for the Ogoni? Please.

Shell settled because they were scared, and they knew the evidence against them was overwhelming. They publicly say they had nothing to do with the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other Ogoni, and yet there were documents and video that they fought hard to keep out of the public eye.

Evidence that was to be introduced in the case included an internal Shell memo where the head of Shell Nigeria offered to intervene on Saro-Wiwa's behalf, if only Saro-Wiwa and others would stop claiming that Shell had made payments to the military.

Then there was this memo, requesting payment to the Nigerian military for an incident in which at least one Ogoni man died.

Witness were set to testify that they saw Shell vehicles transporting Nigerian soldiers, that they saw Shell employees conferring with the military, that they saw money being exchanged between Shell employees and military officers, and that they heard military officers, including the brutal Major Okuntimo of the Rivers State Internal Security Task Force, make admissions regarding the work they were doing on behalf of Shell.

We have known some of Shell's involvement in this tragedy for a long time. In early May of 1994, Ken Saro-Wiwa Sr. faxed me a memo authored by Major Okuntimo which read "Shell operations still impossible unless ruthless military operations are undertaken for smooth economic activities to commence" and further called for "pressure on oil companies for prompt regular inputs".

I received that fax and immediately called Ken. He said "this is it. They're going to kill us all. All for Shell." It was the last time I talked with him. Several weeks later he was arrested on the trumped up charges for which he was ultimately hanged.

In the last day, lots of people have asked me if $15.5 million is enough to compensate for the hanging of nine men, the death of thousands more, and for the destruction of an ecosystem. No of course not. But was it on par with what a jury would have awarded in this case? Yes, lawyers tell me, for sure.

More importantly, does the settlement bring relief to Ken Wiwa jr and the families of the other men who were executed? If you read Ken's thoughtful and moving piece in the Guardian , the answer is clearly yes. That alone should be cause for celebration.

Ken Sr.'s famous last words from the gallows were "lord take my soul but the struggle continues". In this moment, perhaps more than ever before, we need to heed that call to action. The settlement in this case brings satisfaction to the plaintiffs for an event that happened 14 years ago. It in no way, shape or form excuses or absolves Shell of their ongoing destruction of the Niger Delta environment

One of the central complaints of Niger Delta communities for forty years has been gas flaring, which sends plumes of toxic pollutants into the air and water of the Niger Delta. Gas flaring endangers human health, harms local ecosystems, emits huge amounts of greenhouse gases, wastes vast quantities of natural gas, and is against Nigerian law. Shell does it nowhere else in the world in volumes that are even remotely comparable to what they flare in the Delta.

But Shell is still flaring gas in Nigeria.

While there is no doubt that the settlement represented a significant victory for the plaintiffs' in this one human rights case against Shell, true justice will not be served as long as the people of Nigeria continue to suffer the terrible impact of Shell's operations. Shell estimates it would cost about $3 billion -- only 10% of just their last year's profits -- to end Shell's gas flaring in Nigeria once and for all.

But instead of putting their great "humanitarian concern" into action, Shell points the finger at the Nigerian government and demands that they pay to end this practice.

Send a message to Shell's CEO Jeroen van der Veer, and let him know that if he really wants to prove his great concern for the Ogoni people, he'll end gas flaring once and for all.

The struggle continues.

Racial justice think tank ARC releases "Race & Recession" report: How Inequity Rigged the Economy and How to Change the Rules

To learn more, visit the Applied Research Center website.

Tips for surviving the recession-era credit crunch

Credit Card Holder’s Bill of Rights is a step in the right direction, but what can consumers do now to restore and build their credit score?
                                                                                          
By T. Shawn Taylor
Guest Contributor

A new federal law that cracks down on “any-time, any-reason fee hikes and late fee traps” by credit card companies is good news for consumers struggling to pay down debt. But the Credit Card Holders’ Bill of Rights will not, on its own, help consumers raise poor credit scores, a necessity as credit markets tighten.

This new legislation,  H.B. 627, passed two weeks ago in the U.S. House of Representatives, fulfills a campaign promise by President Barack Obama to call for more accountability and transparency on documents that describe credit card terms and conditions. It has the potential to positively impact wealth creation and raise overall household incomes for African Americans who carry a higher debt-to-income ratio than whites, as much as 42 percent, according to the Federal Reserve.

Still, consumers will have to take proactive steps to boost their credit score, which is more important now that America’s financial crisis has led banks to clamp down on who they will lend money to.

“Even if your credit report shows a zero balance, you still have to establish good credit in addition to paying off your credit card,” said Irvin Bennett, CEO of Credit Utopia, a credit restoration and credit building firm based in Chicago. “A lot of people don’t realize that paying off and then canceling a credit card can actually lower their credit score. They have to take steps to become better consumers, save money and establish a good payment track record.”

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), requires credit card companies to give consumers 45 days notice before raising interest rates. That provision takes effect 90 days after the bill’s passage. Provisions that prohibit double-cycle billing and retroactive rate hikes, and that prevents companies from issuing credit cards to anyone under 18 will not take effect until next year.

The proposal faced stiffed resistance by some Republicans and lobbyists in the financial sector but wasn’t enough to counter heavy lobbying by the president, who met with 14 credit card companies last month. The new law stands to provide much-needed relief for consumers held captive for years by debt. For African Americans, the change has the potential to narrow the black-white income gap and increase the overall economic power of the African American community.

Overall, African Americans and Latinos have lower credit scores than whites and struggle longer to pay down debt. As a result, they are charged higher interest rates, creating a vicious cycle it can take years to escape.

“High interest rates are a killer,” Bennett said. “Until now, credit card companies have been able to pretty much do whatever they wanted. Now, Washington is holding their feet to the fire, which is good news for the consumer.”

At the end of 2008, 78 percent of households in the United States used credit cards. Arguably, credit cards have become woven into America’s culture, but Bennett says consumers don’t have to become slaves to debt. He offers practical advice for ways consumers can fight back starting now and better manage their incomes.

Negotiate a settlement with the credit card company. Stressed banks are more willing to settle for less than the balance due. Take advantage. “It will show as a zero balance on your credit report but you still have to establish good credit in order to boost your score.”

Dispute interest rate increases. Call the credit card company and explain that you are a valued customer. “They will adjust if they value your business.”

Ask for a reduction in the minimum monthly payment. If you have lost your job, for instance, it isn’t unreasonable to ask that your payments be cut in half. Pay more than the minimum due once you start doing better financially.

Save, save, save. “Whatever nickel or dime you get, save it and focus on maintaining your credit. If I were a consumer, I would just save my money until this thing blows over.”

For more information about the consumer credit crisis, please click here or for an analysis of the racial debt gap, please click here.

T. Shawn Taylor is a writer and media consultant in the Chicago area. She can be reached at tshawntaylor at yahoo dot com.

Senate hearings on "the future of journalism" misdirected

On May 6, 2009, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation announces the following Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet hearing: The Future of Journalism (video).

Last month, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) sponsored a bill, S. 673, that would extend tax-exempt status to newspapers.

While seemingly innocuous and supportive of the many faltering dailies that abound these days, the legislation has serious defects stemming in part from a set of inaccurate and incomplete assumptions about the news media industry and the state of journalism -- two highly interrelated, but separate considerations.

Interestingly, there appears to be little to no substantive consideration for the struggling Black press and media produced for and by marginalized communities whose daily newspapers begun to die out shortly after desegregation some 40 years ago.

Perhaps if the editorial boards, newsrooms and press pools reflected the increasingly diverse demography of our nation the role of "ethnic media" in this discussion would not be so critical. However, in the years following the Civil Rights Movement, mass media have chosen not to recruit, retain and promote talent from communities of color at the level justice, quality and progress demand.

Fortunately, there exist a growing band of entrepreneurial, civic-minded folks within and beyond Black America who represent the increasingly power netroots community of journalists, artists, technologists, educators, activists, students and others who choosing to be the authors of our own collective fate.

We afro-netizens are leveraging the power of social media for civic advancement as did our abolitionist forbearers who were the proto-journalists of the early 19th Century.

This issue of the future of journalism is a red herring. Journalism is not in crisis; the commercial business model that has sustained modern print journalism is what these senators are most concerned about -- not necessarily about protecting and expanding representative voices of our society in furtherance of democracy.

Our cause must be to hold them (and ourselves) accountable for representing the interests of the people and communities served (poorly or otherwise) by media moguls, too many of whom became over-burdened by debt to remain viable in a fickle, evolving economy and industry.

Print publications will be around for awhile. Blogs and other web-based newspapers and such will continue to grow in popularity. But what matters most how well and quickly our news media represent the diverse demography and perspectives of the American people. If that's not part of their business model going forward, they deserve to wither on the vine, while those with more enlightened and sustainable models continue to flourish.

Faith-Based Swindle: How the Obama administration continues to undermine the separation of church & state

By Sikivu Hutchinson

Guest Contributor

Over the past few decades the universe has been very good for American religious zealotry.  While right wing conservatives were busy propagandizing on the global sway of so-called Muslim jihadists, they ripped secular liberal humanism and the Constitution to shreds.  Under poster child George W. Bush the separation between church and state has all but evaporated, eroded by faith-based initiative subsidies that sucked up millions of federal dollars with virtually zero accountability.  The scientific community became the stepchild of health public policy and global warming was ridiculed as leftist fiction. 

Abstinence-only sex education became the standard in many middle and high school health curricula, defying research-based evidence that it was a dangerous sham.  Christian evangelical “mega-churches” flaunted their tax-exempt status, raking in thousands in contributions on money pits like the Orange County-based Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), dubbed the largest Christian network in the country.  And a New York Times poll indicated that it would be easier to elect an African American male than an atheist of any extraction.

The election of Barack Obama seemed to signal a potential shift in this Christian fundamentalist flat earth regime.  Yet although Obama has lifted the Bush administration’s restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, his “new” spin on the faith-based initiative swindle is yet another egregious concession to faith-based bigotry.  Obama of course, rode into office courting evangelicals, infamously appointing noted homophobe Rick Warren to give his inaugural convocation. 

Ever the political triangulator, Obama shrewdly reached out to fundamentalist America in an attempt to improve the abysmal showing of Democrats among Christian fundamentalists in 2000 and 2004.  Obama has apparently recanted one of his campaign pledges to rescind the most objectionable feature of Bush’s faith-based policy—the provision that religious organizations can actively discriminate in hiring those who don’t subscribe or conform to their faith.  His capitulation to the most noxious elements of the religious right has elicited widespread criticism from secular-progressive factions of the coalition that elected him.

Secular activists have long tried to reclaim public discourse from the Christian lobby and challenge federal entitlements to so-called mega-churches that have become cottage industries for products, marketing, cushy jobs and other perks to well-connected donors and congregants.  In contemporary politics, the influence of religious special interests on public policy and national discourse has its roots in the Reagan-Bush administration’s calculated overtures to far right propagandists such as the Moral Majority, the anti-abortion terrorist organization Operation Rescue and Ralph Reed’s Christian Coalition. 

Consequently, the notion that faith-based organizations—primarily those that are Christian and Jewish, as it is doubtful that Buddhist and Hindu denominations, or even Wiccan and Santeria faith-based organizations for that matter, are dining so gluttonously at the public trough—should drive public policy on social welfare and be entitled to tons of federal funding was one of the Bush administration’s signature policy issues and calling cards to the religious right.  Now Obama has signaled that he is willing to further undermine the separation of church and state and give religious organizations a free pass to outlaw gays, non-believers and other heretics from their employment.

In the same vein, the Orange County Board of Supervisors’ recent rejection of Planned Parenthood’s contract to provide services for health education is indicative of yet another dangerous incursion of religious dogma into public policy.  After giving Planned Parenthood the boot, the O.C. Supervisors voted instead to award the contract to a faith-based family services outfit that counsels pregnant women not to have abortions.  Rising teen pregnancy rates, HIV/AIDS and STD contraction rates and sexual assault rates illustrate the critical need for secular health services for an Orange County population that is now predominantly Latino and Asian. 

The denial of the Planned Parenthood contract comes on the heels of a national poll from the Program of Public Values which concluded that more Americans are moving away from organized religion in general and Christianity in particular.  If this welcome trend continues it may precipitate an urgently needed backlash against the flat earth regime; which has put a Medieval stranglehold on democracy, twenty first century innovation and public health and wellness long enough.       

Sikivu Hutchinson is a commentator for KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles, and is the editor of BlackFemLens.org, an online a journal of progressive commentary and literature.

It’s Not Money Like Magic: Magic Johnson pitches for predator Jackson Hewitt

By Kimberly Jones
Guest Contributor

As part of a deal announced last November, Magic Johnson is appearing in a marketing campaign throughout the 2009 tax season for Jackson Hewitt, the franchise tax preparer notorious for preying on low-income people.

Magic appears in television ads, radio spots on urban stations and billboards in communities of color endorsing the “Money Now Loan” —one of the largest sources of high-interest tax refund loans in the nation. The ads, streamed on www.JacksonHewitt.com, feature Magic talking about how his teammates helped him to succeed, and how everyone needs a little help sometimes.

“It’s money like Magic,” is the commercial’s tagline.

Conveniently, the website also offers a 20 percent discount for customers who order Magic’s book, 32 Ways to be a Champion in Business. The California Reinvestment Coalition began hearing about these ads earlier this year from our constituents. They’re hard to miss in urban neighborhoods and communities of color.

We wrote a letter to Magic Johnson Enterprises, expressing our concern and requesting that Magic withdraw these ads and his support from Jackson Hewitt’s tax refund loan. No response.

This week, we joined with the Woodstock Institute in Chicago, Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project in New York and the Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina to publicly call on Magic to stop promoting these loans and re-consider his partnership with Jackson Hewitt. At this time of widespread economic crisis when many families are experiencing financial hardship, especially in low-income communities of color, Magic Johnson should not get in the business of tax refund loans. Magic’s developments have been positive for communities of color and low-income communities.

We admire him and hope he will stop this collaboration with predatory lenders. Tax refund loans particularly target working poor families already being hurt by the economic crisis. Two-thirds of refund borrowers are recipients of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), one of the few federal safety nets for the working poor. Refund anticipation loans are secured by a taxpayer’s federal refund. Borrowers end up paying exorbitant interest (annual interest rates can range from 50% to nearly 500%) to receive what is billed as fast cash on their tax return.

Jackson Hewitt charges fees with an APR of either 134% or 140%. “Refund anticipation loans are part of a spectrum of abusive, high-cost small loans that have plagued low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, draining hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth, too often through deceptive practices,” said Sarah Ludwig, co-director of Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project.

IRS data shows that 8.7 million taxpayers took out refund anticipation loans in 2007, costing them almost $1 billion in fees. Two-thirds of these borrowers are recipients of the EITC, which supplements the wages of low-income workers. An estimated 4.5 million people, including 2.4 million children, are lifted out of poverty as a result of EITC, making it the most effective government anti-poverty program. EITC recipients make up only 17% of all taxpayers, but are vastly overrepresented among tax refund borrowers.

Based on IRS data, consumer advocates estimate that about $523 million was drained from the EITC program by refund anticipation loan fees in 2007. Jackson Hewitt, the second largest commercial preparation chain in the country, has been the target of several government lawsuits for its abusive practices.

In 2007, the California Attorney General won a $5 million settlement from the company for violating state and federal laws in marketing its tax refund loans to low-income customers. That same year, the Department of Justice sued five Jackson Hewitt franchises for preparing fraudulent tax returns that falsely claimed $70 million in refunds. When preparers inflate refunds, or if the IRS denies or delays the refund, the consumer still has to pay back the loan. On Feb. 20, Johnson announced another partnership with Rent-A-Center, another purveyor of high-cost lending whose rent-to-own stores can be found in low-income neighborhoods throughout the country.

“As a lifelong Laker and Magic Johnson fan, I am extremely concerned that Magic would endorse Jackson Hewitt and their Money Now Loan. These loans do exactly the opposite of what Magic has done and supported in minority communities—these loans bleed money out of these communities, they deprive families out of hard-earned income and they keep minorities out of the financial mainstream,” said Roberto Barragan, president of Valley Economic Development Center in Los Angeles, which also provides a free site for Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA).

VITA sites have played a critical role in helping to process EITC refunds for low-income taxpayers so they can keep more of their hard-earned money. Tax filers with a total household income less than $38,000 can have their taxes prepared for free at these sites and then directly deposited into their bank accounts. The IRS can electronically deposit tax refunds into tax filers’ accounts in as little as five to 10 days for free.

Kimberly S. Jones is the Policy Advocate for California Reinvestment Coalition, a non-profit organization founded in 1992 to advocate for the right of low-income communities and communities of color to have fair and equal access to banking and other financial services.