By Karen Juanita Carrillo

The shock from the news of the death of Hugo Chávez’s is still strong.

Vice President Nicolás Maduro appeared on Venezuelan national television to announce the report:  “Today, March 5, … we were instructed to come here, to the Military Hospital of Caracas, to find out about the health of our president.  Just as we arrived, alongside his daughters, his brothers, and family, we received the harshest and most tragic news that we now have to convey to our people:  that at 4:25 this afternoon, today March 5, our commander, President Hugo Chávez Frias, died.”

(Karen Juanita Carrillo photo (c) 2005) 

Maduro announced the death of Chavez with fellow legislators standing at his side.  He promised that he and other Chavez-aligned politicians would continue the late president’s work and added:  “To all the people of the world, the presidents who have called during this time of pain and difficulty, we send you an eternal thank you because we know that this world we inhabit today, grants a love and a great appreciation to those who use their lives to create projects that make life more beautiful and humanistic…”

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Rosewood’s story still lives in South Florida

"Janie Black is a mild-mannered woman who works at a community center in North Miami-Dade County," writes Jose Perez in the South Florida Times. "She is something of a matriarch for the many, young and old, who offer her a smiling greeting. By initial appearances, Black is quietly enjoying her golden years. Black, however, is on a mission.

"Born Janie Bradley in the early years of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal era, Black has dedicated her spare moments to telling the story of what happened in what was supposed to be her hometown 90 years ago this month. 

"Black is the daughter of Nada Bradley, who as a young boy in January 1923, saw his world turned into flames when his community was literally burned to cinders. 

"Bradley lived in Rosewood, the African-American community in Levy County that was literally wiped off the map after January 1923 when hundreds of rampaging whites, responding to a white woman’s disputed claim of abuse by a Black man, converged for murderous attacks and combed the countryside while survivors hid in the woods and swamps.

"As a descendent of the survivors of the Rosewood Massacre, Black does not shy away from questions about the town, its people, and what happened during those cold winter nights so many years ago. For her, opportunities to talk and teach others what happened in Rosewood are welcomed."

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"As things worked out, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment didn't remove the stain of racism. Starting in 1876, Southern Blacks were subjugated by Jim Crow laws that mandated segregation, necessitating a second struggle for freedom during the Civil Rights Movement nearly a century later.

"But by the last year of the Civil War, the African-American community of Charleston could write slavery's death certificate with a massive parade.

" 'Next in order came the Twenty-first regiment United States Colored Troops, Lieut.-Col. Bennett commanding, preceded by a band,' a Tribune correspondent wrote. 'A company of school boys, the leading boy carrying a banner with the device, 'We know no masters but ourselves,' followed the military."

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Law Prof to Head NAACP Legal Defense Fund as High Court Could Curb Civil Rights Gains

"The new president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund takes over as the U.S. Supreme Court is considering two cases that could curb gains made by the group," writes Debra Cassens Weiss in the ABA Journal.

"University of Maryland law professor Sherrilyn Ifill begins the new job next month, NPR reports. She tells the broadcast network that discrimination persists despite the fact that the nation’s president and attorney general are African-American. Many people of color are in poverty as a result of the financial crisis, she said, and too many have a hard time finding homes and a good education.

"In an interview last month with the Root, Ifill spoke of the disparities. 'LDF changed America,' she said. 'But too many have been left behind, and the opening of the door is getting narrower and narrower.'

" 'We want to spend some time addressing the effects of the economic crisis on the African-American community,' Ifill told the Root. 'That includes the foreclosure crisis, which has had devastating effects on families, neighborhoods and educational systems in African-American communities. Sadly, employment discrimination remains an ongoing problem.' "

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