by Cynthia Marzette, Special to the Birmingham Times

I wanted to go to take my grandchildren to the Protest March. I don’t feel they have yet understood just what they were a part of this weekend. Grandson Floyd is 10-years-old and Granddaughter Darion is 16. Both are smug, dissatisfied, choosy, and opinionated, have no idea what it was like not to able to go to an amusement park on your birthday, find a place on the road that will sell your something to eat or be denied the right to choose, as they attend their integrated schools.
Now the police are openly actually killing Black people on the street before everyone’s eyes without being punished. The most moving moment of the march was when the Marvin Gaye song, “What’s Going On” blasted over the loud speaker. Most of the protesters were not even born when I (a Baby Boomer) first heard that song. Marvin knew then. “Don’t punish me with brutality” is the same situation in the ‘60s as we are dealing with now in 2014.
These children don’t know. They have not yet lived it. While sitting on the wall listening to speeches waiting for the March to begin, I was lucky enough to have a very pretty young lady sit down beside me. As we chatted, we discovered that we both had attended the same college. She told me this about her 8-year-old niece. Her niece had heard the word ‘justice’ so much lately, she asked her, “What are they talking about, the store.” My college sister realized that she had work to do, as do we all, and was going back home to get started.
The children see, because of the protests, that we, the adults, are upset and concerned about something serious. And because the victims have been young, they also now can see a connect to themselves and how horrible the situation is.
How do you talk to them about this stuff without creating an attitude of defiance, and hopelessness in our children?  I want to see that my grandchildren, and yours, have a chance to live to become creative, energetic, intelligent, inquisitive, lawful, proud, assertive, educated, productive, contributing citizens of the United States.
This March and these protests are going to make a difference. ‘White silence = white consent  SPEAK UP’; ‘The Asians stand with the Blacks,’ were two of the more unusual signs I saw. The marchers were all ages, young and old, all nationalities, and in wheel chairs, too. The March was peaceful and reassuring that we all will stick together and get justice.
I have posted videos on the Birmingham Times’ website and Facebook page. Please take a look at them.

By MARTHA WAGGONER
Associated Press
BLADENBORO, N.C. (AP) _ The  Black teenager was found in a North Carolina trailer park, hanging from a swing set by a dog leash and a belt that were not his own. His mother said he showed no sign of suicidal thoughts, yet authorities quickly ruled that he had taken his own life.
Now the FBI is reviewing the investigation after Lennon Lacy’s relatives and the NAACP raised doubts about the official findings, which the county coroner also questions.
A 911 caller reported spotting the 17-year-old’s body Aug. 29 in the small town of blacks, about 100 miles south of Raleigh. His feet were suspended 2 inches off the ground.
The state medical examiner ruled that the boy killed himself, but his mother said she does not believe it.
“When I saw him, I just knew automatically he didn’t do that to himself,” Claudia Lacy told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “If he was going to harm himself, his demeanor would have changed. His whole routine, everything, his attitude, everything would have changed.”
She last saw the youngest of her four sons alive as the middle linebacker prepared for a high school football game by putting together his uniform in the early hours of the day he died.
His father told him that he needed to get some sleep before the game, his first after his mother made him take a year off from the team to focus on his grades.
“OK, Daddy,” he said. They then heard a door close, which was not unusual, Claudia Lacy said, because her son liked to run at night when the air was cool.
About 13 hours later, she identified his body in the back of an ambulance. The swing set was in clear sight of about 10 trailers.
She said she felt let down when investigators ruled it a suicide and brought her concerns to the state chapter of the NAACP, which has organized a march Saturday in Bladenboro.
On Friday, federal officials confirmed they were reviewing the investigation. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Tom Walker said Walker’s office acted at the request of attorneys from the North Carolina NAACP representing the family.
“We don’t know what happened that terrible night,” said the Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP chapter. “It is possible that a 17-year-old excited about life could commit suicide. The family is prepared to accept the truth. They’re not prepared to accept this theory that’s been posited with a rush to a conclusion of suicide so quickly. We have said there are far too many unanswered questions.”
Bladen County District Attorney Jon David said Friday that he also asked the FBI to review the case because the family and the NAACP said they had information that they would provide only to federal authorities. He said he had seen no evidence of foul play.
“Not only is the case open, but our minds are open,” David said.
In the 911 call, the dispatcher advises the caller to try to get the person down in case he was still alive. When investigators arrived at the trailer park that the NAACP has described as predominantly white, the body was on the ground. Investigators told NAACP attorneys that one shoe was on the body and one was on the ground, said Al McSurely, a lawyer working for the NAACP.
The shoes were 1.5 sizes too small for Lacy and did not belong to him, his family said.
The family also questioned whether authorities took photos at the scene, and if they did, whether those photos were provided to the state medical examiner.
David said Friday that many photos were taken, but the NAACP attorneys said they were not aware of any.
Bladenboro Police Chief Chris Hunt referred all questions to the State Bureau of Investigation, North Carolina’s top law enforcement agency. A spokeswoman for the bureau has said agents addressed all viable leads.
Bladen County Coroner Hubert Kinlaw said he signed a death certificate calling the cause of death a suicide because that’s how the form came back from the medical examiner. Kinlaw, who went to the scene, said he now wonders whether Lennon really killed himself.
“How did it happen? How did he wind up there?” he said. “These are all questions that are out there.”
But the medical examiner, Dr. Deborah Radisch, said in a discussion with a pathologist hired by the NAACP that she based her ruling partially on Kinlaw’s conclusion that Lacy killed himself.
And Claudia Lacy inadvertently contributed to the conclusion of suicide. When asked if Lennon had been depressed, she said yes, that his great-uncle had been buried the day before. She said she meant that Lennon was sad, grieving over the loss of a family member, not suicidal.
“Here’s a mother who knows at the end of the day she’s going to have to accept that either it was a suicide or it was a lynching,” Barber said. “And because of the history of the South and the history of this country, in some strange way, she would almost rather it be a suicide.”

By JILL COLVIN, Associated Press

NEW YORK— Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday she’s proud to have been part of an administration that “banned illegal renditions and brutal interrogations” and said the U.S. should never be involved in torture anywhere in the world.
Clinton spoke about the importance of the nation acting in accordance with its values after receiving an award from The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights at a gala in New York.
“Today we can say again in a loud and clear voice that the United States should never condone or practice torture anywhere in the world,” Clinton told the audience. “That should be absolutely clear as a matter of both policy and law, including our international treaty obligations.”
The remarks marked Clinton’s first on the subject since the release of a Senate report last week investigating the CIA’s interrogation techniques after 9/11. The report has sparked questions about the appropriate use of force in the war against terrorism.
  Clinton said that recent world events, including the mass murder of children in Pakistan and the siege in Sydney, Australia, “should steel our resolve and underscore that our values are what set us apart from our adversaries.”
Clinton said Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968, would agree that it’s “possible to keep us safe from terrorism and reduce crime and violence without relying on torture abroad or unnecessary force or excessive incarceration at home.”
Clinton, a former first lady, New York senator and U.S. Secretary of State, is considering another run for president and is viewed as the likely Democratic nominee if she runs. She was honored at the Kennedy organization’s star-studded Ripple of Hope Award ceremony.
Clinton also addressed the recent protests that have raged across the country, and drew links between violence at home and abroad.
She declared, “yes, Black lives matter,” a mantra of demonstrators around the country who have been protesting recent grand jury decisions not to indict white police officers involved in the deaths of unarmed Black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and in New York.
She wondered what Kennedy would say about “the thousands of Americans marching in our streets demanding justice for all,” and “the mothers who’ve lost their sons.”
“What would he say to all those who have lost trust in our government and our other institutions, who shudder at images of excessive force, who read reports about torture done in the name of our country, who see too many representatives in Washington quick to protect a big bank from regulation but slow to take action to help working families facing ever greater pressure,” Clinton said.
Entertainers Robert De Niro and Tony Bennett and Physicians Interactive Chairman Donato Tramuto also were honored.
The nonprofit says the award is meant to laud business leaders, entertainers and activists who demonstrate commitment to social change and “reflect Robert Kennedy’s passion for equality, justice, basic human rights, and his belief that we all must strive to ‘make gentle the life of this world.’”