Democracy Now! February 3, 1999

Jackson Capital Center, Inc. In the 1930's, 40's and 50's, Mississippi;s political and financial leaders who ruled with Jim Crow laws and used violence to terrorize and itimidate black communities. In the 1990's, Miss. white financial and political elite has resorted to more sophisticated means of disenfranchising black Miss.: the use of downtown business improvement districts or BID's. Jackson's black residents have challenged the establishment of Capital Center, Inc., saying that it is creating a non-elected government within the government. The Jackson Advocate, the city's black newspaper, has repeatedly exposed the group's attempts to circumvent the city council. This, according to the publisher, led to a series of firebombings against the newspaper. GUEST: Stephanie Parker Weaver, Exec. Sec. of the Mississippi branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Kwame Ture Speech on FBI, CIA and MLK, Jr. Mississippi is a place where the late Kwame Ture spent time in the 1960's helping to enfranchise the black community at a time when black voters faced harassment and terror at the voting booths. Today we broadcast a 1992 speech in which he addressed how the CIA and FBI have engaged in terror tactics against liberation struggles both at home and abroad. TAPE OF: Kwame Ture, lifelong activist, formerly known as Stokely Charmichael, was a leader in SNCC, the Black Panther Party, and later the All African People's Revolutionary Party. He died last November in his home in Guinea-Conakry.