Gregory Stanford

The nation’s Occupy movement has picked up the torch that Martin Luther King Jr. once carried to light the path to justice. That was the theme at the King birthday rally this week at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Milwaukee. “The gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow,” said George Martin, a grizzled Milwaukee peace activist who noted that King was focusing on that gap near the end of his life. “The United States has become the wealthiest Third World country on Earth.” Martin pointed out that the Occupy movement was trying to narrow the…

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CNN rightly noted recently that the unemployment rate for young people had risen to alarming levels. What’s even more alarming, however, is how these numbers play out race-wise – which CNN did not touch on. As the accompanying chart suggests, among 16- to 24-year-olds not currently enrolled in school, a white person without a high school diploma has a better chance of landing a job in America than does a black person with a high school diploma. In October, the black grad’s big brother armed with a four-year college degree only matched the employability…

Milwaukee remained among the toughest metro areas in America for black people to find work in 2010, according to new federal estimates. Metro jobless rates by race for last year have recently come out, and the black rate for Milwaukee is 25.6%, on its face the second worst rate in the nation. What’s more, the gap between how blacks and whites fared job-wise is on its face wider in Milwaukee than in any other major metro area. The caution you may hear is because wide margins of error (due to small samples) make the federal estimates fuzzier than the percentage…

Enough with the hand-wringing. To reduce violence by teens, get involved in their lives. That’s the message black Milwaukee activists are preaching after last month’s shocking shooting. Sharon Staples, hard-working mother of seven, with two more in her womb, lost her life allegedly to teens after she refused to give them her purse, and as one of her sons, 13, watched. ‘Don’t talk about, ‘Well, I don’t know what we’re going to do with them,’” Janette Herrera of the Campaign Against Violence demanded at a community meeting Saturday. “The reason you don’t know is because you’re not involved. Get involved.”…

The dust has settled. Two Republican state senators lay fallen in Wisconsin. All Democrats remain standing. Lessons to draw from the state’s historic series of recall elections: The flight of state Democratic senators from Wisconsin earlier this year enjoys the blessing of the voters. The proponents of returning Wisconsin and America to the days of Herbert Hoover are a force to be reckoned with. Hence, true believers of the Wisconsin state motto – “Forward” – must dig in for the long haul. On Tuesday Democratic Senators Robert Wirch and Jim Holperin easily prevailed in their recall elections in the Kenosha…

The Creed still has power: Raising taxes on the wealthy kills private-sector jobs. Cutting taxes on the wealthy spurs private-sector jobs. Nobody – certainly not the mainstream news media – bothers to ask after a decade of reduced taxes, Well, where are the jobs? Instead, Republicans just keep mouthing the Creed. To keep taxes from being raised on the rich, House Republicans are even willing to block the United States from paying its bills – a move that promises to throw the nation into financial chaos. President George W. Bush took a big bite out of taxes for the rich.…

The name the “Radical Republicans” has been taken and is now retired like the No. 42 that baseball legend Jackie Robinson wore. The radicals were noble politicians, who pushed valiantly before and after the Civil War for full civil rights for black people. Sadly, the nation failed to heed these prophets crying in the desert of racial oppression. If it had, the gains the 1960s civil rights movement made would have come a century earlier. Still, the radicals’ vision haunted the nation and helped inspire the 1960s movement. No, “Radical Republicans” is too honored a name to describe the current…

Guns are not the only things that will be hidden from the public under Wisconsin’s concealed carry law. Any information about the license holder – name, age, residence – will also be secret. That concealment will hamper the ability of the public to monitor the law. Investigative work by the Los Angeles Times showed that, despite being barred from owning firearms, hundreds of convicted criminals, including rapists and armed robbers, received concealed-carry licenses in Texas, and many then proceeded to commit more crimes, ranging from drunken driving to murder. Will outlaws likewise get licenses in Wisconsin? Keeping license holders secret…

I was tempted with welfare fraud some while back. I was putting my groceries in the trunk of my car outside the old Uptown Supermarket on North Ave. in Milwaukee, when a young woman with a cartload of bagged groceries asked me for a ride. “I’ll give you $10 in food stamps,” she said. I gave her the ride, but rejected the stamps – and thereby avoided a crime. It is illegal to exchange food stamps except for the purchase of food, as an exposé in Sunday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes. Actually, her offer wasn’t much of a temptation. She…

I own a duplex on Milwaukee’s west side, about seven blocks from where I live, and it was set afire. One recent morning, while playing catch-up on putting together my neighborhood newsletter, I got a phone call. “Are you Gregory Stanford who owns a house on 41st St.? “ “Yes, I am.” ”I can board the house up for you.” “What do you mean, board it up? The house is not vacant. It doesn’t need boarding up.” “It’s on fire. I’m standing right across the street from the house. Fire trucks are out here. Flames are coming out of the…