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CIVIL RIGHTS/BLACK HISTORY ITEMS: Tuskegee Airmen hold convention; NAACP gets 4th suspicious package; proposed MLK memorial raises $60 million.
*The Tuskegee Airmen will celebrate the 35th meeting of their national convention with members of Tuskegee Airmen, Incorporated (TAI) in conjunction with six other black aviation groups – all members of the International Black Aerospace Council (IBAC). The event will be held July 31 through Aug. 5 at the J.W. Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa in Phoenix, AZ. Other IBAC co-convention members are the Bessie Coleman Foundation; Black Pilots of America, Inc.; National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees; NAI, Black Wings In Aviation; Organization of Black Airline Pilots and the U.S. Army Black Aviation Association. For more information about the history of the Tuskegee Airmen and TAI, visit: www.tuskegeeairmen.org.
*A fourth threatening letter accompanied by a suspicious powder was sent in recent days to a branch of the NAACP, the FBI has announced. The Atlanta branch was the latest to receive such a package, following similar mailings sent to the NAACP in Baltimore, New York, and the FBI’s field office in Norfolk, Va. Stephen Emmett, an FBI spokesman in Atlanta says the powder is currently being analyzed, although it is not believed to be a harmful substance. The powder found in Baltimore was later found to be boric acid; the substance in New York has yet to be identified. Emmett declined to reveal the origin of the Atlanta letter, but the other three letters had originated from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The content of the letters has not been disclosed.
*The Washington Times is reporting that $60.3 million of a proposed $100 million has been raised so far to erect a memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. on the National Mall. But they are still short of the funding needed to break ground by November 13. Officials said they’ll need $66 million to obtain building permits for the site, leaving them $5.7 million short of that goal. The 4-acre tribute to King, conceived by the San Francisco-based Roma Design Group, will sit on the northwest corner of the Tidal Basin, across from the Jefferson Memorial and north of the memorial to former President Franklin D. Roosevelt. MLK’s former fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, said its upcoming centennial celebration and annual convention should generate more chapter donations. The fraternity won congressional approval in 1996 to erect the memorial to King. "We have the momentum now and we expect in short order we will raise the necessary funds and make this memorial a reality," said Darryl R. Matthews Sr., the fraternity's president. Construction is expected to begin by next spring and should be completed in 2008.
