Justice For All: 2008

Whatever you think you know about our election systems or Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, this film will make you question further why the news media fails to accurately inform the public. Directed by GNN's Ian Inaba, creator of Eminem's "Mosh" music video, American Blackout critically examines the contemporary tactics used to control our democratic process and silence voices of political dissent.

Many have heard of the alleged voting irregularities that occurred during the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. Until now, these incidents have gone under- reported and are commonly written-off as insignificant rumors or unintentional mishaps resulting from an overburdened election system.

American Blackout chronicles the recurring patterns of voter disenfranchisement from Florida 2000 to Ohio 2004 while following the story of Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. Mckinney not only took an active role investigating these election debacles, but has found herself in the middle of her own after publicly questioning the Bush Administration about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Featuring: Congressional members John Conyers, John Lewis, Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, Bernie Sanders and jounalists Greg Palast and Bob Fitrakis.

'True Lies' by Taalam Acey

American Blackout - True Lies Poem
Uploaded by camron46

American Blackout - Black Voter Disenfranchisement

American Blackout - Black Voter Disenfranchisement
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Florida's Disappeared Voters' Disfranchised by the GOP " The Nation"
In Latin America they might have called them votantes
desaparecidos, "disappeared voters." On November 7 tens of
thousands of eligible Florida voters were wrongly prevented from
casting their ballots--some purged from the voter registries and
others blocked from registering in the first instance. Nearly all were
Democrats, nearly half of them African-American. The systematic
program that disfranchised these legal voters, directed by the
offices of Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State
Katherine Harris, was so quiet, subtle and intricate that if not for
George W. Bush's 500-vote eyelash margin of victory, certified by
Harris, the chance of the purge's discovery would have been
vanishingly small.

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American Blackout - Cynthia Mckinney confronts Choicepoint

American Blackout - Ohio trailer

Disenfranchised Felons Unfairly Punished Twice
Sonata Lee

The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. More than 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the U.S. -- or roughly one in 100 adults -- according to a report released earlier this year by the Pew Center on the States. Even China, the most populous nation in the world, incarcerates fewer people than we do.

While we laud the historic nature of this election and speculate over how the various voting blocks -- women, Latinos, evangelicals -- will cast their ballots in November, we've forgotten about a group that may have the most at stake in local and national elections: our felons. Overly punitive legislation and a devastating war on drugs have resulted in the disenfranchisement of 5.3 million people who are unable to vote in this country because of a felony conviction.

The most egregious and notorious case may be in Florida during the 2000 election. In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, Marc Mauer, executive director of the non-profit Sentencing Project, stated that, "On the day of the 2000 [presidential] election, there were an estimated 600,000 former felons who had completed their sentence yet because of Florida's restrictive laws were unable to vote." It's widely believed that the 2000 election would have gone to Al Gore had Florida allowed former felons to cast ballots.

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Rhode Island’s Shrinking Black Electorate

 Rhode Island has the nation’s 13th highest percentage of
African-American disfranchisement, higher than Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, North and South Carolina and 31 other states

 12 percent of African- Americans are barred from voting in Rhode Island

 20 percent of African-American men cannot vote statewide

 1 in 4 African-American men in Providence cannot vote

 40 percent of 18-34 year old African-American men on the Southside of Providence cannot vote
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STEALING AMERICA: Vote by Vote

Selected Scenes from STEALING AMERICA: Vote by Vote

Princeton University Exposes Diebold Flaws

The Official Count vs. Exit Polls - 2004 Election

Stolen Election 2004

The Right to Vote Continues to Elude Millions
By Ryan Paul Haygood
The tragic, history-making events of "Bloody Sunday," on March 7, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, ultimately freed the vote for millions of African Americans. Forty years later, as we reflect on the march that led to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we are also reminded that more than two million African Americans continue to be denied the right to vote by felon disfranchisement laws.
Black voter registration in Selma in 1965 was made virtually impossible by Alabama's relentless efforts to block the Black vote, which included requiring Blacks to interpret entire sections of Alabama's constitution, an impossible feat for even the most learned. On one occasion, even a Black man who had earned a Ph.D. was unable to pass Alabama's literacy test.
On Bloody Sunday, John Lewis and Reverend Hosea Williams led almost 600 unarmed men, women and children in a peaceful march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery to dramatize to the nation their desire as Black people to participate in the political process.
As they crossed the highest part of the bridge, Alabama state troopers, who ridiculed, tear-gassed, clubbed, spat on, whipped and trampled them with their horses, viciously attacked the marchers. In the end, Lewis's skull was fractured by a state trooper's nightstick, and 17 other marchers were hospitalized.
In direct response to Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon Johnson, five months later, signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. Considered by many to be the greatest victory of the civil-rights movement, the Voting Rights Act removed barriers, such as literacy tests, that had long kept Blacks from voting.
Despite the promise of increased political participation by Blacks and other racial minorities created by the Voting Rights Act, its full potential has not been realized by one of the last excluded segments of our society: Americans with felony convictions.
Today, nearly 5 million Americans are literally locked out of the political process by state felon disfranchisement laws that disqualify people with felony convictions from voting.

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The GOP's Black Voter Suppression Strategy

For the past five years, the Bush Administration has used the Justice
Department, Civil Rights Division - the institutional guarantor of the
Voting Rights Act - to legitimize a series of Republican power grabs
in the South. Central to these power grabs has been violations of
the Voting Rights Act - i.e. the suppression or dilution of African
American votes. For instance, in a series of recent preclearance
(Section 5) cases, Bush appointees in the Civil Rights Division have
overruled career lawyers when their decisions stood in the way of
white Republican political objectives. Although a majority of career
lawyers rejected Republican backed redistricting plans in
Mississippi and Texas, political appointees overruled them and
precleared the plans. The Texas and Mississippi redistricting plans
have since been implemented, to the tremendous benefit of the
GOP. (The Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear a series of
cases in which Democrats, blacks, and Latinos argue that the Texas
redistricting plan and the manner in which it was implemented
violate the Voting Rights Act.) Political appointees also overruled
career attorneys when they rejected the 2005 Georgia Voter ID law
- passed by the Republican majority in the state legislature - as
retrogressive. A federal appeals court later struck down the law,
arguing that it would reduce blacks' access to the franchise. African
Americans in Texas, Mississippi, and Georgia vote overwhelmingly
for the Democratic Party.

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The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal: An Innocent Man on Death Row

Who is Mumia Abu-Jamal?
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a renowned journalist from Philadelphia who has been in prison since 1981 and on death row since 1983 for allegedly shooting Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He is known as the “Voice of the Voiceless” for his award- winning reporting on police brutality and other social and racial epidemics that plague communities of color in Philadelphia and throughout the world. Mumia has received international support over the years in his efforts to overturn his unjust conviction.

Mumia Abu-Jamal was serving as the President of the Association of Black Journalists at the time of his arrest. He was a founding member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Black Panther Party as a teenager. Years later he began reporting professionally on radio stations such as NPR, and was the news director of Philadelphia station WHAT. Much of his journalism called attention to the blatant injustice and brutality he watched happen on a daily basis to MOVE, a revolutionary organization that works to protect all forms of life--human, animal, plant--and the Earth as a whole.

The Scene
In 1981, Mumia worked as a cab driver at night to supplement his income. On December 9th he was driving his cab through the red light district of downtown Philadelphia at around 4 a.m. Mumia testifies that he let off a fare and parked near the corner of 13th and Locust Streets. Upon hearing gunshots, he turned and saw his brother, William Cook, staggering in the street. Mumia exited the cab and ran to the scene, where he was shot by a uniformed police officer and fell to the ground, fading in and out of consciousness. Within minutes, police arrived on the scene to find Officer Faulkner and Mumia shot; Faulkner died. Mumia was arrested, savagely beaten, thrown into a paddy wagon and driven to a hospital a few blocks away (suspiciously, it took over 30 minutes to arrive at the hospital). Mumia somehow survived.

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