(NNPA)—A Congressional race in California is ground zero for one of the most controversial political ads in recent years after a conservative group made a video mocking an anti-gang initiative of the Democratic candidate.

A program backed by Rep. Janice Hahn paid reformed gang-members to help work to stop the violence that plagues her Los Angeles district. Turn Right USA made light of that initiative in its ad, which showed an exotic dancer resembling Hahn dancing around a pole and two Black men waving guns in the air and chanting expletives, demanding money from her so they “can shoot up the streets.”

JANICE HAHN

by Jasmyne A. Cannick

WASHINGTON D.C. (NNPA)—Toyota Motor Sales USA executives have angered NNPA Chairman Danny Bakewell Sr. and America’s preeminent Black newspaper publishers after the troubled carmaker backed out of a multi-million dollar advertising campaign targeting Black consumers. In a letter to Bakewell and the NNPA, Toyota executives said that Black consumers of Toyota products receive their advertising message from a number of media channels which include mainstream media (White media), thus implying that advertising in Black newspapers was unnecessary.

Akio Toyoda Toyota president and CEO

This decision comes after months of meetings between Toyota executives and the NNPA, a network of 200 Black publishers which represents over 19.8 million weekly readers, approximately half of America’s Black population.

Week of June 18 to June 24

June 18

1941—Labor and civil rights leader A. Phillip Randolph initially rejects a plea by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to call off the first-ever Black-organized March on Washington designed to protest unfair employment practices by the military and the defense industry. The march was planned by Randolph, Bayard Rustin and A.J. Muste—all relatively unsung heroes of the early civil rights movement. The march was not cancelled until Roosevelt signed the Fair Employment Act. Ironically, over 20 years later, Randolph would be one of the principal figures helping Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. organize his historic 1963 March on Washington.

Week of June 11-17

June 11
1963—President John F. Kennedy declares during a nationwide radio and television address that segregation was “morally wrong” and told the U.S. Congress it was “time to act” (pass legislation) to end all segregation of the races. That statement and similar ones endeared Kennedy to millions of African-Americans. However, a few months after making the declaration Kennedy was assassinated (November) in Dallas, Texas. But most of his legislative ideas would be implemented by his successor President Lyndon B. Johnson.

President John F. Kennedy