by Jesse Washington

(AP)—Black activists Cornel West and Tavis Smiley are planning a 15-city “Poverty Tour” to bring attention to the needy and to what they say are the failings of President Barack Obama.

West, a Princeton University professor, and Smiley, host of a PBS talk show, expect to begin the bus trip Aug. 5 at a Native American reservation in Wisconsin. With visits to soup kitchens, housing projects, farms, families and low-wage workers, they say they hope to create momentum for large-scale job creation programs and put poverty on the 2012 election agenda.

HITTING THE ROAD—In this Feb. 26, 2005 photo, Princeton University professor Dr. Cornel West, right, talks to television and radio personality Tavis Smiley during the State of Black Union 2005 conference at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)

Smiley said that as budgets are cut in Washington, “poor people are being rendered invisible.” Obama and Congress must pay more attention, he said.

“It’s not just about the president,” Smiley said. “Having said this, it would be nice to hear the president say the word ‘poor.’ To say the word ‘poverty.’ We get conversations about the middle class. Well, the new poor are the former middle class. But we can’t get this president or any leaders to say the words ‘poor’ or ‘poverty,’ much less do anything about it.”

by Jesse Washington

(AP)—Millions of Americans endured financial calamities in the recession. But for many in the Black community, job loss has knocked them out of the middle class and back into poverty. And some experts warn of a historic reversal of hard-won economic gains that took Black people decades to achieve.

“History is going to say the Black middle class was decimated” over the past few years, said Maya Wiley, director of the Center for Social Inclusion. “But we’re not done writing history.”

AT ODDS WITH PRESIDENT—Princeton Professor Cornel West, center, eagerly shakes the hand of President Barack Obama in July 2010. Today, West calls Obama “a Black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs.” (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Algernon Austin, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy adds, “The recession is not over for Black folks.”

For the Week of July 30-August 5

July 30

ADAM CLAYTON POWELL

1863—President Abraham Lincoln issues his famous “eye-for-an-eye” order. The order was basically a threat aimed at stopping the Confederate practice of killing captured Black soldiers instead of imprisoning them. Lincoln threatened to kill one captured rebel soldier for every Black soldier killed by the Confederates. In addition, he pledged to condemn one captured rebel soldier to life in prison at hard labor for every captured Black soldier sold into slavery by the rebelling Southerners. The order did not stop the Confederate practice of killing captured Black soldiers but it did have a restraining effect.

A Monroeville restaurant will ban children under the age of 6 from its dining area beginning July 16 after receiving noise complaints from older clientele. The small, 40-seat McDain’s Restaurant and Golf Center located in Monroeville, Pa., resides on a golf course and attracts older customers, according to ABC News.