Coming Up: IMC benefit concert featuring Black Bear Bakery's new autumn menu! November 18 starting at 7PM
lavena johnson
The Enclosed Public: Protest and Premonitions at the Vice-Presidential Debate in St. Louis
A record television audience of almost 70 million people viewed the vice-presidential debate last Thursday night at Washington University's Athletic Complex in St. Louis. But nearly a mile out of view of the complex lay an example of what corporations, the media, and the state have together tried to quell in increasingly forceful ways: public dissent.
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Over one hundred workers, activists, students, veterans and families gathered in Northmoor park near campus to voice alternatives to the candidates' discussion of abstract policy issues. Activist groups Instead of War, Code Pink, and Veterans for Peace organized the protest to highlight the narrow scope of the debate, and to expose the carefully mediated lack of public access to discussions of public policy.
IOW Request for Entrance to the VP Debate
St. Louis Instead of War Coalition
438 N. Skinker Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63130
October 2, 2008
Janet H. Brown
Executive Director
Commission on Presidential Debates
Dear Ms. Brown:
The St. Louis Instead of War Coalition requests that the four St. Louis Citizens listed below be granted entrance into the Debate this evening at Washington University. As the descriptions below indicate, each of these people’s lives has been profoundly impacted by U.S. policies that divert resources away from the needs of our people to wars and military occupations.
Did the Army Cover Up Murder of a Black Private?
For immediate release: June 3, 2008
Contacts: Don Fitz, 314-727-8554; Lionel Nixon, 454-9005
Press conference with father of first Missouri woman to die in Iraq
Did the Army Cover Up Murder of a Black Private?
June 3, 2008 – St. Louis, Missouri.
LaVena Johnson, of Florissant, may be only 1 of over a dozen women to die under extremely suspicious circumstances while in Iraq and Afghanistan. The increase in violence against women in the military is so sharp that Dr. John Johnson, father of LaVena Johnson, is working with US Representatives Ike Skelton and Lacy Clay to have a Congressional hearing to request a reopening of the Army’s investigation of the death of LaVena Johnson.
Dr. Johnson recently went to Washington DC as a part of effort to get the case reopened. He will report on that trip at a press conference at
11:00 am, Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Legacy Books and Café, 5249 Delmar (near Union)
LaVena Johnson reportedly died in Iraq on July 19, 2005, days shy of her 20th birthday. The Army called it suicide. From the very beginning her family did not buy that story and new evidence suggests their suspicions could be well-founded.
Black & Green Wednesday: The LaVena Johnson Story @ Legacy Books
Black & Green Wednesday
FORUM: The LaVena Johnson Story
WHEN: 7 pm, Wednesday June 4, 2008
WHERE: Legacy Books and Café, 5249 Delmar (near Union)
A panel discussion will include:
* Lionel Nixon, African Newsworld newspaper [moderator]
* John Johnson, father of LaVena Johnson
* Redditt Hudson, American Civil Liberties Union
* Michael McPhearson, Veterans For Peace
Date:
06/04/2008 - 7:00pm - 06/04/2008 - 9:00pm
