Florida Sentinel Bulletin

Dr. Cornel West said that President Barack Obama didn’t deserve to be sworn in for his second term as President of the United States with his hand on the bible of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“You don’t play with Martin Luther King, Jr. and you don’t play with his people, said West. “By his people, I mean people of good conscience, fundamentally good people committed to peace and truth and justice, especially the Black tradition that produced it.

“All of the blood, sweat and tears that went into producing a Martin Luther King, Jr. generated a brother of such high decency and dignity that you don’t use his prophetic fire for a moment of presidential pageantry without understanding the challenge he represents to all of those in power regardless of what color they are.

As previously reported, West said that, while he’s happy that Mitt Romney didn’t win the presidential election, our foreign policy is still imperialistic, politicians should be ashamed of spending billions on campaigns while people are living in poverty, and that President Obama is nothing but a “Rockefeller Republican in blackface.”

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, search engine Google changed their homepage doodle to pay homage to the Civil Rights leader who was slain on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

After failing to pass Congress in 1979, a national petition, which garnered 6,000,000 signatures, served as the impetus which led to President Ronald Reagan establishing the holiday in 1983.

This is not Google’s first time recognizing Dr. King. In 2012, the search engine changed their doodle to the following illustration of his famous “I Have A Dream” speech.

In 2011, the search engine’s tribute was more subtle, and showed a racially diverse group of children playing hopscotch.

WASHINGTON  — They sat in wheelchairs as honored guests at President Barack Obama’s second inaugural, attended to almost minute-by-minute by active duty members of the military. For these Tuskegee Airmen, members of the famed all-black unit of World War II and several years beyond, the tables surely turned.

From the terrace of the Capitol, they watched an African-American president being sworn in for his second term. And they were cared for reverently by many whites in uniform, who more than six decades ago would have had no contact with these two dozen veterans now sitting with green Army blankets across their laps. Several of them said they were at Pres. Obama’s first inaugural but were just as excited to attend his second.

The tables certainly were turned for Homer Hogues, 85, who marched with his segregated unit in President Harry Truman’s inaugural parade in 1949.

The Black troops were quartered in a hangar with little heat, while the white military marchers were in a barracks.

As a civilian, Hogues tried to get a job as an airline mechanic, but was told he only could work cleaning planes. He went to work instead in the metalworking industry. He looked forward to seeing Pres. Obama again at the Commander In Chief’s inaugural ball.

Clayton Lawrence, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, was among some 100 black troops disciplined in Indiana in 1945, during a protest when Black officers attempted to enter an all-white officers’ club. A trainer of B-25 bomber pilots, the 89-year-old former New York City employee received a written reprimand and three officers faced courts-martial.

Transposing that day with the inauguration of the nation’s first African-American president, Lawrence said, “I never thought I would live to see it.”

PALM BEACH, FL – A man in the sunshine state got a little too angry during an argument with his girlfriend and bit her thumb off.

Police say that the altercation went down while the suspect, Ricardo Marquis Davis, was driving his significant other to work at a local Taco Bell.

Hospital officials contacted authorities when the woman came in for treatment. Doctors were able to reattach the thumb, according to Palm Bay police spokeswoman, Yvonne Martinez.

Davis confessed to biting off the thumb and spitting it out onto the floor of the car. He attests that he attacked his girlfriend after she pushed his head while they were driving to her job.

CALIFORNIA – Michael Tubbs, a 22 year-old Stanford graduate, is the youngest ever city councilman to be elected in his hometown of Stockton, C.A.

Born into poverty to a teenage mother and father who is in prison, Tubbs grew up determined to make a difference.

Upon graduating from high school, Tubbs attended Stanford, where he earned a Bachelor’s in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and a Master’s in Policy, Organization and Leadership Studies.

While in college, Tubbs interned for both Google and the White House. With multiple high-paying job offers, Tubbs decided to turn them down and return to his hometown to run for city council.

Tubbs first made headlines last spring when he received a campaign endorsement from Oprah Winfrey after meeting her on campus at Stanford. Winfrey donated $10,000 to the then-college senior.

MICHIGAN – Andrew Palmer of Bingham Farms, Mich., received the Heroism Award Wednesday from the Boy Scouts Of America for saving his family from their burning home last year.

Back in August 2011, Palmer awoke to find his house engulfed in flames. But rather than freak out, the fifth grader took immediate action. He told his mother, then ran down the hall yelling “Fire!” and waking up his sister. Palmer’s mother, Jann, woke up his two brothers. His father wasn’t home at the time of the fire, but he was understandably filled with pride. “I’m really proud of what he did,” Lewis Palmer said.

At Palmer’s school, Bingham Elementary, the kind words kept coming. “We always say our motto is we’re bringing our Bingham best, and Andrew really personified that,” Principal Russ Falcone said. The school honored Palmer for his brave actions last year as well.

Fortunately, nobody was injured in the fire, which forced the Palmers to move out for 8 months while their house was renovated.

Southland Fire Chief Keith Rowley will also give Palmer a Tribute Award from Southfield Mayor Brenda Lawrence.

“Am I really the first?”

That was the first thought that came to mind when Kyla McMullen, 29, found out she would soon become University of Michigan’s first African-American female computer science Ph.D alumna this past year.

McMullen later decided to go to the records office to search for another fellow Black female alumnus to connect with. But she soon discovered that she would become the first Black female student in the history of the program to complete the Ph.D.

While McMullen’s graduation this past spring marked a racial landmark for Michigan’s computer science department, she said that her experience in the department was sometimes “isolating” because she had very few people to turn to for mentorship.

“If you’re a Black woman who’s interested [in computer science], you think you’re going to be the only person that looks like you,” McMullen said. “Everyone knows Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but there is really no one famous that is African-American. The lack of role models or even the lack of someone who looks like you is one huge factor that influences why Black women don’t pursue computer science.”

Los Angeles’ most prominent black church, First AME Church is suing its former minister and his wife, along with seven trustees and employees of the church’s non-profit arm, accusing them of financial mismanagement.

Denise Hunter publicly denied the allegations against her and her husband, Rev. John Hunter, who was forced out after serving eight years with the congregation amid questions over his use of church credit cards and a settlement in a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Denise Hunter called the allegations a “witch hunt.”

“We believe the lawsuit is totally frivolous,” Hunter, president of F.A.M.E. Corporations. “This was all orchestrated with the intent to damage my reputation and my husband’s reputation.

“But, I think for the people who have known me and my husband, the work we do in the community will speak for itself,” she said.

D. C. Police Officer Richmond Phillips shot his baby’s mother to death and left their infant daughter to die in a hot car because he didn’t want to pay child support, prosecutors said during opening statements in Phillips’ trial on Monday.

Authorities arrested Phillips in June 2011 after finding 20-year-old Wynetta Wright’s body at a nearby park, the one where they met to discuss caring for their daughter.

Phillips lured Wright to a wooded area in Hillcrest Heights in May 2011 and shot her to death. He then left their daughter, Jaylin, in a car on a day that was 100-plus degrees. Her body was found a short distance away. She was a few days from her first birthday.