Free Republic

The Population Council, the eugenics organization credited with bringing the abortion pill (RU-486) to the United States, turns 65 this month — but it is nothing to celebrate. In 1952, John D. Rockefeller III founded the Population Council and served as the organization’s first president. According to the Rockefeller Foundation, the Population Council, Inc., was incorporated following Rockefeller’s Conference on Population Problems, “…to stimulate, encourage, promote, conduct and support significant activities in the broad field of population.” Like its founder, the Population Council’s other members were concerned about population issues — and, like other population organizations such as Planned Parenthood,...

The Department of Defense has identified the remains of a World War II soldier who went missing in 1944. The remains were confirmed to be 2nd Lt. Fred L. Brewer Jr., a Tuskegee airman of the 100th Fighter Squadron, 332nd Fighter Group, in the European Theater. The DOD offered his history noting, “On Oct. 19, Brewer departed Ramitelli Air Base, Italy, as one of 57 fighters assigned to escort bombers to their targets in Regensburg, Germany.” “While enroute to their targets, the bomber group encountered heavy cloud cover over the Udine area of Italy, which forced several escort fighters to...

Decorated Tuskegee Airman Brigadier Gen. Charles McGee has died. He was 102. McGee died peacefully in his sleep Sunday morning, a family spokesperson said. “He had his right hand over his heart and was smiling serenely,” his youngest daughter Yvonne McGee said in a family statement. “He was a wonderful human being……I feel proud and privileged to be called his son," McGee's son, Ron McGee, said McGee, a longtime resident of Bethesda, Maryland, flew 409 combat missions in conflicts from World War II to Vietnam

What part of the Constitution allows elected officials to issue mandates? When I got COVID-19 a couple of weeks ago, after a few days with the symptoms, I went to the hospital at the behest of my friends and got the anti-bodies. The doctor asked me why had I not gotten the COVID-19 vaccine. My response to him was “You really want to go there? You really want me to answer you. Tuskegee. The Tuskegee Experiment.” He responded, “ok. no problem. I understand.” The young man in this video posted a strong response about why Black Americans are hesitant about...

Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, kicked off a new informational YouTube series Tuesday about COVID-19 vaccines that aims to reach Black and brown communities. Fauci participated in a question-and-answer interview with two doctors, Jamie Rutland and Italo Brown, in the first video of a planned “Barbershop Medicine” series from YouTube Originals. In the approximately nine-minute long video, posted to the American Public Health Association's YouTube channel, the doctors and Fauci discuss the importance of the COVID-19 vaccine and address vaccine hesitancy in Black and brown communities. "Sometimes, the source matters — especially for communities that bear the major...

President Joe Biden on Thursday blamed vaccine hesitancy among black Americans on the past experimentation by the U.S. government on the Tuskegee Airman, conflating the famed World War II pilots with the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. “The reason why it’s been harder to get African Americans, initially, to get vaccinated because they are used to being experimented on — the Tuskegee Airmen and others,” Biden said. While originating in Tuskegee, Alabama, the Tuskegee Airman are famous for being the first group of African American fighter pilots to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps. First trained at the Tuskegee Army Air...

President Joe Biden mistakenly blamed the “Tuskegee airmen” training program for fueling black American hesitancy about the coronavirus vaccine. “By the way, many of the older members of that community had memories of experimentation on black Americans that were not told about, like what happened, with the, you know, Tuskegee airmen and all those tests,” Biden said. “And so there was a great reluctance.”

Nearly one billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been delivered in less than six months, but anti-vaccine disinformation and targeted attacks on scientists are undermining progress. These threats must be confronted directly, and the authority and expertise of the health community alone aren’t enough to do this. Efforts must expand into the realm of cyber security, law enforcement, public education and international relations. A high-level inter-agency task force reporting to the UN secretary-general could assess the full impact of anti-vaccine aggression, and propose tough, balanced measures. The task force should include experts who have tackled complex global threats such as terrorism,...

(...) TUSKEGEE, Ala.—Black residents of this Southern town say the pain and distrust fomented by a decadeslong syphilis study here are inseparable from their personal deliberations over whether to take a Covid-19 vaccine. Beginning in the 1930s, federal officials enrolled hundreds of Black men in Tuskegee in an experiment to examine the effects of untreated syphilis. The men were told they were being treated for “bad blood,” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In fact, the infected were left to suffer and die from syphilis, decades after treatment existed. (...)

(CNN) — The multi-billion-dollar effort to get a marketable coronavirus vaccine could see delays because researchers haven’t recruited enough minorities to join the clinical trials. Of the 350,000 people who’ve registered online for a coronavirus clinical trial, 10% are Black or Latino, according to Dr. Jim Kublin, executive director of operations for the COVID-19 Prevention Network. That’s not nearly enough, as study subjects in trials are supposed to reflect the population that’s affected. Research shows that more than half of US coronavirus cases have been among Black and Latino people. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health,...

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) is one of the most noteworthy men America has ever produced. Born into slavery in 1856, Washington would make the most of his newfound freedom after the Civil War, procuring an education through hard work and rigorous study that would have even the most dedicated modern students fainting with exhaustion. He would go on to devote his life to lifting up others of his race in the South, founding Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881. A firm believer in the principles of hard work, personal merit, entrepreneurship and Christian charity toward all, Washington would eventually achieve...

Retired Col. Charles E. McGee, an original Tuskegee Airman, speaks with Senior Airman Alfredo Maldonado, right, and Airman 1st Class Quinton Coke, both personnelist with the 66th Force Support Squadron, during a visit to Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., in 2016. McGee served a total of 30 years in the U.S. Air Force, beginning with the U.S. Army Air Corps, and flew a total of 409 combat missions in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps. (Air Force photograph by Mark...

Booker T. Washington's famous racial reconciliation speech; citing dangerous "doldrums" described by Columbus & ColeridgeOn the third of his four voyages, Columbus sailed south along the west coast of Africa before heading west across the Atlantic Ocean . There he was caught in the "doldrums," a notorious condition near the equator, called the "horse latitudes," where there is intense heat and no wind. The origin of the term "horse latitudes" came later, when ships sailing to the New World were stranded in the "doldrums" for weeks. As they baked in the sun and ran out of scarce drinking water, sailors...

On June 27, 1944, I graduated from Tuskegee Army Flying School, established in Alabama shortly before America’s entry into World War II... My journey to the flight line started in my high-school library... I came across a magazine article about the first all-black flying combat unit... I decided right then that when I turned 18 the squadron was where I wanted to serve. The train ride down South was eye-opening for a teenager who’d never traveled far from New York. When the train crossed the Mason-Dixon Line, the conductor came by and pointed at me: “Move to the colored car.”...

A man who stood up to racism during World War II and fought for his country will be honored Thursday in Fort Worth. Robert McDaniel was the last surviving member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen in Fort Worth. He died last week at the age of 96. McDaniel was valedictorian of his class at I.M. Terrell High in 1940. That was three years before he was drafted and eventually took his place in aviation history. After flying the B-25 bomber and rising to the rank of 2nd lieutenant in the elite, all-black aviation unit during the war, he returned home...

Alfonzo Rachel has become infamous on Youtube for sharing his unedited thoughts on the Obamas. Most recently, he called First Lady Michelle Obama out for constant desire to paint African Americans as victims. When Michelle spoke at the Tuskegee University graduation ceremony, she essentially told students to always be on the defense for racism because the cars are stacked against them. Alfonso responded to Michelle’s controversial speech by claiming that this attitude was not preparing students for success. Watch the video below and tell us what you think of Michelle’s comments?

First lady Michelle Obama may know the names of the world’s most famous clothes designers, and she may even know how to dance the Uptown Funk, but judging from her commencement speech to the graduates of a historically black university in Alabama, America’s race-baiting FLOTUS knows nothing about great American civil rights leader, accomplished scholar, and founder of Tuskegee University, the late Booker T. Washington. Michelle Obama’s remarks at the commencement sounded more like she was paying homage to W.E.B. DuBois, who believed in civil rights via agitation and political activism, than DuBois’ adversary, ex-slave Booker Taliaferro Washington, who wrote...

Lady M gave the commencement address yesterday at Tuskegee University and it included all her usual grace, personal insight, and patriotism. What the heck!? Did NO ONE realize that this is symbolic of placing a yoke around Lady M’s neck? Or worse? After opening with her usual obsequiousness: Now, on this day before Mother’s Day, I’ve got to give a special shout-out to all the moms here.  (Applause.)  Yay, moms! And I want you to consider this as a public service announcement for anyone who hasn’t bought the flowers or the cards or the gifts yet — all right?  I’m...

Lowell Cedric Steward was the son of a railroad porter and a homemaker. When Lowell was a student at Santa Barbara State College, he and other members of the school’s basketball team decided to enlist in the Army Air Forces. The others were accepted... Lowell , flew more than 100 combat missions and received the Distinguished Flying Cross, died of natural causes Wednesday in a Ventura, Calif.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not consistently disclose health risks to human test subjects it used to study the risks of pollutants, sometimes keeping information about cancer possibilities from participants, the agency’s internal watchdog said Wednesday. The EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the agency obtained the proper approvals from participants before exposing them to airborne exhaust and diesel pollutants, including particulate matter, in 2010 and 2011. However, the consent forms were inconsistent in their disclosures and did not warn of potential long-term risks of exposure to the gases. “This was because they only planned to perform...