At 102, Ruth Villa Jones looks back with pleasant memories over the group’s

work

You could call Ruth Villa Jones the “grandmother of the Black Panther Party.” The 102-year-old Oakland resident was there at the beginning – when the Panthers founded the Oakland Community School (above) more than three decades ago – to feed and clothe poor Black children. She was a firebrand of a woman who understood that all children – Black, White and otherwise, who were trapped in poor, underachieving schools – deserved a fair shot at education and life opportunities. She was moving a little slower these days, with the help of a walker, when she showed up Saturday for the Oakland Community School Reunion and Picnic, and was honored for her work in the movement. “It’s so wonderful that she always thinks of others first and herself last,” Betty Reuben, who was a parent volunteer at the school, told InsideBayArea.com. On hand for the event at Diamond Park, according to the Web site, were about 50 former students, staff members and parents. They greeted each other, and Jones, the oldest living former Panther member, with hugs and smiles. The reunion was the first official gathering since the school closed at the end of 1981. Among those who served as guest teachers and lecturers at the school were civil rights activist Rosa Parks, poet Maya Angelou, Farm Workers organizer Cesar Chavez, author James Baldwin and comedian Richard Pryor. “I’m happy I’m able to see what the party has done,” Jones said. “We did the work, and many seeds were planted.” The oldest living former Panther, Jones was recruited by co-founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. She founded the party’s Seniors Against A Fearful Environment (SAFE) program. “She was always there at critical times and on the picket lines for the party,” said ex-Panther Melvin Dickson.

Creflo Dollar and Kenneth Copeland say Sen. Grassley’s committee has no right

The U.S. senator who demanded that six big-name TV preachers turn over records on their incomes and expenditures says that two of the ministers have yet to comply. Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking minority on the Senate Finance Committee, is investigating alleged financial improprieties by the televangelists after receiving complaints that they were living a tax-free life of luxury on their congregations’ dime. His committee’s probe targeted the television ministries of Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar (above), Benny Hinn, Bishop Eddie Long, Joyce Meyer and Paula White. All but two of the “prosperity-gospel” ministers – Copeland and Dollar – have failed to disclose their documents, Grassley says. “[Those two ministries] are taking the advice of high-priced lawyers who obviously got a line of income that’s probably enhancing their lifestyle and giving [the ministries] bad advice – particularly the advice that says that this is really something for the IRS to be doing instead of the Senate Finance Committee…,” Grassley said. Such advice, he added, “shows an abundant lack of understanding or else intellectual dishonesty about the difference between the Congress and the Executive Branch of government,” OneNewsNow.com reports. “When non-profit organizations are caught with their hand in the cookie jar, violating their tax-exempt status, and they can’t win the war of public debate, they’ll change their ways – or else government has to take action.” Should the preachers give the Senate committee their documents?

Two of the infamous “Angola 3” spent 36 years in solitary confinement.

A Louisiana judge says that a former Black Panther, convicted of killing a prison guard more than 35 years ago, deserves a third trial. Sixty-one-year-old Albert Woodfox, who got a second trial in 1998, got a raw deal when his court-appointed lawyer neglected to lodge an objection or hire expert witnesses to testify on his behalf, according to federal Magistrate Judge Christine Nolan. Those omissions, she said, warrants a third trial. Woodfox, who was one of the inmates known as the “Angola Three,” spent 36 years in solitary confinement at the notorious Angola farm prison near the Mississippi border. Woodfox was convicted in 1972 of killing officer Brent Miller during a prison riot, along with Robert King Wilkerson and Herman Wallace. Wilkerson was freed seven years ago, after his 1973 conviction of murdering a fellow inmate was overturned and he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder; Wallace was released from solitary with Woodfox in March and sent to a maximum-security dormitory. Nolan said Tuesday that in the 1998 trial, Woodfox’s attorney should have objected to testimony from witnesses who had died since the original trial. Her nonbinding recommendation now goes to U.S. District Judge James Brady, who will rule later. Among the witnesses who had died in the quarter-century since the first trial were an inmate who was the prosecution’s main witness and an expert who talked about blood spatters on clothing that state officials said had been lost, Noland wrote. The attorney also should have asked for money to hire experts to challenge the blood, DNA and fingerprints, the magistrate wrote. Nicholas Trenticosta, an attorney representing both Woodfox and Wallace, said the magistrate’s decision was beneficial for both inmates. Just last month, a state court rejected Wallace’s motion for a new trial.