CHICAGO - For 60 years, Jerry Lewis has hosted the Muscular Dystrophy Association annual Labor Day telethon. And for about 20 years, one of "Jerry's Kids" has been at odds with him over the way the money is raised.

Mike Ervin appeared on the telethon when he was six years old. Now he's a writer and disability rights activist who speaks out against the telethon because he claims it promotes stereotypes of people with disabilities as objects of pity.

At the same time, Ervin says he understands that people who answer the phones and appear on the show mean well.

"Of course we all want to give, but we really need to use the telethon as an opportunity to really seriously think about what charity is. At what point does it become something to deny or to ignore what we have to do?"

Ervin says with the unemployment rate up around 20 percent for people with disabilities, he prefers investments in programs that promote jobs and help people stay out of institutions.

"The infrastructure is still bad. They're still in institutions because services aren't there, and all these problems continue to exist."

Because of stereotypes, Ervin says many people treat him like a helpless person when they see him in his power chair. He cites, for example, an incident outside a coffee shop as he waited for the streetlight to change. A passerby mistook Ervin's newly purchased cup of tea for a beggar's cup.

"A man came out and held out his hand, and his hand had change in it. Then he saw that I had a lid on the cup, and he said 'Oh, shut down for the day, huh?'"

People with disabilities need jobs, not pity, Ervin says. In past years, he has contacted the state attorney general to check the telethon organization's 990 federal tax form to try to get clear info on how much is raised in contrast to how much it costs to produce the telethon.

"That form will tell you exactly what they make and how they make it. And they raise, curiously enough, quite a bit of money without their telethons."

He adds that he has nothing against the Muscular Dystrophy Association raising money, he just thinks the organization should take a different approach. An association spokesman says that they try to portray people with disabilities as leaders in the community.

Disability rights groups have produced a half-hour documentary on Ervin's fight and posted it on the Web. It can be viewed at www.thekidsareallright.org.




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CHARLESTON, W.V. -- Advocacy groups held a candlelight vigil in Charleston over the weekend, marking the one-year anniversary of the passing of Georgia Congressman and civil-rights activist John Lewis, and asking West Virginia lawmakers to support national standards to protect voting rights.

Katonya Hart, vice president of the NAACP of West Virginia and the event emcee, said statewide, voters have indicated they approve of measures to expand and safeguard voting access.

"The polls show that 79% of West Virginians are for the 'For The People Act,'" Hart reported. "Overwhelmingly, they want to see the John Lewis Voting Act passed."

The two bills being considered by Congress would increase voting options and access nationwide, increase transparency of election donations, and restore provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Charleston vigil was part of more than a hundred events held across the country.

Sally Roberts, volunteer chair of Rise Up WV and an organizer of the event, said it is important for West Virginians to show they care about the right to vote, despite setbacks from some U.S. Senators, including from West Virginia, whom critics noted are blocking passage of the legislation.

"So that every person in America can have a government that fully represents them and the concerns that matter most to them, from health care to creating jobs," Roberts urged.

Martin Luther King III and his wife, Arndrea Waters King, also announced over the weekend they are launching an online campaign, called 'hashtag For John,' aimed at honoring the late Georgia Congressman, while raising money for voting-rights activism.

PHOENIX -- In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a pair of Arizona "election security" laws that many experts believe will suppress votes in the next election.

In a six-to-three conservative-liberal split, the justices upheld Arizona laws requiring voters to cast a ballot only in their assigned precinct, and making it illegal to collect ballots and drop them off at an elections office.

The laws had been struck down in lower courts, but the Supreme Court voted to uphold them.

Josh Sellers, associate professor of law for the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, said the decision could embolden other state legislatures to pass more laws aimed at voter suppression.

"There are these laws at issue in this case, but there's all the other prospective laws that are on the horizon, so we have to kind of wait and see what other laws are implemented before the next election," Sellers cautioned. "But there's certainly the possibility that these laws threaten to, I think, decrease voter turnout. That concerns me."

Sellers, who teaches voting-rights law, said lower courts ruled that the Arizona laws appeared to be aimed at making voting more difficult for people of color. Republicans said their goal in passing stricter laws is to make sure elections are secure.

Sellers believes the ruling is a blow to states trying to broaden voting rights, and a green light to legislatures passing laws that make it harder to vote.

"If I was a state legislator reading this opinion today, I would feel fairly comfortable that I would not have to worry about losing a Voting Rights Act lawsuit," Sellers remarked.

Sellers added it's now up to Congress to pass a federal voting rights bill to set basic elections rules that all states must follow.

"There is a bill that's under consideration, named after the late Congressman John Lewis, that would restore the pre-clearance regime that used to be in effect in a number of states, including here in Arizona, that would require states to get preapproval before enacting voting laws and regulations."

Since the November election, more than a dozen states have passed laws that restrict voter access to the polls. Sellers believes many will be challenged in the courts before the 2022 election, but this week's ruling will make those cases harder to win.

Dallas -- Juneteenth National Independence Day is now an official holiday, after President Joe Biden signed a bill Thursday, approved by both the US Senate and House of Representatives.

Also known as Black Emancipation Day, Liberation Day and Jubilee Day, it's celebrated on June 19, which marks the anniversary of an historical celebration of emancipation which started in Galveston, Texas when news that enslaved people had been freed by President Abraham Lincoln reached the Black community, almost two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Many states have already designated the holiday, and momentum for the legislation followed the Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd last year.

Enforcement of the liberation of Black people was slow, and accompanied the advance of Union troops. The Proclamation only outlawed human slavery in the Confederate states, it took the 13th Amendment to the Constitution to end enslavement elsewhere.

Akilah Wallace, member of the Black Southern Women's Leadership Project and executive director of Faith in Texas, said true liberation for Black Americans has yet to be achieved.

"When we're still faced with mass incarceration, police brutality, white supremacy within every system and fiber of this nation, we still have a fight to take on," Wallace asserted.

This year, multiple states have approved bills that limit voting opportunities in Black communities, and passed legislation prohibiting schools from teaching about the country's legacy of racism.

Kevin L. Matthews II, founder of BuildingBread, said in an interview with YES! Media he shared those concerns. Matthews is an author and an expert on the Tulsa massacre of what was then called Black Wall Street. He's also a former financial advisor.

"Any time that people of color in this country have significant progress, there is almost always a swift reaction from those who are still in power or those who benefited from oppressing others," Matthews observed.

Tim Wise also spoke with YES! Media. An author and anti-racism educator, Wise wrote "White Like Me," and "Dispatches from the Race War." He said his own family tree revealed slave owners, who handed down documents that showed their lack of compassion when writing about the buying and selling of enslaved people.

"And I think we need to grapple with that, because we may not literally pass down human beings anymore, thank God, but we pass down the mentality that made the selling of human beings possible," Wise contended.

President Joe Biden's approval makes Juneteenth the first federal holiday established since Martin Luther King, Junior Day in 1983.