Darfur Schools Program Thanks Joe Madison for His Support

Dear Supporters of the Darfur Schools Program: This month we've achieved many breakthroughs for our 15 Darfur Schools of Peace. Thank you for continuing to recognize the immense value that a stable educational system can bring to young lives. Darfur Peace & Development needs your continuing generosity during these summer months - the seasonal "hunger gap" before harvest and the time of greatest need in Darfur. We are the only organization in Darfur paying salaries for teachers. We are committed to sustaining regular salary payments. Our dedicated Darfuri teachers work tirelessly to instruct the 7,200 children at our schools in Math, Arabic, Science, Art, Islamic Studies, Christian studies and history. Help to publicize the Darfur Schools Program in your community; add a short informational paragraph to community newsletters and church bulletins.

Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information. UPDATES Darfur Peace & Development is pleased to announce that UNICEF has provided our schools with an in-kind donation of $27,435 worth of teacher and student supplies. Classroom kits include new blackboards, chalk, pencils, notebooks, rulers, and geometry sets, as well as recreational supplies - volleyballs and skipping ropes. Distribution is occurring now, under the direction of our staff in El-Fasher. Clean Water Fund- DPDO is working with Thirst No More, a non-profit that repairs water wells and pumps throughout Darfur. They are currently assessing the damage done to the Shegekaro water pumps by the May 4th attack.

They will also evaluate the water availability situation at each of our schools. We estimate a cost of $30,000 for all necessary pump repairs or providing one new water pump/well at each school to increase availability. We are also providing better water storage containers. Please help DPDO provide better water access for our students! Note "Clean Water" on your check or Paypal donation. Book-It Fund- Thank you to our supporters who have contributed to the fund for new textbooks for all the Schools of Peace. Special thanks to Joe Madison for publicizing our textbook fund on his DC radio program. DPDO's goal is $32,000 to purchase all new textbooks for our 15 fifteen schools in each area of the curriculum approved by the Sudanese Ministry of Education. We need your help to build the Book-It Fund; every dollar makes a difference. Special thanks to: Dr. Tim Page and the Michigan Darfur Coalition, who raised $2,000 to assist with the rebuilding of the Shegegkaro School and community.

Dr. Rocky Wilson and Mira Costa High School students, who have contributed 15 boxes of literature books to be used in the English-language library at Darfur Peace High School, soon to begin construction in El Fasher. Potomac High School STAND members, whose "Night for Darfur" fundraiser last week raised $5,250 for the Darfur Schools Program. Team Darfur, whose partners have raised $2,000 for our textbook fund, and who are such strong advocates in raising awareness for the Darfur cause. Marin Country Day School students in California for their generous donation of $10,000 to our schools-- $5,000 of which is earmarked for new textbooks. Help us continue to create the educational opportunities for students in Darfur! Checks can be made payable to: Darfur Peace & Development Org. P.O. Box 90 Washington, DC 20044 Thank you for your support! -

MADISON INDUCTED IN HALL OF FAME

James Brown of Fox Sports (left), introduces Joe Madison as the 2007 Inductee into the Washington, DC Hall of Fame, April 15, 2007 James Brown of Fox Sports (left), and Dr. Janette Hoston Harris (right) present Washington, DC Hall of Fame award and metal to Joe Madison at the April 15, 2007, 8th Annual Hall of Fame Awards Program Top 20 Radio Talk Show Host Plans Trip to Sudan Joe Madison, ranked #18 on Talker Magazine’s “Heavy Hundred” list, will travel to Sudan to deliver Survival Kits to refugees. Washington DC –- March 3, 2008 –- Washington-based Joe Madison will lead a delegation of radio talk show personalities on a mission to help refugees in the war-torn region of Southern Sudan. Traveling March 10 – 18, 2008. He is also joined by his wife who will report on the plight of women and families in Sudan. In cooperation with Christian Solidarity International, Madison will deliver several thousand “Sacks of Hope” to Sudanese displaced from their homes by war.

Each survival kit can be purchased and delivered for $50 and includes: Mosquito netting Plastic sheet for shelter Water container Large blanket Cooking pot Sickle (used for harvesting grain) Fishing hooks Sudan’s two-decade long civil war killed over 2 million people and drove about 4 million Sudanese away from their homes. Millions of refugees, encouraged to return to their homeland in preparation of national elections, have returned to find their homes destroyed and have nothing to help them rebuild. Joe Madison, known also as “The Black Eagle”, hosts a morning talk show on Radio-One WOL-AM and XM Satellite Radio channel 169, “The Power”. He is a recognized civil and human rights leader. This will mark his fourth trip to Sudan where he previously participated in freeing more than 7,000 slaves. Madison makes his tenth appearance on Talker Magazine’s 2008 list of the “Top 100 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts in America”. Business Week dubbed Talker Magazine “The Bible of Talk Radio”.

The Black Eagle' speaks at NAACP banquet

Joe Madison stresses need for education By Matt Snyder The Herald SHENANGO VALLEY - Joe Madison is more than a Washington D.C. radio personality. He led voter registration marches - one from Los Angeles to Baltimore - called "The Overground Railroad." He traveled three times to war zones in Sudan to participate in the freeing of more than 7,000 slaves. And, in 1974 when only 24 years old, he was named executive director of a 10,000 member Detroit chapter of the NAACP. Known to his listeners as "The Black Eagle," Madison challenged his audience at Mercer County's NAACP 44th annual Freedom Fund Banquet as their keynote speaker on Friday in The Radisson Hotel, Shenango Township.

Madison said most people look at the NAACP as a thermometer. They want to know what the organization thinks. But he said the NAACP is a thermostat, meant "to set the temperature." He called on the 250 or so audience members to join the organization, if they hadn't already. He joked that when black people get into trouble, they call out two names. The first one is Jesus Christ. The second, they start asking, "Where is the NAACP?" Yet most of the people the organization helps - about 90 percent - aren't even members, Madison said.

Problems that African Americans face, Madison said, are many - poverty, poor schools, a disproportionate showing in prison or on death row, unemployment, diabetes, or suspensions and expulsions in school. He said there are more black people in prison cells than college dormitories. "And it points to the signature failure of the education system and how we raise our children." Schools black children attend, Madison said, have less-qualified teachers and worse curriculum, making it difficult for even bright students to succeed. He also joked that when he was a kid, all children had a drug problem. "We were drug to church on Sunday. We were drug to weddings and funerals." He said children were drug by the ear to have mouths washed out with soap for cursing, or drug to be disciplined if they disrespected "teachers or preachers." "I was drug out to pull weeds in my grandmother's flower garden," he said, adding, "and these drugs are still in my veins today." "Conservatives blame a lack of family values while liberals blame a lack of government programs with neither side seeing the whole picture," Madison said.

He spoke on issues in the national media, such as a black Columbia University professor who found a noose hanging from her door, or transforming protests over the treatment of six black teenagers in Jena, La., from an issue into a movement. Madison criticized money spent to fuel the war in Iraq. He said money required to fund the S-CHIP children's health insurance bill that President Bush vetoed is equal to what the Pentagon spends in Iraq in only 40 days. Also, Madison said African Americans need to place their priorities on education - not just in schools, but on bringing it into their homes, churches and communities. -

 No Fear Hearing Photos by: Victor Holt DC Hall of Fame

Tune in to The David Chadwick Show This Sunday, April 29 at 10am and 9pm SUDAN SERIES Seeds of Hope Campaign On WBT Radio (1110 on the a.m. dial) (Listen live online at www.wbt.com. Podcasts are available Monday.) This Week's Guest: JOE MADISON A powerful interview by David Chadwick and accompanied by Al Gardner (of WBT's Charlotte Morning News). Joe Madison (left) with Rev. Walter Fauntroy arrested by the US Secret Service at the Sudanese Embassy, Washington, DC Joe Madison has travelled three times to the war zones in southern Sudan with Christian Solidarity International where he participated in the freeing of more than 7,000 slaves and delivering of survival kits (Sacks of Hope) to refugees. Alternatively known as "The Black Eagle," he is a Washington, DC radio talk show host and activist from Washington, DC where he broadcasts nationally on XM Satellite Radio channel 169. Madison has been named one of Talker Magazine's 100 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts nine times.

He not only uses his microphone to bring attention to social injustices here and abroad, he also challenges himself and his listeners to do something about it. For him this has meant going to jail for civil disobedience countless times, and going on hunger strikes in opposition to apartheid in South Africa, genocide and modern-day slavery in Sudan. Madison has been relentless in his efforts to protect those who suffer at the hands of powerful interests.

He led demonstrations and arrests in front of the Sudanese Embassy for 90 straight days to end the genocide in Darfur. His efforts led first to the House and Senate, and later the Bush administration declaring genocide was taking place in Darfur. Madison followed this up with a campaign to divest $93 billion in Sudan, through state pension funds. Learn more about Joe Madison at www.joemadison.com "We - even we here - hold the power, and bear the responsibility." - Abraham Lincoln -

Old Acquaintance Joe, I just saw you on CNN. I'd lost track of your upward trajectory - the last time I saw you in person was when you were marching in Washington carrying a symbolic coffin. Considering what I've just read on the internet, you certainly didn't stop there. I'm proud to saw "I know that man". Keep on keeping on. Carol Bowen

He Ain't Heavy, Or Is He? Top 20 Talk Host in USA The Washington Post Joe Madison, Washington DC based human and civil rights activist, known to WOL-AM and XM listeners as "The Black Eagle", started the new year with a big loss. 81 pounds! Madison, who appears in the attached photo with George Clooney at last year's Save Darfur Rally on the National Mall, hasn't lost his recognition as a talk show personality. For the second consecutive year Talker Magazine selected the veteran radio personality as one of the 20 Top Talk Radio personalities in America. Madison appears in the magazine's February "Heavy 100 Talk Show Hosts" edition. He can be heard Monday through Friday on WOL-AM and XM channel 169 "The Power" from 6am to 10 am.

Testimony of Joseph Madison, President of the Sudan Divestment Campaign to the Budget and Taxation Committee of the Senate of Maryland, in support of SB 543, 2007 Darfur Protection Act Republic of Sudan The Senate Building Annapolis , MD March 8, 2007 After my first of three trips to the war zones of southern Sudan and Darfur, I returned to engage human and civil rights activists across this country to end the slavery in southern Sudan and the genocide in Darfur .

It became clear that a broad-based, public campaign was required to pressure Congress, the President, state legislatures and the nation at large to end the atrocities that I had witnessed. American citizens have already led the way with rallies, protests, and letters to elected officials and arrests at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington , DC . Now there is a time proven and powerful action being advocated by concern citizens. It involves the divestment of billions of dollars of state pension funds from companies doing business with the genocidal regime in Khartoum . July 22, 2004, those atrocities taking place in Darfur were identified as genocide by a unanimous declaration of Congress, by two Secretaries of State, and by the President of the United States .

On Labor Day, 2004 at a rally in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC, before hundreds of demonstrators protesting against genocide in Darfur, former Congressman, Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy, chairman of the Sudan Divestment Campaign and I called on state legislators across the United States to disclose and divest $92.1 billion of state pension funds invested in companies doing business in Sudan . US law prohibits American companies from doing business in Sudan , yet Americans are able to invest in foreign companies operating in Sudan . Over the last two years, many large investors have made the responsible decision to divest, including a number of states, among them, New Jersey , Illinois , Oregon , Maine , Connecticut , North Carolina , California and others. Cities and many great colleges and universities are in the process of divesting, such as the University of Maryland Foundation , American University , Stanford, Harvard, Brown and the University of California system. I believe it is incumbent upon the Maryland legislature to divest from those portfolios--- it controls--- all shares in companies doing business with the genocidal government of Sudan . This is the first genocide of the 21 century. None of us can simply be a witness to genocide or simply declare our opposition. Genocide is a responsibility word. There is a moral and ethical obligation to end the act of genocide. Ending genocide in Darfur is not an act of charity; it is an act of justice.

Mass murder, rape, and systematic ethnic cleansing as a way of destroying non-Arab groups are currently taking place. Over 400,000 Darfurians have been killed and 2.5 million displaced, living in refugee camps in neighboring Chad and 6 million other civilians at risk. There is a well established link between investments in Sudan and the revenue of the Government of Sudan which overwhelmingly goes to increase arms and funding of the genocide. The Maryland Legislature and Governor can send a clear message with the passage and enactment of the 2007 Darfur Protection Act, that the citizens of Maryland don't want their money used to slaughter innocent people. There are many other financially-sound investment alternatives that do not lead to the death of hundred of thousands of men, women and children. When Maryland State pensioners are living off the investments of their pension funds and their children and grandchildren ask, "What side of history were you on?" They will be able to say, "We were on the side of human progress and we took positive action to end the first genocide of this century."