Imecca Burton, her mother, and civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel held a press conference in front of Police Headquarters yesterday to decry the handcuffing of 10-year-old Imecca, who was handcuffed by police in front of PS 25 where she attends elementary school. Police officers witnessed a fight on her school bus and in the ensuing events Imecca was handcuffed. Witnesses said that Imecca was swearing, kicking, and screaming, which is why the cops cuffed her.......

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to celebrate his accomplishments as a civil rights leader and to remember there is still work to be done in many areas, from racial equality to living a more peaceful, understanding existence. King's birthday is actually January 15, 1929, but the federal holiday has been observed on the third Monday of January since 1986 (the first time all 50 states observed the holiday was in 2000). With the......

Photograph of mariachi band at Lorimer St. by daniel.gene on flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person under a train at Jamaica Ave. and 95th St. in Queens, a severed limb at Blake Ave. in Brooklyn, and a child struck at 39th St. and 3rd Ave. in Brooklyn. "Prepare to be swabbed citizen." New York takes steps forward to our Gattaca-like future. A man described as being 6'1" and 300 lbs. was spotted......

THEATER: Wolf Lane Productions presents Victims of the Zeitgeist (The Tragedy of Martin Luther King, Jr.), written & directed by Ellwoodson Williams. The production "offers an exciting and telling insight into just who Martin Luther King, Jr., was as leader and simply as a sensitive and intelligent human being who loved life and who had a sense of humor, a deep understanding of the human condition - its strengths and weaknesses - and a profound......

After the national debate about race turned into the national debate about how race discussed in the Democratic presidential campaign, Senators and Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have declared a truce. The stir was caused by Clinton's remarks about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s efforts ("Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act...It took a president to get it done.") and when Obama criticized Clinton......

That's what Senator Hillary Clinton told Tim Russert on Meet the Press yesterday, but no matter what anyone says, race and gender are obviously factors in the hotly contested Democratic primary race. After criticism over her remarks about Martin Luther King ("Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act...It took a president to get it done.”) and her husband's remarks about Barack Obama's fairy tale Iraq stance, Clinton......

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama made a campaign swing into our neighborhood yesterday, drawing a crowd of thousands to Yanitelli Center at St. Peter's College, and as well as supporters to a fund-raiser in Midtown last night. At St. Peter's, He told the audience, "I'm not running because of long-held ambitions. I'm running because of what Dr. (Martin Luther) King called the 'fierce urgency of now.'" Obama also complained about his opponents trying to......

Barack Obama's historic Iowa caucus win is giving him momentum for the New Hampshire primary, but it's also prompting discussion of how other black candidates have failed in the past. The Reverend Jesse Jackson, who won a number of primaries in 1988, ultimately lost the nomination to Michael Dukakis, and the Reverend Al Sharpton didn't gain many delegates in 2004. On CNN, conservative commentator Bill Bennett made some comments that suggested America doesn't want......

At 6:30AM yesterday morning, federal agents delivered "wake-up" subpoenas to the Reverend Al Shaprton and four of his employees at the National Action Network. The FBI and IRS are looking for financial and corporate records, some dating back to 2001, as part of an investigation into Sharpton's financing of his 2004 presidential campaign as well as allegations of tax fraud. Ten people in total were subpoenaed, including a former chief of staff who left in......

Hallelujah! Yesterday the judge presiding over the Reverend Billy case dropped the charges that claimed he harassed public officials. The Rev was arrested in June while reciting the First Amendment in Union Square during a Critical Mass ride which coincided with the protest of the proposed MOFTB rules. Turns out the prosecutors didn't meet their deadline to file papers explaining the arrest and its justification. The Reverend's (whose real name is Bill Talen) lawyer, Earl......

Over the weekend we pointed to a death at the Knitting Factory that the cops were deeming "suspicious." Yesterday it was announced that the man was Nicholas Phillips, an East Village resident. The Post reports:An East Village man who died of an apparent drug overdose at a Manhattan rock club has been identified, sources said yesterday. Nicholas Phillips, of East Ninth Street, was found unconscious in the bathroom of the Knitting Factory on Leonard Street......

Even though he has amended his plan to give illegal immigrants the opportunity to get driver's licenses, Governor Spitzer can't make everyone happy. The governor's new plan has three tiers: There will be the Real ID (the one passed by Congress in 2005 - the very program Spitzer's own Homeland Security director criticized last month) which will be offered to citizens and legal immigrants, plus, per the NY Times, "an enhanced driver’s license that......

B&H; Photo-Video, the huge photo and video store on 9th Avenue and 34th Street, will pay $4.3 million to settle an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint. The EEOC contended that B&H; paid Hispanic employees in its warehouses less than other workers, many of whom are religious Jews; this is in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Other allegations included that B&H; "failed to promote" and "provide health benefits" to Hispanic......

Mayor Bloomberg, Schools Chancellor Klein, City Council Speaker Quinn, and other city and school officials celebrated the first day of school yesterday with an appearance at P.S. 53 in the Bronx. P.S. 53 was selected because it will be receiving almost a half million dollars more in funding, due to Bloomberg's "fair student funding reforms." The Mayor happily said, "We are becoming the poster child for what you should do with a school system that's......

As part of the deal to advance congestion pricing (and nab the $354 million the feds are offering), the city and state have announced their appointees to a panel to, ur, study congestion pricing and develop a recommendation. The Mayor, Governor, City Council, State Senate Majority Leader, and State Assembly Speaker each get to select three appointees, while the Senate minority leader and Assembly minority leader each select one. Mayor Bloomberg said, "Today we are......

Carolyn Goodman, a clinical psychologist and civil rights advocate, died at age 91 at her Upper West Side home yesterday. Goodman's son Andrew and two other men, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney, were working to help blacks register to vote in the South in 1964 when they were killed by the KKK in Philadelphia, Missipppi. The murders later became the basis for the film Mississippi Burning, and the NY Times' obituary of Goodman explains......

The City Council voted, 46-2, to allow NYC public school students to bring cell phones to and from school - though not to use them during the day. The bill was meant to address concerns of parents and students who believe cell phones are critical to students' safety (see these tales of cell phone-less horror). City Councilman Lew Fidler who sponsored the bill said his 17-year-old son walks eight blocks for a bus and "We......

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn fired Councilman Charles Barron's chief of staff Viola Plummer yesterday. Quinn had required Plummer to sign a letter agreeing to behave during meetings, after Plummer heckled Quinn during a meeting about street namings and made reference to an "assassination" of Councilman Leroy Comrie, but Plummer refused (she has maintained that she meant a "assassination" of Comrie's character and/or political prospects). And Plummer filed a $1 million racial discrimination suit against......

A father of one of the arrested in a Staten Island 4th of July melée with cops, who were responding for a fourth time to the scene of a raucous party and illegal fireworks display, complained of the racial injustices Italian-Americans are forced to endure at the hands of the police and America's legal system. "If we were black, Al Sharpton would have been here," said the father of one suspect. "Because we're white and......

Saturday we posted about Reverend Billy getting arrested during Friday night's Critical Mass as he recited the First Amendment. The above is a video of how it went down. Each police officer involved is identified by the cameraman, and at the end you'll see Lt Daniel Albano, "one of the main architects of the recent NYPD crackdown on civil rights." That night Reverend Billy was in jail for 20 hours, and charged with harassment......

Of all the days and in all the neighborhoods for this to happen: On Sunday, the Daily News reports that Khadijah Farmer, a "masculine lesbian," was kicked out of the women's bathroom at the Caliente Cab Co. on Seventh Avenue in the West Village. And this happened to be a few hours after the Gay Pride Parade! Farmer says that when she went into the ladies' room, another woman gave her a look and said,......

Former head of the Environmental Protection Agency (and former NJ Governor) Christie Todd Whitman testified in front of Congress yesterday about the EPA's September 11 response. With critics like Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Anthony Weiner of New York and Representative Bill Pascrell of NJ questioning her, Whitman called statements made about her leadership "misinformation, innuendo and downright falsehoods." The Daily News, which made Whitman its cover girl yesterday, called her a woman of "many......

Something we're positive you'll be hearing more about in the next few days: Civil rights lawyer Michael Warren and his wife Evelyn were arrested after they allegedly interfered with a police arrest at Atlantic and Vanderbilt Avenues in Brooklyn. Warren, who has represented Tupac Shakur, members of the Black Panthers and Abner Louima, said, "I got hit in the jaw, upside the head and on my lip a few times, and you can can see......

A 1992 NY State Appeals Court ruling that we'll definitely keep in mind: Women have the right to go topless since men can show their chests whenever they want (like this guy). This equal opportunity decision wasn't something a police officer was cognizant of when he arrested Jill Coccaro, who was walking around topless in August 2005 (she was trying to cool off). Coccaro, also known as Phoenix Feeley, sued in October, citing that she......

To anyone attending next year's Puerto Rican Day Parade, we have this suggestion: Don't wear black-and-gold. At a press conference, parade organizers decried arrests of people who were not engaged in any illegal activity during Sunday's event. National Puerto Rican Day Parade president Madelyn Lugo said, "We are very disappointed and alarmed that these violations of civil rights should occur." The organizers, who admitted they warned the NYPD that the Latin Kings might try to......

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn struck Sonny Carson's name from a list of of New Yorkers to be honored with a street named after them because she thought the political activist was too divisive a figure. Carson was a proponent of black economic empowerment and was distemperate in his views of other New York groups (e.g., whites, Jews, Koreans). Councilman Charles Barron, who shares Carson's past as a radical activist, thought Carson's exclusion from the......

Yesterday afternoon, hundreds of New Yorkers took to Fifth Avenue and participated in the first annual Dance Parade. From whirling dervishes to salsa dancers, from break dancers to hula hoopers, not even the rain could stop the two-hour celebration that started near Herald Square and ended in Wasington Square Park. Here's a brief description from the organizers about the parade's vision:To honor Dance's historical roots: New York has never celebrated the forms of dance......

The Department of Education officials are smiling and parents are seething: Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Lewis Bart Stone ruled that the DOE could continue to ban cell phones. The DOE has claimed that cell phones are disruptive and students use them to cheat, while students and parents feel the phones are necessary for safety purposes. The DOE's cell phone ban prompted eight parents to sue the city, and, per the AP, calling the ban......

The prolific journalist and author David Halberstam died yesterday in a car crash outside of San Francisco. Halberstam, a New Yorker, was traveling in a car that was broadsided while trying to make a left turn. Two other cars were involved in the crash, none of the drivers were seriously injured. The NY Times obituary notes that Halberstam "was killed doing what he had done his entire adult life: reporting," as he was on his......

A six-foot tall chocolate sculpture of Jesus which will be displayed at a Midtown hotel next week is stirring up controversy. Catholics are calling Cosimo Cavallaro's "My Sweet Lord" an "all-out war on Christianity." The sculpture is supposed to be installed in a window at the Roger Smith Hotel's gallery, The Lab, on East 47th Street and Lexington Avenue. Cavallaro claims that the Easter-timing was a coincidence, and besides, this isn't his first chocolate......