Three things for September 3
1. BLM Protests return to Chattanooga
Protesters returned to the streets of downtown Chattanooga last night for the first time since the Kenosha, Wis. shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday, Aug. 23.
The demonstrations came shortly after the public release of Chattanooga’s police department data on ChattaData.org, as was mentioned in yesterday’s Three Things.
Last night’s protest began at 6:30 p.m. in Chattanooga’s Miller Park and officially ended at 8 p.m. According to News Channel 9, the protest was peaceful and did not involve any altercations with police.
On Tuesday, several Chattanooga activists appeared in Hamilton County Sessions Court, answering to charges from previous demonstrations from the night of July 9. The charges include “theft, vandalism, inciting a riot and reckless burning,” according to Chattanooga’s News Channel 9.
2. Mississippi Flag commission selects new state flag design
On June 30, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed Mississippi House Bill 1796, which removed Mississippi’s second state flag — which replaced the state’s original “Magnolia Flag” in 1894 — as the state’s official flag.
The former state flag, which prominently incorporated the Confederate battle flag in its upper-left corner, was removed in part due to the waves of national protests following the May 25 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis, Minn. police officer Derek Chauvin.
Following a protest outside of Mississippi’s Reeves’ Mansion on June 6, Democrats in the state’s Senate filed a resolution to change the flag on June 11, resulting in the June 28 passage of House Bill 1796 by a vote of 91-23 in the State House and by 37-14 in the State Senate, according to WJTV.
House Bill 1796’s terms included the creation of the Commission to Redesign the Mississippi State Flag, which reviewed over 2000 submissions that met legislative requirements for the new state flag.
In an 8-1 vote yesterday, the commission approved a flag dubbed the “In God We Trust Flag” displaying a magnolia — the Mississippi state flower — to advance to the public ballot on Election Day, Nov. 3.
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3. “Forbes” estimates Tyler Perry is now a billionaire
According to a Tuesday Forbes article, writer-director Tyler Perry “earned more than $1.4 billion in pretax income since 2005.”
Perry has written and directed 23 stage plays and has directed over 20 films since 2005. Nine of Perry’s films, starting with his 2005 film “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” feature Perry acting in drag as the fictional Mabel “Madea” Simmons. The nine films featuring Madea have collectively earned over half a billion dollars.
Perry has also acted in other films, most notably appearing in the 2014 David Fincher-directed film adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel “Gone Girl,” for which Perry earned a Best Supporting Actor award from the African-American Film Critics Association.
In 2019, Perry celebrated the grand opening of Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, establishing Perry as the first African-American to own a major movie studio.
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