What's REALLY Going ON Volume 1, June 2014 Issue #6 | Page 81

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Michael Inspires True Pride by Elizabeth Olney
As she reached out for support, she knew not how she was
going to go about getting the boards down. Keep in mind
that Sahar was up against the city of LA, the same city that
dedicated a plaque on a federal building, with the name of
Thomas Sneddon; the corrupt LAPD officer that went so far
as to fabricate evidence in order to ruthlessly attempt to
have Michael convicted of crimes that he didn’t commit.
Sahar simply had hope and her hope grew into faith.

Faith is taking the first step even
when you don’t see the whole
staircase.” - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..

Sahar’s initial step attracted the attention of Blessy Liquido
and Nathalie Buzaglo. Blessy immediately set out to find
out more about this. As she researched, more people expressed interest so, Blessy wrote-up a standard petition.
Nathalie took it upon herself to send a personal e-mail to
the assistant superintendent of schools in LA. The two of
them then co-founded www.themjjarchives.weebly.com
The standard letter of petition down-loaded from there and
proceeded to be passed across the country and around the
world. The blog at the site continually updated current status of progress by the team.
“Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Melissa (Missy) Pearson then came along and offered her
twitter account to be solely used for a growing campaign to
get the boards down. She was also very instrumental in
getting the petition circulated along with Ariel Garner. Missy
further developed a web-site and Michelle Gratton primarily
managed it. Meanwhile, Rev. Catherine Gross and Karla
Alvarez were also recruited for the cause. A team of eight
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formed which spans from California, to Chicago, to Canada
and back via the internet.
Rev. Catherine Gross also desired to “do something for a
man who gave so much to me and the world”. When Catherine watched as the ladies corresponded on Twitter she
could tell that they were grounded in love. She reached-out
to Blessy, they talked and the team welcomed her love and
support. She became regarded as the communications
specialist for the group due to her background as an educator and religious leader. The ladies communicated every
day.
Ideas were continually brainstorming as to how to increase
networking. A conference-line at “Chatzy” was set-up and
Karla acted as the first meeting coordinator until Nathalie
later took on this role. This is quite a task as sometimes it
can be difficult to coordinate the schedules of three people,
let alone a group of differing time-zones. They later utilized
Skype as every internet-working tool available was taken
advantage of. A central e-mail address was also set up
from which 600,000 e-mails went out. The e-mails invited
people to http://mjjarchives.weebly.com/mjj-archivesblog.html in order to let people know how they could help
by acquiring the letter of petition.

“Never doubt that a thoughtful group of citizens
can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing
that ever has. “ Margaret Meade