Last winter I drove to Providence, RI full of trepidation and sadness. My incredible Aunt Esther, my maternal grandfather’s sister, had pneumonia. I was going to see her to make sure I had the chance to say goodbye.
To everyone’s, including her own, surprise, she pulled through. “I saw the pearly gates—and they shut!” she said to us bemusedly. Thus we were able to have the pleasure of gathering together in Providence this summer to celebrate her 99th birthday and the start of her 100th year.
If you are in Massachusetts, please vote NO on Question 1 this Tuesday. Question 1 is a dangerous, binding proposal to repeal the state income tax, effectively cutting the state budget by $12 billion or almost 40%.
My friend Alycia drove me through the lower 9th ward in her four-wheeler, navigating the twisted, pot-holed roads like a pro. It looked basically like abandoned territory, dozens maybe hundreds of blocks of weed-filled vacant lots. Alycia slowed down, pointed out the window at vacant lot after vacant lot and said “Home, home, home, home.” Sure enough, if you looked carefully through the weeds and garbage, you could make out the foundations of what were once houses.
“Holy cow,” I said, suddenly getting it. The people I saw on TV two and a half years ago in the filth of the Superdome … they once lived here. “Where did all these people go?” I asked, absently, stupidly, insultingly.
Alycia just shook her head as if to say, “People who don’t live here just don’t get it.” And she’s right.
But seeing it first-hand at least puts a human face on the familiar litany of statistics. Almost two thousand people dead. Eighty percent of the city under water for an average of fifty-seven days. Four hundred thousand jobs lost. Two hundred and seventy-five thousand homes destroyed.
And a list of intractable problems so long that it gives you a headache. There’s soil contamination, for one, and serious safety problems with some FEMA trailers, for another. And then there’s something that a guy I met called, “the Katrina cough” – a dry heave he said his doctor couldn’t diagnose, but which just got worse and worse for the whole six months he was working in neighborhoods with severe water damage. Finally, he just had to stop. “After a while, you don’t even want to breathe, the cough hurts so much,” he said.
But Patel turns from this to embrace an optimism about proposed solutions that are harming thousands of low-income, predominantly African-American students in New Orleans.
And still, President Scott Cowen of Tulane University, who gave a remarkable afternoon keynote address at the Clinton Global Initiative, said that he’s never been so optimistic about the city. Before Katrina, it had the worst school system in America, serious crime and corruption problems, a profoundly inadequate infrastructure. And now, the city leaders along with common residents are dreaming about what a model 21st century city would look like. What kind of public education system should it have? What kind of health care delivery? And perhaps most daringly, how can all of it be done on an entirely green basis – from working-class parts of town to tourist areas.
“This is the greatest social experiment in America,” President Cowen said.
Yes there is a social experiment going on, but not one that justifies Patel’s title, “New Orleans: Recover, Rebuild, Rebirth.” New Orleans attorney Bill Quigley writes:
There is a massive experiment being performed on thousands of primarily African American children in New Orleans. No one asked the permission of the children. No one asked permission of their parents. This experiment involves a fight for the education of children.
This is the experiment.
The First Half
Half of the nearly 30,000 children expected to enroll in the fall of 2007 in New Orleans public schools have been enrolled in special public schools, most called charter schools. These schools have been given tens of millions of dollars by the federal government in extra money, over and above their regular state and local money, to set up and operate. These special public schools are not open to every child and do not allow every student who wants to attend to enroll. Some charter schools have special selective academic criteria which allow them to exclude children in need of special academic help. Other charter schools have special admission policies and student and parental requirements which effectively screen out many children. The children in this half of the experiment are taught by accredited teachers in manageable size classes. There are no overcrowded classes because these charter schools have enrollment caps allowing them to turn away students. These schools also educate far fewer students with academic or emotional disabilities. Children in charter schools are in better facilities than the other half of the children. These schools are getting special grants from Laura Bush to rebuild their libraries and grants from other foundations to help them educate. These schools do educate some white children along with African-American children. These are public schools, but they are not available to all public school students.
The Other Half
The other half of public school students, over ten thousand children, have been assigned to a one-year-old experiment in public education run by the State of Louisiana called the “Recovery School District” (RSD) program. The education these children receive will be compared to the education received by the first half in the charter schools. These children are effectively what is called the “control group” of an experiment Ð those against whom the others will be evaluated.
The RSD schools have not been given millions of extra federal dollars to operate. The new RSD has inexperienced leadership. Many critical vacancies exist in their already-insufficient district-wide staff. Many of the teachers are uncertified. In fact, the RSD schools do not yet have enough teachers, even counting the uncertified, to start school in the fall of 2007. Some of the RSD school buildings scheduled to be used for the fall of 2007 have not yet been built.
In the first year of this experiment, the RSD had one security guard for every 37 students. Students at John McDonough High said their RSD school, which employed more guards than teachers, had a “prison atmosphere.” In some schools, children spent long stretches of their school days in the gymnasium waiting for teachers to show up to teach them.
There is little academic or emotional counseling in the RSD schools. Children with special needs suffer from lack of qualified staff. College-prep math and science classes and language immersion are rarely offered. Classrooms keep filling up as new children return to New Orleans and are assigned to RSD schools.
Many of the RSD schools do not have working kitchens or water fountains. Bathroom facilities are scandalous. Teachers at one school report there are two bathrooms for the entire school – one for all the male students, faculty and staff and another for all the females in the building.
Danatus King, of the NAACP in New Orleans, said “What happened last year was a tragedy. Many of the city’s children were denied an education last year because of a failure to plan on the part of the RSD.”
Hardly any white children attend this half of the school experiment.
These are the public schools available to the rest of the public school students.
I first read this passage by Bill Quigley in Steven Miller and Jack Gerson’s report, “The Corporate Surge Against Public Schools,” which I’ve posted in full, below the fold. Miller and Gerson discuss what is happening in New Orleans in detail and put in the context a dangerous national trend which is leaving our schools more unequal than ever. I urge you to read it.
Elle, PhD is has ventured to answer Langston’s still prescient question, “What happens to a dream deferred?”
If you know about small communities in the South, you know that Jena is not an aberration of racial progress but rather a manifestation of festering tensions that have never gone away. What’s amazing about Elle’s blog post is that it provides outsiders with a chance to hear something about how things are going in one locale, about 100 miles from Jena.
It occurs to me that I am cataloguing, watching, and waiting for shit to explode in my little corner of the world.
Something is going on here in my home region, something created by the nature of race, gender, and class relations here. Everyone is whispering, but no one is talking.
To date:
Precious “Petey” Story, an 18-year old white woman, was murdered in August. The suspected murderers are young black men, one of whom Petey had previously dated.
Shortly thereafter, when the family of a local white girl decided that she was missing, they went to the home of her black ex-boyfriend and demanded entry. She was not there (was later found on her family’s property), but that did not stop her parents from withdrawing her from the local, primarily black high school. They were careful to state that they were not racist, but did not believe in interracial dating.
Over the next couple of days, at least seven other white students withdrew (fewer than 30 were enrolled). When my offended best friend asked one of the white boys about it, he said that his sister confessed to being “afraid” to attend school with so many black boys now. “If one of them tries to date her and she refuses, she’s scared of what he might do to her.”
Really. He said that.
In a neighboring town, four black boys and one white girl checked out of school one day. They “went to one of the boys’ house, located close to the school, where sex occurred between one of the boys and the girl.” They returned to after-school activities and during that time, the girl said she had been raped.
The 14-year-old girl was taken to a local hospital, treated for possible rape, and released to her parents.
A 16-year-old male [was charged] with forcible rape… and placed… in an undisclosed juvenile detention center. He was later released.
…The school district conducted a thorough investigation of the incident and determined that sex occurred, but there was no evidence of a rape. No staff members were notified that a rape had occurred during the school day.
The girl’s parents have removed her from the parish school district.
When Ouachita Christian (you know what “Christian” typically means in the name of a southern school right? k, thx) played the majority black Madison High School in football in September, some parents reported hearing gunshots. Some time later, OCS played the (majority black) high school where my best friend is cheerleading advisor. She sent her girls over to introduce themselves, but the OCS cheerleaders were not allowed to come to their side. The gist of the OCS cheerleading advisor’s explanation? While it was safe for the black cheerleaders to face their crowd, they couldn’t trust the black crowd not to shoot at their cheerleaders.
Believe it or not, this is just half of it. You should go read the whole thing. This isn’t just Louisiana or even just the South. America’s been pretending pretty hard that we’re all done with our race problem.
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on November 5, 2007 at 9:06 am
Fruitvale Jr. High seventh-graders Ali Castellanos and Allie Molen recently won first place for the state of California in the Free Expression in a Free Society competition sponsored by the Constitutional Rights Foundation. Castellanos and Molen produced a 10-minute video documentary on the voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, a little-known but critical figure in voting rights in Mississippi during the early 1960s….
The competition included junior (sixth, seventh, and eighth grades) and senior (high school) categories and was judged by documentary film makers, one of whom said, “This documentary was terrific. It was the best including the senior docs I saw. The research and footage were excellent. The story was superbly well told and the voiceover was excellent in terms of both content and delivery. I came away knowing a lot about a woman I previously knew nothing about, understanding the context of her life and work and had a feeling for her humanity and humor. Well done….”
Castellanos and Molen researched their project for over six months, watching video footage, reading books, and interviewing numerous people from the movement, including former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young. They incorporated their interviews into the documentary to help tell the story and produced an annotated bibliography detailing their research.
“I have learned and experienced a lot in the process of making our documentary on Fannie Lou Hamer,” said Allie Molen. “My understanding of the Civil Rights Movement has expanded immeasurably, and I enjoyed meeting and interviewing so many people who actually were a part of the movement. I wouldn’t trade my experience and knowledge of this project for a million dollars! I think more kids should participate in National History Day because they learn many important skills, like researching and interviewing that will prove useful in their future.”
Despite the enormous time commitment, Castellanos said, “Doing the research for this project and making the video itself was such a great experience and accomplishment. I learned so much that will be beneficial to me throughout school and the rest of my life. Even if we hadn’t won any awards, I wouldn’t regret doing the project.”
Photo caption: Fruitvale Jr. High students Allie Molen
and Ali Castellanos work on their video documentary in
the school tech lab. Photo credit: Susan Reep
§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on July 11, 2007 at 11:55 pm
COUSHATTA — Nine black children attending Red River Elementary School were directed last week to the back of the school bus by a white driver who designated the front seats for white children. . . .
[Superintendent Kay] Easley would not comment much on the allegations Wednesday, saying it is a personnel issue. She acknowledged that she has investigated the claim. And she confirmed that the bus driver did not run her route Wednesday, nor would she today.
Asked if the driver would work for the rest of the year, Easley said, "I'm not going to answer the questions. " You're getting all that you're going to get from me. I'm sorry."
How in 2006 is this possible? Ask yourself how in 2006 is it possible downstate to evict 2/3 of the Black population from New Orleans, and you have something like an answer.
Or maybe it's the other way around. Bus driver Delores Davis said to herself, if they can choose whether to let Blacks back into NOLA, I can choose where Blacks get to sit on my bus.
When segregation was the law of the land such analogies may have been more explicit and more obvious. They still govern the minds and actions of Americans today.
As along as we're making analogies, it's worth saying, too, that separate is never equal:
After Richmond and Williams [parents and guardians to the children] filed complaints with the School Board, Transportation Supervisor Jerry Carlisle asked Davis to make seat assignments for her passengers, Sessoms said.
"But she still assigned the black children to the back of the bus," she added.
And the nine children had to share only two seats, meaning the older children had to hold the younger ones in their laps.
Of course the problem is just one bigoted driver, and the situation is easy enough to rectify, right?
A new solution reached Monday by School Board officials has a black bus driver driving across town to pick up the nine black children.
Nope, racist bus driver Delores Davis is just a symptom of the American disease.
§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on August 28, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Appointed members of the State Records Committee (SRC) and the Local Government Records Committee (LGRC) regulate “retention periods” for Mississippi’s public records. Some agency records are “scheduled” for permanent preservation in agencies’ offices or the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Some are approved for “disposal” after specified time periods.
Pressures for “disposal” come from clerks and other record-keepers who want shelf space for current and future records. Many courthouses and agency offices are crowded, and supervisors and legislators haven’t provided sufficient space to serve past, present and future needs and interests.
For years, I’ve sent faxes to the history and other departments of Mississippi colleges to notify them of upcoming meetings of the SRC and LGRC and what records are proposed for non-permanent “scheduling.”
Only once or twice has anyone joined me in making objections or suggestions about the proposed schedules. In the past, the committees have sometimes discussed my concerns and made a change or two.
Meetings of the State Records Committee are supposed to have five members – five people to decide which records of Mississippi’s government agencies will survive for use in historical research, long-term studies, lawsuits, or any other purpose.
Mississippians and record users from anywhere lost out at the July 20 SRC meeting, and I wasn’t able to do a thing about it.
In the “public comment” period, I told the three SRC members present that I was concerned with the vagueness of some of the instructions for disposal of records: “purge when needed,” “until updated” (for self-studies), “administrative need.” None of them even suggested discussing clear standards instead of those invitations to abuse or poor judgment. The three were not concerned that there is no definition for “non-substantive material.”
Most of the records approved July 20 for disposal, instead of preservation, were records of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) itself. Of the three State Records Committee members present and approving all the schedules as suggested by the MDAH staff, one member – also the Chair – is the Director of MDAH.
Governor Barbour has never made an appointment for his slot. The State Auditor’s representative had notified the committee at the last meeting that he couldn’t attend July 20, but the meeting was held knowing only three members at most could be present.
Among the MDAH holdings approved for disposal were records of the SRC’s counterpart office and committee: Local Government Records. In vain I said to the SRC that those of us who worked years to get the LGRC (thinking we were promoting preservation and research) didn’t do that work so that the LGR Office’s own records could be thrown away. The SRC also approved getting rid of evidence of past approved destruction of State records.
Visitor registers at the Old Capitol Museum and the Governor’s Mansion will be “history” after 5 and 2 years, respectively. Decades-old information about licensees of the Banking and Consumer Finance Department will be gone. Etcetera. And this is just from one meeting.
Several years ago, the Mississippi House’s Judiciary A Committee voted to look at the State’s public records scheduling laws and policies. That vote is the last I ever heard of it.
Is anyone who cares reading this? Or when, one of these years, we somehow get an alert and active citizenry that is not cowed by elected and appointed officials who become gatekeepers and despoilers of our supposed democracy, will there be any public records left for the use of our students, researchers, history buffs?
Jan Hillegas researches Mississippi family histories, documents historical events, indexes records, and in other ways works to make our present and our children’s future better. She may be reached at newmsian at hotmail dot com or P.O. Box 3234, Jackson, MS 39207.
§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on August 10, 2006 at 8:08 am
“In the 1960s, my husband helped the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission de-fund the pioneer Head Start programs in our state,” said Courtney Tannehill, the widow of former Neshoba Democrat editor Jack Tannehill, “and he worked to promote the Commission’s segregationist agenda to Mississippi industrialists.”
“I am here today to acknowledge the truth about my husband’s participation in Mississippi’s brutal racist regime,” Mrs. Tannehill continued in her address to a group of African-American and white community leaders in Philadelphia, MS. “If we cannot tell the truth about our past, we cannot establish the trust necessary for meaningful reconciliation and improved race relations in Neshoba County today, in 2006.”
Sadly, I am putting words in Mrs. Tannehill’s mouth. Though Courtney Tannehill is a member of the Philadelphia Coalition, the quotation above was an exercise in wishful thinking about what it might look like if the organization were truly engaged in racial reconciliation.
In June 2005, as reporters anticipating the trial of of Edgar Ray Killen streamed into Philadelphia, MS, current editor and publisher of the Neshoba Democrat and co-chair of the Philadelphia Coalition, James E. Prince III, bragged that
[t]he editor of The Neshoba Democrat is one of the first persons these reporters seek out. They came to talk to Stanley Dearman (still do) and to Jack Tannehill before him.
Since the indictment of Edgar Ray Killen in January there have been so many
reporters that I can’t possibly keep track of all the conversations and
interviews.
While Jack Tannehill’s widow did not ever say the words attributed to her, above, there is indeed evidence that her late husband worked with the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, the state spy agency, to enlist business owners in “solving problems” associated with the Civil Rights Act and to keep Mississippi’s Black children undernourished and undereducated.
On behalf of the East Mississsippi Management Club, I want to express our appreciation to for the very timely talk you gave us last Tuesday night. Without exception, every one of the 28 members present said they thoroughly enjoyed the program and learned so much of the Sovereignty Commission’s work which they never realized meant so much to them and this state.
Information on the Commission’s work and its policies and accomplishments was all new to many of the group. It caused them to realize that the Commission was sincerely interested in helping industrialists, as well as others, without being radical and advocating policies which might be detrimental to our progress.
As you know, this was a meeting of industrial management of east central Mississippi towns and cities at which the members discuss mutual problems in an informal manner. Every thing said and discussed is strictly ‘off the record’.
Many of the members asked me to say that they felt now they had a place to get some assistance in solving problems which might arise from pressure groups and the recent enactment of the Civil Rights Act.
In short, those present appreciate the image you have been and are creating for our state. As one put it, “I’ll have to change my opinion of the Sovereignty Commission’s philosophy since listening to its director talk.”
Erle, thanks again, and I hope you will return for this or another type meeting here in the near future.
The Sovereignty Commission has operated a dual function of investigation and indexing subversive groups and individuals operating in the state and also a public relations program to correct false statements about Mississippi and enhance the state’s prestige to offset impressions made by a few regrettable incidents of violence. Information about subversives has been exploited on occasion to reduce their effectiveness.
In its public relations function, the Sovereignty Commission cultivated contacts with the editors of many of the major newspapers in Mississippi—including Jack Tannehill at the Neshoba Democrat. The meetings, such as the one organized by Tannehill, above, were far from unusual. Numerous Sovereignty Commission documents detail major industry and business leaders serving in official advisory roles for the public relations activities of the Commission.
3
In fact, the Mississippi agency’s two functions frequently overlapped. In 1966, when Mississippi’s white power structure pulled out all the stops to cripple existing Head Start programs and redirect federal funds to new organizations that whites could control, the Sovereignty Commission marshaled its cadre of newspaper editors for the cause.
The Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM) was one of the country’s pioneer Head Start programs, providing poor children with medical care, hot meals and preschool training. Some employment was also provided for several hundred local people who worked as teachers and helpers. So of course it was target for destruction by the planter hegemony. . . .
All of Mississippi’s Congressional representatives voted against funding the poverty programs in the first place. The Jackson Daily News compared such programs with those in “Soviet Russia . . . and Hitler’s Germany.”
Head Start and other poverty programs represented “the most subtle mediums for instilling the acceptance of racial integration and ultimate mongrelization ever perpetrated in this country,” the JDN editorialized.
This attitude was shared across the state, as several CDGM workers were shot at by racists; local schools would not rent their buildings and buses to the program; and in one Delta town, Anguilla, plantation owners would not allow sharecroppers’ children to enroll. Klansmen there burned a cross in front of the Head Start center to make their point.
Even though the new educational program was seeing successes, many white state political leaders tried their best to destroy CDGM, charging financial mismanagement. US Senator John C. Stennis was contracted and he demanded that Sargent Shriver, head of the US Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), withhold funds. (548)
In line with your suggestion, we made contacts on Thursday, October 6, to have a variety of telegrams sent to Sargent Shriver supporting the new Action for Progress committee in Mississippi.
We composed telegrams and read them over the telephone and all were supposed to have been sent by Thursday evening. We made our contacts chiefly in those areas where CDGM had operated headstart [sic] schools.
The contacts were state senator E.K. Collins and thirteen newspaper executives, including Jack Tannehill at the Neshoba Democrat. Johnston indicated that the anti-CDGM telegram sending campaign was suggested by Fraley. Fraley was director of the state arm of the federal agency responsible for administering President Johnson’s War on Poverty programs, including Head Start.
Before taking his post as director of the Mississippi Office of Economic Opportunity, Fraley was chairman of the Mississippi parole board. Frank Barber, a well connected political operative, who held high political offices in Mississippi and also worked for infamous racist and Mississippi Senator James Eastland in DC, characterized Fraley as “a man of all work-advisor, strategist, technician, tactician” for Governor Paul Johnson. The governor of Mississippi was, ex-officio, chairman of the Sovereignty Commission.
4
The telegram campaign against CDGM was suggested by the top advisor for the Sovereignty Commission’s chairman to the director of the agency, Erle Johnston, who, in turn, asked Jack Tannnehill and his colleagues to participate.
[A]fter two years of investigations, surveillance, firings, audits, press attacks, closures and threats, CDGM died in December 1967. Mississippi Action for Progress or MAP gained control over most of CDGM’s funding and projects. (Klopfer, 549)
Klopfer quotes John Dittmer on MAP, saying, “the poverty program in Mississippi had divided the black community into warring factions, often pitting the poor men and women who had become politicized in the early 1960s against the old, traditional, middle-class leadership.
Divide and conquer. Bait and switch. Keep some (less militant) Black people visible in the newly configured MAP-controlled Head Start programs, while obtaining more of all that good federal money for the benefit of white folks. I believe researchers will find some interesting results if they compare how many whites and how many Blacks got Head Start jobs and contracts under CDGM and then under MAP.
There has been some popular debate about whether Jack Tannehill was speaking about the Klan or about civil rights workers when, in an April 9, 1964 editorial, he wrote, “Outsiders who come in here and try to stir up trouble should be dealt with in a manner they won’t forget.” James E. Prince III, is the only person who has seriously claimed in public that Tannehill was not threatening civil rights workers but rather telling the Klan to get out of Neshoba County.
As usual, I think Prince is full of it, but focusing the historical debate on this one anecdote is a way to avoid the history of white supremacy in Neshoba County and in Mississippi as a whole. Jack Tannehill didn’t just incite his readers to perpetrate violence against civil rights workers. He was active in the work of the white power structure to keep resources out of the hands of African Americans. He was also active in the white power structure’s public relations campaign to sell to the world a fictional image of Mississippi while Black children starved and white, racist murderers roamed free.
5
“We challenge our fellow citizens to join us in an honest appraisal of the past.”
The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. Francis Scott Key, a 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, wrote the lyrics in 1814 after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland by British ships in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812. It became well known as a patriotic song to the tune of a popular English drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven." It was recognized for official use by the United States Navy (1889) and by the White House 1916), and was made the national anthem by a Congressional resolution on March 3, 1931.
Most of us cannot sing the song and those who can, only sing one verse.
Did you ever wonder why, if the song has four verses, only the first is commonly sung?
Well I’ll tell you.
Growing up in Baltimore, the place is so rich in history. From America’s infancy, democracy’s first dream to today’s realities . . . Baltimore always figured in the struggle.
My family has lived in Maryland since 1773. My Great-grandfather, John H. Murphy, Sr., founded a newspaper more than 115 years ago (The Afro-American Newspapers). Moving to Baltimore in 1941, I learned at a very early age about being a Negro (that is what we were in those days). In the 40’s as a student in "segregated" elementary schools I was taught to hate the Jews because “they were Christ killers” and in the middle of war, hate the Germans and the Japanese, while the white man hated me—how absurd!
Every morning in our “separate but equal?” school, we stood to pledge allegiance to the flag – “with liberty and justice for all.” Justice? And oh, the field trips—Historic Baltimore is an abundant resource for teachers—the many many field trips to Fort McHenry—we ran across the ramparts, climbed on the cannons, peeped into the dungeons, imagined the bombs bursting in air—and the flag is still waving.
Oh, how many times had we as children, fought that war—Baltimore being the only school District in America where the children knew about the War of 1812 let alone the Battle of Baltimore? Each time we held our heads up high and sang,—
O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Not ever giving one thought to the mockery of the words –
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
At that same time America was at war using segregated troops—some African-American soldiers were lynched in uniform. Black newspapers were charged with sedition for “giving aid and comfort to the enemy” for telling the truth about discrimination in the U.S.
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Even as an adult I climbed on the cannon to watch the new flag with it’s 50th star being raised at Fort McHenry. As we celebrated the taking of an indigenous peoples’ land—again not seeing the travesty in the words—
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Would you sing these verses of the song?
Finally, People stood up—enough was enough—enough discrimination—enough disparity—enough injustice—enough inequality—enough of an unjust war—the words rang true—
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
“None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.” (Pearl S. Buck)
Here is the full song – all four verses- for your singing pleasure — [below the fold]
Those were the first words from Scott B. Smith, Jr when he reached me on the phone earlier this afternoon.
He wanted to inform me and all who knew her that Linda Dehnad, his wife, died this morning of undetermined causes at age 69. Linda went to Jackson Hospital in Montgomery, AL last night because she was suffering from severe stomach pain. It happened to be her and Scott B’s wedding anniversary. Exteremely frustrated and at her wits end after waiting for more than five hours to have her pain treated and her condition addressed, Linda asked Scott B to take her home around 9:30 PM. Scott B took care of Linda through the night; he fell asleep for a couple of hours at about 4 AM. When he woke up again at about 6 AM, Linda was dead.
Scott B said, “Linda came back to Montgomery with me to work with the people of Lowndes County. Though she was treated badly, she loved Lowndes County. Linda was a warrior. She never stopped trying to work with people. Anything she could do: she was doing it. She was concerned about the children. When she was teaching and was asked to use corporal punishment, Linda said, ‘I am not a slave owner. I am a teacher.’”
In her last years, Linda had ongoing pain from fibromyalgia. Lindaremained a gifted writer, teacher and photographer and a committed activist. She taught and mentored many, many people, including me (Ben).
Linda has requested that she be cremated. There will be a memorial service on Sunday, July 2, at the Unity Baptist Church in White Hall, Lowndes, County, AL. Church service begins at 11:00 a.m. Memorial service begins at 12:30 p.m.
Scott B welcomes phone calls, email and postal mail with condolences or memories of Linda. He would also welcome financial assistance to pay for Linda’s autopsy. You can reach Scott B by phone at 334-262-7547. His mailing address is 2010 McKinley Avenue, Montogmery, AL 36107. His email address is scottbsmith_jr at yahoo dot com.
UPDATE#1 (6/28): I made a mistake on Scott B’s phone number. Area code is 334, not what I had before. The number, above, is now correct.
UPDATE#2 (6/28): There is now a time for the memorial service, added above.
Hattiesburg, MS (BlackNews.com) – William Carey College, a predominantly white Southern Baptist private school, has recently wrongfully expelled four black students for using an electric generator during the Presidentially-declared disaster.
Immediately following Katrina, several students of the college were stranded due to road blockage, gas shortage, or distance from their homes. A student went into a maintenance shed that had been ripped open by high speed winds and made use of a generator that remained on the campus.
This reportedly helped students recharge and use their cell phones while the land lines were down as well as give them lights at night. The men’s dorm lobby, where the generator was being used, also became a safe haven of sorts for some of the remaining female students.
As the days passed and roads and gas became more available, the only students that remained were those whose homes were out of state, overseas, or destroyed. This small group consisted of three William Carey basketball players and one former player as well as others.
Senior Jeremy Irby, Junior Marvin Flemmons, Senior Dante Hardy, and Junior Jeremiah Blackwell were all expelled for using the generator that many students participated in using including school staff. They were told and given written notice that they were being expelled for conduct that was contrary to the schools handbook and there was not to be any appeal nor could they return to campus as visitors. This action itself was against school policy.
The students were escorted off campus by police with armed military personnel and had to immediately take with them all of their belongings with no place to go. No other students were expelled or repremanded. When asked what their plans were Marvin Flemmons replied, “We are looking for legal representation and we want our story to get out so this does not happen to anyone else.”
IF YOU CAN PROVIDE LEGAL HELP AND/OR ANY OTHER ASSISTANCE OR WANT TO SHOW SUPPORT, PLEASE CONTACT:
Dante Hardy
118 College Drive #8177
Hattiesburg, MS 39406
mdantehardy AT yahoo DOT com
601-297-4365
§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on November 4, 2005 at 9:24 am
[If you are in the Boston area and are free tomorrow afternoon, come support this action. --BG]
Join us as we gather 400 supporters to represent the number of Massachusetts high school graduates every year who are denied access to higher education.
Let’s show the legislature that the everyone deserves the right to an education.
The event will run from 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM and be held at the Grand Staircase.
To RSVP, please contact Carlos Saavedra at csaavedra AT miracoalition DOT org
(From the information link, above:)
The Issue
Each year around 400 hundred high achieving students, who have lived in Massachusetts for most of their lives, are unable to pursue higher education because of their immigration status. Currently, students without permanent legal status must pay out of state tuition to attend state and city universities and colleges. Out of state tuition is three to five times the cost of in state tuition. As most of these students cannot afford to pay out of state tuition, they are forced to forego college and work in low-paying, low-skilled jobs.
The In-State Tuition Bill S. 764/ H. 1230
The bill allows students to pay the same in-state tuition rates as their peers at public colleges and universities provided they have attended a Massachusetts high school for three years and have graduated or received the equivalent of a diploma. If the student is not a legal permanent resident, they must sign an affidavit stating that they have filed an application to become a legal permanent resident, or will file an application as soon as they are eligible to do so.
Current Status
New Mexico, Texas, Utah, California, New York, Illinois, Washington, Kansas and Oklahoma have already passed similar bills. Governor Romney vetoed the bill in Massachusetts in June 2004. This session the bill was reported favorably out of the House Ways and Means Committee and is currently awaiting a full vote on the House floor. Governor Romney is expected to once again veto the bill, therefore we need a 2/3rds majority in the House to move forward. We are currently counting votes and urging House leadership to bring the bill up for a full floor vote.
Also see this, which explains that nationally “approximately 65,000 undocumented students . . . graduate from high school every year without the opportunity to go to college.”
§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on October 24, 2005 at 3:35 pm
They are doing it again! My wife and I spent five days and four nights in a hospital in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. We saw people floating dead in the water. We watched people die waiting for evacuation to places with food, water, and electricity. We were rescued by boat and waited for an open pickup truck to take us and dozens of others on a rainy drive to the underpass where thousands of others waited for a bus ride to who knows where. You saw the people left behind. The poor, the sick, the disabled, the prisoners, the low-wage workers of New Orleans, were all left behind in the evacuation. Now that New Orleans is re-opening for some, the same people are being left behind again.
When those in power close the public schools, close public housing, fire people from their jobs, refuse to provide access to affordable public healthcare, and close off all avenues for justice, it is not necessary to erect a sign outside of New Orleans saying “Poor People Not Allowed To Return.” People cannot come back in these circumstances and that is exactly what is happening.
There are 28,000 people still living in shelters in Louisiana. There are 38,000 public housing apartments in New Orleans, many in good physical condition. None have been reopened. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimated that 112,000 low-income homes in New Orleans were damaged by the hurricane. Yet, local, state and federal authorities are not committed to re-opening public housing. Louisiana Congressman Richard Baker (R-LA) said, after the hurricane, “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.”
New Orleans public schools enrolled about 60,000 children before the hurricane. The school board president now estimates that no schools on the city’s east bank, where the overwhelming majority of people live, will reopen this academic school year. Every one of the 13 public schools on the mostly-dry west bank of New Orleans was changed into charter schools in an afternoon meeting a few days ago. A member of the Louisiana state board of education estimated that at most 10,000 students will attend public schools in New Orleans this academic year.
The City of New Orleans laid off 3,000 workers. The public school system laid off thousands of its workers. The Archdiocese of New Orleans laid off 800 workers from its central staff and countless hundreds of others from its parish schools. The Housing Authority has laid off its workers. The St. Bernard Sheriff’s Office laid off half of its workers.
Renters in New Orleans are returning to find their furniture on the street and strangers living in their apartments at higher rents – despite an order by the Governor that no one can be evicted before October 25. Rent in the dry areas have doubled and tripled.
Environmental chemist Wilma Subra cautions that earth and air in the New Orleans area appear to be heavily polluted with heavy metal and organic contaminants from more than 40 oil spills and extensive mold. The people, Subra stated, are subject to “double insult – the chemical insult from the sludge and biological insult from the mold.” Homes built on the Agriculture Street landfill – a federal toxic site – stewed for weeks in floodwaters.
Yet, the future of Charity Hospital of New Orleans, the primary place for free comprehensive medical care in the state of Louisiana, is under furious debate and discussion and may never re-open again. Right now, free public healthcare is being provided by volunteers at grassroots free clinics like Common Ground – a wonderful and much needed effort but not a substitute for public healthcare.
The jails and prisons are full and staying full. Despite orders to release prisoners, state and local corrections officials are not releasing them unless someone can transport them out of town. Lawyers have to file lawsuits to force authorities to release people from prison who have already served all of their sentences! Judges are setting $100,000 bonds for people who steal beer out of a vacant house, while landlords break the law with impunity. People arrested before and after the hurricane have not even been formally charged by the prosecutor. Because the evidence room is under water, part of the police force is discredited, and witnesses are scattered around the country, everyone knows few will ever see a trial, yet timid judges are reluctant to follow the constitution and laws and release them on reasonable bond.
People are making serious money in this hurricane but not the working and poor people who built and maintained New Orleans. President Bush lifted the requirement that jobs re-building the Gulf Coast pay a living wage. The Small Business Administration has received 1.6 million disaster loan applications and has approved 9 in Louisiana. A US Senator reported that maintenance workers at the Superdome are being replaced by out of town workers who will work for less money and no benefits. He also reported that seventy-five Louisiana electricians at the Naval Air Station are being replaced by workers from Kellogg Brown and Root – a subsidiary of Halliburton
Take it to the courts, you say? The Louisiana Supreme Court has been closed since the hurricane and is not due to re-open until at least October 25, 2005. While Texas and Mississippi have enacted special rules to allow out of state lawyers to come and help people out, the Louisiana Supreme court has not. Nearly every person victimized by the hurricane has a price-gouging story. Yet, the Louisiana Attorney General has filed exactly one suit for price-gouging – against a campground. Likewise, the US attorney has prosecuted 3 people for wrongfully seeking $2000 FEMA checks.
No schools. No low-income apartments. No jobs. No healthcare. No justice.
A final example? You can fly on a plane into New Orleans, but you cannot take a bus. Greyhound does not service New Orleans at this time.
You saw the people who were left behind last time. The same people are being left behind all over again. You raised hell about the people left behind last time. Please do it again.
Bill Quigley is a professor of law at Loyola University New Orleans where he directs the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center and the Law Clinic and teaches Law and Poverty. Bill can be reached at duprestarsATyahooDOTcom
§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on October 11, 2005 at 12:07 am
Particularly interesting was the interview with Dr. Gwendolyn Webb-Johnson concerning her work on something she calls “instructional racism,” the racism that causes teachers to have low expectations for African American students and to funnel them through the special education system, in which they are grossly over represented.
§ Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg on October 7, 2005 at 1:43 am
Folks I've got them hungry blues
And nothin' in this to lose
People tellin' me to choose
Between dyin' and lyin' and
keep on cryin'
Tired of them hungry blues
Listen ain't you heard the news
There's another thing to choose
A brand new world
clean and fine
Where nobody's hungry
And there's no color line
A thing like that's worth
anybody dyin'
I ain't got a thing to lose
But them doggone hungry blues
Growing up in Baltimore, the place is so rich in history. From America’s infancy, democracy’s first dream to today’s realities . . . Baltimore always figured in the struggle.
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