Hungry Blues

Psychologist Michael Wessells, today (8/16), in TomPaine.com:

The APA has been embattled recently over its policy of permitting psychologists to play an advisory role on behavioral science consultation teams, which guide the interrogation of detainees. This policy drew fire because of the horrendous violations of human rights at sites such as Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and Bagram and the abuse of specific psychological methods, including sleep deprivation, stress positioning, exploitation of phobias, forced nakedness, sensory deprivation, religious degradation and isolation. Both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association have banned their members from supporting interrogations processes, leaving many psychologists wondering why the American Psychological Association would not adopt a similar stance.

The APA’s vote last week fails to provide human rights protections because three key issues remain unaddressed: the lack of clear ethical guidance, ineffective systems for monitoring and reporting, and the illegal nature of the detainment environment itself. As a result, psychologists who work with military and intelligence agencies will continue to be put in a position of enabling, supporting, or allowing violations of detainee rights....

The current APA policy offers no operational guidance about the appropriateness of these methods, leaving psychologists to judge at each instance whether a particular treatment counts as a human rights violation. Psychologists are not trained to make such determinations, which in any case cannot be made well on the spot. To behave ethically in the security arena, psychologists need the backing of their professional association in the form of clear ethical guidance. Two years following the public outrage over the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the APA has still not provided such guidance. Although it has denounced the most heinous abuses that any reasonable person would regard as torture, these are not the primary methods being used. The so-called ‘torture lite’ methods—which psychologists know are damaging—are taking place underneath the radar and without repercussions. This situation constitutes a major failure of ethics guidance on the part of the world’s largest professional organization.

Michael Wessells is professor of Clinical Population and Family Health at Columbia University and professor of Psychology at Randolph-Macon College. He regularly advises various government and international agencies on child protection and psychosocial programs and policies, and he currently is co-chair of a United Nations interagency task force on mental health and psychosocial support during emergencies.... Dr. Wessells resigned from the Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) because of the issue of torture.

(Read the whole thing.)

Before I wrote my previous post, rebutting John Grohol's discussion of an earlier Hungry Blues post on the APA and US torture, I left two comments on his blog on August 11. In my comments I left two bits of evidence that called Grohol's claims into question. A few days earlier, another commentor, Ian Westmore, who maintains another psychology blog, also raised some substantive objections to Grohol's discussion.

Grohol responded to none of our points. Instead, he posted, without comment, an excerpt from the AP article announcing the APA's "stand against torture" and adherence to "existing policy saying that it’s ethical for psychologists to assist in military interrogations."

Since Grohol showed no willingness to engage in informal discussion in the comments to his blog, I posted a formal rebuttal on August 14, at 8:14 AM. Late that night, at 12:43 AM on August 15, after no attempts at sending trackbacks to Grohol's post had worked, I posted a new comment to notify Grohol and future readers of my rebuttal.

This morning I posted a rebuttal to your criticism of my Hungry Blues post:

John Grohol Issues Misleading APA Damage Control

(Note: I recently moved Hungry Blues to my own domain, which is why the link, above, will take you to a different website than the one you link to in your post.)

In my browser, this appeared as the 5th comment in the thread, but it was marked as "awaiting moderation." When my comment was still awaiting moderation this morning, I emailed Grohol with roughly the same information as in my comment, adding, "I think it would be appropriate to release my comment from moderation, so readers of your post can know that I've responded."

As of this writing, Grohol has not replied to my email, he has not released my comment from moderation, and he has not written in his blog to counter my rebuttals of his arguments.

One might give him the benefit of the doubt, supposing that perhaps he has not had a chance to tend to his blog these last few days. Yet Grohol posted to Psych Central twice today (8/16) and once yesterday (8/15).

No, it appears more likely that Grohol does not want to discuss the misleading ways he has downplayed the APA's role in supporting US torture. Nor does he want his readers to know there is discussion of this topic available elsewhere.

UPDATE (8/18): Grohol let my comment through and responded to my rebuttal last night. I will be posting my response to him soon.

Psychologist John M. Grohol objects to my mention of the distinctions between the immoral interrogation policy of the American Psychological Association and the ethical standards established by the American Medical and American Psychiatric Associations. Grohol asserts that, to the contrary, "there appears to be little significant difference between the APA and AMA positions."

Grohol claims that both the AMA and the American Psychological Association allow their members to "consult to interrogations." While this is true for the American Psychological Association, it is untrue for the AMA.

The policy recommendations [pdf] that the AMA adopted on June 12 state:

[P]hysicians must neither conduct nor directly participate in an interrogation, nor should they monitor interrogations with the intention of intervening. They may participate in developing interrogation strategies for general training purposes. These strategies must not be coercive and must be humane and respect the rights of individuals.

Physicians are allowed to develop strategies for "general training," but they are not allowed to consult to specific interrogations. The proper interpretation of the AMA language, I believe, is that AMA members may participate in developing general strategies that will help interrogators respect the human rights of detainees.

Last week, the APA passed a resolution that "condemns any involvement by psychologists in torture" but makes no effort to define the role of psychologists in interrogations. In the absence of clear professional guidelines, psychologists can only fall back upon the military standards and procedures [pdf] for those who serve as Behavioral Science Consultants (BSCs):

E2.1. BSCs are authorized to make psychological assessments of the character, personality, social interactions, and other behavioral characteristics of detainees, including interrogation subjects, and, based on such assessments, advise authorized personnel performing lawful interrogations and other lawful detainee operations, including intelligence activities and law enforcement. They employ their professional training not in a provider patient relationship, but in relation to a person who is the subject of a lawful governmental inquiry, assessment, investigation, interrogation, adjudication, or other proper action. . . .

E2.1.1. BSCs may provide advice concerning interrogations of detainees when the interrogations are fully in accordance with applicable law and properly issued interrogation instructions.

E2.1.2. BSCs may observe, but shall not conduct or direct, interrogations.

Psychologists who are BSCs may observe interrogations, make assessments of detainees and offer advice to interrogators. Physicians may not "monitor interrogations with the intention of intervening." Physicians are allowed precisely two roles regarding detainees: as providers of medical care and as providers of general training to interrogators, to teach them strategies that are "humane and respect the rights of individuals." In stark contrast, psychologists who serve as BSCs "employ their professional training not in a provider patient relationship, but in relation to a person who is the subject of a lawful governmental inquiry, assessment, investigation, interrogation, adjudication, or other proper action."

Current American Psychological Association policy allows its members to serve as BSCs and, in its silence on this mode of participation in interrogations, authorizes a range of activities that are categorically forbidden by both the American Medical and American Psychiatric Associations. It is highly misleading to say the respective policies "aren’t significantly different."

It is also misleading to suggest that the American Psychiatric Association "didn’t bother to elucidate a theoretical framework for their ethical stance." The American Psychiatric Association is an affiliate of the AMA; its members are therefore governed by the same ethical code, with the same underlying principles, as other AMA members. Furthermore, the three psychiatric professional organizations—the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL)—"gave detailed suggestions and comments to the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA), which wrote the policy" (link [pdf]). The American Psychiatric Association went so far as to say [pdf] that, for its members,

Direct participation includes being present in the interrogation room, asking or suggesting questions, or advising authorities on the use of specific techniques of interrogation with particular detainees.

While, according to Grohol, "advising authorities on the use of specific techniques of interrogation with particular detainees" is indirect participation, it is direct participation, according to the American Psychiatric Association.(*)

In addition to making misleading arguments, Grohol also misrepresents the AMA through a misattributed quotation. Grohol asserts that

Specifically, the AMA states,

Physicians may consult to interrogations by developing interrogation strategies that do not threaten or cause physical injury or mental suffering and that are humane and respect the rights of individuals.

But Grohol's quotation does not come from the AMA. Instead, it comes from Stephen Behnke, director of the American Psychological Association Ethics Office. Much of Grohol's challenge to my characterizations of the associations' respective policies is drawn from Behnke's recent article in Monitor on Psychology, which includes the following passage:

[T]he AMA report states that physicians may consult to interrogations by developing interrogation strategies that do “not threaten or cause physical injury or mental suffering” and that are “humane and respect the rights of individuals.”

It is Behnke who asserts—untruthfully—that "physicians may consult to interrogations." Behnke quotes the AMA out of context, to assert that its policy says something that it doesn't. Grohol then quotes Behnke quoting the AMA but removes the quotation marks from the phrases that belong to the AMA and gives the false impression that Behnke's untrue assertion is a quotation of official AMA policy.

Grohol is trying awfully hard to make a case that that evidence does not support. Why?

~

*CORRECTION: At original posting, the phrase indicated with the asterisk, above, read "American Psychological Association," though it should have read "Psychiatric." I have applied the correction to the original text. ---BG

Yesterday, at its annual convention, the American Psychological Association passed a seemingly strong resolution against torture yet left the door to the interrogation room open for its members.

In the APA's executive lexicon, dissent = consent and upholding human rights = aiding torturers.

Leonard Rubenstein, Executive Director, Physicians for Human Rights*:

“The APA’s adoption of the internationally accepted ban on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is only a starting point,” Rubenstein said. But he warned that the APA’s “mere recitation of that principle ignores the Bush Administration’s distortion of the terms, ‘torture’ and ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.’ Therefore, ethical standards based on those terms alone -- as the APA’s are now -- provide wholly inadequate guidance to psychologists.” He noted, too, that current Pentagon policy also allows behavioral scientists to share medical information about a detainee with interrogators.

The significance of the APA's decision not to decide against psychologists' participation in interrogations of detainees cannot be overstated.

Take a couple of steps back from the APA convention and recall the June announcement of Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. The NY Times reported:

WASHINGTON, June 6 — Pentagon officials said Tuesday that they would try to use only psychologists, and not psychiatrists, to help interrogators devise strategies to get information from detainees at places like Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. . . .

The new policy follows by little more than two weeks an overwhelming vote by the American Psychiatric Association discouraging its members from participating in those efforts.

Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told reporters that the new policy favoring the use of psychologists over psychiatrists was a recognition of differing positions taken by their respective professional groups.

The military had been using psychiatrists and psychologists alike on behavioral science consultation teams, called "biscuit" teams because of the acronym, to advise interrogators on how best to obtain information from prisoners.

But Dr. Steven S. Sharfstein, recent past president of the American Psychiatric Association, noted in an interview that the group adopted a policy in May unequivocally stating that its members should not be part of the teams.

Now look at Marty Lederman's analysis of last week's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee of Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury. Lederman looks at Bradbury's suggestion that the Bush administration will likely propose replacing the Geneva Convention's limitations on interrogation with the standards of the McCain Amendment.

[T]here is a good chance that the Administration is not construing the McCain Amendment to categorically prohibit certain (reported) "enhanced" techniques used by the CIA, including Cold Cell (hypothermia), Long Time Standing, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and possibly waterboarding. If that is the Administration's understanding, then the McCain standards would not, in fact, satisfy U.S. obligations under Common Article 3 [of the Geneva Convention].

If it's not clear what, exactly, the McCain Amendment prohibits, and not certain that it's coterminous with Common Article 3, why should Congress amend the law to rely exclusively on McCain rather than on Common Article 3 itself?

Bradbury's explanation is that "some of the terms in Common Article 3 are inherently vague." This doesn't seem very plausible -- after all, the military has been taught to apply standards even stricter than Common Article 3 for decades. . . .

And no one has complained about its vagueness for the past nine years, although it has applied as a matter of criminal law during that time (via the War Crimes Act) to interrogators all over the world, including our own in traditional conflicts, such as Iraq. Moreover, some of the "war crimes" that the Administration itself has proposed to be statutorily enacted for purposes of military commissions -- such as conspiracy -- are just as vague and as broad and open-ended, as anything in Common Article 3.

But more importantly, even if some provisions of CA3 were vague, the substantive standard of the McCain Amendment -- the "shocks the conscience" test of the due process clause -- is undeniably vaguer, and more uncertain and case-specific. . . .

Once it's understood that the McCain Amendment is even vaguer and more indeterminate than Common Article 3, it appears that there's really no other reason for the Administration to seek to fall back on McCain other than to circumvent the categorical prohibitions in CA3 section 1(a) on "cruel treatment and torture."

In vying to keep the US legal definition of torture purposefully vague, the DOJ can continue to make false distinctions between physical and psychological torture, as in the August 1, 2002 memo from Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee to then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales [pdf]—which led to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's approval of so-called "Category II" interrogation techniques [pdf] in December, 2002. Category II techinques include:

• stress positions (like standing), for a maximum of four hours
• falsified documents or reports
• solitary confinement for up to thirty days
• interrogation in other than the standard interrogation booth
• sensory deprivation
• hooding with unrestricted breathing
• removal of all comfort items (including religious items)
• feeding cold Army rations
• removal of clothing
• forced grooming (shaving of facial hair etc.)
• use of detainees individual phobias (such as fear of dogs) to induce stress

A year ago, Jane Mayer interviewed a former Guantanamo interrogator, who explained that psychologists on Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCTs)

were heavily involved in drawing up and monitoring interrogation plans, which were designed individually for each detainee. . . . Sleep deprivation was such a common technique, he said, that the interrogators called the process of moving detainees every hour or two from one cell to another “the frequent-flier program.” He said that interrogators also used pornography to manipulate detainees, giving pictures as a reward to compliant prisoners who were not religious, and forcing “noncompliant” Muslims to look at them. Detainees were routinely shackled in painful “stress positions.”

According to Mayer's source, BSCT psychologists are involved in the selection and deployment of these techniques. Mark Benjamin has more recently documented at least one case in which BSCTs were quite explicitly in charge of an interrogation.

While yesterday's APA statement "condemns any involvement by psychologists in torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," there is no mention of BSCTs. There is no explicit prohibition against psychologists continuing in this "consulting" role.

Let's connect the dots.

The DOJ and the DOD work to maintain intentionally vague definitions of torture that allow for Category II interrogation techniques. The APA resolves to oppose torture but continue allowing psychologists to participate in interrogations. Interrogations revolve around Category II techniques, which are determined and orchestrated by BSCTs. The only Behavioral Scientists allowed on the Consultation Teams are psychologists. Psychologist participation in interrogations is essential to the continuation of current US torture policy.

FURTHER READING

• Psychologists stand against torture; don't mention interrogation (AP)
• Stephen Soldz, "Psychologists, Guantanamo and Torture: A Profession Struggles to Save Its Soul" (ZNet)
• Table of Interrogation Techniques Recommended/Approved by U.S. Officials (Human Rights Watch)
• Interrogators Reject Torture PDF (via Amnesty International)
• Break Them Down: Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces (Physicians for Human Rights)
• The Interrogation Documents: Debating US Policy and Methods (National Security Archive)

~
*The usual disclosure: I am an employee of PHR.

By Jan Hillegas

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.

With the 2006 APA Convention about to start in New Orleans on Thursday, Psychologists for Social Responsibility has issued the following statement.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 8, 2006
Contact: Anne Anderson: (Cell) 202-262-0989

Psychologists for Social Responsibility Urges APA to Adopt Policy of “No Participation in National Security Interrogations”

PsySR urges the American Psychological Association to declare immediately, clearly, and unequivocally that psychologists should not participate at this time in any way in national security or military interrogations.

[click to continue…]

After Mark Benjamin's exposé last week of the American Psychological Association's troubling collusion with US torture of detainees, the organization issued a point by point rebuttal of his Salon.com article. In turn Benjamin has written a follow-up piece which reveals embarrassing untruths in the APA's rebuttals.

APA:

[Mark Benjamin's] article opens by suggesting that the APA is facing an "internal revolt" against the Association's current policy on the role of psychologists in military interrogations. The reality is that APA's Council of Representatives endorsed the current policy at its last meeting. (February 2006)

Mark Benjamin:

That raised some eyebrows among some members, who pointed out the claim was incorrect. In a relatively unusual move, they said, the interrogation report bypassed the council (described on the APA Web site as the "most important governance body of the association") and became policy through the imprimatur of APA's smaller 12-person board of directors. "Council was not asked to endorse or approve the PENS task force report," said council member Bernice Lott.

[Rhea] Farberman, the APA spokeswoman, acknowledged that the original APA statement on the council's endorsement was technically incorrect. She said that members of the council had made "laudatory" statements about the report at a council meeting last February. When called on this issue last week by her own members, Farberman admitted to the council in an e-mail, obtained by Salon, that "Council took no official action on the report." Still, Farberman said in a telephone call to Salon that the APA leadership was not facing an internal revolt. She said that an Associated Press article was more accurate in describing the APA leadership as "under fire."

At best the APA assertion that "APA's Council of Representatives endorsed the current policy at its last meeting" is an unsupported half truth. Other possibilities are that the assertion is either a) delusional thinking or b) a lie.

The APA's back room decision making and secrecy have been of great concern to the many members who oppose its policy. In his article, Benjamin explained:

Last summer, the APA adopted new ethical principles drafted by a task force of 10 psychologists, who were selected by the organization's leadership. That controversial task-force report, which is now official APA policy, stated that psychologists participating in terror-related interrogations are fulfilling "a valuable and ethical role to assist in protecting our nation, other nations, and innocent civilians from harm."

But Salon has learned that six of the 10 psychologists on the task force have close ties to the military. The names and backgrounds of the task force participants were not made public by the APA . . .

The APA countered:

This is totally false. In reality, the names and composition of the Task Force is public information. The names and biographical statements of each of the Task Force members are, and have been for some time, available through the APA website.

In reality:

[A] link to the biographies of those task force members appeared on the APA Web site only after the publication of Salon's article. Farberman acknowledged that the APA did put the link to the bios of the task force members on its site after Salon published its story.

Still, for psychologists, there is always room for interpretation, especially when your meaning is conveyed in prepositions rather than facts:

But she added that one could have previously navigated to the Web site of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence through the APA Web site. "We said that the bio statements have been available through the Web site for some time," she wrote in an e-mail.

Here is how one would have gotten to the bio statements of the Task Force before the APA added the link to the front page of its site:

1. Go to www.apa.org.
2. Click on "About APA" (http://www.apa.org/about/) in the left sidebar.
3. Scroll about 2/3 of the way down the About page to the section heading "APA's Professional Divisions."
4. Click on link, http://www.apa.org/about/division.html.
5. Scroll about 2/3 of the way down the Divisions page to Division 48, Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology Division.
6. Click on Division 48 link to go to Division 48 web page on the APA site, http://www.apa.org/about/division/div48.html.
7. Click on the link to go off the APA website to the Division 48 website, http://www.peacepsych.org/.
8. Scroll about 1/2 way down the busy, two column page to the section on the right, headed "APA Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security."
9. In the middle of the paragraph, click on the link to the "complete list of Task Force members," http://www.webster.edu/peacepsychology/tfpens.html.

Voilà! It's that simple to get to the list "through" the APA website.

Linda M. Woolf, president of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence, told Mark Benjamin that Division 48 published the Task Force names because current APA interrogation policy "does not provide clear enough guidelines to keep psychologists out of situations involving abuse in the name of the war on terror."

From the Clarion Ledger:

Civil Rights Crime Act Clears Another Hurdle

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation Thursday that would establish a unit to pursue unpunished killings from the nation's civil rights era.

It now goes on to the full Senate.

"I'm pleased this bill has received a favorable vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee and hope the full Senate will take it up soon," said U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a sponsor, along with fellow Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott, of the legislation.

The Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act would set up a Justice Department section and an FBI office to help local authorities pursue prosecutions of pre-1970 killings.

Since 1989, authorities in Mississippi and six other states have reexamined 29 killings and made 27 arrests, leading to 22 convictions, including Edgar Ray Killen, convicted last summer of orchestrated the Ku Klux Klan's 1964 killings of three civil rights workers - James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.

Chaney's mother, Fannie Chaney, called the legislation "perhaps the most important piece of civil rights legislation since the 1960s."

The bill has been nicknamed the "Till bill" after the 1955 killing of Chicago teenager Emmett Till, whose killing helped to galvanize the civil rights movement.

From the Arkansas Delta Truth and Justice Center (via email):

It is good that the federal Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act bill is moving towards perhaps becoming law.

But Mississippi already has enough evidence to successfully prosecute a number of white racist murderers, particularly in the Neshoba murders case.

Why won't they?

From Representative John Lewis (in the Clarion Ledger):

There are unsolved cases like the Till case in many states in America . . .

If we allow these crimes to go unanswered, we cannot candidly declare we are a nation that believes in justice . . .

Local Photos, originally uploaded by BenTG.

How does place inhabit a person?

How does landscape convey location?

LOCAL PHOTOS
Somerville and Cambridge, MA
Seattle, WA • New Orleans, LA
Mississippi Gulf Coast

More information and directions:
http://www.pplm.org/health_plan.php

[Fannie L. Chaney is the mother of James Chaney, who, along with Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, was murdered by a gang of Klansmen in Neshoba County, MS, June 21 1964. --BG]

August 1, 2006

To Members of the United States Senate

BY FAX AND MAIL

Dear Senator,

I am writing to seek your support for the Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, Senate Bill No. S. 2679 which calls for the Department of Justice and the F.B.I. to investigate surviving perpetrators of racial violence that took place up to 1970. The Bill is sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans. It makes available to prosecutors F.B.I. files which the Department of Justice has been reluctant to release to local states. Such files include the so-called “informant files.”

The importance of the Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act cannot be understated. In the fall of 2004, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood publicly announced that he was requesting the assistance of the F.B.I. to investigate the murders of James Chaney, Andy Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Instead of filing a request with the Justice Department, Mr. Hood investigated the case on his own and, in January 2005 introduced evidence on only one defendant before a Neshoba County Grand Jury. That defendant, Edgar Ray Killen was convicted in June 2005.

Days before the trial, Mr. Hood met with the families and told us that he had presented evidence to the Grand Jury concerning all the living “suspects” in the case and that the Grand Jury only returned an indictment against Mr. Killen. In the fall of last year we discovered that the reason the Grand Jury issued only one indictment was because Mr. Hood had introduced evidence on only one man, Edgar Ray Killen. Had Mr. Hood been sincere in his quest for justice and used the resources of the Justice Department, he could not have avoided presenting evidence to the Grand Jury on the role of a multi-millionaire in Neshoba County who was involved in the murders and on whose property (the Old Jolly Farm) the bodies were found. Nor could he have avoided evidence on the involvement of a former State Legislator who served on the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission and spent his career obstructing justice in this case.

The Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act would reduce, to some degree, the “delay”, “stall” and/or “play stupid” tactics used by some county and state District Attorneys to protect the influential members of their community who participated in these crimes. The Bill would put a stop to their feigning ignorance. It offers the best opportunity for full disclosure of all the evidence in these cases and will bring closure to the families and to the communities in which the murders took place.

The Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act is perhaps the most important piece of civil rights legislation since the 1960's.

I have hoped and prayed for over 40 years for justice including full disclosure and the complete prosecution of all those involved in the murder of my son James, and his companions, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Therefore I urged you and your colleagues in the U.S. Senate to pass the Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act this week, so that those who participated in these horrible crimes can receive the justice that has been long overdue.

Fannie L. Chaney

This is site is the new home for my blog, Hungry Blues, which I started over on Typepad's hosted service in March, 2004.

As of this writing, I have migrated all posts and comments from the Typepad site to this new site, a WordPress blog installed on my own server space, hosted by TextDrive.

From this point forward, all new blog content will be posted here exclusively.

Because I have moved from a hosted domain (i.e., my old urls include ".typepad.com") to my own domain (hungryblues.net), existing internal links from one Hungry Blues post to another Hungry Blues post will continue to take you to the pages on the old site. The old Typepad site, will therefore remain open until I complete the process of manually updating all of the internal links on my new site. With over 600 posts on the old site, this is a tedious process that will take some time.

During the transition period, clicking intnernal links to other Hungry Blues posts may take you to my old site. However, comments and trackbacks on the old site are permanently closed. If you want to comment on something you found over there, copy and paste the post title into the search box in the sidebar on this site. The search result should take you to the same post on this site.

Here is a list of things I need to do to complete the migration process and close down the Typepad site:

• Manually update all internal links.
• Enable trackback pings on all old posts (must also be done manually...).
• Move all files (images, audio, etc.) to new site.
• Clean up formatting on posts that got mangled during migration.
• Replace Quicktime audio players that got stripped from the posts during migration with simple mp3 links and the flash-based player now installed on this site.

Also on the agenda:

• On new site, change display template to move post dates from post headers to post footers (I could use some CSS help on this one).
• Continue updating the blogroll to reflect current reading habits.
• Create stand alone pages for updated versions of the link collections in sidebar of old site.

Tips on how to most efficiently update links and clean up posts are most welcome. (Contact info is here.)

Contact

I assume all blog related email is okay to publish, unless you tell me otherwise.

Send me email:

minorjive at gmail dot com

Licensing

Works by Benjamin T. Greenberg (Weblog Author)

All original content of any nature created by Benjamin T. Greenberg and included in this weblog and any related pages, including the weblog's archives, is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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Now that a year has passed since Edgar Ray Killen was put behind bars for the 1964 murders of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, Philadelphia, MS is ready to cash in.

In June, 2005, forty-one years after a band of racists murdered the three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, MS, James E. Prince III said he was telling his fellow white townspeople that

if they can't be behind the call for justice because it's the right thing to do--and that's first and foremost--then they need to do it 'cause it's good for business.

Another year later, in July 2006, Prince, along with Stanley Dearman, Prince's predecessor as editor and publisher of the Neshoba Democrat, and State Senator Gloria Williamson have launched a public relations campaign to bring a proposed civil rights museum to Philadelphia, MS.

Jeff Edwards, staff reporter for the Neshoba Democrat, writes:

In the coming months, members of the committee [charged with studying the possibility of a museum] will decide on a location and possible funding sources. . . .

"The Killen trial . . . made more people aware that we needed such a museum. It had a great deal to do with attention on the civil rights era and I suspect Neshoba County will be a lead character at the museum," [Williamson said].

Stanley Dearman, who covered the civil rights murders and subsequent investigation, said a museum would be very important for the state and Neshoba County.

"It's important to preserve that history and have it in one place for scholars and school groups to see," Dearman said.

He hopes Philadelphia will be considered for the museum site, noting the importance it played in the civil rights movement.

"It would be an excellent choice for it," Dearman said. "Neshoba County is on the map as far as the civil rights movement is concerned. It was put on the map by what the Klan did in 1964."

Dearman thinks he can support both a Mississippi civil rights museum and a monument to the Confederacy, but why does the Klan get to decide where the civil rights museum will go?

The way Prince tells it, Philadelphia has redeemed itself from its own history and is now a light unto the nations, for which a civil rights museum is its just reward:

After 40 years, business and civic leaders here called for justice because it was the right thing. Soon there was a statewide chorus that crossed racial, political and religious lines.

Mr. Killen was sentenced to 60 years in prison last year for orchestrating the 1964 murders of James Earl Chaney, Michael H. Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, young men who had been organizing a black voter registration drive.

To the whole world Philadelphia was long a symbol of hatred, yet now has become a symbol of hope and reconciliation.

Though Philadelphia is largely a city of good, God-fearing souls, Prince cannot appeal to devout sentiment for very long without returning to crass promises of earthly rewards.

Such a museum could be another spoke in our tourism-driven economy while telling a story that much of the world wants - and needs - to hear.

The world doesn't want to hear that Mississippi in 2006 is protecting white, racist murderers. Let's tell the world that we're done with racism and make us some cash.

Prince got himself onto the subject of redemption in the first place by mentioning a recent article in the NY Times.

Even the normally critical New York Times observed about us recently that the June 2005 conviction of Edgar Ray Killen was "a redemption for the small town of Philadelphia, Miss."

But this only half true. The full sentence in the NY Times reads:

Mr. Killen’s manslaughter conviction in June 2005 was hailed as a long-awaited victory for the civil rights movement and a redemption for the small town of Philadelphia, Miss., outside of which the killings occurred (emphasis added).

Was hailed as a redemption by whom? Perhaps by Prince but not by the NY Times.

As the saying goes, a half truth is simply a lie.

The NY Times article, which Prince quoted out of context, covered Judge Marcus Gordon's rejection of Edgar Ray Killen's latest request to be released from prison on appeal bond. Before Gordon's decision, when it looked like Killen might get to live the rest of his days as a free man, many of Prince's journalist colleagues thought it important to take a moral stand, decrying the possible outrage. Prince was silent.

My advice to Prince, if he wants to pull off his next PR stunt, is get a little more comfortable saying "Black" and "African American." He managed it once in the first 100 words of his editorial, when he mentioned that Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman "had been organizing a black voter registration drive." But mentioning Blacks again, 100 words later was a little more than he could handle.

Successfully lobbying for the museum would benefit this entire region of the state as we embrace our rich cultural heritage, from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians to the Jewish influence in Meridian and beyond statewide.

Who were those civil rights for again?

James Prince: "This is a real opportunity for East Mississippi."

Whose culture and history are we remembering?

James Prince: "This is a real opportunity for East Mississippi."

Hungry Blues - James P. Johnson and Langston Hughes [2:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Current

Writer, photographer, researcher, editor and activist.

In 2006 I was guest co-editor for the March/April Dollars & Sense magazine, a special issue devoted to the Gulf Coast region since Hurricane Katrina. I went on assignment for the magazine to Mississippi and Louisiana at the end of January, 2006.

My current research and writing is focused mainly on Civil Rights Movement history, racial violence in the South and current efforts to seek justice for those crimes.

Email me

Some clips:

• The American Prospect
  • Belated Justice for Civil Rights Era Crimes (feature)
• The Black Commentator
  • Who Killed Jimmie Lee Jackson? (feature; also archived here)

• Dollars & Sense
  • Gone to Mississippi (feature)
  • "Ground Zero of Someone Else's Future" (interview)
  • Excerpts from additional Gulf Coast interviews (D&S blog entries)

• In These Times
  • Voter Disenfranchisement By Attrition: With Friends Like FEMA Who Needs Jim Crow (feature)

Some photos:

• Gulf Coast
• General

Some of my poems are in the Hungry Blues archive.

Basics

This blog began in March 2004 as a way to pursue research and writing about my father's life and times. Studying political history and getting to know some of my father's contemporaries in the Civil Rights Movement radicalized me politically, and the focus of this blog quickly expanded.

Starting this blog has led me to friendships and political activism with Movement veterans. It has taken me to Mississippi and Alabama. Hungry Blues has led to my current work as a journalist and in internet communications for a human rights organization.

Background

I was born in 1969 when my father was 41. From about age 18 to age 36 (1945-1963) he was directly involved in many of the political struggles that shaped the American left—labor, disarmament, civil rights.

From about age 14 to age 41 (1941-1969), my father had close relationships with some of the finest jazz musicians of the swing era—Pee Wee Russell, Max Kaminsky, Rex Stewart and, especially, Frankie Newton.

By the time I was born, many of the pursuits and relationships that had so defined my father were drifting into the past. Growing up, I heard bits and pieces of my father's experiences in politics and on the jazz scene, but he was not one for keeping track of details or keeping chronologies straight. My father's stories were largely nostalgia pieces, not oral history.

I was born in New York City, but I mostly grew up in Delmar, NY, a suburb of Albany. My neighborhood was pleasant, somewhat conservative, predominantly white, middle-class: a typical bedroom community for people with jobs in state government and at the local universities and colleges. The public high school, which I attended, had only the smallest handful of African-American students or other students of color.

Back at our house, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was simply Martin, my dad's old boss. You could hear stories about New York jazz clubs like Minton's and the Cafe Society and talk about labor unions, nuclear disarmament, socialism. African American literature and music and civil rights activists were constant reference points. My father's good friend William Douthard, a Black youth leader in the civil rights struggles of Birmingham, AL and elsewhere in the state, lived with us in our house in the suburbs for some months, when he first moved to Albany in 1978.

When my father died in 1997, I had no command of this history. To commune with him, I started collecting the jazz recordings of Frankie Newton. Collecting recordings led to researching Frankie Newton, which led to learning more about my father's brief stint in the Communist Party and his introduction to the labor movement in the 1940s. Which led me to learn about Bayard Rustin, disarmament, Civil Rights Movement—and much more.

Everything followed from those Frankie Newton recordings.

Everything followed from a love of jazz and the act of writing.

Epigraph and recording

The name of this blog comes from the title of a song written by Langston Hughes and James P. Johnson for an almost lost jazz opera, called De Organizer. I fell in love with the work of James P. Johnson, one of the creators of jazz piano, through his brilliant collaborations with Frankie Newton on a handful of recordings from 1939.

1939 was also the year that James P. Johnson and His Orchestra made two commercial recordings of "Hungry Blues." The singer Anna Robinson performs a slightly different improvisation on the lyrics in each recording. The text of the epigraph and the audio (podcast at beginning and end of this page) are from the session on June 15 (the other was on March 9).

Here's the lineup:

• Henry “Red” Allen - trumpet
• J. C. Higginbotham - trombone
• Gene Sedric - tenor sax
• James P. Johnson - piano
• Eugene Fields - guitar
• Pops Foster - bass
• Sid Catlett - drums
• Anna Robinson - vocal

Photograph

The photograph in the sidebar is of my father in New York City in 1961.

Hungry Blues - James P. Johnson and Langston Hughes [ 2:51 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download