Hungry Blues

It's nice to know my wife is thinking of me while she's at work. I just looked at my email and found a link from her to today's Boondocks. Sometimes I wonder why I bother going on in my prose when Aaron McGruder can do it in 6 frames.

Earlier today, on Tuesday, September 7, Scott B went back to Tuskegee, Alabama and talked with members of Winston Carter's family. The family is very upset by the public statement of the Tuskegee Police concerning Mr. Carter's death. Family members in Tuskegee whom Scott B spoke with supported the statement of Winston Carter's aunt, who wrote in to HungryBlues last week: the family does not believe Winston Carter would have committed suicide. Winston Carter's family has further stated that they will take any legal measure necessary to contest the coroner's report if the coroner declares Mr. Carter's death a suicide.

Winston Carter's family has also raised some concerns about the police investigation of his death. Mr. Carter's family reports that the crime scene was never sealed off. The scene, where Mr.Carter was found hanging from a tree by County Road 65 in Tuskegee, was contaminated by passers through, making it impossible for anyone to cull proper evidence from the area. It has been distressing to Winston Carter's family that the Tuskegee Police does not seem interested in a true investigation.

As I have noted before, outside of blogs that have picked up my coverage of the event, the only news report of Winston Carter's death was one article that appeared in the Montgomery Advertiser six days after Mr. Carter's body was found. Scott B reports that this news black out extends to the Tuskegee News, the local weekly that covers the events of Macon County, Alabama. It is hard not to wonder why the local paper that covers community affairs in Tuskegee has not made any mention at all of the hanging death of a Tuskegee resident.

Scott B also inquired at the office of Hal E. Bentley, Macon County Coroner in Tuskegee. Mr. Bentley replied that he cannot make any comment because all details concerning Winston Carter's death are part of an "ongoing investigation." When asked by Scott B to name a date when the information in the coroner's report will be available, Mr Bentley replied that he could not do so.

A friend of a friend needs to go from the Pacific Northwest to Tulsa, Oklahoma because of a family crisis there. She has no contacts in Tulsa, outside of the person she's going there to help. It would be very helpful to her if she could learn about community resources in Tulsa—church groups, women's groups, social service agencies, justice groups. If you know Tulsa and can give me any information to pass on, please drop me a line.

by Wallace Roberts (June 2004)

Recently I had occasion to make a trip to Mississippi after an absence of 40 years, and needless to say there have been many changes. And some things have not changed at all.

I came in by way of Memphis and then went south on US 61 to Clarksdale and Cleveland and the small town of Shaw, then east and south across the state to Philadelphia, and then back to Memphis, a trip of almost 500 miles.

One of my most interesting discoveries was the high quality of the state's highways. I don't think I hit a pothole once, even on some the smaller county roads, and a surprising number of the roads were recently paved. Indeed, there were a number of four-lane divided state highways that were clearly very new and very expensive.

When I was here last, some of these same roads were dirt, and the paved roads were narrow, rude affairs, pock-marked with potholes and practically shoulderless.

The casino signs around Tunica are new, of course, but I was struck by the ones that urged us to "See the other Tunica," presumably referring by inference to the one that still has open sewers along the streets.

Similarly, the slums in Cleveland and Shaw, where I worked in 1964 as a Freedom School Coordinator as part of "Freedom Summer," remain.

Downtown Shaw was declining back then; today, with it's rubble-filled lots and empty buildings, it looks like the set of a bombed-out village from "Saving Private Ryan," another casualty of "technological progress" that has brought about the destruction of rural life in America.

I stopped for a while in Shaw to find and visit with a man who had been only a five-year old child the summer I lived with him and his grandmother. He didn't remember me, of course, but he thanked me twice for "remembering us." As if I could ever forget the courage of people who risked their lives to take us in, feed us, and protect us that summer.

This man understood empirically what has changed and what has not changed since he was a child. That is not the case with some of the state's politicians whose high level of studied obtuseness appears impervious.

Gov. Haley Barbour, for instance, was a last-minute addition to the program at the Neshoba County Coliseum ceremony marking the 40th anniversary of the murders of James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner and Andy Goodman. In his speech, Barbour favorably compared the work done by the civil rights workers, with "the work securing freedom being done by American troops in Iraq," stunning the audience in the coliseum into incredulity.

Forty years ago, at the first memorial service for the three civil rights workers, held just a few days after the Gulf of Tonkin incident that marked the beginning of the Vietnam War, Bob Moses, the head of the summer project, said simply, "The same kind of racism that killed these three young men is going to kill thousands of Vietnamese."

Later in his remarks, Barbour said, and then repeated more than once, "America is the greatest country on earth," as if nearly four centuries of slavery, subjugation, and segregation of African Americans, plus a series of genocidal wars against Native Americans did not happen and that the continuing poverty of African and Native Americans, which is the direct consequence of those centuries of institutionalized white supremacy, were only a figment of our collective imagination.

Governor Barbour said he would support re-opening the murder investigation of the three civil rights workers. He did not say he would use all the powers and resources of his office to see that the killers were brought to justice.

Later, at a second memorial service at the Mt. Zion Church, Dave Dennis, one of the leaders of Freedom Summer, said that it doesn't really matter now what happens to a bunch of old men even in the name of justice. What matters now is the injustice still being done to the black children of Mississippi: Governor Barbour recently asked for a cut of more than $200 million in state funds for public education. This in a state that already ranks at the bottom nationally in per pupil spending.

I was able to shave a couple of hours off my driving time thanks to the lavish investment in slick new roads by Barbour and his predecessors, but that savings comes at the cost of the continuing intellectual enslavement of the state's black children.

Drive on, Mississippi, you're on a highway to nowhere.

Wallace Roberts works as a community organizer and independent journalist in East Calais, Vt.

Copyright © 2004, Wallace Roberts

It worries and disturbs me that our country's problems with racism have lost prominence in discussions of government policy, community life and personal experience. As I've followed some of the discussion that has cropped up here and there on the internet about the story of Winston Carter's death, I've seen comments that it must be a suicide because that sort of racism, the violent, lynching sort, isn't around any more. To me such comments reflect a lack of familiarity with the history of this kind of racist violence, and it is suggestive of how current forms of racism have become invisible to good people. In a more concerted effort to address the departure of racism from wide concern, I'm hoping to post more pieces that expose the life of American racism today. As a first offering in this intent, I will have the honor of presenting to you in my next post a recent piece by Wally Roberts who was was a Freedom School Coordinator in Shaw, Mississippi, during Freedom Summer (1964).

by Paul Greenberg, circa 1991

Maybe it was 1937 when my oldest brother and I were in a local WPA theater production of Waiting For Lefty. I remember thinking that a union organizer was the noblest of all jobs even better than playing right field like Mel Ott. I also thought that Jewishsocialist was one word and that Jews who were not socialists were the exceptions even though my mother's family was among the exceptions.

We were a decidedly secular family. Judaism was some old fashioned thing that my paternal grandmother held onto and it was sort of embarrassing. I did love seders at my Aunt Beck's house because my Uncle Sam made Exodus come alive. To me Moses was a union organizer and socialist revolutionary and John L. Lewis all rolled into one.

When I was 10 we moved back to New York from Taunton, Mass. I don't remember who lent me a copy of Michael Gold's Jews Without Money. I am still in debt to him because I never returned the book and because I better understood where my father came from. Several years later and back in Boston I was suspended from Brighton High School for circulating this "dirty" book.

It was at Brighton H.S. that I joined the American Student Union and was part of the most left faction. I had two competing dreams. One was to be a great Jazz clarinetist and the other was to be a union organizer.

My love for Jazz made me acutely aware of racial injustice. I tried to be a professional musician but gave it up for the sound reason of not enough talent. My association with Jazz musicians in general and Frankie Newton in particular shaped my view of human possibility and what suffering was about. Buzzy Drutin and Ruby Braff both wonderful Jewish Jazz Men from Boston taught me the similarity between the blues and some aspects of Jewish music. May they both create for many more years.

Both Frankie Newton and Rex Stewart, who was a marvelous trumpet player in the Duke Ellington band, gave me a vision of socialism and art as important components of the human spirit. Frank taught me how to look at Picasso and Evergood and to read poetry ranging from John Donne to Langston Hughes. Rex turned me on to Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward and Jack London's The Iron Heel.

In 1946 realizing that I wasn't going to make a living at music I got a job for 15 dollars a week with the CIO and went to Winston Salem North Carolina to help organize the Winston Salem Tobacco Company. It was a massive effort that failed. The company is still not union. It was here that I first saw and heard Pete Seeger. It was at the end of road when the National Guard had broken the Union that those who held the line were taught the adaptation of the spiritual I Will Overcome with the new words We Shall Overcome. It was Zilphia Horton of the Highlander Folk School who came and taught it to us. I can still hear her slightly shrill soprano with a tear drop in its sound and I can still feel the sense of power in defeat as we joined hands for our last walk on the picket line.

When I returned to New York I worked at odd jobs including a record store in Greenwich Village that was a hang out for Bohemia and the emerging Beats. I was the record salesman for Jazz friends like Peewee Russell and Cozy Cole and various artists and poets. It was fun and I learned a great deal but I was restless and soon found a Job with the United Textile Workers in Boston. I worked with a Black organizer named Jack Lee. He was an extraordinary man. He was light enough to "pass" and often did in order to organize in areas that would not welcome a Black man. He was steeped in Black history and introduced me to the work of W.E.B. Dubois. He was also something of a Jewophile and spoke a considerable amount of Yiddish and knew all about Jewish labor and socialist history.

Again I was involved in a losing battle. The post war recession was a full fledged depression in the mill towns of Lawrence and Lowell and Haverill. The sight of workingmen out on the streets looking at the shut down mills still haunts me. Every time I hear Woody Guthrie's "I don't want your millions mister... I just want my old job back again," I see those towns and those men and remember that even the movie theaters were closed except on weekends. We also worked on the Walter O'Brien for Mayor of Boston election campaign. This was the campaign that produced the song "Charley And The MTA" that had a resurrection in the sixties.

Soon I went back to New York and went to work for the UOPWA [United Office and Professional Workers of America]. I was organizing in the direct mail industry and got my first taste of gangster unions. The Senior organizer had been a seaman and organizer for the National Maritime Union. He greeted me on the staff by saying, "It's good to see a young buck like you. You ain't married and you ain't got no kids and you will take chances that old guys like me won't take." My chance time came soon enough. Every time we organized a shop a gangster union showed up with a "contract." It was of course a sweetheart contract and if we struck this tall skinny guy would lead some scabs in past our picket line. One morning around six A. M. there was Skinny ready to lead his scabs when they arrived. The Senior organizer said, "Paul go get him before the cops arrive." I crossed the street and was playing head on sidewalk with him when the cops arrived and arrested us both. At the trial our lawyer claimed I was minding my own business when Skinny insulted my mother and the next thing any one knew he had me on the sidewalk. His lawyer was arguing from somewhat nearer the facts. There being no other witnesses the judge dismissed the case with a lecture about unions getting together instead of fighting. Twenty years later, while moving, I was going through old papers and I found a clipping from a New York paper about that arrest. It stated that Paul Greenberg and John Dioguardi were arrested in a labor dispute. It was only then that I realized that Skinny was the later famous mobster Johnny Dio.

It was about this time that I met Esther Novogrodsky. This was a momentous event. She is of course my wife and aside from being my best and most constant friend she introduced me to her family who are the models of Jewish religious concern that began my wrestle with tradition.

By now the McCarthy period was upon us. The CIO was split and the traditional antagonisms on the left had taken a turn toward suicidal meanness. Then real disaster hit in the form of the Korean War. I got drafted, got married and had all my previous assumptions challenged. War was indeed hell. I was constantly one step away from a court martial. A full Colonel once told me that in his twenty five years in the Army he had never seen a man who was less of a soldier than I was. I thanked him and told him that I was only a civilian with a uniform on. I found myself in Japan after several small wounds and a massive case of dysentery that was written up in the Army Medical Journal. It was in Hiroshima that I had a profound religious experience. In the Hiroshima Museum there is a wall, all that is left of a building destroyed by the bomb. On that wall is etched the shadow of human beings which is all that is left of them. It was there that I came to understand that the distinction between just and unjust wars was blurred and that human existence was at great risk and that only a spiritual revolution would be sufficient if humanity was going to survive.

When I came home neither I or the left was the same. It was the time of the toad. There were no labor jobs open for me and I was sorting out my own thoughts. I did participate in electoral politics and the peace and civil rights movements but establishing myself in the role of husband and father took priority. I went to Columbia University School of General Studies and after a couple of years realized that I was too restless for academic life. As the fifties came to a close and the first stirrings of a new left emerged I was involved with CORE and the organizing of the Committee For A Sane Nuclear Policy. After several years of mundane earn a living jobs I went to work for the United Furniture Workers. I was Assistant President and functioned as the "staff intellectual" and as director of organization. I headed the research bureau, edited the newspaper and directed field organizing. I was often in the South and trying to organize integrated unions. The President of the Union Morris Pizer was one of the last of a vanishing breed of Jewish working class intellectuals. He was as comfortable in Carnegie Hall as in the union hall. After a couple of years the business union element pushed Pizer into a kind of corner and complained that I spent too much on organizing the South. Meanwhile SANE had grown and I was asked to become Executive Director of the Greater New York Council. Here we had some success. We lobbied for a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and got it. We established Hiroshima Day by organizing the first large peace march in America. It went from Princeton, New Jersey to the United Nations and 100,000 people assembled under the words from Isaiah "and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and neither shall they study war any more."

My relationship to the Torah was developing. I met and was awed by Rabbi Heschel. I read Mordecai Kaplan and began to hear rumblings of what was to become the Jewish Renewal Movement. I tried unsuccessfully to create an alliance between Sane and the emerging Civil Rights Movement. Greater New York Sane had grown from 3 or 4 chapters to 40 chapters. Success seems to bring competition and soon there was a power struggle in the organization. I moved on to work for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We were organizing the March on Washington and again I found myself in the South. This time in Birmingham, Alabama sometimes referred to as Bombingham. I was able to run the first large scale integrated show in the history of Alabama. We were first told we could use the civic center auditorium and then Bull Connor got the permit revoked. Instead we used the football field of a small Black college. We had to build a stage from scratch and we advertised "Bring A Chair For Freedom." I will never forget the sight of thousands of people in orderly array filing down the hill chair in hand to hear Ray Charles, Joey Adams and a score of other entertainers. We raised enough money to send anyone who wanted to go on to Washington. I also got to know Rabbi Heschel through my boss Dr. King. May their memories be for a blessing.

After the great march it was time to put my family life back in order. By now Esther and I were augmented by Francine and Jessica. I got a job as director of the Labor Committee for the Liberal Party. Among my responsibilities was lobbying for a group of progressive Union locals including the Auto Workers, the Garment Workers and District 65. I also was privileged to work with Alex Rose and David Dubinsky, two of the most legendary Jewish Labor Leaders.

I also became involved in many good government causes. We succeeded in ending, for the most part, Capital Punishment in New York State. We also opened up the political process by creating state wide primaries and at the State Constitutional Convention established the groundwork for the 18 year old vote. In these endeavors I became good friends with Dr. George Hallet who was the dean of good government activists. George became a pivotal influence on me. We were instrumental in bringing school decentralization to New York City. I had long been interested in Proportional Representation as a democratic method of election. George was considered by many as the world's leading authority and enthusiast. When PR was designated as the system of election for the 32 decentralized school boards they hired George and me to organize the system and implement the elections. In the course of these events Albert Shanker became frantic and went on a terrible power trip. He did more damage to Black-Jewish relationships than can ever be measured. He also threatened to make me the "Jewish devil of New York." I stood up to him despite much advice to the effect that he would destroy me. I am still here and he is still there so I guess it was a stalemate.

Families grow and by now Benjamin joined the family and I began to be concerned with the cost of college and other things that teenagers need. I found out that there were some people willing to pay real wages for my skills. First I helped establish the New York Health and Hospitals Corp. I was instrumental in establishing abortion by choice in the city hospital system and enjoyed working with Dr. Joe English who had been the medical director of the Peace Corp and was the President of the Hospital Corporation. After a couple of years we moved to Albany where I work for the state as an Affirmative Action Officer. It was early in this period that I met Gerry Serotta at the National Havurah Conference and he engaged me in the development of [New Jewish] Agenda. That involvement has completed my circle of development from Jewish Progressive to Progressive Jew. In short I now know that Tikkun Olam is the Tikkun of my life. What a joy.

Okay, this is supposed to be a site about my dad's life and times. There's a fair amount of stuff posted about him now, but I've posted it piecemeal, interspersed with all sorts of other, related things. This is both a weakness and a strength of blogging this project incrementally, as it develops, rather than laboring quietly in isolation until I have finished and published a book.

I'm realizing that the casual reader may get a sense of some of my dad's involvements and catch some impressions of his personality without having too much an idea of what he was like. To remedy this, I will, on occasion, supplement my microscopic views of detail with some broader views of my dad's life. Items that help with the bigger picture will get a brand new category, added to the blog today, Paul Greenberg 101.

•A story about Florida's failed implementation of electoral reform:

[A]t least 1,657 registered Florida voters [have had their] provisional ballots . . . rejected since 2002 because of poll workers' mistakes, a Tampa Tribune examination has found.

The special ballots were hailed as a critical safeguard against voter disenfranchisement and a key component of the Legislature's revamp of state election laws after the disputed 2000 presidential election when numerous eligible voters, particularly minorities, were denied the right to vote.

But the [Tampa] Tribune analysis of available statistics from the three statewide elections since provisional ballots were introduced in Florida shows most have been thrown out, and that 44 percent of the rejected ballots were discarded because of poll worker mistakes. That's based on a review of nearly 7,000 provisional ballots cast in about two-thirds of Florida's counties representing 82 percent of the state's population.

•Voters Split On Bush, Kerry: "A new St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald poll shows President Bush heading into his nominating convention has gained ground in the state he virtually has to win, but he is still tied with John Kerry."

•And if they're in a dead heat, then we should also be concerned because "State law still requires that when a candidate wins by one-half of 1 percent or less, a machine recount is conducted unless the loser concedes."

In optical scan counties, paper ballots are sent through the optical scan machines again. The results are double-checked with the Election Day results.

In touch screen counties, the three-member canvassing board examines the results from each precinct and compares them to the overall result. If there is a discrepancy, the precinct results are presumed correct. Printed paper images of each ballot, which are available on some machines, are not required.

•Fortunately problems with recounts are only a Florida thing, right? Well, no.

A dispute over a razor-thin election [in Riverside County, CA] suggests that important electronic data might not exist, making accurate recounts impossible in many states.

Linda Soubirous, a candidate for the Riverside County board of supervisors, lost a chance to stage a runoff by fewer than 50 votes. When Soubirous asked to look at the computer disks and other electronic records kept during the election, county officials refused.

Undocumented software glitches, hackers, mechanical errors or deleted ballots in only a few counties could have huge implications in a presidential election likely to be a cliffhanger. More than 100,000 paperless terminals have been installed across the nation, particularly in California, Maryland, Georgia and the battleground states of Florida, New Mexico and Nevada. (via Corrente.)

•Foxes are guarding the hen house. First there's Cory Tilley, former aide to Gov. Jeb Bush. Tilley's new job is to "continue helping develop voter education programs under a state contract despite being charged last week with 13 violations of state elections law, officials said Wednesday" (via Florida Politics). The there's Theresa LePore.

On Friday, Theresa LePore, Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach, candidate for re-election as Supervisor of Elections, chose to supervise her own election, no one allowed. This Tuesday, Florida votes for these nominally non-partisan posts.

You remember Theresa, "Madame Butterfly," the one whose ballots brought in the big vote for Pat Buchanan in the Jewish precincts in November 2000. Then she failed to do the hand count that would have changed the White House from Red to Blue.

This time, Theresa's in a hurry to get to the counting. She began tallying absentee ballots on Friday in her own re-election race. Not to worry: the law requires the Supervisor of Elections in each county to certify poll-watchers to observe the count.

But Theresa has a better idea. She refused to certify a single poll-watcher from opponents' organizations despite the legal requirement she do so by last week. She'll count her own votes herself, thank you very much! (gregpalast.com)

•At least folks who know what's at stake are acting accordingly. "In anticipation of the 2004 elections, African-American political activists in South Florida are registering voters on local buses, at hip-hop concerts and even in hospital beds." While we've got this kind of massive mobilization of community resources going on, we need more clear demands for accountability from Kerry and the Democrats:

"But last time, the Democratic Party leadership didn't step up to the plate to defend our votes," said Wilcox, referring to Republican protesters shutting down a recount in Miami-Dade while Democrats did nothing.

"They acted like a bunch of wimps," Wilcox said. "We're going to go out and vote again and this time, if we need it, I hope they'll act like men."

•A running theme here, at HungryBlues, is that none of our election problems will be solved if we don't directly address racism in the electoral system. Judd at The Winning Argument makes a pleasingly concise case for why Ex-felons should be allowed to vote. Judd draws significantly from sources at The Sentencing Project website, which is well worth some of your time.

•Another good place on voting rights is Right To Vote: Campaign To End Felony Disenfranchisement.

•I've been linking a lot to a recent NAACP/PFAW report, The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today. In light the report's disturbing evidence of widespread, ongoing intimidation tactics directed at African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond is calling on Attorney General John Ashcroft "to take steps to protect minority voters against practices meant to deceive or intimidate minority voters during the elections this fall."

•For a capsule version of the NAACP/PFAW report and some other related sources, see this recent release from MoveOn.org.

•While we're talking about the staying power of Jim Crow, there's a disturbing story over at The American Street about what amounts to a poll tax for Native Americans in South Dakota. After a strong turnout of Native American voters helped Democratic Senator Tom Johnson defeat Karl Rove Republican darling John Thune in 2002, the ND GOP decided they better set up an economic barricade around state polling places.

The following year, Republicans in the state Legislature proposed a bill requiring voters to show a photo ID. Local activists were outraged. Many Native Americans don't even have driver's licenses, they said. And, yes, they can get a tribal ID -- if they pay $8. Requiring an ID would be tantamount to imposing a poll tax. The bill was amended so that people could sign a personal-identification affidavit if they didn't have an ID. Last year, it was signed into law.

(Where no other source is attributed, news links on Florida are via Florida Politics.)

This case already looked like a cover up, just from what was said in the one existing news report of Winston Deroyal Carter's death. Now we're hearing that the Tuskegee Police is hiding the basic facts of Mr. Carter's death from his family. I received this comment from Mr. Carter's aunt a few hours ago.

My name is Kathy Fetterman and I live in Northern Virginia. Winston Carter, "DeRoyal" as we lovingly called him, was my nephew - more like my little brother since he was raised by my parents (his paternal grandparents). I have major concerns about the nature of DeRoyal's death. People want to say he committed suicide, but I have trouble believing that. The officers in Tuskegee are so quick to rule it a suicide because it's easy. They never allowed us, his family, to see the crime scene pictures as they promised and these pictures were taken with a digital camera supposedly. I don't know how thoroughly they investigated the crime scene or anything. There are so many unanswered questions. I just don't believe my nephew would have done that to himself.

A lot of other deaths have been covered right away - why has it taken so long for this to make the news, especially when there were so many people at the scene? I don't understand that either.

This stinks to high heaven. I wish my outrage were adequate to the loss of Ms. Fetterman and her family. I do not understand how anyone can treat Mr. Carter's grieving loved ones this way.

I was hoping yesterday or today to post more developments in Tuskegee. There is not yet much more to report. Tuskegee had its mayoral election today (Tuesday), after which it may become easier for some people to speak to the situation more than they're willing to right now.

One of the people whom I've been talking to from that part of Alabama said, "it is a myth that the Civil Rights Movement changed the South." That there is so little press, so little information available is, in fact, one of the resemblances between this "New" South murder and "Old" South racist violence.

Note that the Montgomery Advertiser article I quoted in my original post says

Carter's body was sent to the state crime lab to determine the cause of death. However, [Sheriff] Patrick said that from information his department has gathered about the case, he is leaning toward suicide.

The Sheriff does not have the results back from the state crime lab, yet he is "leaning towards suicide." Why? Based on what evidence? This doesn't sound a whole lot different than stuff like this:

George [Green] was telling me that one time he was with the FBI and they went around and talked to some sheriffs down there in Neshoba County[, Mississippi]. They found this guy, pulled a guy out of the water. He had been shot 69 times in the back. The FBI asked the sheriff, what did he think happened. The sheriff shook his head and said, "This is the damnedest case of suicide I ever saw in my life."

40 years ago in the South, the Klan, local and sate police and the FBI all worked hand in hand. Sometimes law enforcement made a point of simply looking the other way or obstructing proper investigations. Other times our agents of the law were the perpetrators themselves. It was a deep seated culture of hate and violence which has not been eradicated from all corners of today's law enforcement system.

A key piece of the struggle of activists against racist brutality has always been to get enough press to compel authorities, often at higher state or federal levels, to take action. In the 60s the US was fighting the Cold War against Communism. At that time media coverage of racist violence embarrassed the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. What kind of holy democratic alternative to communism was this if brutal, repressive racism was part of the American way of life?

Today we have the War on Terror and the war in Iraq, both in the name of our American freedoms, and we have a similar set of contradictions. We are losing freedoms in the name of freedom. A generation of young people is killing untold numbers of Iraqis and sacrificing their own lives in the name of our freedom and to stop terrorism. Meanwhile, America continues to brand its own sick forms of terror for use against its own citizens. As Scott B. put it, it's just "another kind of hell in a different period of time."

As it was before, the task now is to expose the contradictions until no more evasions and excuses are possible. I hope all who check here for developments in this case will wait attentively with me.

All honor is due to the person who called in on WKXN's radio talk show to report Winston Deroyal Carter's death and to the individuals in Alabama and elsewhere who are working to achieve justice for him.

Many thanks to the bloggers, listed below, who blogged the death of Winston Deroyal Carter, either at my request or on their own volition. There may be some folks missing from the list; if you've blogged my post on Tuskegee and I don't have your blog here, drop me a line with the link. Thanks also to all the live journalers who've been passing this around and thanks to the folks who've been spreading this on their discussion boards.

Alas, A Blog
Body And Soul
Bubblegeneration
Chatter
Churchgal
Cincinnati Black Blog
Cool Beans
Corrente
Exegesis
KTlog
Illruminations
My Friday-to-Sunday Life
Omlettesoft.com
The Oregon Commentator
The Poison Kitchen
Professor Kim's News Notes
Prometheus 6
Rain Storm
Raznor's Rants

Update (8/31/04):I just discovered that I missed Kevin's post at The American Street. I've been grateful for Kevin's expressions of concern in my comments and in email and for his help inside and outside the blogosphere.

Update (9/8/04): Erin at Lefties Unite picked up the Winston Carter case on her blog last week. Like Kevin, she's been doing some nice extrablogispatic publicity work as well.

Additional note (9/8/04): I had accidentally hit the wrong button on Ecto and posted today's update to this post as new post, which appeared at the top of the blog for an hour or two. Only I didn't understand precisely what happened, at first, and posted an erroneous explanation of what I'd done. This is my original post with updates and additional note added. Sorry for the confusion and for what havoc this may have wreaked on your rss readers. --BG

Today, Bob Herbert continues his series on Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) intimidation tactics to keep African American voters from voting in Orange County, Florida. The strength of today's article is Herbert's analysis:

The Republicans were stung in the 2000 presidential election when Al Gore became the first Democrat since 1948 to carry Orange County, of which Orlando is the hub. He could not have carried the county without the strong support of black voters, many of whom cast absentee ballots.

The G.O.P. was stung again in 2003 when Buddy Dyer, a Democrat, was elected mayor of Orlando. He won a special election to succeed Glenda Hood, a three-term Republican who was appointed Florida secretary of state by Governor Bush. Mr. Dyer was re-elected last March. As with Mr. Gore, the black vote was an important factor.

These two election reverses have upset Republicans in Orange County and statewide. Moreover, the anxiety over Democratic gains in Orange County is entwined with the very real fear among party stalwarts that Florida might go for John Kerry in this year's presidential election.

It is in this context that two of the ugliest developments of the current campaign season should be viewed.

"A Democrat can't win a statewide election in Florida without a high voter turnout - both at the polls and with absentee ballots - of African-Americans," said a man who is close to the Republican establishment in Florida but asked not to be identified. "It's no secret that the name of the game for Republicans is to restrain that turnout as much as possible. Black votes are Democratic votes, and there are a lot of them in Florida." . . .

The use of state troopers to zero in on voter turnout efforts is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, in Florida. But the head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Guy Tunnell, who was also handpicked by Governor Bush, has been unfazed by the mounting criticism of this use of the state police. His spokesmen have said a "person of interest" in the investigation is Ezzie Thomas, a 73-year-old black man who just happens to have done very well in turning out the African-American vote.

From the G.O.P. perspective, it doesn't really matter whether anyone is arrested in the Orlando investigation, or even if a crime was committed. The idea, in Orange County and elsewhere, is to send a chill through the democratic process, suppressing opposing votes by whatever means are available.

The problem with Herbert's article is that he doesn't acknowledge that there may actually be something to the investigation (Stuart Buck via Body and Soul) which the FDLE is conducting. Jeanne D'Arc teases out the nuances just right:

The problem with playing this as such a -- well -- black and white issue is that it does no harm to Herbert's basic point to acknowledge that there may be reason to investigate Mr. Thomas's activities. (Although, curiously, before working for Buddy Dyer, Thomas "helped Glenda Hood win the Orlando mayoral race." If he's in the habit of filling out people's ballots for them, Florida might want to investigate all the candidates he's worked for.) The bigger issue is that even if there is reason to investigate Ezzie Thomas, Florida's way of going about it clearly accomplishes much more than just gathering information.

The response to Herbert's reporting is telling:

On Thursday, FDLE Commissioner Guy Tunnell fired back at Herbert, saying in a letter released by the department that he was "very disappointed" in the columnist and accusing Herbert of sensationalizing the story.

Tunnell said agents interviewed voters who had used absentee ballots in their homes so they might feel more relaxed than in an office setting. The agents did not wear uniforms for the same reason, he wrote.

They made a point not to wear uniforms because they didn't want to intimidate elderly people in their homes, but while they were thinking about how to handle the situation sensitively, it didn't occur to anyone that carrying clearly visible guns might not be a good idea?

Don't get distracted by the tit for tat of who's stealing the election from whom. Look at the patterns of vote suppression. Both the Democrats and the Republicans know perfectly well that each side engages in questionable electoral practices, worthy of investigation. Considering the criminal investigations not pursued regarding elections in Florida, this current one is clearly tactical to suppress enough black votes to bring Orange County back into the Republican fold.

This is a nice study in the power of racism in our society. Both political parties can probably be found guilty of inappropriately influencing voters in the the name of "helping" them cast their votes—an illegal act which should be prosecuted. But the practice which can decide the election one way or another is either fighting the effects of racism by getting out the African American vote or capitalizing on racism by playing on past African American experiences of intimidation and brutality.

At the end of July, I picked up the story of Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) officers intimidating elderly, black voters in Florida. On Monday, in the New York times, Bob Herbert wrote about the situation, and now, today, in a follow-up, he's laid bare the true purpose of the FDLE "investigation."

State officials have said that the investigation, which has already frightened many voters and intimidated elderly volunteers, is in response to allegations of voter fraud involving absentee ballots that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March. But the department considered that matter closed last spring, according to a letter from the office of Guy Tunnell, the department's commissioner, to Lawson Lamar, the state attorney in Orlando, who would be responsible for any criminal prosecutions.

The letter, dated May 13, said:

"We received your package related to the allegations of voter fraud during the 2004 mayoral election. This dealt with the manner in which absentee ballots were either handled or collected by campaign staffers for Mayor Buddy Dyer. Since this matter involved an elected official, the allegations were forwarded to F.D.L.E.'s Executive Investigations in Tallahassee, Florida.

"The documents were reviewed by F.D.L.E., as well as the Florida Division of Elections. It was determined that there was no basis to support the allegations of election fraud concerning these absentee ballots. Since there is no evidence of criminal misconduct involving Mayor Dyer, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement considers this matter closed."

Well, it's not closed. And department officials said yesterday that the letter sent out in May was never meant to indicate that the "entire" investigation was closed. Since the letter went out, state troopers have gone into the homes of 40 or 50 black voters, most of them elderly, in what the department describes as a criminal investigation. Many longtime Florida observers have said the use of state troopers for this type of investigation is extremely unusual, and it has caused a storm of controversy.

The officers were armed and in plain clothes. For elderly African-American voters, who remember the terrible torment inflicted on blacks who tried to vote in the South in the 1950's and 60's, the sight of armed police officers coming into their homes to interrogate them about voting is chilling indeed.

One woman, who is in her mid-70's and was visited by two officers in June, said in an affidavit: "After entering my house, they asked me if they could take their jackets off, to which I answered yes. When they removed their jackets, I noticed they were wearing side arms. ... And I noticed an ankle holster on one of them when they sat down."

(via Body and Soul.)

That FDLE officer must have been incredibly relieved that he remembered to strap on his ankle holster before walking into such a dangerous situation. After all, you've got to watch out for a woman like that—black and in her mid-70s, ready to rear up at any moment and exercise her right to vote.

I will be talking with Scott B. again, early this coming week and posting an update on the situation. So stay tuned . . .

Today on the Civil Rights Movement email list I'm on, a number of members started posting links to this story from the Montgomery Advertiser.

TUSKEGEE -- Tuskegee police still are investigating the death of 29-year-old Winston Deroyal Carter, who was found hanging from a tree on County Road 65 in Tuskegee.

Tuskegee Police Chief Lester Patrick said a passerby noticed something hanging from a tree, but needed a second look. The passerby turned his car around, discovered Carter hanging from the tree and immediately called the police at 6:15 a.m. Friday.

Carter's body was sent to the state crime lab to determine the cause of death. However, Patrick said that from information his department has gathered about the case, he is leaning toward suicide.

Funeral services will be held at 1 p.m. today at the Wall Street AME Church, with burial in the church cemetery."

I googled the vicitim's name and found that this story has not been picked up by any other news source. I went back to my emails and noticed mention of details not in the article, above. I inquired and was referred to Scott B., a former worker for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Yesterday, on Wednesday, August 18, Scott B. was a guest on Montgomery, Alabama's WKXN call-in radio talk show, It's For Real. Scott B., who is now retired in Montgomery, Alabama with his wife Linda, was talking about some of the issues facing African Americans in Montgomery today. During the show, a caller called in from Tuskegee and said that a man was found lynched on Friday morning.

Scott B. called the Tuskegee Police who replied that there hasn't been any lynching in Tuskegee. He called the Montgomery Advertiser, which could not provide any information about the situation. Scott B. decided to go to Tuskegee himself and talked to people in the local community. As the short article mentions, Carter's body was found at 6:15 a.m. last Friday, August 13. Before the police arrived on the scene, the news got out to the community and a substantial crowd gathered and saw Carter's body, still hanging from the tree. Observers noticed that Carter's shoelaces had been tied together and used to hold his pants up instead of his belt, which was used to hang him from the tree. Community members also saw that there was no available surface for Carter to step off of in order to hang himself. Rather, he would have had to have climbed up the tree with no laces in his shoes and straddle the branch, in order to attach himself to it by his belt, and then lower himself down with his own arms from that position. As a method of suicide this seems highly improbable if not physically impossible.

Scott B. called the Montgomery Advertiser again to relate what he'd learned and ask if they could provide any further information. Today, six days after Winston Deroyal Carter's body was found, the Montgomery Advertiser printed the story I quoted above. Mr. Carter was buried today, making further examination of his body unlikely and the word from Police Chief Patrick is that he is "leaning towards suicide."

Scott B. said to me, "The Civil War is not over. The South had not changed." He also explained that there is not the same basis there once was in the African American community to meet a situation like this.

If this story does not get national attention quickly, there is no chance for justice. We cannot allow this. Blog this. Email this. Write letters. Don't let this story disappear.